"Reader, I Married Him"

"Reader, I married him."

And so, it begins.  This beautiful little journey of ours.

Out of the first 10 days of our marriage, I was sick for about 7 of them.  But all I can feel for that is grateful, because I have someone there to take care of me and rub my tummy and scoldingly tell it to "be-have".

Last night I spent several hours making dinner, cleaning the kitchen, grocery shopping, cleaning our bedroom, vacuuming the carpet... and it was the most win-win situation ever, because I thought it was a domestic blast, and JD thought I was the best wife in the history of wives, which, he is more than welcome to think that if he wants, even if he's wrong.

Our wedding day was... blurry.  I was sick, of course, and could hardly walk, I ended up with more to do right at the end than I'd planned on, and wanted to kick myself for that.  Then I was late to the temple, when I'd promised myself I would not be.  JD was pacing when I got there, later, he said not because he was worried that I was late, but just because "I was getting married."  Every groom needs a few minutes to do an I'm-getting-married pace.  I completely respect that.

The ceremony blew my mind.  If you have never been to a temple sealing, just trust me on it.  I was completely blown away, and further evidenced in the sealer's having told JD just after "take her to a sealing soon. She was so into you, I don't think she heard a thing I said there at the end."

Guilty as charged.

JD ended up with a bloody nose just as I was ready to exit those doors with him, so I had to wait.  I think that was the most nervous I felt all day.  We were already married, but I was waiting, and hoping that he was OK.  And does a woman ever forget the look on his face when he first sees her in her wedding dress?  I hope I never do.  There should be a natural safeguard against that, a special spot in my heart where that is written, not to be soon set aside.

Taking photographs in the late afternoon sun, over at "Walden", trying to take it all in, even though I know that is not even possible.

The reception was a dream.  It was perfect.  Having so many people who have touched your life, walking into that room, and the feeling of overwhelming gratitude.  It is indescribable.  Other things went wrong, but they ironed out.  Things always work out.  That is what I told JD's Stake President the Sunday before the wedding.  He said that if I really believed and lived that, then I pretty much had life figured out.

And I've been thinking about that lately.  Having things figured out.  It is a cliche that brand-spanking-newly weds always think they have it all figured out.

But don't they, in a way?  That pull that the newness gives us to be tender, to be kind and loving and understanding always.  That pull doesn't last forever, but if we listen to it, it is teaching us something.  If we listen to it, it is saying,

Being kind and loving and understanding always will not come easy for long, at some point it will become a decision, no longer automatic.  Until you have decided long enough that it becomes automatic again.  Be kind.  Be loving.  Be understanding always.  Things will work out.

So, with an eye looking forward to many more mornings of "I know it's way out of your way, but I left those important assignments on the table, can you bring them by the store for me on your way to work?" and evenings of "I had to leave the staff meeting early, because my wife was sick" I will get back to life.  Real life, though it doesn't feel completely real yet.  I will make it so.  It will be so, and I will live every last drop.

Because I'll Want to Read This Later

Start.

Stop.

Start again.

Always starting again.

I told JD tonight that this was not the time to be bothering to change our lives.  Our lives are going to change themselves two weeks from today.  Exactly two weeks.

The mental list:

Clean room
Pack stuff
Paint apartment (more and more)
Find more furniture
Make more money
Eat more healthy (aka eat less carbs)
Write in my journal
Read my scriptures more intently
Pray more intently
Do pretty much everything in my life more intently
Finish the video projects I am WAY overdue on
Renew my driver's license that expired over 2 months ago (don't read if you're a cop)
Be a good employee again who isn't constantly stressing about outside-of-work things
Get the car repaired

This list doesn't even include anything from the wedding to-dos (callcaterer.visitreceptioncenterandsetuparrangement.meetwithdecorator.findstaffandcrewfordecorator.
finishdecorations.gotofamilyshower.gotofriendshower.gothroughthetemple.buygarments.
buyamillionmorethingswithnomoney.finishdressandveil....blahblahblahblahblah...)  That is an entirely different story.

But the one thing on my list that has finally boiled to the top?  Writing.  Writing anything.  Why?  Because I'll want to read it later.  Two years from now, I'll look back and wonder, "why can't I remember anything about the weeks leading up to my wedding?"  And then I'll say to myself, "oh yeah.  I was a total stress-case and never took the time to just sit.  Just breath.  Just be."

So here I am.  Sitting.  Breathing.  Being.

Being.

This may not be the time to change my life.  I may be in "bare survival mode" for a reason.  Perhaps it comes with the territory.  Rephrase.  Perhaps, for people like me, it comes with the territory.

But I want to write this to my future self, to remember myself by.

Self,

I want you to remember that the weeks leading up to the wedding got really hard.  There was a lot to do and no time or money.  You felt like you spent all of your time at work, and when you weren't there, you were at home wishing that you had the money and energy to do everything you needed to do to get ready.  JD was hard at work with school, the store, and the mortuary.  You were crying one the phone to him on a regular basis because of the daily mental break-downs.  But remember this:

Remember the time JD held you for hours, massaging your back at intervals because your stomach hurt so bad you couldn't think straight.

Remember the time Mr. and Mrs. Clean *wink* came to your apartment all the way from Spanish Fork to help you paint.

Remember the time the CFO at work reminded you that "family is first" and told you to stop feeling bad that you'd had a lot of wedding stuff to attend to; then gave you a dinosaur chewable-vitamin out of his desk and told you that you should ask for a raise sometime.

Remember the time that "Ambs" and you struck up the inside joke about "Despi" who "drives to Layton from anywhere in the world." and you couldn't stop laughing about it even though no one understood what you were talking about.

Remember the time that JD got sick, and you were able to hold his head in your lap and play with his hair, watching episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" to help you both get through.

Remember Mom driving perilously in the middle of the night to come help with the invites that were way more complicated than you should have ever let them get.  But you still don't regret them, because you love how they turned out.

Remember Cinni's beautiful photography, and how you were in love with her creative "butt-picture" with the picnic basket and almost used it in the announcements, until you remembered that everyone would judge you if you did that, and probably rightly-so. 

