How It Works

This is how it works:
You're young until you're not,
You love until you don't,
You try until you can't,
You laugh until you cry,
You cry until you laugh,
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath.

No, this is how it works:
You peer inside yourself,
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took.
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some,
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood.
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed,
But even if it does,
You'll just do it all again.

-Regina Spektor "On the Radio"

On Memory

I have been working on these posts for quite a while. Memory is such an interesting thing, I found that I preferred to write about it in experience rather than as an objective observer. What is more subjective than memory? Anyway, bear with me.

December 3rd. It's a cold evening, though not as cold as a December night in Provo can be. I approach the stairs of the worn-out white brick building, and start up them, not bothering to count flights. It is muscle memory by now--my feet know the third floor. Though I've walked this very flight innumerable times, tonight is different. It is different because it's December and my surroundings are decked appropriately. Scratch that. It is simpler than that. Tonight is different because it should be different, and it isn't.

I know that I should feel removed from this, like I don't belong, and have been reduced to the status of an outsider--someone who is lucky not to get a ticket for parking in the lot. I focus for a time on the culprits of my despondency: the brightly lit tree and the other lights surrounding the roof of the building. What is it about the tree and those lights that gives me a sensation beyond recognition and excitement? It is closer to happiness than longing, and further from sorrow than nostalgia. In fact, it completely transcends these emotions: it is transportation.

For a moment, nothing has changed. For a moment, I live there, and they know me. The people I see through the windows (illuminated so with strings of dollar-store lights held up by strips of duct tape) are friends, and their pursuits are my concern.

My feet carry me automatically to the front door of one particular apartment. I try the knob without knocking, it is unlocked. I open it to find the place dark, devoid of people, and decked with a few holiday decorations that have been hung alongside several of the things that had adorned the walls when I had lived there. These decorations look like intruders to my eyes, alongside those things I know so well.

I walk into the living room, slipping off my shoes next to the couch, after hanging my coat and scarf on the closet door. I sink down on the couch and close my eyes. Somewhere in some state of heightened and imagined perception, I become aware of the door opening and make out through the darkness the well-known figure of my best friend walking in the door, the signature bounce in her step. "Hello, Dearie!" she smiles. "How was your day?"

What to respond? How was my day? How do I begin to say how I feel--what I know?
I try to let out half a smirk, I sigh, and I begin: "My day? It was wonderful. I just spent the last few hours with you and your husband. Your baby bump is showing now, and we've been trying out different names on the baby, attempting to decide what will suit him best. Joshua? Jonathan? Owen? Not Jimmer, though. Not Jimmer."

She looks at me, quizzically. She doesn't get it. Neither do I.

Then she is gone and I push my face against the glass of the window, the view getting blurry. It's not tears, it's the steam from my breath on the cold surface. Each time I exhale, the smudge gets bigger, until the world beyond is a mere collage of diffused lights and blistered colors. I do the only thing left to do--pull away from the window and leave the world to be as it is, on its own, for the rest of the night.



December 20th. I pull out onto University Avenue in Provo, heading toward center street, the freeway, and the road home. It has been a perfect Christmas week morning and afternoon, complete with multiple inches of fluffy snow, the baking of banana bread, The Carpenter's Christmas Portrait, lunch with the best friend, and a stop at the mall to pick up some last-minute gifts. Now I have taken my leave of her, it is starting to get darker, and the snow has turned wet, thin, and penetrating. It has melted into such a dull grey, it might as well be rain. Maybe it wants to be. Maybe no one can be sure what it is.

As I approach it, I'm not sure how I will respond. I know what is coming up on the road ahead of me, and I have been planning it, but now I want to back out. It suddenly seems easy to turn around, get on the freeway another way, bypass the whole thing, and pretend it didn't happen. Call it morbid curiosity, but the pull is too strong, and I drive on the intended path until I see it.

From far enough away, it looks just as it always did, standing there at the corner of University Avenue and Center. Yet as I draw nearer, the changes are permanent, and unmistakable. The walls still stand, but everything that made the building what it truly was, the inside, is gone. No, it is worse than gone. It is reconfigured in new patterns, colors, and scents that now lie in such a stark contrast to the original as to render said original to nothing but an all-too-quickly fading memory.

