You {Me}-- A Study: Confidence

I had saved that voice-mail on my phone for quite a while. The one where you were laughing so hard it took you a few tries to say what you were trying to say.

"It's not really a big deal, just call me when you can because I have a really funny story to tell you, and I know YOU'LL appreciate it."

I called you when I got off work and we had a great laugh together. It WAS a funny story, complete with an untimely google search and a certain someone. It was not the kind of story I would have had the guts to relate to anyone, and I was surprised you were willing to tell me. Surprised and grateful. Grateful for your confidence--for your letting me in. I need to be let in. To me it is proof that others have confidence in me. It gives ME confidence in me.

I know this little vignette may be a strange way to point out that you have confidence in yourself and in turn inspire it in others. Yet, that is where the truth lies; that confidence is in your make-up--the very fiber of your being.

Thank you for sharing it with me that day, but all of the others, before and after. I am profoundly grateful.

You {Me}--A Study: Spontaneity

What better place to start these strollings-down-memory-lane than on BYU campus?

My memories of this night are general: like boiling something down to its essence. As I boil, I pause to ponder the strangeness of it: this was a whole day in my life. I woke up that morning, and probably did not want to get out of bed. I probably had a few things on my plate that I wished weren't there. I probably interacted with several hands-full of people, did homework, put on makeup, ate three meals, combed my hair, picked up the apartment. I do not remember what time of year it was, or what was going on in my life, though I might presume that I was wandering campus to stave off some pending sense of insanity. So many problems that drove me to that fountain, and I continue to find myself there from time to time. Perhaps this instance--or worse, this day-- would have been forgotten,

had you not called.

"Where are you?" you asked.

A few minutes later, there you were, with a little snack, just to say hey.

I don't remember whose idea it was, but before long the two of us had peeled off our socks and began wading in the fountain. I'm sure that at the time I had some sense of "we're not supposed to be doing this." but did it really matter? We were just two friends, eating a snack, chatting, wading, unwinding. Life is serious enough, but what is really serious is living a whole day without doing one thing memorable.

Thank you for saving that day for me, packaged neatly as this snippet of a memory. Thank you for that little reminder to not to let myself turn the page over to a new day without putting a bit of red pencil on the one just completed. While we're on the subject of thanks, I think that said day thanks you as well.

You {Me}-- A Study-- Project Kick-Off

I once attended a church meeting.
Not news.
But this one in particular changed my life.
There was a guy there, not one I knew well, or have seen much since, though I run into him every now and again. He's a talented artist--one of those people you take an interest in, because they take such an interest in the world, you can't help but be drawn to that.
Anyway, he said something that day that I will never forget:

"I know God loves me because of the people he put in my life."

He said it, and I sat there, and let it sink in;
and it just kept sinking,
and sinking,
and sinking,
in the way that only such indelible truths can.
This project is a culmination of that, and it's going to be called:

You {Me}-- A Study

I just posted this on my Facebook:

I have decided to start a blogging PROJECT, with YOU as my subject. I have been thinking about this for a while... Your part: like and/or comment on this status. My part: I will write a blog post about a memory I have with you. I will try and write it so that only you and me will know what the memory is. I will link each post to my facebook page, but I will never disclose who you are. Not to worry, I won't write embarrassing and/or overly-personal stories.

If you read this here instead of there, feel free to comment on this post as well, and I will do the same for you.

While I realize that these posts will be interesting to those who I will write about, don't be fooled by some pretense of benevolence. I am doing this for myself. I want to explore what made me, me--the ways that people have influenced and shaped my life. This is deeply personal to me, and will probably end up saying much about how I view the world and other people, but I'm not planning on being libelous, so don't be afraid to let me in.

Think about it, the moment after we are born, our whole lives begin to take shape in relation to those around us. Thus "No man is an island" continues to be true, and will ever be true as long as God loves us-- which is a very long time indeed.

{Insert some Zen saying about how we come to be, only in our relation to others... anyone know any good ones? I tried to write one and pass it off as a legit proverb, but I don't have the patience now.}

I just took a look at the growing number of comments and "likes" on Facebook. This is going to be H-A-R-D.
Pretty much all the most worth-it things are.
I can't wait.