Remember everyone who came together to throw and attend bridal showers, and how JD's grandmother gave you cut-glass dishes that had belonged to her mother.

Remember everyone.  Remember everything.  Somehow save all of these little memories away: the melted wedding veil, the overnight shipping charge for the announcement envelopes, the beautiful ring sitting in the box waiting for JD's hand (and the time that you proposed to him with it, in the kitchen, just to be silly, and he jumped up and down and begged for a closer look), the small bunch of dishes by the door that needs to make its way downstairs for a washing, the feeling of pure euphoria when your best friend sent you her flight itinerary that meant that she was going to be able to make it to the wedding from OH, the piles of antiques and vintage items (collected on date-nights and random DI outings with sister) stacked on the table in the corner of the bedroom, the plethora of scaffolding on the Timpanogos temple (and how the two of you decided to pretend that the temple was being built especially for your wedding, and somehow wasn't going to be complete, but you're so in love you're moving forward anyway), the lunches on Fridays stolen away at Taste of India with Will and anyone else who wants to come and the waitresses there who practically are your best friends by now, the feeling of anticipation, the fear of blowing everything but wanting to move forward anyway, the knowledge that you and JD have everything you need to be brilliant, to make life into what you want it to be.

Remember all of these things.  

This is real life.

This is water.
  
This is love.

                                         ~Me.

"It Will Be Different Once We Paint"

First comes the uncertainty of knowing whether or not to move forward.  Then the euphoria hits, the type that comes revved with a sense of progression once you've decide to take the plunge.  Then comes my favorite part: the rock bottom of the decision.  You know what I mean, the part where you're staring blankly at an almost-empty 2 bedroom apartment, surrounded by a few boxes and an old wooden rocking chair left by the previous tenants (along with some sticky walls and more than a few dust bunnies), praying the phone doesn't ring, and muttering to yourself, "what were we thinking?  Really.  What were we thinking?"

It's times like those that bring me back to writing publicly.  It's feelings like that which have to find a published voice, even if only to a handful or two of readers. 

Neither of us could get the stove to light, so we ordered in sandwiches, Jimmy Johns.  You even said "that was fast" when they rang the doorbell, just like in the commercials.  But the whole time I felt like we were playing a really bad game of "house".  Like, the kind where, were I a child and at liberty to say such things, I would say,

"No, no, no.  Forget all of that. I don't like that.  Let's pretend that we're already married, and we live in a studio apartment in Seattle, and we both have artsy, work-from-home jobs that let us be together a lot, but we're also both working on graduate work so that we can both be professors.  Whose idea was it that we live in a too-big-for-us/million-year-old/half-corroding apartment right next to a mortuary at which we're employed?  That was the worst 'house' set-up ever.  Oh, and the part where we don't get married for two more months?  Yeah, that's GOT to go."

Of course, changing the set-up isn't quite so easy as all that.  So, I find solace in someone's else's experiences (fictional though they may be) and repeat to myself some wise words from David Levithan's Lover's Dictionary: "It will be different once we paint.  It will be different once we put things on the walls."

Then the phone rings.  It's the hospital.  Someone's died and you have to go. 

Is this really going to be our lives for the next two years?

"It will be different once we paint.  It will be different once we put things on the walls."

Earthen

Earthen, adj. 

To the flight and fancy, there is nothing more offensive than the earthen.  They pale at one glimpse of reality.  The flight and the fancy cannot be grounded—their refusal to exist outside of a corruptible moment makes them incongruent with daily living. 

To live, to love, one has to embrace the earth: the wooded, the hilled—the mottled and the pockmarked.  One has to glory in the reality, in the substantiated, the frailty, the strength, the balance.  To love in mortality is to know the earth, in all that it is.  Not in spite, but because. 

“Glory be to God for dappled things,” the poet said.

I will echo.

Beauty and Truth

My dear friend over at Lora Grady Photography recently mentioned that she wanted my help in starting a Facebook group for women photographers/videographers/artists/business owners to support one another, throw around ideas, and share our work.

I want to say right up front that I have hardly done a thing, and that Lora has spear-headed this project from its inception. I did, however, help her to think of a name for the group. It wasn't until we were at the bridal fair a few weeks back, connecting with brides in the area, and speaking with another photographer in the group, that I realized I had never really explained where I got the name "Beauty and Truth".  I thought it would make an appropriate post on this blog, as it is something I think about on a regular basis.

In fact, I've mentioned it before.
But I'll mention it again, and be very clear.

This earth is brimming with beauty. Exploding with beauty. Bursting at the seams and tumbling out with beauty. There is so much beauty, at times our souls cannot hold it all, so we pull some of it back out of ourselves, package it up as we like, and call it our art.
In sharing it, we let something so personal (the way we perceive the beauty in the world) react with the perceptions of others, and something miraculous starts to happen... lights go on and the understanding is enlightened, even if it is in ways that no one can explain.

The words "Beauty and Truth" belong to the typical vernacular.  People know these words.  Philosophers, in particular, those that take an interested in the topic of Art Philosophy, have often discussed at length if art is primarily a vehicle of truth, or a vehicle of beauty.

I'm not sure why they never stopped to consider that the two are the same thing.

John Keats, the English Romantic Poet, was a brilliant artist.  That he died at the premature age of 25 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the poetic world.  But when he died, he left behind a small collection of works that have haunted me all of my adult life.

One of my favorites, Ode on a Grecian Urn is written from the perspective of one who is examining a decorative urn, likely in a museum, and musing over its beauties.  At the end of the poem, Keats issues the following, powerful statement:

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all
            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

I admit that in the years I have pondered these lines, they have become quasi-scriptural to me, taking on new meaning and facets each time I go over them in my mind.  Every beauty has a Truth behind it, and every Truth is beautiful.  I cannot explain how deeply I believe this to be true.  Yet, there has to be another side to the coin.  I cannot always see something that is beautiful and point to the exact Truth it mirrors, but why not?  Why doesn't that bother me, or cause me to change my mind about the synonymous value of the subjects?