I park the car in the nearest space available on the street, get out, and approach the scene with such reverence as ever a comparable site could warrant. There is tape blocking it off, but one can still get surprisingly close. So on I walk, staring blankly. No one is around, aside from a single security guard in a garish orange jacket. I mentally block him out. I won't cross the line, and that ensures that he cannot cross into my solitude. I shudder, a reaction mirrored by one of the large trees that cannot cross the line any more than I can. A few days ago, it was welcome there, now it too must be estranged from the tragedy; just a helpless onlooker. A single leaf, result of the shudder, falls to the ground: the evidence, reminder and souvenir of the experience. I stoop down, pick it up, and deposit it safely in my pocket.

I can see myself walking around the corner of the building. It is a cold January night, and I lose my heel in a sidewalk seam, laughing and tripping, trying to recover my pride. I see two dear sisters sing in this building, on separate occasions. I myself had sung there, at a conference. One of the thousands of conferences that can no longer be held in the same location. I envision a group of friends crowding around a make-shift "time capsule", filling it full of nothing important to anyone but themselves.

I would mention that I'm suppressing tears, but I'm not. No tears today, I'm not there yet. Not yet. Nothing now but a stupid sense of bewilderment, and the mental picture of a blushing girl minus one heel.

Exiting the scene, I walk out of the gate and see two men standing on the sidewalk, disposable camera in hand, staring as I had done. I plan to walk on without acknowledgment, but my plan does not match theirs.

"It's sad, about it burning down, isn't it?" The taller man states simply.
"It's pretty upsetting." Is my response.
"I liked that church."
"So did I."

The conversation ends there. What more is there to say? I reason. Christmas is coming, after all. The damage is done, the sky is getting darker. I'll get around to crying some other time.

Sometimes...

Sometimes life is crazy. Sometimes you almost die multiple times in one week: once by filing cabinet, once by train. Sometimes you enjoy way too much time with the customers at the Red Balloon-- hurried and frazzled as they are with their holiday shopping-- and they still have time to try to set you up with their grandsons, or go into cardiac arrest over your choice of vocabulary.
Sometimes you have an upset stomach that lasts for over a week, causing multiple people (including the waitress serving you and a boy on a first date) to ask you if you are pregnant. Sometimes said upset stomach keeps you from eating more than three bites on said date, thereby making you look like a total jerk.
Sometimes your mom is counting on you to help her get Christmas packages in the mail and bake breads for neighbors, but you repeatedly wake up at 4:30 and can't get back to sleep, leaving little brain power to be of any use to yourself, let alone anyone else.
Sometimes you have no money, and too many expenses.
Sometimes the cats smell and try to take over your bed.
Sometimes while you are in the middle of complain fest 2010 you turn to look nonchalantly out the window and catch a glimpse of the most exhilarating December sunrise you've ever been privileged to behold, and in that moment you know that God lives, and so does his glorified Son-- and life, with all of its imperfections, is somehow, suddenly, perfect.

For Days When Your '98 Toyota Corolla is Nowhere Near Good Enough

I recently had an experience which I shall refrain from expounding upon here... It will suffice to say that the feelings the experience stirred in me were a sound mix between frustratedly revengeful, and haughtily daydreamy. Not a good place to be, my friends. As I walked out to my car in such a state, I could not help but feel acutely aware that neither my attire nor my car were suited to the occasion.
It was one of those moments where you wish... no, it was more than a wish.... it was like a deep-down starvation for some Yves St. Laurent coat that may or may not even exist (keeping in mind that all of this is in my head, so whether or not Yves St. Laurent makes a coat like the one I'm imaging is beside the point) and a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses, equally as potentially non-existent. It was one of those moments where I felt like I should be climbing into some brand new Porsche Carrera GT (Ok... I just googled "Most expensive Cars in the World" and this was Number 10. It was the prettiest on the list.) being careful not to chip the paint with the heels of my black stiletto Gucci boots, looking in the rear-view mirror to reapply my H. Couture Beauty lipstick from its diamond studded 18 kt. gold plated tube, and then pealing out of the parking lot, letting the smoke from my tires clear just long enough for anyone left behind to be able to read the license-plate frame engraved with the words, "Don't hate me because I'm pretty. Hate me because your boyfriend thinks I'm pretty."
Alas! the moment did not quite play out like it did in my head. In fact, the most poignant memory in this whole little fantasy was an acute awareness that the crunch in the rear bumper of my '98 Corolla did not fit into the moment very well.
Either that, or it made it all the better. Even in retrospect, it's hard to say.

p.s. The car actually belongs to my parents, not to me, and the crunch was there long before the car came into my family. I am grateful for it... and my new red sweater from Kohls, which I actually was wearing at the time.