"We Deserve to Know Light": On Desire

Every time in the last few weeks I have clicked the fateful "New Post" button, the window has sat open and unused on my desktop until the urge to write has leaked away and I close it again. I am not entirely sure what has kept me from writing since this fateful month began. Something about the overwhelming sense of trying to complete one horrific chapter of your life, and the feeling that you cannot write about it until you've finished living it.

It has not exactly been a secret that I recently quit my job. Hmmm... "Quit my job". I feel that is not strong enough. I didn't recently "quit my job", I recently escaped a 2-ton death trap rolling down a steep embankment at breakneck speeds.

Ok, that is overly-dramatic.

And so is THIS, only, it's beautiful:

"So enough of this terror, we deserve to know light, and grow evermore lighter and lighter. You would have seen me through, but I could not undo that desire." -Joanna Newsom "Sawdust and Diamonds"

I know, that song is getting to be more and more frequently quoted here. One would think I was obsessed. One would KNOW I was obsessed. Ok. I am obsessed.

But aren't those words....just...? Well, there are no words. Just feelings. That feeling of an absolute determination to find happiness, that will not rest no matter how hard we try to be content with current circumstances.

I went to church with my parents this last week--having been a vagabond for quite some time, appearances at random church services is becoming a more frequent practice in my life. One gentleman there addressed the congregation and focused his remarks on desire, and what shows true desire in our lives, thereby proving our sincerity. Action proves sincerity. Words mean so little. It is something life reminds us of time and time again, urging: do not listen to what people say as much as you watch what they do.

When someone has a sincere desire to do something, they do it.

As usual, such blanket statements don't work 100% of the time. Just because a blind woman may desire to drive, it does not mean that she ever will.

So how do we know if the things we desire could ever become reality? Well, we take a chance. We throw off whatever it is in life that can be deemed "this terror", asserting that "we deserve to know light", and we acknowledge that anything that is below the standard of what we desire "[could] have seen [us] through" had it not been for that desire. Desire is a God-given gift. It is a tool for change. It saves us from mediocrity and banality. It ultimately saves us from Hell.

I don't know about you, but I need plenty of saving.

There are a few things I learned about being an adult from this experience.
If you hate something about your life:
1. Decide whether or not it can be changed. If it can be changed, change it.
2. If it cannot be changed, learn to live with it. (Keeping in mind that if you obstinately say, 'It can't be changed.' when it really can, you will have a very difficult time learning to live with it.)

Go find some happiness, everyone.

Welcome Autumn, Welcome Creativity

My instinct tonight is to go on a tirade, that could only end in the saying something akin to "And this is me....being... a TYRANT!"

Yet... I don't know. Complaining gets so old sometimes. In reality, aren't things OK on some level? I think so.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who is an artist. He finished up a very large graphic design project about a month ago, and he was telling me how he's felt artistically drained ever since the experience, and now needs to rest up before he can create again. That was a very intuitive conversation. I always look at myself as the creative type, and yet, I don't create much. Why is that? What worries me so? What shuts me up? What makes me feel creative? Or uncreative? I will just answer the penultimate question for now, and save the others for another time.

I think I have made it quite clear on more than one occasion that music inspires me a great deal. Perhaps it is time for a different conversation. Other things inspire me as well. Today is September 1st, and the fall is my favorite season. There are moments, at this time of the year, when I feel as though my soul will break through my skin and escape, uninhibited and care-free, into some "Goldengrove unleaving", where it would be free to commune with all of the greats for eternity. Yet, I must beg it not to go, for I need it terribly. I couldn't do without it all together, I am sure.

I think I am inspired by inspiration. Perhaps it makes more sense to say that I think that the creativity of others inspires creativity in me. The way that some women look at designer blogs for inspiration on re-decorating their houses, I listen to music, read poetry/prose, watch films/videos etc. to inspire me to some action--any action, really, outside of the mundane of the everyday. I take it back. I even sometimes find myself inspired to some greatness/creativity in something that belongs almost strictly to the everyday. The creativity of God also inspires my own creativity on so many occasions. What poet can say that they have not felt inspired by some scene of nature? Nature is probably one of the most over-worked cliches there is in the world of poetry and art in general, and yet, it remains. People can forgive the repetitiveness of a theme, if that theme can be termed "God's canvass". I, for one, can certainly forgive it. I think it is wise of us to give nature a chance in our art, no matter how many times it fails from overuse, there are always those moments when an artist captures the essence so perfectly, it is as though we have opened the leaves of some old book in which we once laid a flower to press, and find that it had rooted and blossomed again within the pages, that now it thrives and feeds only on the words written there, to some new life.

