if i can't have world peace when i blow out my birthday candles

i'll pretty happily exchange that wish for this one: at least one shining happy memory for every person on this earth. i have a brilliant set of past-lights in my pocket, and they cheer my dreary days. i have so many i can sort them into categories: pick-me-ups, make-me-cries, remind-me-that-i-have-a-hearts, laugh-laugh-laughs, too-dear-to-shares, my-life-is-a-movies, thy-life-is-a-miracles. isn't it nice to have a secret place for your own treasures, that no one can find or take away?

next point. i'm going away on wednesday to hear large writers read largely, and this helps me not feel too small.

the motivation for a post soon to come where i explain for myself as much as for you why i believe what i do

i have been so out of touch lately. i hardly catch the news in snippets over radio as i drive to and from work. i don't know that an op-ed and a blog post in response count as news, but i read them both and found them interesting. i thought you might too.

here's the short version in representative quotes.

op-ed by ian williams (never met him): "A culture that walks in such tidy lockstep has the advantage of homogeneity, and will always look good on paper. It certainly works for my many cousins, whom I love. But some of us who have experienced the Mormon life firsthand would rather choose a messy, colorful America lurching forward without so many confines — every day and twice on Sunday."

blog by james goldberg (friend of mine): "But you seem to think that your world is the real world, and that the real world is something I'm impossibly distanced from...You know the world, I would guess, far better from how it looks on paper than from how it looks up close."

yes, i find this stuff interesting because i belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or Mormon), but I also find it interesting because it raises these questions for me:

• is it possible to fundamentally understand or experience another person's reality?
• what habits, practices, etc. do i have that enhance or limit my ability to understand the people around me?
• how do we talk civilly about things that matter most to us?

poetry

for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

for in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

for we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

...therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight:) we are confident, i say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

wherefore we labour, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

--from 2 corinthians 5

death is an adoration of God

you know how there are seasons of life where you practice one same thing over and over like a dance routine or a spelling bee list or whistling for the first time?

my long season is practicing letting go. every day all day long round and round. i've told you this before.

lately it's been work. i can't be any everything and that is hard. i can't be perfect most things and that's hard too. so i'm working on drawing lines and getting back Bs and sometimes Fs because that's just the best i can give, and what you probably already know that i'm just learning is that it feels great to fall short when you give your best because you don't have to wonder if you could've done more. i'm giving my best and walking on.

death is an adoration of God, the priest said, because it is the inevitable and proper culmination of a lifetime spent learning to let go, and not just for the sake of sake but for God's sake.

and then--death be not proud--we let go of death too.

whether you're high or low

well, i never posted my 2011 recap, and that just isn't like me. so here goes. last year, i...

• graduated again! phew. never thought that would happen.
• moved out of provo.
• missed provo. 
• went to canada, texas, nyc/dc, and chicago.
• got a job. and business cards.
• lived with sis and fam in sojo.
• missed that too.
• moved to slc.
• bought a car.
• went to the doctor. twice! 

2011 was a pretty grown up year. here's hoping 2012 has more ring pops and twister and sleepovers and friendship bracelets. a little more 8-year-old and a little less 28-year-old.

hi me, it's me

i just love life, even when i hate life. you know what i mean? of course, i never really hate life, but i think you do know what i mean because sometimes maybe you feel the same way.

i love that life is dimensional and takes different shapes and i get to figure out what those shapes are by guessing and exploring.

i love that when life is a shape with corners and shadows, i sometimes find presents that i didn't see at first. i love unwrapping life presents.

like this one: sometimes i surprise myself. isn't that cool? i've been with me for 27 years, and there's still plenty of horizon. chuch told me today that i am able to have a very complex life because i have 100 billion (!) nerve cells in my brain, and none of these cells is random. they are each placed in specific connection because of the way i use them. that makes it seem obvious and impossible that i could surprise myself.

i've been sharing some marvisms on here, and i guess that's because we hang out a lot lately. we have professional development lunches, therapeutic drives, and mindless movie nights. all are great. the other day he told me that just because i don't see truth doesn't mean it isn't there. it probably just means that my eyes aren't ready yet.

that's why i get to surprise myself. and why we get to surprise each other. and why i love life.

sloughing, searching...

do you know how a hermit crab knows when it's time to find a new shell? me neither. maybe it's like the little pinch i feel when i've grown too big for a year or when a year has shrunk too small. either way, i'm looking for my next place. if your home was a year, what would it look like?

speaking of designing years, i take new years resolutions quite seriously. i have adopted the tradition of modge-podging them on a piece of cardboard as my annual craft. here's my first draft for 2012:

• stop over-sharing
• have less stomachaches
• attach my front license plate that is still in an envelope in my car
• stop congratulating myself and buying myself donuts when i do things like attach my front license plate
• go to china
• stop saying things about hipsters that i don't mean
• only share really really good youtube videos
• stop wearing clothes that are noticeably stained or that have large holes

i'll show you the collage when i finish it. i think it's going to be good.