Desert Healing

Well, here I am again in Utah, where I swore I'd never return. As I told Becky, the ONLY thing that brings me back to this place is my deep love for the Englands. I started working on Gene's papers after graduating from graduate school six years ago and I'm back for a week to try to get it moving with the sisters again. Then I have to fly back to help Sal run speech and debate camp, but now I'm thinking I'll come back with my last flight credit for ten days between the end of camp and the beginning of Godinez teacher inservices so I can catch the end of Sunstone and work some more on the papers.

As part of many sweet gestures of gratitude that I've been given every day that I've been out here, Becky paid for me to have a full body massage yesterday after she found out that I'd never had a massage. The idea of stripping down for a stranger to put their hands all over my body used to creep me out, but somehow I've overcome some of my body shame and I was ready when she asked me if I would be interested. It was fascinating to see the areas of my body where I have the most tightness. I seem to carry all of my tension in my neck and shoulders, which is why I get a lot of stress headaches. I figured my weight would build tension in my legs and/or back, but she didn't find anything to smooth out there. She had a hard time getting me to relax my arms when she lifted them up, saying they were in a holding pattern, which Becky had just used as a description of my LIFE when I told her I didn't know how to deal with my dad's latest drama.

Well, I have to run now. Time to start helping Becky write an introduction to what is perhaps the greatest piece of controversy among Gene's papers: the letters between himself and Bruce R. McConkie where McConkie raised the threat of a curse on Gene's family if he continued to talk about the concept of eternal progression-- that God's judgment and our progress will never be final. I've felt torn between sadness to see Gene fighting to create dialogue against so much pressure to conform, frustration that he didn't strike out so he could say more without feeling impeded, and relief that I have chosen not to put myself in that position. And then there's a small aching voice of the past that wonders if I'm just a weak coward for not trying to fight from within...