Just Because I Have Fingers

I was trying to be cool. I had this blog posting all figured out. I was going to write a blog post on the past, on the present and on the future, and then I was going to write about "Seeing in all Directions at the Same Time". Well. I've been working on that post for weeks now. It is hefty, and I have things to say that I'm not sure I'm ready to say yet.
But I am ready to say this:
I love life.
This fall has been beautiful.
My family is wonderful A) because we're forever, and B) because we're going to stay that way.
Making new friends is like opening a window in your house that had been completely covered and letting in just that much more sunshine. There is always someone new to be friends with. That's a lot of windows.
Ducks are weird animals, but I love feeding them.
Our bodies are amazing. They're kind of perfect, when you think about it.
Music is one of God's most powerful reminders that he loves us.
No matter how boring life seems, there is always something exciting waiting for us, even if we can't see it.
I have all of the knowledge that I need to be happy right now.
Mom made homemade pizza for dinner, and though I was too hungry to heat it, it was amazing even cold.
The snow is coming.
Thanksgiving is next week, and it is going to be amazing.

I am saying all this, not because it's November, but because I have fingers.

"To See in All Directions at the Same Time"

"When the veil which now encloses us is no more, time will also be no more (see D&C 84:100). Even now, time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves impatiently wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course. Whereas the bird is at home in the air, we are clearly not at home in time—because we belong to eternity! Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here. If time were natural to us, why is it that we have so many clocks and wear wristwatches?" -Neal A Maxwell "Patience" 1979

I belong to eternity. I want to be able to understand everything: the past present and future, in terms of one moment. I want to be able to see a moment and how it will affect and was affected by other moments long past or still waiting in the wings. I want "to see in all directions at the same time."

Alas! that is not the way of the world. It is the human condition to be forever limited in our scope, our world view, our connections with all people and things that exist outside of ourselves. It is not even possible for us to fully comprehend the elements of our own personalities. Our emotions, reasons, motivations, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. are all elusive to our perception.

Most of the time.

Every now and again, there are moments of profound insight. It is as if some thick drape were pulled aside for a nanosecond; a period of time too short for full-comprehension of the concealed, but just long enough to testify that there is something brilliant just beyond. Once we have seen it, we never cease striving to see it again.

For all of the days that the drape is pulled tightly, that there is nothing ahead but some all-too-familiar darkness, and a little hope that things are going to change, I will never stop wishing that I could open my eyes to see in all directions at the same time. It is in trying to comprehend the outside world, my own nature, and the relationship between the two in terms of yesterday, today and tomorrow that life becomes more than what I give it credit for most of the time. It becomes many times less complicated, and simultaneously many times more complex than it seems at first glance. So I will glance a second, and a third time, and on and on until I finally understand. Though I have every confidence that such an understanding will not be possible until I have learned to walk some brilliant hall of eternity in the eons of some time that exists outside of time. Not until I'm back in my native element.

Tomorrow. Maybe, in the future.

About this time last year, all of the girls in my apartment, including myself, adopted an apartment theme song: Ingrid Michaelson's "Maybe". It has been a year now since those fall days when we used to walk into the apartment in bunches, singing the song and snapping our fingers, blasting it on ipod docks, or laptops. It doesn't feel like a whole year since we used to belt that song so loud our throats hurt, as if doing so could somehow negate or balance out the emotional stresses and struggles of young, single-adulthood packaged with its particular set of worries.

When things didn't go as we planned, when boyfriends broke our hearts, when boys who weren't our boyfriends broke our hearts, when friends passed away, or plans fell through, when days were too hot or too cold, too rainy or too sunny, when assignments kept us up until all hours, when snow came before anybody was ready, we sang,

"Maybe, in the future..."