When I first started my undergraduate degree (over four years ago now, I can hardly fathom it) I read, loved, wept over, and eventually memorized the following poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I wrote two papers on it, the second of which may have been a small instance of self-plaigarism (who knew that existed?) and I do not believe I received a high mark on either of those papers. In retrospect I care so little about anything I had to say there. I'm sure it was utter nonsense, and my professors were probably generous with their grading.

If I were a choral conductor, I would arrange this into a masterwork. Its creativity would fuel mine and I would draw from it with miserly glee.

Spring and Fall to a Young Child

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow's springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

I mourn for her too. I wish she could go on believing life to be as she wishes it were. But, for now, all is well. She is blissfully unaware, and can only catch glimpses of what is to come. Dark, perhaps, but I see the redemption in it. It certainly inspires me. I think I'll quit my job. Or perhaps just write my own poem on fall. I am sure it would be rubbish to the utmost degree, but one would have to forgive me, if we didn't all try it, no one would have succeeded in it. That would have been a shame of the utmost kind.

On the similar vein, (or perhaps it merely seems connected, in my state of utter exhaustion) I am reminded of an evening in late spring when I had plans to attend a concert in Salt Lake City. It was one of those rare occasions where you end up with tickets to a concert you would not have typically known of, but subsequently become very enthusiastic about. Somehow, the evening of this concert, we got a late start and were not able to make it in the doors before they closed them. I was moderately upset about this, as the concert was to be the world premier of the "Double Concerto for Violin and Viola," by Paul van Brugge as performed by the Orchestra at Temple Square. Luckily, they were broadcasting it at the theatre on the grounds, so we were able to experience it on some level from that location. It is curious, in retrospect-- I remember aspects of that evening so well-- yet, If I heard the concerto playing right now, having heard it only once, I would not know it from any other. That night, sitting there yards from the actual concert venue, I could feel the energy of the performance envelope me so entirely that it drove me to tears. I can only imagine what the reaction would have been had I been in the actual concert hall. Eventually, we thought it a good idea to leave the theatre a few minutes before the concerto ended, to ensure we could have the chance to enter the actual tabernacle during intermission.

In doing so, we learned that the building does a fairly good job at keeping the sound inside of itself. Consequently, the end of the performance was experienced visually, more than aurally. I remember so clearly, the way my eyes were fixed, light diffused, through those little panes, as I rested my elbows on that window ledge and drank that performance in until every last drop was gone, the conductor's baton up and down, the movement of the instruments, the performers, somewhat rhythmic, yet independent, building, climbing, hints of the music being produced, some of the louder chords piercing through--

then my eyes perceive silence....

applause breaking that silence....

applause breaking my worship.

Worship. Worship of God, of art, of creativity, of beauty, of truth, of love.

I think that may have been one of the most poignant evenings of my entire life. Creativity inspires creativity? You see, it seems I must produce.

Would you know this scene, had I not described it? Do we always need description in prosaic terms? If you want to convey a scene or a detailed story, add words. It might be said that modern tradition (is that a useful term?) and most definitely Eastern tradition tell us that if we want to convey a feeling, remove words, pack them in, pare them down. I've a long way to go before I have learned to do it artfully. Bear with me, please.

Dusty windowpanes:

Glass drowning sound--deflecting

music to my eyes

I don't feel I've captured it. Give me time, I will keep working on that one. I think it merits work.

I think I merit work.

I think I need some sleep.

Music

I want to write music.
To capture those glimpses of feeling,
Always something not entirely obtainable.
Like a bird you befriend,
Flying in and out at random,
Delighting the senses with its coming--
Feeling the rise and fall in your breast
When it nears and fars--
Ever maintaining its independence.

Not because it does not want to be with you,
But because it was born to fly.

As by its very nature it must leave you,
(and you learn to envy it for that freedom)
So gravity laughs and believes she's triumphed
When the sun slips, and swells, and smolders,
Only to rise again.

She, like thee, belongs to gravity,
But maintains ever constant her dominance--
She lives for her responsibility--
And, in turn, the earth responds to her every movement.

