so this is christmas, 2010

Christmas time is here. We'll be drawing near. Oh, that we could always see such spirit through the year.  They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace. I wish I had a river I could skate away on. When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn't really feel like Christmas at all.  Through the years, we all will be together if the fates allow.  But til then, we'll just have to muddle through somehow.  I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

A thrill of hope--the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.  Hail the heav'n born Prince of Peace, hail the Son of Righteousness.  Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. We see him come, and know him ours, who, with his sunshine and his showers, turns all the patient ground to flowers.  Some children see Him dark as they, and ah! they love Him too.  God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.  The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.


What can I give him, poor as I am?  If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

gorgeouis

saw this video on a blog and had to share.


Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

'don't for a minute change the place you're in'

well, i'm not the biggest john mayer fan, but lately (today) i have been major diggin one of his songs.


i think i like it because i've been thinking about age. age is one of my fave topics to think about, probably because it's tied up in death and time and change--my other fave topics.

today, i watched the world from the dry side of a windshield splattered with rain, and i had one of those "everyone else on the planet accepts this as common knowledge except you" moments: i realized i'm not getting younger. i don't mean this in the typical way, which is a resentment or denial of aging--i mean that i'm on a track that only goes one direction. in other words, i realized i am moving steadily (can you believe how reliable time is!) towards the end of a unique experience (life), and every moment is a new territory that won't come round again. this is a revelation i can't share or even translate, but i'll try anyway because if i don't (and if you don't, in your own way), we'll understand each other less.

i was about to say that i'm in this stage of life where i always feel part lost and part found, but then i realized that is likely to be true for the rest of time unless and maybe even if i work really hard on my foundness.

that's what i think life is for: finding and being found. ('did i find you or did you find me?')

the point of the lost/found bit is that i sometimes wrongly think that circumstance will make me found (if only i was graduated or married or had a "real life" job or lived abroad or had a house with shelves to hold the things in those boxes that have my name sharpied on the side), and i guess other people think so too because they ask me often what i'm doing with my life as if waking up every day and trying to do better by God and my neighbor humans is not something big.

sister and i had a conversation about this the other day, and do you know why i love my sisters? they remind me that i'm a bird who's built for flying, no matter how much i like the ground. they remind me that it's one thing to be happy where you are and it's another thing to not even try to see somewhere new. now i have fresh dreams of being in the sky riding a steady gust, steady like time, riding like those birds suspended in mid-air with sails for wings.


so, a december toast to the places we're in and a pinky-swear-promise for the places we're going, where we'll honor the places we've been, long ago, and won't return.

another reason to love npr and national geographic

check out this list of the top ten weirdest animals of 2010.  NO WAY, right?  reminds me of the line from the oceans movie: "down here it's like nature has given everything a try."

also, have you been listening to the president lately?  consider it.  here's what he was saying yesterday (interesting audio).  i'm not going to weigh in here, but i can at least promote listening.

another reason to love chuch, formerly known as bro bro

we walk into the library to study together, and next time i look over, chuch has this contraption set up.  whipped it out of his backpack like it ain't no thing and he's mary poppins (who had that extendable bag waaay before hermione.) 

this is only one of several reading stands chuch has created to help him study it up. 

what a guy. next thing you know he'll be making wooden windows for cars.  love chuch!

a questionnaire for readers

there are some things i need to know about you.  i have my reasons for asking, but i don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead. 

1.  without cheating (ie looking it up online, asking a friend, listening to the song), can you fill in the blank to complete the following Beatles' title: "____________ Rigby"?  (i had an andy moment today, but don't worry, i've since remembered.)

2.  if you had the following three choices to hire for your upcoming holiday party, how would you order your preferences?  Remember, they will ONLY play their holiday hits.
    a. Neil Diamond
    b. NSYNC
    c. anyone whose holiday hit list includes "Last Christmas"

3. would you rather live next door to a karate studio or a blockbuster?

4. would you eat DOTS candy under any other circumstance than the world is ending and it's the only food you've got?  please explain. 

5. can you name the movie from which part of my first line is taken? 

6. santa claus is real. 
     true
     false

7. what is your favorite line from the song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch?" (lyrics)

8. have you ever slipped on the ice in front of lots of people and ripped your jeans and had lots of people laugh at you and not help you up?  be honest.