 

Keats himself sets my mind at ease on this point with a phrase that he coined.  That is, the phrase, Negative Capability.  

As far as scholars know, Keats only used the term once in his writing, in a letter, in which he said, "I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason . . . with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration."

If he were here right now, I'm sure he and I could have quite the conversation, and perhaps I would come out realizing that I had completely mistook his meaning.  But putting these two ideas together, I have formulated a belief system about art that is not to be easily shaken.  Beauty and Truth are the same thing.  They are merely perceived differently.  Truth is understood intellectually, and beauty is felt.  But everything beautiful is Truthful, and every Truth is beautiful. 

All beauty cannot be easily translated into a Truth that can be grasped by a finite mind.  Sometimes, we as human beings, just have to admit that we do not understand entirely, and enjoy what we perceive: the beauty.  No, not just enjoy it, but revel in it, breath it, love it, cherish it, rejoice in it, become a part of it, and let it become a part of us.

When we do, we will see that we, somehow, in the back of our minds, in ways that we cannot explain (and usually only for moments at a time) understand.  Everything.  Perfectly.

That is art.  That is Beauty.  That is Truth.  That is Life.

"A poem needs understanding through the senses.  The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water.  You do not 'work the lake out', it is an experience beyond thought.  Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery." -Ben Whishaw as John Keats in Bright Star

Like This, Right Now

You're sitting on the floor in front of my computer. In the next room we can hear the hum of the washing machine at its task on my piles of dirty laundry.  I always let my laundry go too long.  You do yours almost every week.  I admire that.
I am wearing a pair of light green lounge pants, a promo T-shirt from a previous employer, and your sweater.  The grey one.  The one that is way too big for me, but I wear it because you left it in my car and it smells like you.  You don't mind that I'm wearing it, because you say I'll make it smell like me.  I hope I don't.  That would spoil it.
I slip away downstairs and secure us two spoons from the drawer because you bought ice cream in celebration of having found some cheap gas at Maverick.  I surpress the urge to make a comment about the Maverick gas eating out your engine, and just eat the ice cream.  Bunny Tracks.  We usually get Moose Tracks.  I'm not sure what inspired the change, but no matter.
It is funny, amidst a sea of won't-it-be-great-whens, I occasionally have a moment of "can we just go on forever like this, right now?"
Because, like this, right now, we are perfect.
Like this, right now, everything is perfect.
I'm not interested in that one time when things didn't go right.  I'm not interested in the fact that they may not go right again.
Because like this, right now, the only thing that matters is being like this, right now, with you.

Spread Thin

I know that the key to getting something out of life is to set one's sights high...

But I think that I need to focus my gaze.

Honestly, if I could I would be:
A full-time videographer (who would probably also take awesome still-photos, especially with Polaroids.)
A seamstress/costume designer (I've been known to dabble in this with grinch-like effects.)
A musician (Anyone want to start an indie band? I started one, once, but we only got 1/2 a song done.)
A writer of fiction and/or creative non-fiction. . . (Hello. . .blog)
A poet! (There is poetry on here, isn't there?)
A dancer (even though I have NO skill, aptitude, or history in doing this.)
An artist (Hey, I have an Etsy store... this qualifies me, no?)
A boutique owner (Like Cherry Lane!)
An internet marketing specialist
A musical theatre actress
A movie actress (why not?)
An art curator...

I know, I know.
I need to stop. I need to pick something, and do it.
Maybe two?
Three?
No?
Just one?
Oh dear.

A Short Piece of Fiction-- The Idealist [Part 7--The End]

Ok, here is the end! Finally, I am such a slacker!

Jim continues to open, read, mentally catalogue, and destroy the garbage that encompasses his desk. As he works and drinks, the vehemence of his thoughts gives way to a dull, numb, gnawing desire to be done for the night. Still, he reads on, and as time drains and presses, he finds he has only one letter left for the night. He never reads the return addresses on the envelopes, and this one is no exception. He merely notes that it is addressed to Dr. James Bentley and rips open the top, (it having progressed far too late in the evening, and he having progressed far too deep into his open can to continue bothering with the letter-opener.) and reads:

Dr. Bentley:

You may be surprised upon opening this letter to find that I, an old Chemistry student of yours, should spend time writing you a letter, especially one that has very little to do with the subject of Chemistry, or any other scientific pursuit. I never would have pinned you down as a man of the arts, and so when I heard that you would be carrying out Rob's project in its entirety, I was surprised. Pleasantly, of course, but surprised nonetheless. Please excuse me if I address the remainder of my letter to Rob. I know it seems strange, a boy I passed in the coffee shop a few times, and stranger that he is no longer with us. I'm not sure why, but I think I would feel better if I told him how he changed me. Please excuse this little indulgence.

Rob:

People always talk about how they wish that they could talk to and thank those who have passed on. I decided not to waste any time on wishes, and just talk to you. Your project will be open to the public in a few days, but I have a confession to make: I have seen it! Alone, not with one of the touring groups. I snuck over the gate last night and wandered amidst the rocks, metal, mirrors, and the colors for four or five hours before coming back to and sneaking out unnoticed. I'm not sure how many others have done the same, but I would assume others have wanted to. I'm sure you can understand that we are all dying to "see what we've been missing."

I will admit that, at first, I felt nothing but disappointment. I just stood there in the middle of the field, looking at all of the foreign objects, the numbers, the formulas, all so carefully placed and measured, and I thought, "wonderful! Just like every other piece of art I've ever seen! It is worthless and makes no sense." I will admit that the only thing that kept me there was having known you. I told myself, "You knew the artist. Give him more of a chance than you've given everyone else!" So I sat, and I waited, and waited, and waited. It got cold, and I zipped my jacket tighter and waited some more. I wish that I could say it was right at sunrise, when the first morning rays hit my eyes that some great illumination came to me, or in the witching hour when some fairy ring appeared, and revealed all that I had been lacking. Honestly, I'm not sure what time it was when I realized what you had been getting at. Or, I guess what I see in it. If someone were to ask me right now what it "means" I would tell them: it means that it means. There is meaning everywhere, if we want to look for it. When we look hard, we are rewarded, and we come away better people. If we dismiss, we are the ones who suffer. Your work is a celebration of meaning, and of man's search for it, and his conquering of the unknown. The unknown will always become known with enough determination--perhaps a lot of patience, and a good wind-breaker. Shoot, it's probably a bit of faith as well. To escape finding meaning is to deny our nature.

