I called the house at least five times that morning. Starting at 11:00 a.m. I called every phone of every person who lives there. It is a bit ridiculous in this day and age that there are five different phone numbers to call to reach the occupants of one dwelling. I'm not sure this is exactly progress. Especially when not a single one of them seems capable of actually answering the phone.
I know it sounds a bit hypocritical for me to be the one to be complaining about the non-answering of telephones, but I will admit that there's a part of me that is a bit nostalgic for those days when there was just one telephone in a house. That rang with a bell. A real bell muffled somewhere deep inside. It was attached to the wall and if you were at our house it had a really long cord so that whomever was talking could wander the rooms like a big caged tiger. My aunt was particularly good at this wandering and pacing bit. She even occasionally snarled and spent so much time on the telephone we had to toss her the occasional steak to keep her from starving. But the thing was, the phone rang. And rang. And rang. Someone eventually answered it. Or did not. But you, if you were the one calling from your own similar phone from some other location very far away, felt rather confident that things were working and signals were traveling on the wires criscrossing the planet and that somewhere down the line a phone with a bell was RINGING and that if it wasn't answered perhaps no one was at home. You didn't think you were just being ignored.
Now, you wonder all kinds of things about the phone that is supposed to be so smart, that piece of cheap overpriced plastic stuffed with data and silicon chips and the calls that you try to make with it. I feel like I have to believe in fairies that somehow magically flutter with wings to carry my call on its way across the magic bits of air to where it is supposed to go! When there's no answer, no voice-mail, just a pre-recorded operator voice saying the number I have reached is unavailable, I know there are a million oddities that could have caused this to happen, but because I am me, I mostly think that I'm just being ignored. Pfft.
So with no answer, none, I went back to the task at hand. I was making colored powder for the Holi Festival of Colors that afternoon. They sell colors for the festival at the Krishna Temple, but you don't get nearly enough for the money that you spend and I had sorted out the way to make it using the herbs that I had on hand and corn starch procured from my ever helpful National Cash Store. They were actually having a sale on corn starch and not that it is expensive, but it felt like kismet to find it for 3 for a $1 when it was exactly what we needed.
My poor Cuisinart will never be the same, I fear, and my kitchen looked like a Leprechaun and a Unicorn had engaged in a massive Thunderdome event, but we had five one gallon bags of colors ready to throw. No one, though, was willing to answer a phone, still, and the skies were threatening snow and I while I had rainbows of love inside my heart, it would have been nice to have some sort of dangled carrot of enthusiasm from the troops in Lehi.
This is the part of the story where my sister, NeverNakedBeth, makes an appearance as the best mother of teenagers. NeverNakedBeth actually chose to answer her phone. When it rang. I told her I had been calling and calling and that I really wanted to speak to HAC (my 15 year old niece) but she was NOT ANSWERING HER PHONE. NeverNakedBeth sighed and said, "Nakedjen, this is the thing about teenagers. You have to have absolutely no expectations. Then when they do something unexpected, it's like lollipops and gumdrops and rainbows all at the same time. It's fantastic. But the rest of the time, you've had no expectations, so you just can not be disappointed. Best way to handle teenagers. Now, HAC was planning to go with you. So just go to the house, walk in the door and tell her you're there to go!"
"Really? Just show up. She'll get in the car and go with me?"
"Oh sure," murmured NeverNakedBeth. "You'll just have to drag her out of bed. I'm sure she's still asleep. By the way, JSC wanted to go, too, but I think he's made other plans now."
"He does? I'll take him with us. He should totally come!"
"Well, just go to the house and you all can figure out who wants to go where. Remember, no expectations. Then there are lollipops and gumdrops and rainbows!"
My sister and her family live about 30 minutes away from me. So I got to the house at 2:30 p.m. and found HAC sound asleep in her bed.
"Dude, it's 2:30. I've been calling you for hours. Why don't you ever answer your phone? If you want to go to HOLI, you need to get up and find some clothes. Do you want to go?"
"Um, hello? I'm sleeping. I don't even know where my phone is! But, yeah, I want to go. Can you get out of my room?!"
"HAC, I want you to know your mother understands how to raise teenagers. She told me that the key is to have NO EXPECTATIONS and then when you actually do show up, it's all gumdrops and lollipops!"
"Yes, we've trained her well."
"I think JSC wants to go with us and I think he should totally experience this."
And in that moment, NeverNakedBeth and JSC wandered in through the door. I asked JSC if he wanted to go with us and he decided that would be totally cool, but he needed to shower first.
"JSC, you need to wear all white. Put on the BAPTISM clothes!"
"Nakedjen, did you really just say that?," giggled HAC. "Like he's so going to wear those!"
The kids disappeared and eventually reappeared wearing white and ready to go.
We were all in the car, on our way, when JSC announced that he needed to be dropped at Wendy's to hook up with a girl. He is 17, he is a senior in high school, this behavior in the real of teenage boys is, well, expected!
"Dude, you're ditching us! We invited you to go with us, some girl calls, and now you're ditching us for her. Lame!"
"I'm not ditching you. I talked to A yesterday about going, she thought she had to work. Now she doesn't. I want to drive down with her to keep her company!"
"JSC, let's read the writing on the wall here. You're in the car with us, you have plans with us, girl calls and WHOOPS, BUNNY, big change in plans, you're now going with her!"
"Wow, so much anger! Where's the love, Nakedjen?!"
I burst out laughing and have never, ever felt so absolutely proud. Where's the love, indeed? Words can not explain how awesome it was to have my 17 year old used to be oh so straight laced nephew say this to me.
So we dropped JSC with A at Wendy's. Love is young, love is extra wild and when you're 17, love is found in a car ride shared on the way to the HOLI FESTIVAL.
Meanwhile, HAC and I continued on our way and arrived at the festival with our five gallons of colored powder, ready to throw it in the air and celebrate spring, celebrate love.
At the gates we met a security guard who was not so happy with our zip-lock bags. Not happy at all. So unhappy was he with our five gallons of colored powder that he CONFISCATED all of it as contraband. Just took it. 1-2-3-4-5. Gone.
And this is the moment, the very moment, where I realized that my days in Utah have surely, truly, absolutely not been wasted. Because HAC looked at me and with a real glimmer in her eye said, "You watch that dude, I'm going to get our powders back!"
It isn't that I encourage breaking the rules. I just encourage righting the wrongs. The fact was, and HAC assessed this all on her own, there wasn't any consistency in the way the SECURITY GUARDS were confiscating contraband colors. Just after we had our stuff taken at least 10 (yes 10) other people waltzed right through the gates with their OWN COLORS. If they were going to take ours because NO OUTSIDE COLORS WERE ALLOWED, they should take ALL THE OUTSIDE COLORS.
HAC figured that out all on her own, came to her own conclusion and took it upon herself to get OUR COLORS back. She used all the best tactics that I've taught her about making yourself invisible (she's a born FAIRY, I swear it) and marched right up to where the guard had deposited our colors, grabbed all FIVE GALLON BAGS and confiscated them right back.
We spent the afternoon tossing colors in the air, at each other, at the throngs of revelers and trying our best to breathe. Eventually, we found ourselves in the mosh pit. I looked over at HAC, crushing her own body willingly against the heaving wall of humanity and the permagrin wouldn't leave my face. The both of us were each like colored kernels of corn, popping here, popping there, up for air and then under legs and feet and elbows and swirling tornadoes of love infused colored dust.
It was pure magic. We were pure love.
Three years ago my life imploded, turned upside down, and I when I woke up, I found my heart still beating in a Salty City in Utah.
And that has made all the difference.