Day in, day out.
Rain, sleet, storm, she burns through them still
Blinding, bonding, searing hot;
And renders you speechless with her awful majesty.

You sit still and ponder them both,
Hugging your knees tight to your chest--
Just breathing, you thank them for their lessons;
Listening, you strain to hear that humming:
That thrumming, thriving, inter-connectedness of all things.
That Music.

Is This Real Life?: David After the Dentist, Existentialism, and Living Inside a Vacuum

I did a little break check last night on the freeway. The person driving in front and to the left of me gave me this lovely opportunity by coming over into my lane and then proceeding to quickly come to a stand-still for no apparent reason. I learned a few things in that moment. a) My breaks do, in fact, work. b) There is nothing quite as surreal as that moment of pure silence when you first slam on the breaks and see that you're not stopping fast enough. c) That the surrealism only increases in intensity from there, for the harder you press, the more deafening that silence is--until it gives way to that hideous, ear-splitting screech.

I learned that either that screech will be followed by more silence, meaning you are saved, or it will be followed by the sound of shattering glass and crunching metal, and you'll want them to carry you away on a stretcher because you just bought the car last weekend, and it's your first one, and... the world can't be that cruel.

Anyway. No breaking glass. We were fine. But the experience was sort of indicative of all of life right now. There has been the most terrible karma going around lately. Cars going in ditches; accidentally driving without license plates, insurance, or a driver's license; people going to jail and getting hideous divorces; insurance being randomly revoked; ex-lovers coming out of nowhere; psychotic and abusive X-husbands ruining people's lives; driving to Elmo instead of Manti; being homeless; siblings falling off the wagon... I could go on forever. Please keep in mind, not all of these things have happened to me personally, but one so often feels the weight of the troubles of those one loves, and so the karma that affects one does seem to affect the whole. "One bad apple spoils the bunch."

This morning my roommates and I had to watch something to lift our spirits. There was a terrible mood over the entire apartment. No one slept well. I was too hot, so eventually I had to open a window, and subsequently had my ear-drums blasted out all night by the sound of passing trains. Not that I don't like the sound of passing trains-- on the contrary, I love it. But it seemed the last straw. Perhaps it may only suffice to say that this morning brought with it the despondent feeling that one had "stayed up all night playing hopscotch."

So the three of us sat around in our "Mac Lab" as we affectionately call it, and watched You Tube's infamous "David After the Dentist". As we watched, I thought: that is philosophy. That is an existential crisis. That is beautiful.

And I couldn't help but want to write about it.

Do you know that feeling that life has taken on a new flavor? I actually hate it--that transition between the old, familiar, and the new, undecided. It is as though the last two months of my life have been one giant page turn and I've been lost in that shuffle; trying to paste together the little scraps I have salvaged and saved, in order to make something of sense and order. Really I just want to ask, as David did, "Why is this happening to me? Is this real life?" and, like David, scream wordlessly at the injustice and insanity of it all. It's Waiting for Godot. It's living inside a vacuum. It's waiting for an open window, and it's as stifling as these last few August days have been.

So, we seek redemption. We seek the other perspective on the story. There has to be that fatherly-figure in the background, unseen, reassuring and answering the question, "is this going to be forever?" with a little chuckle and a simple, "No. No, it won't be forever." The father who knows why his child is going through what he is going through, and knows that things will get better soon.

What to do? Be patient, and wait, and try to change the things that I can change, and forget about the things that I cannot. Try to be grateful that we didn't hit the car in front of us, and that AAA has roadside assistance, and that I have the faculties, resources, and health to help me to find better situations for myself.

In the meantime, I un-apologetically declare, along with David's dad, that "This is real life". Every moment one lives is "real life" and I hate any paradigm that seeks to destroy the necessity of every moment--the sanctity of every moment-- in a real life. Every flavor, every experience-- jealousy, anger, elation, boredom, frustration, fear, anguish, angst, foolishness, nostalgia, love, passion, pain and pleasure-- has a place in "real life". But, we may rest-assured that anything that "feels funny" or that makes us feel like we "can't see anything" won't be forever. We have to believe that eventually we will turn a page, walk into a new room, taste a new flavor; we'll "pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in."

"Oh what a beautiful view", my friends. God willing, it will be sooner than later.