Thank you for showing me that, I had definitely been missing it.

-Sylvia (from the coffee shop)

The only outward indication that Jim hesitates over finishing this last letter the way that he has finished the others is a slight deviance in his normally impeccable timing. He takes one long sip from his can before folding the letter again and inserting it back in its destroyed envelope. He may also let it fall just a bit more slowly over the scorching heat. The flame that follows, lying on top of the ashtray, has become a perfect lighter for one more piece of paper. Jim snatches The Professor in his Ideal and drops it on top of the burning mess. He knows he should have done it long ago. There is no reason to hold on to yesterday, or to think about tomorrow. All the days are the same, aren’t they? He stares blankly on, not registering the irony that the paper, writhing and twisting over the smoke-stained metal, has become the perfect visual to accompany the sound of an ambulance, several streets away, rushing off to some new emergency.

A Short Piece of Fiction-- The Idealist [Parts Five and Six]

Almost done! Here are parts Five and Six. Just one more part after this!

It is interesting that the two of them had become friends at all. No. “Friends” isn’t even the appropriate word; more like colleagues. Though Jim was nearly thirty-five years Rob's senior, the young artist had been convinced that he could change the old professor's views. Jim, likewise, wanted to change Rob's views. Not for Rob's sake, for his own.

"If I could just convince one more wide-eyed dreamer that the only 'reason' or 'meaning' in things are chemical processes, I could retire a happy man." He had once said to his housekeeper, whose name may or may not have been Nancy. He had started calling her that on the first day she had begun working for him, and had never bothered to ask if her name was, in fact, Nancy.

“Nancy” never seems to mind. She never asks questions, or responds to his tirades. She simply looks at her employer when he talks, as though out of some vocational obligation, and then she turns around when he finishes talking and continues on with her duties. He loves her for it, and never asks her to respond, somehow sensing that he will be severely disappointed if she were ever to answer.

Jim knows that he never made any progress with the boy just as well as Rob knew that he never made a dent in the belief system of his elder. During their almost weekly meetings in Jim's office, the two of them would take turns speaking. One week Jim would talk at Rob who would nod over and over without responding. When Jim was through discussing chemical processes, natural selection, and the chaos of the world, Rob would nod more solemnly. After Jim had been through talking for thirty seconds or more, Rob would rise from his chair, shake Jim's hand, and exit the room, always turning back when Jim asked, "where are you going?" to reply with something like, "out there, to see if anyone needs anything."

The first time he had said it, Jim had scoffed, and asked, "Out where? And who needs anything?" Rob had just replied, "I don't know. I guess I might just end up over at the library going over some notes. I just want to feel like I made a difference somewhere today, you know?" The chemist had shrugged. He didn’t know. And then, the artist had walked out.

On the other weeks, it was unofficially Rob's turn to talk, and his speeches were (to Jim) endless. Rob talked about how things were "meant to be" and how the world was infused with meaning just waiting to be discovered by an inquisitive mind.

"What is it that you want, Rob" he had asked one such afternoon. It wasn't like him to ask questions after Rob took his informal turn. He would usually say something along the lines of, “you'd better run along kid, I've got exams to grade.” And if Rob was lucky he would add, "Good luck to you this week." But on this particular occasion, for no particular reason, he could not help asking it.

The response was annoyingly familiar. "I want to show people what they have been missing."

"That's what he would always say!" Jim roars aloud to the hungry flame of the candle.

"He wanted to show people what they had been missing. I'll be hanged if I ever knew exactly how he was hoping to accomplish this task." Jim closes his lips in thought, and switches his audible, yet one-sided conversation to the inside of his head. He had known about Rob's project from the moment it was conceived. He had occasionally patted himself on the back for having been the first to hear about it.

Rob had come practically running into Jim's office, had sat down in his usual chair, opened his notebook and shoved it under the other man's nose. In black ballpoint ink, Rob had amassed a million chicken-scratches, and above them scrawled the words "MY MAGNUM OPUS!" From the look on his face, he must have been expecting a reaction out of his older mentor. But Jim remained unmoved.

"What does it mean, Rob? I'm not an artist."

"This is it. This is what people have been missing. I have finally got all of my plans made."

"What plans? Where are these plans?"

Rob signaled his forehead. "Where they belong. I will work strictly from my head."

"It's pretty convenient that he worked straight from his head. His head was the only thing that didn't survive the crash." Jim spits, now back to voicing his recollections.

"Funny, when planes crash in movies, they always burn. Not Rob's. It almost looked as though nothing had gone awry, like the plane didn't fall far."

He never can remember, this late at night, what it was that the authorities had said about the accident. Malfunction of something or other. Wasn't a malfunction of some piece of equipment the problem behind all failures? Why do authorities need to make statements about such things? Arbitrary, pointless, mundane, ordinary. Exactly like the letters he spends his Sunday evenings reading. He has heard it all by now. As the press photos had begun to leak, the letters had started to come in by the dozens. As special pre-release guided tours had sent hundreds into the prairies, the letters had come in by the bag-load. They all vary in their opinions of the work, but it is all the same drivel to Jim.

He now reviews some of the best ones in his mind, the center where he has stored quotes from these letters, like some catalogue of all that is ridiculous.

"It is almost as if Smith was foretelling his own tragic death in this work." Or, “It is such a stark metaphor for his difficult childhood, illustrating the early death of his absentee father, and the humiliation at being put through school by his elderly mother.” Or, “It is clearly a commentary on current political unrest, calling for new unification between differing political parties.”