9. are you real?

grateful

who doesn't want to belong?
who doesn't want to have a place where she fits?

i am grateful this year for family in general, for my family in particular, and for my parents especially.  what extraordinary people. i owe them my life and so much happiness.

i am grateful for the details that make people individuals (see marv's shirt above.)  i am grateful for parents with an abundance of personality and a larger than life love for life. and a flare for drama.

how remarkable that i know the equation that equaled me, and that i can look in these two faces that seem to stare right at me in each picture and see myself too! 
isn't it nice to belong? 

(i threw this one in to channel some great leg genes.  go marv!)

darlings, life is such a romance

today was a kickin' day. i was especially grateful because a)it's that time of year and b)the past few days have been kickinthepants days. aka nothing goes right and this is why i can't have nice things and so on. why was today awesome?

1. yesterday i went to the symphony and heard this. i know this happened yesterday, but i am emotionally associative so it was imperative to today's kickinness that yesterday end happy.

2. i got to hang out with lots of women who share my blood. this is always good.

3. i spent most of the day in an actual house, and i spent a nice portion of my time in said house napping.

4. i did something that required guts.

5. it snowed. it really snowed. i have been a little scroogey this holiday season, and not even bad christmas music littering the radio has been able to cheer me up. (as an aside: if you were to compare the ratio of general bad music to general good music with the ratio of bad christmas music to good christmas music, which would win? also, why are so many christmas songs love songs? "the holidays are wherever you are blah blah blah..." i don't hate love--i just think the rest of the year is a good time to celebrate the holidays being wherever you are, and christmas is a great time to celebrate the holidays actually being when and what the holidays are.) anyway, the snow totally cracked me. something about seeing the lights of plows, police cars, and hazards through snow brings the holiday cheer. i think it's because of the nights we'd spend gathered around the window on aloha to watch the cars come slipping by. many a night spent shoveling people out of ditches--it's more nostalgic than egg nog.

6. i went to a totally great concert. i am kind of a stingy standing ovation-er-- perhaps it a pushback against what i think is a (mormon/byu?) hyper impulse to stand every time you're in a performance. no. stand when the performance merits--but i stood so willingly tonight for 'the lower lights,' a hymn revival group. check them out here. and watch this video. aren't they awesome?

Secret Prayer from The Lower Lights on Vimeo.

7. the radio totally hooked a sister up. as i was driving home taking the freeway at 30 mph because of crazy weather without ipod, cd, or tapes, i was at the mercy of the tuner. and i had a solid set of awesome songs between show tunes saturday night on 106.5, some sweet old style christmas jams on 100.3, and classic oldies on 94.1. seriously, never had a moment without a good song. that NEVER happens.

one bad thing amidst the good. i figured out i can't eat candy like i used to. i realized this when i thought, man my stomach hurts real bad--i wonder if it has anything to do with the reeses, sweedish fish, peanut m&ms, chocolate chips, snickers, etc. that i ate in the past twenty minutes. you know, yes, i do think it has something to do with that. dang.

oh me oh my miss apple pie

so last year (or maybe the year before) i tried making apple pie for thanksgiving.  i searched through my photo archives for a picture to show you, but i think i trashed the picture cause it was so ugly.  my pie was a failure. 

i love apple pie.  it makes me very happy.  i want to be able to make apple pie that makes me very happy instead of sicked out. 

do you have any great recipes to share with me? 

p.s. went skiing on friday. it was so choice. how lovely the mountains!

some days call attention to themselves. some days demand a salute.

four years.  i'm marking it here, again; not to remind you, but because time should be recognized, and more importantly, who we become during time should be recognized. 

i am not the same since four years.  these have been wilderness years, and while i can't see how far the sand stretches, i am ready to celebrate my losses.  i am ready to dance for being different. 

we are always learning better to let go.  loss is a possibility, an opportunity, a gift. 

isn't it lovely to live?  aren't we each the luckiest, given a whole heart of our own?

here's a picture of mom on four years:

happy halloweenie through the ages (but in no particular order because that takes too long)

marv wears it so well.

dave (sweet widows peak)

the year dad made my costume. maybe the same year dad blew up the sewing machine.

the year jane made my costume.

she loves.

pirate joanie.

pioneer day, not halloween

queen joanie in a play, not halloween

also not halloween; i just like this picture.

ben

gangsta dave, uncharacteristically not smiling

glimpse

i usually have narrow eyes for myself, but every so very rarely, i get a glimpse into what i could be. 