A few weeks before the end of the semester, we decided to make a music video to "Maybe". The main focus of the video was balloons-- the perfect symbol of maybe. While the video was not professionally made, and had its cheesy moments, the project sparked a lot of introspection about the relationship between having hope and being realistic. We used to talk until all hours of the night about our project, the song, our lives, and the word Maybe. Such conversations helped to teach me important lessons about the future--that it is all just one big MAYBE. Nothing is certain, and that is why Maybe is such a beautiful concept. It is more optimistic than no, and more realistic than yes. It is the perfect blend of emotion that allows for the future to happen as it will. "Come what may and love it" if I may bring Joseph B. Wirthlin into this.

Jack Johnson is known for singing "It seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no." I believe that he is right--yet, he seems to be missing the true meaning of what he is singing: only "pretty much". There is always a chance with maybe. That is what maybe is about--chances, taking them and loving them for what they are.

"You can make a plan, carve it into stone.Like a feather falling, it is still unknown." -Bright Eyes

"Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows? Only time." -Enya

"It came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time." -Death Cab for Cutie

There are dozens of songs written about "maybe" and about the future. This shouldn't be surprising. The future is something that fascinates and frustrates us all in turn. We seem to simultaneously love and fear it because it holds what it offers tightly concealed until the present has been reached. Yet, "maybe" is an important part of everyone's lives. It is a part of my life.

"Maybe in the future" I'll have a good job that will allow me to not worry about money all of the time.
"Maybe in the future" I'll be able to get my business off the ground, and start doing what I love every day.
"Maybe in the future" I'll meet someone who will love me and help me to fulfill all of my goals, and in whom I can take pride.

"The only way to really know, is to really let it go. Maybe, in the future..."
Now all of those roommates have gone their separate ways, becoming wives and expectant mothers, or brides-to-be, pressing forward with education, leaving on missions, or graduating from the University. Some of tomorrow's maybes have become yesterday's realities. Some of the things that were important then are no longer important. Our hearts have been broken and mended, we've lifted each other up, we've seen each other through. We're not disappointed with how our pasts turned out, and are content with our present circumstances.

Yet still, in those moments that life never fails to give out, when we are thrown curves and plans fall through, I hope we'll all always be known as the girls who learned, in the fall of 2009, in a little apartment in Provo, the invaluable lesson to size up the situation, pack away the disappointment, and hum quietly to ourselves,
"Maybe, in the future..."

Today. Because it's beautiful.

Fall is finally here and serving yet again as a simple reminder of how beautiful the world is, and how beautiful our place is in it. I like the look of myself in the world, alongside the sight of leaves falling off of my wind and rain plastered windshield as I pull out of the parking lot.

I went gallivanting about BYU campus today and fell in love yet again.

Campus--with all of the students hurrying to their noon classes, faces careworn with the weight of responsibility, professors being stopped by students in the hall, just to see how things have been since their last meeting--and me. I have no reason to be there, except that I want to be. Just because today is beautiful.

All this going on below, while up above the clouds are brewing and the wind is breaking the stillness of the atmosphere, throwing my hair into my eyes, and hurrying me on my way. I see an old friend, and I smile and wave, as I take the first bite of the most perfect apple I've ever tasted.

Just because today is beautiful. Just because today is today, and I am free to do what I will.

"Don't close your eyes. This is your life, and today is all you've got now. And today is all you'll ever have." -Switchfoot

Provo in the fall. Complete with rain, wind, my best friend, and views like this picture. I know that the world is imperfect, but some days it seems closer to perfection than we give it credit for.

Yesterday. Or, On Changing the Past

I have been thinking lately about changing the past, about how everyone always wishes that they could change it, and makes mental lists of the things that they would change if they could--lists that unfortunately do NOT simply gather dust in the corner of the mind, but rather overtake the center stage, and deny time to the simple, beautiful, yet under-rehearsed memories that would better fill that space....

I am grateful that the past cannot be changed. No matter what happens today or tomorrow, yesterday is the only carved-in-stone that there is. Yesterday will always be the same as it was left. Only one's perspective on yesterday can change.

No one can take the past away from you. Love it. Learn from it. Borrow its glowing embers to light today's fire, but leave its ashes where they are. (Elder Holland once said something to that effect in a BYU devotional address.)

