February Night

I should be asleep.

Shouldn't we all?

I have work tomorrow.

Don't I always?

You know that moment when you wake up and all of the things that you have to do rush at you in such a dreadfully overwhelming manner that it makes the end of the world look like a pleasant alternative?

I had one of those moments today. Only, it was fake.

It's been a long week, and it's only the first week of the new job. But, I got off early, so I thought, "I have time to go home and take a nap!" I popped some pills like candy, set my alarm and fell asleep. I did not wake up to my alarm, I woke up to my own mental grasping for those last sleeping moments. It was as though that blurry line between sleep and wake short- circuited my brain and I thought, "I've got to get to work. I've got to ask so and so for their social security number so I can put it in my system."

Then I realized that it was 6:14 pm. I was supposed to be leaving for SLC at 6:15. Needless to say, boy had to wait a while for me to slap myself, try to wake up and figure out my situation.

When I finally came to, I was overcome with pure joy that it was Friday night, that I was with him, and that I could mentally tell all of the clients to go tell their social security numbers to their dogs, or their mothers, or...yeah.

There is nothing like a well-earned break.

Nothing.

I've missed that.

So thank you, new job, for reminding me what it is like to go out and forget about the "day to day". It's been a while since I've had a "day to day" to forget about.

Mostly, thank you boy.

Sawdust and Diamonds

I always said I would do it. So now that I am, I can't help but think about all of the people who have tried to get me to join them on this venture over the past three years, and I have to laugh as I recall the array of responses and excuses I have given out. This time I have decided myself to do it. So when I stop panting, and sit down facing away from the mountain, I know why I have felt it a necessary ritual to perform the night before graduation. Before me is all of the valley, from campus onward, stretching, expansive in all directions. For a few minutes, not a word is spoken between me and my dear friend. She has been more than willing to help me to see, just once, what she has seen so many times herself--this view.

It is Thursday, August 12, 2010 sometime in the evening just before sunset. Tomorrow is the day I have been waiting for since I first began my University experience. At times I have looked forward to it with bright anticipation, at other times with a nostalgia that has left an incurable ache. Whatever the emotions have been before, they are all replaced in this moment with a serene gratitude, and a sense of awe for all things bigger than myself.

Sitting with my back toward the mountain, I take a moment to look behind me. The future is still rocky, unknown, untrod, exhilarating and wondrous. The past is my ally in this moment, my companion to tread into that future and make of it what will come. So I remember, and try not to feel guilty for it. Just for a few moments, I will let myself live in the past, while the sun slips out on the day as it has for eons, and then I will move forward.

I see a girl of seventeen, wide eyed and terrified, stepping out of a car, mumbling "pray for me" to her concerned father, and starting up a hill to some unknown destination. I see that same girl, gaining in confidence, walking up that same hill a thousand times over. Snow, rain, shine, sleet, hail, with or without a coat, an umbrella, a backpack, books, bags and boots. Walking up with a thousand worries, and down again with a million others. A never-ending cycle of problems and solutions. Then I see her stop to talk with a friend, someone she met in a class, and has not seen in some time. I see a stranger wave and say hello, a ward member asking "is there anything I can do for you?" and a best friend with an unexpected hug. The people on this hill make a difference every day, as only people can. 30,000 other people with similar hopes and struggles, working toward the same goals under the influence of hope and faith, rather than the influence of last night's questionable activities.

I see that same girl walking into classroom after classroom, one lecture hall after another, struggling to make sense of each lecture, of each course, and of the relevance of the information to the outside world. I see a myriad of professors: Biology, Human Development, Political Science, Spanish, Film, Humanities, Physical Sciences, Philosophy, Religion and others, bearing sincere testimonies of God, teaching of moral responsibility to others, to country, to the world around us. I see groups of students singing sacred hymns, sharing personal insights and experiences, as well as lecture notes, study guides, and a listening ear.

Then I see her walking through the front door of an apartment and sitting down to a meal made by a roommate and best friend who greets her with an enthusiastic "How was your day?". There are many roommates, in fact. They vary from year to year, but always the feeling is the same: interest, understanding, care and concern. They write notes of encouragement, laugh often, clean kitchens, give massages, talk late into the night when needed and then get up and do it all again the next day. They do not do these things because they have time. They do them because they make time.

Then she is on campus again, up the hill, past the people. She walks to the Marriott center on a Tuesday morning and hears inspired counsel from a prophet of the Lord; the next week, enlightening and knowledgeable words from a dean or professor. There are concerts and lectures--celebrations of culture, languages, and peoples. I see groups of peers performing at random intervals on campus, the epic "Quill and the Sword" club with their capes. There are art exhibits, service rallies, and quiet nighttime walks with no one else around, the day's tasks complete, and plenty of time to walk, think, and puddle jump.

Was it all this way? No. For every precious diamond that exists on the earth, there are handfuls of sawdust to match. There are professors who do not listen, there are department chairs who demand unfair grading procedures. There are people on campus who give judging glances, and whisper to those around them. There are ward members who will do anything to get ahead socially. But when all is said and done, I can do without the sawdust. The overall flavor is triumph, and the overall message is hope and a quiet understanding with which to move about life.
"And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever." -Mosiah 18:30

The girl walking up the hill that first day is not the one who sits on the mountainside now. She knows too much to be the same girl. So forgive her if she takes it personally when she hears people speak negatively about this place. They cannot possibly know, who have not seen what I now see, looking back toward the valley in the last moments before the sun falls into nothingness. Then it is gone, and I smile, stand up, and turn around. For "I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep."

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.