it happened today.  i was walking across a parking lot in the dark, shuffling the weights on my shoulders (so small as weights go, but so big on my shoulders), looking down, seeing narrowly, and now i can't even tell you where the crack began except to say i saw the perceived dark split open by possibility.  possibility is always light. 

i needed it.  i will hang the moment on my tree of nice things i think of while i fall asleep.  i always reserve the nicest things for just before bed: goals, gifts, my lovely memories, gratitudes. 

when i lived at home, bro bro hung words from my ceiling that used to send me to dream:

ring the bells that still can ring

forget your perfect offering

there's a crack in everything

that's how the light gets through

leonard cohen

 

vicious cycle

i'm overshowering lately, and i don't know how to make it stop.

i am not an every day type of girl. i'm just not. i think showering is a waste of time unless i'm really cold and even then, a blanket might do the trick. i know this is social taboo. i've known this since that conversation i had in the sixth grade when my friend found out with shame a disgust that i showered once a week. no biggie.

even in africa, even when the doctor said we had to shower every day or we'd get boils, i showered once a week because we showered by bucket and there was a gaping hole in the door and it wasn't uncommon for miss anna to walk in on me.

don't judge. or, as is probably more common, judge but hide it.

and because it SNOWED today, here's a pic of alta.

beliefs are the currents we'd grab onto if we had glass hands. instead we let them carry us away.

spent the morning in the mountains, with the rain. got soaked.

i thought about the two funerals i attended this week, and i thought about how both made me want to pedal harder towards the things that matter to me.

i thought about this thing i believe: God is good and goodness is all around.

my eyes learn daily to see a better world.

ps there's snow! on the mountains.

prepare to have your mind blown

i love having bro bro around because he teaches me lots of interesting things. and he gives me a ride to school on the handle bars of his bike on mornings when i'm running late (aka every morning.)

a few nights ago, bro bro and i rendezvoused in the library stairwell for a little science lesson. i wanted to know if the act of seeing leaves a physical trace. bro bro tried his best to explain light and the structure of the eye, but i'm a slow learner and gave up after about ten minutes. thirty minutes later, bro bro sends me the following video and a promise to get back to his own work. cheers to curiosity!

what do you make of this vid? (you have to watch it to the end, but it is totally awesome, even if you're already familiar with the experiment.)

mostly, yes, i take life too seriously. but sometimes life is a serious thing.

i'm in the hospital with nephew.  i peak under his snap jammies and see red on his stomach, a mixture of blood and stitches, covered with tape.  i hold a towel under his mouth as he throws up repeatedly, and he's hardly crying because he doesn't have the extra air, and when he finishes he sticks his thumb back in his mouth and rubs his fingers across his nose.  he doesn't cry.  occasionally he whimpers and reaches for his stuffed monkey, but mostly he is still and silent.  unusual for a two-year-old.

just now i smiled at him and he smiled back, laughed even, and i wonder where his happiness is coming from, what depths or reserves he draws from, or if it is just there, on the surface. 

watching him makes me think of God. how does He look down?

seeing how bravely nephew manages and has managed his whole life, i wonder how capable he is of self-pity: is that something he'll learn as he grows or does he feel it now, that awareness that he is different from other kids, from other people, and why, God, me?  i don't think he does.

 i hope to be more like nephew. 

in other words: i feel blessed beyond my capacity to merit. 

along the lines of identical twins

and "other insights i have that my dad considers stupid:"* have you ever considered how much free toilet paper you use?  besides utilities, can you think of any other good that compares in free usage?

*one time, dad and i were driving past the slc public library and i remarked on how amazing it was that there were only males and females in the world.  there could be like 30 sexes, and there are two.  it was an epiphany.  dad said, "remember that not everything you think is interesting is actually interesting."  noted. 

sundries, again

i rode my bike to school today for the first time since the accident, and i didn't fall off! so i thought i'd share. 


i also want to share this, love of my life: YOGA.  this guy chaz has a free podcast that is totally awesome so i can yogacize in my bedroom whenever i want.  try one.  you'll be hooked. 

also, how crazy are identical twins?  i walked past a pair today, and despite having grown up with identical twins, it struck me today in a totally different way.  maybe because i saw absolutely no difference in their faces, unlike the twins i grew up with.  crazy. 

because that's what kind of day this is

walked to campus early on a fall morning that was reminiscent, obviously, of many like fall mornings. 
reminiscent of paris years ago, and running through blowing leaves to catch the train to school.
listening to radiohead, then and now.