Think of the morning after having completed a difficult task--after climbing, and wading, and pushing and struggling through something steeper and thicker than you had felt prepared to climb and wade and push and struggle through. You wake in the morning, and as the memory of what you have accomplished comes rushing in, you snuggle into the covers with a bit more confidence, and push the snooze button with a little less guilt. But, you're wide awake now, you won't be sleeping any more today--because it is today, the triumphant today, complete with all of its blessings bought with yesterday's sacrifice. And no one can change that such is and always will be the case.

(Font sizing variation was inspired by the blog of my dear Cousin, Michelle.)

Last Paper- Thoughts on Production

I am a Humanities major. As such I have spent many a weary night in front of a computer monitor typing out typical run-on sentences such as:

"Clearly so and so's film seeks to explore the darker sides of life, not interesting itself for more than a few moments on the ephemeral of the every-day, but seeking the Self only found, or so thinks the artist, in communion with the transcendent qualities of nature and her affiliates."

Luckily I've never actually written a paper with such a thesis. But perhaps after Friday I will take a stab at writing some fake papers just to get it out of my system. Not actually saying anything can be a lot of fun. I need to take exercises in it more often.

For now, there is plenty to say for tonight's topic: The dual visions of the wilderness in America, and something about the battle going on between the logical and the Gothic in contemporary American film. Riveting, I know.

The best part of it is, it's my paper, and I can make it anything I want it to be. Just me and a keyboard, such is the technological age in which we live. So marvel in the ability you have to produce, and produce something. It doesn't matter if it makes no sense to anyone else. While you're at it, take the fake topic I just typed out above. Because ephemeral is an excellent word, I learned it from Emerson. THAT guy knew about communing with nature.
So does my little tree.
And this is my last. paper. ever.

Tree

I recently added a tree to my blog. I realize that it covers up the words. I like the tree, and one day soon it will be replaced with something that I like better that does not cover up the words.
For now...
The tree it is.

Lightning Up

So far, these posts have all been quite heavy. I'm not apologizing, I am just switching gears to talk about something different.
Something simple, I guess.
and semi-coherent.

There are beautiful things.
Moments are things, and sometimes there are moments that are beautiful.
"Most moments are beautiful when looked at with the right lens"- Hollywood

If I were a photographer:
I would photograph a story: little words, and a lot of message. Something that people would rack their brain over for hours trying to decipher, coming up with something completely different, and probably better, than my interpretation. Then I would entitle it,

"That Was Kind of a Beautiful Moment".

It would probably be about a shortage of powdered sugar, being resourceful, and culinary failure.

Or a bowl of pasta, a red towel, and a new friend.

Or perhaps three girls in a car with the window rolled down- dry summer lightning.

Or the remembrance of lightning and thunder; something like snow in July within the first moments of waking up- that line between the truly remembered and the imagined.

Then I would subtitled it, "My Week in Abstract Black and White Photographs", set it aside for future generations, and hope that the feeling of anxiety--looking forward, looking back would somehow penetrate through the paper.
That and some abstract laughter.
There really was lightning last night
and I hear thunder over the roof of this building
right now.

For Days When Your Best is Nowhere Near Enough...

A beloved professor of mine once pointed out an interesting principle in human terminology. The phrase "Do your best" seems to have a skewed meaning. Said professor admitted that when he was a kid, and his parents would tell him, "do your best" he always knew that what they really meant was "do THE best".

"So which is it, that seems like a pretty crucial conjunction!"...

There is a world of difference between doing ones best and doing (or being) the best. Take, for example, the following (made up) scenario:

Timmy was SO excited for his first day of Kindergarten. He had watched so many of his older brothers and sisters go to school and come home toting their little backpacks brimming over with intriguingly colored pieces of paper, chewed up pencils, dime store calculators, and "Good Job" sticker plastered homework assignments. Now it was his turn to shine.

"Good luck, honey" Timmy's mother said with a perfect smile. "Now remember, whatever happens, just do your best!"

Timmy wanted very hard to please his mother, so he toddled into the classroom, walked promptly over to the shelf, pulled down a grammar book and proceeded to pour over its pages, thus simultaneously learning how to read and write properly in one fell swoop! But that was just before the first recess! Surely we can expect more than just this simple task from our little protagonist! When he reentered the classroom after having mastered the games of kickball, t-ball, tether ball, and foursquare all in fifteen minutes, he pulled a book of elementary mathematics off of the shelf, and used his newly acquired reading skills to hone his math skills, until he had conjured up a fairly sophisticated (if not world changing) modified quantum model of the atom. Imagine how proud little Timmy was hanging THAT up on the fridge. Surely little Timmy had done his best, and the world all was as it should be.