He knows others would scorn his entertainment, but it is not possible to suppress laughter when one regularly reads such tomfoolery as,

I have seen pictures online of the project that is about to launch. The juxtaposition of all of the red and blue in the rocks at the west end of the exhibit gives such a startling insight on what it means to be an American. I was so inspired by the pictures; I hope to take my wife and kids to see it when it opens in a few weeks. Thank you.

Jim has a keen mind, and it doesn’t take him long to memorize the gist of these letters before he sets them to burn. It is all so delicious. It is all so close to what he had expected would happen. It is justification, and he is angry that Rob no longer exists to see himself proved so utterly and entirely wrong. If, when Rob was alive, Jim had ever worried that his belief system was being rocked by the stubborn enthusiasm of some snot-nosed 23-year-old kid, all of the worry is now eaten up as the flames climb to claim each sheet of worthless propaganda. All of it goes up in smoke. All of the "I am profoundly inspired" "I am moved beyond expression" "I have begun looking at the world in a new way" "I went home and hugged my kids a little tighter" "It gave me the courage to go back to school" "The exhibit inspired me to start drafting a letter to a child who ran away from home twenty years ago, one I vowed to cut myself off from."—these all had burnt beautifully, even if the plane hadn't.

Jim has hoarded Rob's notebooks. Nobody must ever see those, those alleged blueprints. No one must ever know that Jim works from no blueprint. Guided instead by a twisted sense of vindication. It is so easy to make a pretense at being a genius, especially with such a story.

Jim is sorry that Rob is gone, isn’t he? There are plenty of things he misses, of course. He'd grown quite accustomed to their talks. He had almost even become accustomed to never getting through. Yes, Jim is sorry that Rob is gone; but it had happened. It had worked out perfectly to allow for this little experiment.

Jim catches his thought.

“No, it didn't ‘work out perfectly’ it wasn't fated. It just happened. He died, and I took advantage of that. 'Show people what they're missing.' I'll show them what they're missing! No, no I won't. They'll never know that there were no blueprints. They will never know that I worked, just as Rob did, from my head, and that I never put a thought into the placement of the boulders, the direction of the lines, the reflection of the mirrors. They will never know that what they are missing is that there is nothing to miss! The spectacle is in their heads, and they had better stick to the hard sciences; because, at the end of the day, if you crash a plane and hit your head hard enough, that is that. That is what really matters."

You {Me}-- A Study: Silence

I have not written an installment for this project in much too long, I hope everyone will forgive me. Here goes:

Two words: cafe.rio.
Ok, three more words: barnes.and.noble.

I mentally sort through my top ten favorite college memories, and this is one of them. I wonder if you remember it like I remember it. I wonder if you remember it at all.

To be frank, I'm not entirely sure why it stands out so.

Most of our other friends had gone out together to participate in a large group activity, so we stole away, and went to grab a bite to eat. In fact, maybe we'd been planning to go out that night for some time. Whatever the reason, we were together because we wanted to be. It wasn't one of those, 'no better offer' kind of Friday nights. Well, I guess it was. There was no better offer, because what could be better than what we were doing?

I found myself a copy of Atlas Shrugged, because I felt I had to read it in order to be considered "well-read". You had brought your laptop with you, and sat at one of the cafe tables to do some journal writing.

I joined you. It was perfect.
Literally. Perfect.

You always listened to me and appreciated my ideas in ways almost no one else ever has. I do not say that just to say it. I mean it with all of the sincerity I have. While I still think we need to write a book of all of our philosophies and takes on life, and while I miss our chats immensely, it was this silence that stood out as I thought about our history

Initially, I wasn't sure why.
Then, it came to me.

A comfortable silence is born of a mutual understanding one has with another person. It is as though I knew what you'd say if you were talking, and you knew what I would say if I was talking. So, for those few hours, we didn't need to talk. We have always had a connection, you and I, that is enhanced by the conversations, and bolstered by the silences.

The hallmark of our friendship has always been that you listen to what I say without ever patronizing or acting in a condescending way. You treat my ideas with a degree of importance that eradicates any need for me to be constantly explaining myself. I can stay silent and still be safe. No need to justify, you are on my side, whether I deserve it or not.

Thank you for that, and thank you for the negative space--the silence. It is every bit as important to the overall composition as the flourishes. It is the balance that one does not always find in every friendship, and I feel fortunate to have it in you.

A Short Piece of Fiction-- The Idealist [Parts Three and Four]

I have been a total slacker on this as of late, so here are parts Three and Four. If you're behind, no worries. Here are parts One and Two.

Thanks for reading!

Jim ends this recollection, letting the remembrance of his epithets serve as the triumphant cadence to this little memory. Yet, he still finds himself unable to progress further in his routine. His memory has made him intent on finding something—something that he put away several years ago, and has not seen since. Standing, he draws near a grey metal filing cabinet in the corner of his home office. He forces open the top drawer without deploying the release lever and riffles through the dog-earned folders until his fingers meet the one he has been looking for. In opening it, a thin sheet of sketchbook paper slides noiselessly onto the thread-worn rug below. Jim doesn't bother picking it up, he just looks at it from above. It is another sketch, drawn by the same boy and of the same subject. In the sketch, Jim stands at the front of a crowded classroom, one hand raised to the blackboard, indicating an equation, the other hand outstretched to the students, as if beckoning them to understand the relevance of the formula to the everyday. Jim had merely laughed when Rob handed it to him three weeks after the coffee shop incident; laughed, and then filed it with other documents of mild interest.

The art student had begun to attend the lectures on Thursday afternoons, as well as several others during the week. At first Jim had been annoyed, and had approached him about it. But Rob had merely said,

"Sylvia, the girl in the coffee shop, she really helped me see that day what I had been missing out on. There is this whole other realm of knowledge, another level to the complexities and the interconnectedness of everything, just passing me by. I don’t understand everything you're saying now, but I think it’s interesting, and important, and I want to learn it."

