"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.

The President's House

I am fully aware that the title of this post is fairly dramatic.
This is not a political commentary. Indeed, it is not even about "The White House" or its policies as of late. I just wanted to ramble for a moment before calling it a day, going to bed, getting up, and starting all over again (with 55 voice-mails to return first thing).
On Sunday, as church let out, I bid farewell to my cousin who had to stay to an after-the-block meeting. I stepped outside, with the intent of heading immediately home and was promptly inspired to change my course by a surprisingly pleasant breeze. The term "surprisingly pleasant" can rarely be applied to August days in UT, so I had to take advantage. I headed north instead of south and began wandering familiar pathways. I stopped in to visit my favorite campus building, deriving the most impractical pleasure from the satisfying clamor my heels made in the wide, tiled, light-infused hallways, in all their vaulted glory. I watched the small groups of people in the courtyard, about their own business, and felt quite un-purposefully fulfilled.
I eventually (unconsciously) made my way to the "Former President's Home" on campus. I believe that the Hollands were the last ones to live there. I have never been inside, though I would probably be welcome to go in now that it has been demoted from a living, breathing home to some Graduate Studies building or other. The back gate was open, so I wandered into the back yard and sat decidedly on a stone bench, facing the back side of the house. As I sat there, pondering its understated beauty and enjoying the shade, I slipped into a sort of reverie that left me with the strange feeling that I was lost in someone else's memories for a time. Memories of some time unknown to me, and people equally, if not more-so, unknown.
Then I noticed the tree. Rather, I noticed its branches, and how close to the roof and a window some of them stretched. I imagined some young soul standing in that window, getting up some scheme to escape some tyrannical great-aunt. After all, doesn't everyone with such a tree and a window have a tyrannical great-aunt? I was so entertained by the thought, I did the only thing I know to do on such occasions... I snapped a picture on my cell phone. Then I used my hand to block out the signs of all other civilization for a while, and I took in this one thing as long as I dared stay in such a state of self-indulgent day-dreaminess. When the moment was passed, I headed home, where I fell onto the couch and into a fitful nap--dreaming of that great house, with all its promises of great-aunts and great childish schemes.
I suppose I may as well admit, as I have gone this far already, that I did not dream of the aunt as much as I dreamt of myself, living there, in some quasi-horrifically, unrealistic future scenario. I dreamt up the very most idiotically impossible life-plot in my head, and shamelessly reveled in it for quite some time, falling in and out of some other dream that I don't remember now. The details were hazy at the time, and in retrospect I remember very little, except that there was a small group of young children, in some never-ending state of childhood happiness, playing with a garden hose, oblivious to the hustle-bustle of the students walking past the stone fence. Some of the particulars were quite specific, but the feeling was simply "home" where everything you could ever need is all together, and can be perfect in an "old Polaroid photograph" sort of way. Luckily for my sanity, the nap was cut short by the entrance of cousin with news of some impending visitor and I was forced to snap out of it.
I cannot say whether or not I had a happy childhood, for I am unsure. I did in that I had plenty of siblings to play with, and though we fought in turn, we loved each-other more often than we were annoyed with one another. I can say that the over-arching feeling I have when I look back on my childhood is one of a longing to get out, and to be free to make my own choices. This feeling has always been with me, as dependent of a soul as I can be at times. I fear my own choices, and yet long for them in the wildest way. As though I were afraid that if I jumped off of the cliff, my wings wouldn't work after all. They are constructed rather shoddily I fear. Can't get too close to the sun or the sea, and I wish to taste both of them.
So for now I stay on the edge of the cliff, and dream of that little house, its perfect escape tree; those three little children, mud on their socks, grass in their hair; the sound on the front step that tells me he's home; and I try to work it all in to some future reality. For now, the reality is the 50 voice mails, and the kitchen table with the varnish wearing off, impending homelessness and the promise of a new day tomorrow, with no mistakes in it. Yet, give me a few hours and I can fix that in short-order.
Might I implore my reader not to do me the dis-honor of thinking that I am one of "those women" who thinks that once you are married and have children, everything is suddenly perfect. I have six married siblings, and over 15 nieces and nephews. I have five younger siblings, and was babysitting since I was old enough to do so. Almost all of my closest friends are married, and many of them have children. I realize it's not perfection. It's just perfection in the making. It's just godhood in the making. It's just the point of our very existence.
What is my job? Just something to get me through the days. Something to ward off impending insanity, pay the bills, "teach me something", prepare me for some career-based future that I hope and pray does not exist, etc.
I went to school to be a better person. Not to get a job. I do not want to "work" in the way that the world has termed "work". I want to work in my divine-given capacity. I want to make the biggest difference I could in the world, by starting where it matters most.
When I have children, I hope they get up schemes, and I hope they get mud in their hair, and I hope I lose my mind with how difficult it is. For then I will have lost it over something worth losing one's mind for.
Law firm: You're not worth it. Sorry.

On Ingratitude, Birds, and Wires

Today was a long day. The professional phrase "What are you talking about?" almost escaped my lips several times. You would think I'd learned more self control by now. OK. Tomorrow I will do better. I have decided that I have an interesting character flaw. That is, that I am a guilt ridden human being. I mean, is it really necessary to put myself through months of torture? I'm worried about work most of the time I'm at home, about what's going to happen with this or that client. You would think I would be past that by now. Today I think I only heard about every tenth word for each phone call I was on. I guess that some days are better than others. At least that's what reason tells me, per experience. I suppose that Life, liberty and the pursuit of Social Security benefits has me frustrated. I should just give up. My poor clients, they really don't comprehend all that they put me through. But, you know, that is how life goes. That's the very reason why it is important to put yourself in another's shoes. You're positive you have it hard, then someone who does not have what you have crosses your path, and then in that small moment you hate yourself, simply because their trouble is so horrific-- and then you cry, because you are so supremely grateful for your own misery, and then you vow to never complain again, and you vow that if you do God may smite you for ingratitude. Yet I always go back to that ingratitude. If only we could always remember--now and forever turn our heads and fix our eyes on what we have, and forget about everything that we don't need, and remember that so often "I" is unimportant. Oh what a bright, blessed day that would be. But for now, we go on. It's just you and me, dear reader. Pressing forward under all that must be accomplished each and every day. I want to believe that one day I'll get it right. That the "me" and "I" will stop meaning so much.
For now hopefully only comprehending every tenth word is good enough, and you might think you'd do better. If so, you don't get it. That's the point of life--the point of this.

On the same subject, but a different note, I have long since found a connection to my job in a song from an inventive, little-known artist. Radical Face's song "Glory" was written for me and my job, I am self-center-edly sure of it.

"A bird, caught in the wires
Pleading for help I can't provide, I'm not that big
I hope for the best but nothing changes, I'm sorry"

So, to all of my client's who will never read this. I am sorry. I wish I could change things. I wish I could fix things.

But that's another purpose of life. To see all of the big things we are too little to fix. To see all of the thousands of reasons that we need God.

Tens of thousands.
May He forgive me my constant, daily ingratitude.