So many people think that if this does not describe their first day of kindergarten, they must not have done their best. What about a less dramatic scenario, that takes my argument to a different level.

Sally was nervous for her first day of school, but she pulled the shoulder straps of her pink barbie backpack tightly over her shoulders, nodded when her mother yelled "do your best", and marched into the classroom. That day, poor Sally broke four pencils trying to learn to write the letter "A", suffocated the class pet fish, and spilled the contents of her pencil box all over the room. But that was only before the first recess! After fifteen minutes made up of 1.2 seconds of jump roping, .8 seconds of falling, and 14 minutes and 58 seconds of nursing a scraped knee, Sally reentered the room determined to make the most of the next few hours. She made the most of them all right! Those few after-recess hours were more than enough time to be laughed at for singing off-key, dropping the chalk under the teacher's desk while trying to write the never-to-be-mastered letter "A" on the blackboard, and accidentally erasing part of Timmy's great quantum equation that was already on its way to winning the Nobel Prize. (Luckily for Sally, Timmy already had the equation memorized before he wrote it out, so it was no problem for him to write it up again. He wasn't even mad! The very picture of magnanimity!)

So! That means that one of the children did their best and the other didn't, right? I mean, COME ON!!! How can both of the children have done their best, when one graduated from seven Universities with honorary PhD's four days later, and the other finally learned to recognize the letter "A" in the same amount of time? Open and closed case...

Unfortunately, life is not that simple. The tricky thing with humane statements such as, "do the best with what you have" or "not everyone's best is the same" is that such statements carry such profoundly complicated truths in them that we will never fully understand their meaning in this life.

Both of the children may or may not have done their best. What if Timmy purposely left some of the information out of his model because he wanted to be able to claim the prize next year as well. OR what if Sally really did know how to write the letter A all along and she was only selfishly trying to get attention from teacher?

BUT, what if Timmy has an inferiority complex because his older brother has won 32 Nobel prizes, and his mother says that he cannot eat until he gets at least 2? What if Sally is severely neglected at home and does not know proper ways to get attention from others without acting out?

You see, it's even more complicated than what we think! Not only is everyone's best different, but there are not surefire ways of telling from the outside what someone's best is.

To take it even further, an individual's best may vary from day to day. Some days I get to the library first thing and read several chapters and take several quizzes before class. I then go to six hours straight of classes with no breaks, take meticulous notes, and make insightful comments. After that, I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in the library reading assignments, pouring over Spanish poetry and working on research for a long paper. I then go home, eat a healthy dinner, do Yoga, read my scriptures, write in my journal, get ready for bed, send a pick-me-up text to a friend who is having a bad day, and lights out. Wow, I must have done my best that day!

But wait! That's not the end of the story... you say that the next day I am overcome by a bout of depression due to some extenuating circumstances in my life, and I can't get out of bed? Some of my hormones have gone out of whack, and I can't stop sleeping? When I do get up, the most I can do is crawl to the couch and watch movies for the rest of the day, not replying to any e-mails of class-mates asking for help on an assignment? Surely this day I did not do my best. By all accounts, I was an utter failure... but then, what if I did?

I believe in my heart of hearts, that when all is said and done, and this life is over, that we will all be greatly astounded at how many things we had working against us. Physical, emotional, psychological, economical, social factors all fighting for their right to be troublesome against us everyday. In general, do good. If you've made mistakes fix them, make goals, press forward, pray hard, love hard, live life to the fullest... when you can.

But when days come when you're not good enough (as they undoubtedly will), when doing your best means that you open your eyes just ONCE and look upward to the ceiling and mumble, "I am not enough today, make it OK, please!" When that has happened, and your inability to be effective in the world that day has been swallowed up in the love of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, pull together all that you have and ask, "Lord, how is it done?" (Enos 1:7). And then when you have heard him say, "
Because of thy faith in Christ…wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole" (Enos 1:8) go to, and do good, and keep fighting, keep praying, keep loving against odds, and hoping against hope-- and never forget that "because of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, [you] may hope and be assured that the ending of the book of [your life] will exceed [your] grandest expectations." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Infinite Power of Hope,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 21–24)

Stop judging yourself and others. Trust that God loves everyone, and that everything will turn out, because it will.