It wasn’t like Jim to consent to something of that nature, not only that it was against University policy to allow any student to regularly attend a lecture that he or she was not properly registered for, but it seemed an annoyance to have a smart-aleck art kid hovering over all of his lectures, sketching at random, and pretending to be interested in the material. Perhaps Rob had decided that Sylvia was a girl he wouldn't mind buying a latte for more often, and was hoping to impress. Why else would a busy art student be interested in learning Chemistry? Jim didn’t have the answers. He did not even know why he had nodded in consent to Rob's eager question, or why he had smiled to himself once he had turned away.

Though at the time he had not known his motivations, now, standing in his office, looking down at the sketch, he instinctively knows why he had not been bothered by Rob's presence in the class. One did not need to observe the boy for long, sitting in the back of the room, with a wide smile, and a ready pen, to realize that this art student was more interested in assigning Oxidation Numbers than many of the pre-med students were.

What professor wouldn't be enthusiastic about an avid learner? Besides, the good Dr. had had many years of experience in showing idealists how the world truly worked. He lived for those moments when students came into him at the end of a semester and said, "I used to be religious until I took this class, and then I learned how things REALLY work. Thanks, Dr!"

Now, back to that drawing. Jim picks up the sketch and turns it over. For: Dr. James Bentley, October 15 19-- The Professor at his ideal. From: A (not so) Damned Idealist. Jim does not bother to suppress a smile when he reads it. It is the first smile he has allowed himself over the incident in all the eight months. Yet, the reader need not hope that Jim's smile is a sign of his acceptance of the tragedy. As far as he is concerned, there is nothing to accept. The news of the plane crash had come just as the news of rising gasoline prices, or the start of another construction project outside of the apartment window. It wasn't good news, but it was nothing that could be helped, and one had to deal with it as one dealt with other annoyances.

No, the smile is not acceptance; it is more of an outward indication that Jim has realized just how right he had been in his diagnosis of Rob. He had been damned, from the very beginning, because he was always out looking for some meaning, some ideal that could not be found, because it was not there. He'd died for it, and no one had been the wiser. Men may die in battle, Jim reasons, but if the war is lost, the people simply adapt to a new way of life, and the dead soldiers are forgotten. As soon as he thinks it, he feels proud of some alleged literary ability.

A lost battle—interesting metaphor. Art like this is good.

Jim shoves the sketch back in the envelope and tosses it onto the desk. He then picks up the letter once again, and finishes scanning it without comprehension of its meaning. Upon completion, he folds it, places it back and in the envelope, and holds it steadily over the raw, open flame of a candle set in the center of the cluttered desk. The edge of the paper resists momentarily, as if asserting its right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And then, it gives way—wretches, folds, blackens, smokes, and crumbles. He tosses it onto the ashtray and watches the flame shrivel and die on the scorched metal surface.

One down, hundreds to go.

Jim opens the next letter.

Dear Robert: It feels strange to pen those words, I never met you, but I feel like I had. The day I saw the interview on the television of the hikers who found your plane out in the desert, I cried for an hour. I don't understand why I felt so sad that you were gone, but I feel the world was a better place because of your project, and I think it's delightful that you asked Dr. Bentley to continue it for you.

Jim is smart. He knows that what is truly "delightful" is that so many of Rob's admirer's believe that he, James Bentley, had actually been asked to continue the project. Even Rob's own ailing mother seemed to think it the most natural thing in the world. It wasn't any great task to convince everyone that this was the way it was supposed to be. Conveniently, Rob had mailed several notebooks back to the University, in the care of James Bentley, just two days before his accident. It was almost too easy to pretend that the notebooks had been filled with notes, and sketches meant only for the eyes of the man who could finish the project, in the sad event that it became necessary for a successor. In reality, the notebooks were little more than nomadic sketches of people Rob had met along his travels, flying about the United States, scouting out sites for his accursed project. The boy had thought the notebooks cumbersome in his backpack, and had shipped them to the University in order to lighten his load.

A professor with such a long-standing tenure had experienced little opposition to his sudden artistic tyranny, and had not had a moment’s trouble in getting the press to zero in on his story: a heartbroken mentor struggling to finish the project started by his protégée in the very flower of his youth, and so on and so forth. Any sob story to make the people's hearts go pitter-patter and the donations for the project began pouring in by the hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it wasn't hard to hire men to go into the prairies of the mid-west for days at a time, laden with measuring tapes and clipboards making rounds, taking notes, talking in hushed tones while thousands gathered to watch the historic process. People would stand back and cry, and talk about how “beautiful” it all was. In his days serving the marines, Jim had learned that if you punch someone in the nose, it makes their eyes water. These people thought that tears meant something deep, that they were an outer-manifestation of some inner secret that they all shared, that this 'project' would help everyone to see what they had never before seen. Jim knew that they were just reacting to the punch.

To be continued... :)

Scrape

I hate that scene in Anne of Avonlea, when she goes out to the milking pen, sees her cow still in it, and realizes that she has sold Rachael's cow to Mr. Blithe by mistake.
I hate it, because I know the feeling.

There is nothing I loathe more than being in a scrape.
Loathe it.
Absolutely L-O-A-T-H-E

I detest being embarrassed, and trying to save face, and trying not to cry in public...
I am not the "brush it off" type of girl. It will not be brushed. Believe me, I have tried. It will not be brushed.

Every time I feel that, "I want to crawl under a rock and die" feeling... I keep feeling that feeling. (I started typing that sentence with the hope of it ending profoundly... no such. Alas!)

I had that feeling today, and I suspect I'm not the only one who has ever felt this way.

As I pondered about it tonight, I thought...

THESE ARE THE MOMENTS IN LIFE THAT I CANNOT STAND.

A friend, upon trying to help me feel better, said,

"I have a saying, Katie. A saying for when I think life is super difficult or things look grim. I think to myself, 'At least I'm not being chased by mastodons'. And, next time you're in this situation, think of your ancestors who were being trampled by mastodons everyday... [problems like this are] not so life ruining then."

He had a point. I won't argue with him.
But what is it about being trampled by mastodons that always seems appealing in "Crawl under a rock and die" moments?

There is something about the little things that hurts the worst.

My dear friend Joanna Newsom, in her song "Only Skin" probably puts it best. The song is 16 minutes long, but right in the middle, the music boils down for a moment, and she sings,

"Scrape your knee: it is only skin."

