The Hunker-Down Year

Today marks one year since we turned in our keys and left Michigan.

It's been a good year. We've had a lot of fun experiences while living here -- visiting Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, and New York; participating in the Hartford Temple Open House; seeing a few church history sites such as the Johnson farm on the way out and Harmony, PA in May; getting to play at parks in New Haven and surrounding cities; attending church and Institute activities, enjoying the art museum, concerts, and bell tower at Yale; getting Joseph involved in gymnastics and soccer; working with the kids and youth in the ward; making lots of new friends; and getting to see Kaylie and Derek in New Jersey pretty often. (And having a baby, who is still very cute.)

All in all, though, it's felt like a really quiet year. Although there were playgroups and play dates, for the most my boys just played and fought with each other day in and day out. Joy School gradually faded away by the winter time, and baby signing time disappeared after one bad snowstorm. I didn't teach piano lessons or take voice lessons. We had people over for dinner a few times but not as often as in years past. We didn't even really get to know our neighbors all that well (language barrier plus we never saw most of them), and honestly any efforts to make our complex look lived in (such as chalk or hanging door wreaths) were shot down by the property manager (in the case of the door wreaths, he rescinded permission after 10 months when I was a very emotional 39 weeks pregnant).

Of course, a lot of the quiet is my own fault, and a lot of that is because I was pregnant and oh so tired and oh so shy for oh so much of the last year. And a lot of the time I preferred the quiet to the constant stream of activities in Ann Arbor. In general though, I've found that I prefer that I prefer exercising, learning, working, playing, etc. in a group. So here's to trying harder to get a bit more involved this year! (Kindergarten should help.)

Here are a few things I discovered this year:

• Sometimes it's just okay to be a warm body. If I look back at the times I was most useful this past year, they were all when I was just at home not doing much and available to do some hardcore babysitting. Those times it didn't matter how much school I've had or how many years of piano lessons I've taken or how good I am at writing long detailed emails. What mattered was that someone had a medical emergency and I was able to watch kids in a moment of crisis. I definitely prefer using those other skills to babysitting (and really, I didn't actually babysit that much this year) but it was still nice to be able to help babysit when those other skills weren't being actively used.
• Similarly, being a warm body was the most important thing I could do at church. There were some crazy Sundays when hardly any adults were around so I played organ last minute, taught a class, taught Sharing Time, taught Singing Time, played piano, and took care of irreverent children. (Not all of those the same Sunday, but as many of those as was humanly possible.) It was good to have the knowledge and creativity to fill those roles, but being a warm body was what mattered most.
• Years ago when I was a Primary pianist one of my biggest problems with the calling was that I wanted to be consulted more -- help choose songs, be asked my opinion about reverence and room setup, be included in decision making, etc. Now that I've served in a Primary Presidency I know that being consulted still doesn't mean you get your way. Haha!
• I became of even firmer opinion that people should check their email each time they look at their phone and respond to most things within 24 hours. And respond. Oh, respond.
• The bigger your family gets the easier it is to just do things with family. Even having two kids has made it that much easier to not worry so much about your kids playing with friends. I still feel bad for taking Joseph from a neighborhood full of friends, but at least he has had Matthew to play with him (ie wreck his stuff).
• I don't have any plans to homeschool, and a lot of that is because it would probably turn into unschooling. But it was really fun coming up with activities on the fly with Joseph and Matthew, and it was nice to have lots of books to learn things from. I guess the anatomy book we got from a yard sale actually came in handy.
• I just read an article about a reformed white supremacist who said, "I believe that people become radicalized, or extremist, because they're searching for three very fundamental human needs: identity, community and a sense of purpose." To be honest, I felt like I lost a bit of all three of those this year with only my family and my Primary calling to fill my time. (Of course, this has been a rough year regarding identity anyway -- what happens when anything you happen to agree with mildly somehow puts you in the same camp as extremists who feel the same?) At any rate, it's been important to discover that I need at least one other serious social outlet in order to feel whole. (Contenders right now include volunteering at school and figuring out how to share my hymn arrangements [which I've conceded will involve other people]).
• This has kind of been a hunker-down ward in that callings were spread thin enough that most non-essential callings weren't filled (or insufficiently filled, like Cub Scouts, haha . . . I still have such strong opinions about that). On one hand it really reminded me of what my bishop said at BYU -- his number one job was to make sure everyone got to take the Sacrament each week. This happened every week, and that's really what matters most. On the other hand . . . man oh man I've missed ward choir and scheduled playgroups and Zumba. I don't think church necessarily has to fill a ton of social functions, but it nice to have them in addition to the more important spiritual functions.
• I still don't like shopping and don't like going on the freeway to get to the grocery store. But I'm used to it. Which is a big deal for me.
• Perhaps the most important thing I've learned this quiet year is that even though things are quite different from Ann Arbor in a lot of ways, I'm much the same. The same things that bug me here bugged me there. The same things I liked there I like here. Even if I lived in an absolutely perfect place with perfect friends and perfect proximity to stores and parks, I would probably still find things that bugged me just because of my own personality. So, you may as well learn to be happy where you are. And it's always possible.

Especially if there are mountains to hike.