And There I Knew that...Everything Would be Alright...

Anyone reading this blog thus far (sadly I have not written nearly as often as I was supposed to) will undoubtedly notice that there are several references made to the music of Death Cab for Cutie. This may come as no surprise to people who know me, and especially to those who know that of the 22 songs that are currently on the "soundtrack of my life" (that has yet to be given a proper title) 4 of them are Death Cab songs. What can I say? I appreciate when artists (as all musicians seem to be called nowadays) actually have something of art in their music.
But I must apologize, this post is not about the band or its music as much as it is about a thought that a line from one of their songs sparked in me and has continued to burn in the back of my mind for some weeks now.
The song is "Grapevine Fires" and the line "And there I knew that it would be alright, that everything would be alright" is used in the song to describe the moment in which seeing something outside of ourselves shows us that things are going to turn out in our own lives. In the song, it is a specific image and a specific situation; but that line has ignited a thought process in my mind that seems to crop up in moments of severe frustration.
For example, This morning. I was walking to my Latin American Literature class in which I knew that Dr. Cluff was going to be giving an exam. As I was walking, I was feeling a feeling that can best be described as incredibly flustered. The day had begun a little too early in order to allow for more study time, and it seemed as though not much had gone according to plan. As I walked, I tried to review the last few notes I had scribbled on the back of a sheet of paper (which notes I had been studying all throughout the Physical Science lecture, instead of listening to poor Dr. Allred!). The information seemed to be being blocked by the frustration I was feeling, and the things I was yelling to myself inside of my head: "Jose Hernandez, NOT Fernandez! Get it straight, Katie!". A line of black ink on my leg was the outward manifestation of an inner throbbing, resulting from an encounter with an unruly and uncapped pen. Even better than that, one section of my hair was a little shorter and frizzier than it should have been, due to an unfortunate hair dryer incident while I had been trying to hurry.
With all of these thoughts rattling around in my head--the exam that was beginning in five minutes, the damaged hair, the drawn-on leg-- came an overarching dread of the future, and the questions 'why hurry to class? Why take classes at all? Why are you graduating so fast? What are you moving on to? What do you think you're accomplishing with all of this cramming and rushing?" I was trying to force the questions down with more noble thoughts, but not much was helping. I rushed past the other students in the courtyard of the JFSB, hoping that nobody noticed the ink mark, the frazzled hair, the mismatched jewelry combo, the fact that I hadn't shaved my legs in 24 hours, or that my shirt was too big for me. I was hoping that it would not permanently cripple my grade to not yet have memorized the information scribbled on the study guide, and that I would be able to write clear essays in Spanish.
Then something made me look up. I don't remember now what it was. It may well have had something to do with cursing the sun for being so hot, or wishing that it were raining, or wondering if a bird was about to poop on my head, since such a happening really would have added to the moment. As I looked, instead of seeing a bird, I saw a cloud. The cloud was fluffy and white, and it would not bring the rain I wished for-- but the cloud was moving; moving mindlessly past the deep blue of the sky. I couldn't help but think about all of the days that make up a life, and how many of those days are filled with things--THINGS!!! And how many times a day do I think about just enjoying? It was a beautiful cloud, and a beautiful sky, and there I knew it would be alright, that everything would be alright.
I've often thought about the advice to "simplify" our lives. We are always being told to simplify. Well, what happens when life can't be simplified? I am not currently participating in any activities that aren't fundamental to my life, so there isn't really much I can cut out. Maybe simplifying doesn't always mean 'cut things out', maybe sometimes it means 'look at something simple and revel in its beauty.'
Drop your guard for one moment, and let the simplicity of something outside of you show you that everything will be alright.