Now, I recently scraped my knees (funny story about that, ask me sometime) and it hurt. Bad. That's the thing about scrapes. They hurt like the devil. Maybe it's just a myth, but I've heard that many times when someone is stabbed (especially when they don't see the knife) they have no idea they have been stabbed. 30% of stab wound victims die. I am guessing 0% of knee-scrape victims die, though I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a knee-scrape victim who wasn't fully aware that their knee was scraped.

It's as though human beings are equipped to deal with the hefty things (shock, for example, probably plays a huge role in the obliviousness of stab-victims) in life. The little things... they hurt. REALLY hurt . But, they won't kill you.

Look at that. We were built for greatness. Who would have thought it?

Everyone has scraped their knee before. There are literally billions of people on earth right now who should be walking around in T-shirts that say, "I Survived ~Knee-Scrape 20__". But they, like all of us, got up, brushed off, and got back to work.

If you're reading this, and you need to hear it, I'm sure it's not helping. That's the thing about "Crawl under a rock and die" moments... if you're anything like me, they can't be brushed off in .2 or less.

But hear this:
IT WILL GET BETTER.
IT WILL.

Scrape your knee: it IS only skin.
And it has a way of healing up nicely, if you give it enough time.

A Short Piece of Fiction-- The Idealist [Part Two]

Part two of the story I started posting here.

"Art is the vehicle of truth that allows us to transcend the mundane of the everyday, and yet realize the beauty of the everyday all in the same moment."

Jim had turned instinctively when, three years before, he’d first heard the young voice unapologetically announcing its bold definition. Even though it is now a worn memory, the opening line of the speech always makes Jim turn, and look. Keep in mind the scene that the professor sets on the stage of his imagination changes slightly each time it is conjured again. Today it is a dimly lit room, flooded with the garishly blue hues of a colorless sunrise. The smell of last night's cigarette smoke lacks the fresh, artistic waft it had inherently possessed the previous evening and is, as morning breaks, reduced to a stale, perverse stench. There are not many persons present, as it is too early an hour for the morning rush.

On turning, Jim finds the source of the declaration in the form of two wide black eyes, staring confidently at a certain listener—a young girl of about eighteen—with unwavering determination. The mass of short black curls that accompanies the eyes could neither be comfortably described as collected, or as unkempt, and so their description is, according Jim's inexpert perception, left at 'skillfully unruly'.

Apparently unaware of the new and intent set of listening ears, the young man speaks again.

"It would not be necessary to have art at all if we knew everything, so I like to think of it as a classroom, or a lens through which the world is revealed to us. Revealed safely. Think of it! A world where you can explore a range of possibilities, and all without really changing a thing.”

Acting on an impulse, one closely related to not wanting to be outdone, the girl responds.

"Well. I am studying with the hope of attending medical school. Take Biology, for instance, there are a million processes that go on in you and me everyday. When I learn about them, I think, it's life changing! The world should be different because of this process! But then I realize that it was going on long before I knew about it. Nothing has changed, but it seems it should have. That's a cliché, I guess. But it does make the everyday much more interesting. Science is like art then. Only more useful. I am going to go to medical school, and save lives."

As he listens, Jim finds his principles aligning with the young woman's, so he wonders why he feels she is getting in over her head; and why, if it is indeed an argument he is observing, he feels that the young man is winning.

The boy, being of an obvious better nature than Jim, simply laughs. No reserve, no guile, no pretense—taking unfiltered joy in the conversation alone. He doesn't seem to care that what he has said would have, under most other circumstances, paled in comparison to her trump card. Sadly for the lover of sport, the lad lacks a certain sense of pride that makes one doggedly determined to be right, and Jim can see his mind mulling over what the girl has said. In that moment, Jim knows why the girl is losing the argument. She isn't listening to her opponent, but her opponent is listening to her.

"You misunderstand me!" The boy says with a grin, as soon as his laughter has finished pouncing through the mostly-empty building. "I do not think that art is the only means of finding meaning in the everyday. Finding meaning, anywhere, is valid. I would never discourage anyone from looking for that, no matter how he chose to carry on that search."

His clarification seems passable to her. Still watching, even in his mind’s eye, even years later, Jim is angry at her inability to give a thorough rebuttal. Instead of giving a thought-out answer, she resorts to the oldest trick in the book.

"So what do you want to do with it? Your art degree, I mean." As she speaks, the girl unconsciously holds a Chemistry textbook close to her, challenging the boy with both her dialogue and her body language.

The visual cue of the textbook signals to Jim that he has seen this girl before. She is in his lecture, weekday afternoons. He knows nothing else of her, except that now she appears to be a driveling idiot, but there is hardly an opportunity to dwell on that in the present moment. There is barely enough time between the girl's question and the boy's answer for Jim to mutter quietly, “Ah, the art student's favorite question. It will be interesting to see what this kid comes up with.”

The boy's answer is immediate and intentional.

"I plan to help others see what they are missing."

The sincerity of his response leaves an odd flavor in the air, as if what he has said, and what she had expected him to say, have become opposing forces, wrestling above the table between them and effectively bringing an end to their conversation. It would have been too perfect for someone to have actually coughed in that moment, but in Jim’s mind, in this little reminiscence, someone coughs, and the stalemate silence is broken. In reality, the inciting sound was the bell on the hill, tolling the hour.

"I have to go.” she explains, grabbing her bag, standing, and turning toward the door. "But it was nice meeting you, Rob. Thank you for the coffee, and… good luck, with… everything." She blunders off carting a sort of saved-by-the-bell attitude, pausing only momentarily to acknowledge the un-invited spectator.

"Good morning, Dr. Bentley, see you in class later." She mutters, inclining her head, and clutching her book tighter, as if to say, I have been studying for your class, so give me good marks, no matter what my actual performance.

In the matter of fairness, one must acknowledge that it is only in these re-creations that Jim has time to analyze the girl's body language. At the time, he’d thought nothing of her book, or the way she held it. Only in these moments of reflection does he realize that because she had lost the argument for science, she had left him with a bitter gnawing sensation that could only be interpreted to one end: he was ashamed to call himself her professor.