you know how a lot of blogs have that thing they do, like letter writing or following julia child or whatever?  maybe my blog's thing is being obsessed with the seasons, seeing them as the code for meaning in my life, and making the same observations year after year.  "i can't help myself."

fall makes me so sentimental.  i'll spare you the rest.
  
you know what kind of day saturday was? a four chocolate-donut day. 

give me grace

i've been traveling this road for miles
trying to get to where you are
i know you're telling me the way to go
but i just can't hear you over my heart

give me grace to make it through the night
give me faith so i can see the light
give me strength so i can make it home to you
home to you

my feet are tired of carrying this load
seems like i'm walking round and round
i need somebody to help me out
cause i wanna be standing on your holy ground

give me grace to make it through the night
give me faith so i can see the light
give me strength so i can make it home to you
home to you
...

the view from my window

is stunnerific.  post rain glory.  y mountain, a few low clouds, craggy rock.  how do i live so close to outside?

today felt like fall, right after it felt like someplace USA, typhoon season.  (are there typhoons in the USA?  and why isn't there a good acronym for planet earth yet?)  i ran across campus to meet a friend for lunch and burst into legends grille completely soaked.  i was also cracking up because i love LOVE the rain and people were looking at me funny, mostly the people waiting for the storm to pass to go outside.  clothes dry eventually and so do feet so quit your bawlin.

this little episode reminded me of that one time katie con and i went to gurus after school during the high school years.  it was raining epically that day too, and kate was maneuvering the pontiac pontoon, but the windshield wipers didn't work and so kate was trying to see out her open window and we also were wearing goggles. 

we forgot about the goggles for the first few minutes while we drip dried in the corner of the restaurant.  the eyes adjust.  but man we got some weird looks. 

so glad it's fall. doesn't summer feel so excessive?

facebook: a rant, and maybe a spoiler

ok, so it's 2:40 in the morning. i shouldn't be typing right now. i shouldn't be experiencing conscious thought right now. but i just went to the movies and saw the social network. this post is not a recommendation. you see what you want to see, and i'll do the same. i should say that i recognize the movie wasn't all accurate, but i'm going to act like it was here until i find out where to get the real story. i should also say cheers to the first someones who presented a critical view of social networking to wake us up a little bit. huzzah! it was pretty cool to sit in a movie that is not sci-fi and so timely . some movies are timely but totally sci-fi, and some movies are not sci-fi but blah blah blah. you know?

i sometimes think about how big business is running consumers instead of the other way around, and facebook is the most subtle offender. mark zuckerburg knew it. he wanted to destroy the old social order where he was at the bottom of the chain and he pulled it off. now he's on top. sort of. more in a money way than in a peace of mind, real fulfilling relationships way, though, i'm guessing. not that he doesn't have peace of mind, but he definitely doesn't have a corner on that market. and my need and a billion other people's need to fit into the social order helped lift him above us all.

i know this isn't really about levels, who's above who, or shouldn't be...but it is. and not that i'm bitter, but mark zukerberg and i graduated from high school THE SAME YEAR. yeah, he's a billionaire. check him out on facebook (but don't get your hopes up: you can't add him as a friend.) after watching the movie, i'm gonna have a real hard time buying this line: "i am on facebook to keep in touch with people i never see and wouldn't otherwise communicate with." yeah, that's true for all of us, but i just don't believe it is anyone's primary reason. mark zuckerburg created facebook because he KNEW how much we wanted to be part of the party, in the in crowd, accepted, befriended, validated (even if only superficially.) tell me you don't recognize that impulse in yourself--it's what my high school friends call Fear Of Missing Out. how many people have deleted their facebook page in a moment of self-disgust after hours of aimless stalking that leave them feeling worse about themselves only to reactivate their account days weeks months later? just me?

after the movie, i got on facebook because i had reason to more closely examine the masthead, the about page, the layout etc. and here's what i read on the welcome page: "facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life." baloney. i mean, yeah, it does, but like i said before--it was generated in a spirit of exclusivity and self-promotion, and that spirit fuels it still. the rest is clever marketing.

the real kicker is that we/i can't ignore facebook. we/i can't say, no, i want to fight against what has happened to social networking and do things the "old fashioned way." this is about critical mass, and if one or one hundred people is doing things the old fashioned way and waiting by the door for a visit from a friend who's simultaneously messaging on facebook, we won't connect. so will i leave it? i don't know. i'm really considering it. i'm at least finally being honest with myself about the fact that if i don't leave it, it's cause i'm afraid of missing out.