Philosophical Underpinnings of the Atonement

I feel like this post will be a hefty one, especially after only one post attempting to explain what I am trying to do here. But we all know that one of the best modes of defining what something is, is to see it in its context. This being the case, dear reader, take each post as a contextual piece of a definition. An ever-changing collection of what it means to be me, and to be in my mind... for better or worse...
One of the reasons I have come to love studying the Humanities is that it gives me the chance to see other people's viewpoints in a non-confrontational environment. That is to say, it is non-confrontational if I approach each work as it intends to be approached, and with the intent to learn something about another person and their ideas, taking every text for what is actually there. Granted, it is very difficult to do, and I am sure that I fail in that attempt at every turn. That being said, I recently was assigned to do my first reading of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. In the introduction (written by some well-meaning person, I'm sure) it sounded as though Nietzsche would have liked nothing better than for the whole idea of Christianity to vanish into thin air, or to have never existed all-together. While this may be the case, I was given a quote by him the day after I read some of his works that gave me a new perspective on his thinking.
Now, I am not trying to defend him, or put words in his mouth, or call him a Christian thinker when he did not want to be one, but please read with me the actual text.
The following excerpt is taken from The Gay Science

"This is actually one color of this new feeling: Anyone who manages to experience the history of humanity as a whole as his own history will feel in an enormously generalized way all the grief of an invalid who thinks of health, of an old man who thinks of the dreams of his youth, of a lover deprived of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is perishing, of the hero on the evening after a battle that has decided nothing but brought him wounds and the loss of his friend. But if one endured, if one could endure this immense sum of grief of all kinds while yet being the hero who, as the second day of battle breaks, welcomes the dawn and his fortune, being a person whose horizon encompasses thousands of years past and future, being the heir of all the nobility of all past spirit--an heir with a sense of obligation, the most aristocratic of old nobles and at the same time the first of a new nobility--the like of which no age has yet seen or dreamed of; if one could burden one's soul with all of this--the oldest, the newest, losses, hopes, conquests, and the victories of humanity; if one could finally contain all this in one soul and crowd it into a single feeling--this would surely have to result in a happiness that humanity has not known so far: the happiness of a god full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness that, like the sun in the evening, continually bestows its inexhaustible riches, pouring them into the sea, feeling richest, as the sun does, only when even the poorest fisherman is still rowing with golden oars! This godlike feeling would then be called--humaneness." (268-69)

I realized after reading this quote that Nietzsche probably had less of a problem with the basic, fundamental ideas of Christianity (which, perhaps, he did not understand on a profound level) and struggled more to grapple with the ways in which Christianity had exuded its power over the human race, and shaped the ideas that had led to wars and conflicts and hatred amongst the peoples of the world. Taking into account all of history and much of what goes on in the present-day world, it is really no surprise that people have rejected Christianity and have thought of it as a failed ideal. Reading this quote strengthened my testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ for the simple fact that even while rejecting the ideas of Christianity, a great thinker's mind still brought him to the same conclusion that pure Christian intent has brought many another man. The only way to reach perfection, a pinnacle of humanness (insert charity?) is to feel and understand deeply every experience and emotion that has ever passed through the human mind.
If I had not known who this quote was by before I read it, and had to guess at its author, I would have said C.S. Lewis wrote it in speaking of the Atonement. To say that it made me think would be a gross understatement. I have only begun to delve into the ramifications of this idea. It will undoubtedly prove to be a lifelong journey.

Starting Over

I once attempted blogging before. The old blog died. Google is incredibly ridiculous. I consider myself to have some computer smarts, but getting a new blog going, deleting my old one, and adding a Google e-mail (yes, I now have a gmail address!) has taken me all afternoon. Alas, the paper on varying levels of narration in Don Quixote will have to wait. I have a mission, a call to the world of online journaling.
That being said, I have never been the kind of person to neglect self-promotion by means of the internet (I am a regular Facebook user). The reason my last blog failed must have been due to one reason: the lack of know-how and gumption to really dig into it. Facebook is foolproof, this, apparently, is not. But, never fear, electronic world. I can feel it in my bones this time! I am going to learn the ins and outs of this thing, until I am blogging with the best of them.
This blog will definitely have a different feel from my old one, as I hope it will become a mixture of life-updates, random musings, and thoughts about the world and the things I learn about everyday. If no one cares, no one cares. I do not need anyone to ratify my existence for me- but getting thoughts out never hurts.
So here is to beginning again, and the never-ending opportunities for learning and growth that are found in the everyday! Cheers!