It must have been her acknowledgement of him that made the younger man turn to appraise Jim as well. Whatever the catalyst for the analysis, we must watch on to see how it plays out.

Rob nods in an unfamiliar salute and then smiles openly. The smile is all frankness, doling out understanding, not asking for it in return. Jim finds it smug beyond all reason.

"You must be a man of science yourself." the boy speaks, uninvited, but not necessarily unexpected, or (difficult as it is for Jim to acknowledge it) unwanted.

"I am."

"And what did you think of my speech, or didn't you hear it?"

"I heard it."

"And..."

"What?"

"What do you think of me?"

"You want the truth?" Jim spits, and then without waiting for an answer, delivers one of his self-termed 'blows'. "Good, because I always give it. I think you're just another damned idealist."

So clever is he, he hardly has to think before speaking. His opinions are quick to form and slow to waiver. Jim has turned around without waiting for, or wanting a response from the overly eager student. Silence returns to the little room, as it is still too early for much of a rush. The professor promptly finishes his coffee, reads three chapters of his book and gathers his things to leave before his spiteful adrenaline allows him to look again at the table where the younger man sits. Jim has begun to suspect that the lad has escaped out the back way to avoid walking past his table, but finds himself mistaken; for there Rob is, still sitting in his chair, scrawling in a black pocket notebook, pausing every few moments to glance in the direction of the older man and then back down again.

"What are you doing, young man?" Jim snarls, already suspecting the answer.

"Sketching you."

Were anyone walking behind Jim, just now, as he storms out of the cafe, they may be startled to hear him repeating the words "damned idealist" over and over, as though he can use his heated words to warm the raw air that claims him as he steps into an outside world—a world slavishly at its task, dressing itself in a cold, damp, dirty layer of autumn fog.

Again, to be continued... thanks for reading.

A Short Piece of Fiction-- The Idealist [Part One]

I have been meaning to post this story in sections for months now. I actually started writing it over a year ago, and I feel that the time has come. Not because it's ready, but because I want to post it. I guess nothing else really matters.
I guess the hesitance before now was born of the realization that I haven't written a completely fictional piece of prose since I was about 13, and that was... yeah.... not good.
Anyway, I have a lot of reservations and hesitations, but I feel the wait is over.

Only 2 disclaimers (skimmed down from the 83 or so I had planned originally):
1. It is a bit of a darker piece. Not that there are rotting bodies, or psychopathic killers... nothing like that, but it's not exactly light-hearted. So, I warned you.
2. I decided, sort of last minute (aka 3 months ago) that I was going to change it from past tense into a present tense, third person, omniscient narrator. That was quite the task, and now I'm doing some research on google where many sources say not to do that.... oops? Too late?
Oh well, here goes nothing, more parts to follow:

The Idealist
by Katie C. Nielson

Jim grasps a can of something from the fridge, fumbles it open, and sits down to his Sunday evening ritual. The stack is bigger tonight than usual, he thinks. Mind you, whether or not there are more letters than usual is entirely beside the point. Jim always sees them grow exponentially, week after week. Some would call it absurd, he thinks of it more as a—well—a labor of love.

James Bentley can best be described as 'basically professorial' in his own right, which is all right and proper. Neither of a portly, nor a gangly nature, he has a medium build, and hair that has long since past the point of only slightly gray. Unlike most Americans, who weep into their pillows at night when they think of looking older, Jim has the blessing of seeing it for the chemical process that it is; a process that is not to be combated. Besides, it makes no difference what he is beginning to look like; he still doles out nearly impossible exams, hoards good marks like a miser, and rarely gives praise. One can do this, he occasionally reasons to himself, wrinkles or no wrinkles.

Enough of Jim! he will not like this talk of his visual deficiencies . He will not mind us, however, getting back to the letters. It must be observed that Jim always takes special delight in reading the letters specifically addressed to Rob Smith. The ones meant for Rob catch his attention because they are written either by those who have somehow not heard the news, or by those who refuse to acknowledge the news as irrevocably true. Perhaps the two camps are born of the same kind of misinformation. To Jim, at any rate, they represent an unhealthy dose of the insane—an insanity which is, naturally, always to be diverting.

The professor shudders in a near-mirthful manner as he sets about his task. Mind, this mirth is not sprung as much from a delight in the general stupidity of the human race (the only animal in the world that craves to ascribe meaning to the most meaningless of rituals), as it is from knowing that such an ascribing is the sort of thing that Rob would have delighted in, had he any opportunity to read the letters; which, of course, he hadn't.

Dear Mr. Smith, the first one begins, It may seem strange that I am writing you this letter, though I know you will never read it.

Wagging his head, Jim makes some comment to himself about the banality of the writer’s supposedly novel idea. Keep in mind that our study has long-since smothered into submission that little twinge of uneasiness one usually experiences in speaking to oneself, and that we will find him commenting regularly on what he reads within the reams of paper that threatened to obscure his desk entirely. For now, he adjusts his glasses and continues reading:

But I feel I must congratulate you on all of the hurdles you have crossed in order to perpetuate your ideals through your art.

Jim slights as though bit by some small pest or another. Why? I will tell you. It is because the author of this letter has employed an interesting vocabulary: "art" and "ideals". Jim is not capable of hearing those words neutrally, as much as he may wish to. To him, the genesis of these terms can be traced back to an abnormally brisk September morning, a morning to which his mind leaps at intervals, irretrievably. He has long-since learned that these memories have to be allowed to replay, whether he likes it or not. For if aborted, they leave a dissonance behind that hangs heavy in his sparse apartment, like a deadweight threatening a mutiny, not to be dispelled until he has retraced and played them through. You will have to excuse him then, as he attends this business. For, you see, it cannot be helped.

There he goes now! In his mind he is gone back to that September morning, where in the university's oldest coffee shop, he had first met the boy whose mail he has now become so accustomed to reading.

.......

To be continued.

Thanks! Comments welcome, if you'd like!