but missing what?

ps i don't think facebook is evil. i don't think it has inherent value: it is a tool and can be used in stupid and awesome ways. that's all.

accidents and incidents

i'm a clumsy girl.  i wouldn't go so far as "accident prone," but i am definitely the type to spill on myself, spill on strangers, trip up the stairs, and fling forks every which way.  i think my entire wardrobe is visibly stained.  that's why i can't have nice things.

anyway, one summer when i was working at ranch camp in the mountains, the end of the season rolled around and it was time for the staff awards ceremony.  some people get best counselor, best attitude, best skit--i got best accident.  and it was kinda like i got two awards because i also caused best incident.  here's the story. 

i didn't drive campers very often, but for some reason, i was assigned to drive a backpacking trip into the tetons.  i got very careful instructions about parking and detaching the trailer, and i was feeling really good about my mad skills.  i even filled the van up with gas from the camp barrel so that it would be full for the next driver (thank you kindly, desert pete).  as i was topping my tank off, one of the cowboys came by and pointed out that i had just filled the entire tank with diesel gasoline.  this was not a diesel van.  oops.  "nobody told me!"

thus commenced the walk of shame to my boss's office.  i think my assistant boss might have started crying at the news, which made two of us.  anyway, they said they'd figure it out and send me the bill.  so i forgot about it, mostly.  the next day, some work friends were eating in town, and the cowboy from earlier mentioned something about burping gasoline.  i had no idea what he was talking about, but i sure laughed like i did.  (many of my social interactions go like that.)  months later, i finally got the joke when the cowboy won best incident for siphoning the diesel gas out of the van with his mouth.  yuck.

now, to the point.  today, sister j thought she'd do sister m a service by loading and starting her dishwasher.  soon, suds started seeping over the tile floor.  j showed me what she put in the washer, and yes, it was dish soap.  kinda like the time anne shirley gave diana berry hard liquor instead of raspberry cordial, we'd given m a big mess instead of a kind deed.  but the bottles look exactly the same.  honest mistake.  thirty minutes later, j had stopped panicking (think ruby gillis) and the dishwasher was suds-free.  i would have been laughing hysterically the whole time, except i'm still quite fragile from my big accident.

now, to the real point (have i ever written such a long blog in my life?).  last saturday, i was late for a movie with a friend because i absolutely had to clip my fingernails before leaving the house (or something equally critical).  i pulled on my fringe boots to channel fall and hopped on my road bike for speed. two blocks from home, my feet slipped off my clipless pedals, and my bike started careening wildly towards a ditch.  i completely lost control of the situation, very unlike me. 

next thing i know, i'm against the pavement, under my bike, struggling to get up because my backpack was stuck on my seat.  luckily, a jeep full of very nice men stopped to see if i was ok, and despite the fact that i was floundering on the ground like a fool "(what does it look like i'm doing?  fishing for lake trout?"), i quickly waved them on.    once i finally made it to standing, i had to text my friend to say, "i'm going to be even later than i thought.  i fell off my bike."  for some reason, i found (and find) that really humorous.  so many times i go biking, prepared and expecting to fall.  not this day, not when i'm two blocks from home, not when i'm wearing my pocahontas boots.  turns out, not many other people find my accident humorous or noteworthy, nor are many willing to give sympathy or presents when there's no blood to show.  come on people, what does it take?  i'm bleeding on the inside!

i can tell you're worried now, feeling bad even.  i am in pain, but please don't fret on my behalf. 

what's the name of this game?

"in this moment there is life and food for future years"

...These beauteous forms,
      Through a long absence, have not been to me
      As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
      But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
      Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
      In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
      Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
      And passing even into my purer mind,
      With tranquil restoration:--feelings too 

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
      As have no slight or trivial influence
      On that best portion of a good man's life,
      His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
      Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
      To them I may have owed another gift,
      Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
      In which the burthen of the mystery,
      In which the heavy and the weary weight
      Of all this unintelligible world, 

Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
      In which the affections gently lead us on,--
      Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
      And even the motion of our human blood
      Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
      In body, and become a living soul:
      While with an eye made quiet by the power
      Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
      We see into the life of things.

william wordsworth 

'courage is if you knew where there were some mountains, you would definitely climb them.'

once my sister marie gave me just the book i needed.  i found it the other day, and it was just the book i needed again.  only i know where some mountains are, and they've always been there, and i still haven't climbed them.  cheers to another day, one with more guts!

here is something i find ironic.  i hate change in the world outside me* but i love love love change inside me.  i think this has something to do with change in the world feeling like loss and change within me feeling like triumph.  even when the change in the world brings goodness--my niece and nephews growing up, for example--it feels like something goes that doesn't come back again.  there are few parts of me that i guess i wouldn't like to lose, but pretty much everything else is negotiable.  i want to be someone that i'm not yet.  doesn't everybody want to be someone, to be someone? 

*the only exception is seasons because they go round and round and round. 

we always did too much talkin anyway

met a woman at church today who has transformed my view.  (i wish all of my transformations were more lasting...but here's to hope this one will stick.)  this woman got to the heart of things in about seven seconds of conversation.  she asked the questions most people are too polite to ask.  she followed up with insight and personal experiences and more questions that really made me think.  she didn't hesitate to give, so i gave too.  after our fifteen minutes, she had convinced me that she cared about me and what i had to say.  she was so convincing that i actually spent the walk home trying to figure out why/how she cared so much.

it's hard for me to accept, but i get that not everyone is into this type of communication and that the seemingly intense and personal questions i love could be another's dread.  i'm trying to moderate my expectations for connecting with other humans, and not because others let me down, but because i let me down.  i'm not capable of connecting as much or in the ways i want.  hence my favorite words from a favorite man, President Thomas S. Monson: "often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart."  

more about what this woman gave me. she helped me recognize the gift of time, particularly in four years to prepare for goodbye. she reminded me of the strength of sisterly love.  she helped me feel how reconciliation liberates. 


resolve: to be more present and more authentic in all of my communication.  to be a better listener. 

how hard is it to play the tambourine or sing ooohs? being a writer on the other hand...

check out this vid:


feel like sometimes these guys make it look harder than it is.

i really posted this vid because the bit about girl gun noises vs. boy gun noises at the end really resonated with me.  welcome to a childhood of mockery.  thank you david.

coming

maybe some of you have places that are the most home you've ever been.  i have such a place.  i'm going there very soon and i will say hello to the part of my heart that never leaves.  

i wish i were a tree

the time is soon here where everything will change. again.
it has been pouring thunder and lightning and lots of water.  my water comes from the sky. 
rain makes me remember fall and fall makes me remember that things move in circles--they go away and look like they might not come back around, but mostly they will. mostly.
sometimes we miss something--a chance, a gift, a wisdom, a love--and it never comes back around. that is the loneliest thought.

how hard do trees have to work to be trees, and do some work harder than others to be really good trees?  i have to work hard to be me.  i don't usually know what it takes to be really good me, but i try to listen.  i try to follow the cues: bud now, leaf now, roots now, blossom now. wait now. 

i keep struggling to get my season right.

meantime, sky, keep it coming.

do you know where your water comes from?

i don't really know where mine comes from either, but ever since INHUT, I'm committed to learning more about local water. 

which leads to this:

who will come with me?

join a campaign to reinstate the word 'boss'

ps tonight i fell for that old trick where the child can't fall asleep so the adult says, okay, i'll lie down with you...next thing adult knows, she's wiping the drool of her face and wondering why kids don't get how awesome it is to sleep for 12 hours a night.  going to sleep when it's still light out? totally boss.

pps boss song.

ppps my face is sunburned and hurts real bad.  jane, don't be mad.  it actually looks pretty boss because i guess i was cracking up all day or i just kept my eyes really squinty so there was a tie-dye effect. (i have lots of eye wrinkles. ("from my mother's side of the family.") inside my eye wrinkles is like the white part of the tie-dyed tee-shirt--unwrinkle and whabam.) 

pppps sometimes serious can be boss too.  i saw a sign while driving home today that said: AIR QUALITY ALERT. LIMIT DRIVING.  this sign gave me major pause because i think/read a lot about how to treat earth, but i'm pretty pathetic when it comes to putting beliefs in action.  so here i am, having just driven my SUV (ok, even worse: SUBURBAN!) for three hours and planning on driving another hour today and two tomorrow to make things possible that are delightful but not necessary, and i pause.  i could actually change my plans.  i could give something up, be "inconvenienced," heed the warning, do my part to improve air quality despite knowing that many others won't (remember the tragedy of the commons, the categorical imperative?), adjust to fit natural constraints instead of manipulate nature to avoid adjusting, etc.

we're all friends here, so i'll tell you i caved.  i made the choice that resulted in more driving that beast of burden back and forth across my home valley.  i am gald, though, to have paused.  i hope i will be stronger in the future.  i hope you will support me when i am weak.

the struggle in that pause matters because air quality matters, but there's more to it, symptomatic of what wendell berry describes as the credo of limitlessness (read essay here).  i don't agree with everything he says (what do you think?), but i see myself in some of his critique. like here, when he describes our "dogged belief that what we call the American Way of Life will prove somehow indestructible.  We will keep consuming, spending, wasting, and driving as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves.... In keeping with our unrestrained consumptiveness, the commonly accepted basis of our economy is the supposed possibility of limitless growth, limitless wants, limitless wealth, limitless natural resources, limitless energy, and limitless debt.  The idea of a limitless economy implies and requires a doctrine of general human limitlessness: all are entitled to pursue without limit whatever they conceive as desirable--a license that classifies the most exalted Christian capitalist with the lowliest pornographer."

we live in spheres of connection and we cannot see the ties that bind us.  but we are bound, whether we see it or not. let me pause then, at least, to trace a few of the strings looped around my fingers to where they lead, let me work to understand my role in the problems and the solutions, let me confront my limits and respect them.

being a hippie, if hippie means acting responsibly/with accountability towards the earth, is totally boss. plus, i have a tie-dyed face.

last words from wendell berry:
"We must learn again to ask how we can make the most of what we are, what we have, what we have been given. If we always have a theoretically better substitute available from somebody else or someplace else, we will never make the most of anything.  It is hard to make the most of one life."

some pictures i've been wanting to send you

lovely days at weber

i'm trying to resign myself to growing up.  doesn't that sound familiar, like maybe i've been working on this for years and years and years?  for the first summer in a long time, i spend more time inside than out.  bummer, but so adult.  these pictures may lead you to believe otherwise, but i just don't take pictures of me sitting in front of my computer.

i am posting right now because i love reading other people's blogs so much, i feel like contributing is good karma.  but i don't have very much to say. 

fishing with the king

tetons with the bird

bowling league

the thesis is coming along like a four-year-old in a puddle of mud.  fun, but so so slow.  (and a four-year-old's fun always runs out.)










that's all. 

my work ethic

i know that i normally post about death or nature or politics or any other serious topic that is taboo in polite conversation, but today is not that day (though i can't promise an appropriate post.)  i had a thought today that i've never had before, so why not commemorate it on the blog-o?  i'm always having thoughts i've never had before, but this thought was so simple, so built into my routine, that my oversight was shocking.

it came to me in the shower.  (kind of like that one time ben fell in the shower and hit his head on the faucet and japanese came to him, fluently.)  i was shaving my legs and doing the typically poor job on my knees, and i realized: some people spend time on this!  weird.

i guess that up to today, i had been content with less than perfectly shaved knees because i thought it was impossible.  i just figured those girls with perfectly shaved knees didn't have hair on their knees or something. with a little more thought, i recognized that there are many things i've written off as impossible because they take longer than four seconds, and i might have to reconsider some of them.  who doesn't want perfectly smooth knees?

tonight i actually tried giving my knees an honest effort, and i saw immediate results.  do you see how revolutionary this is?

"therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods, and mountains"

i've been away, getting to know better my home (defined broadly). and now i'm back inside and trying to figure out where to put the loveliness and lessons i've been collecting the past month. isn't this always the trick: to wear our education on our souls, to be changed by the faces stories smells ideas love we encounter, to walk away from our past more enlightened, more enabled, more engaged?

here's what's working to rub my insides round: God loves all his creations. all of them. he loves them in their diversity, in their context, and along the spectrum of their potential.

i'm trying to expand my use of "beautiful" to include biting gnats and warthogs, but in the meantime, these i can't deny:

near vernon.

steven's arch.

coyote gulch.

encore.

encore.

zebra.

calf creek.

antelope island.

encore.

encore.

woods creek.

little mountain.

great salt lake.

spiral jetty.

yurt, uintah mountains.

from charles lamb, master of essay, in "new years eve:"

"I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets.
I would set up my tabernacle here."

go outside! fill your hands with rocks and dirt! let's meet there, under the sky!