Around the neighborhood

Sunday and I got up very late for church, but with enough time to look like I hadn't just fallen out of bed. I really liked Portuguese church, despite not understanding much of what was being said.

Afterwards, the rain finally stopped. And I thanked the heavens for deliverance. Outside, I finally got down the street to the Royal Albert Hall to take photos before heading to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

After two hours in there with only the Medieval and Renaissance sections completed I was kicked out at closing time. Wandering back to Hyde Park, I wandered more and finally returned to the flats in time for the fireside. Tomorrow night we are seeing The King's Speech.

Ikea World

Back in the flat after another two busy days and I feel the need to mention that the flat I live in is straight out of an Ikea catalog. Not the über-cute rooms in an Ikea catalog either. The spare minimalist aesthetic which is clean-cut and seems to resist any attempts to try to impose personality on it. Despite this fact, it is fun to live with so many girls.

Outside the flat, right across the street is Hyde Park, and I have only walked through it once. As soon as it stops raining for a bit, I do want to explore. But the cold rain seems to have an evil desire to kill whatever exploring impulses I have. I have persevered though and yesterday went to go see Westminister when we had a brief moment of sun. We didn't have time to do the Westminster Abbey tour, but I'm hoping to soon. We did sit in St. Margaret's Church and it was quite nice. After that we took the tube to King's Cross and went up to the train station. After mistakenly exploring St. Pancras (which was the train station used in the Harry Potter films) and taking many pictures, we discovered the sign that said "Platform 9 3/4." That being accomplished, we returned to the flat for a meeting.

This meeting was to received our church assignments for the time we would be in London. I was assigned to a Brazilian Portuguese-speaking ward. I speak German, a little French, and a little Chinese. The other three girls assigned to the same ward all have some Spanish knowledge. The only word I remember from when Mario and Will first came from Brazil is "Venha aqui" (Come here). I'm a bit worried since I may just be smiling alot at people and speaking in broken French. I really am going to have to pray before going.

Well, after this we went to "Noises Off" - one of the funniest plays in all time, in my humble opinion. It was great, despite our nosebleed seats. This beautiful play was succeeded the next day by Noël Coward's "Hay Fever" starring Lindsay Duncan and Jeremy Northam. Having been a fan of Jeremy Northam all of my life, it was great to see him act on stage and he was surprisingly funny in hos role as a diplomat. But on the whole, I thought "Noises Off" was funnier.

I also did get to a museum this morning, though I still have many many left to visit. I went to the Natural History Museum and got to explore something indoors. The mammals exhibit was excellent, though the dinosaurs were not nearly as good as the ones I saw in New York last week at the American Museum of Natural History. But I did get to see another blue whale replica, and will try to communicate without language skills tomorrow morning. I also got to go to dinner and hang out with friends tonight as a time to just get out.

Monet and Sweeney

I have been known to cry at Monets, and today was no different. It began with Wheatstacks in the Minneapolis Institute of Art and since then Impressionists have evolved into an ecstatic experience. I have always uncovered as much about my relationship with God and the universe in Church. Today, I went through the National Gallery's Impressionist section and Pissarro and Monet taught me more about myself than I have learned in a while. After a few hours of art, I felt emotionally drained and somehow lifted up in a way. But enough of the art euphoria. Just looking at lumps of paint that have created an image from the mind of a man. These men might have died, but their thoughts and images live on as they will forever. Even the pictures that were destroyed are never fully lost, but will live in the mind of an artist, in the memories and thoughts that can never be destroyed. But even after we are able to express all the beauty of thoughts in words, what are they all but gifts from God. What can I do then but then try to improve everything I write, draw, think, or say to make it beautiful for Him.

Well, those were some of my random thoughts before going to Trafalgar Square then seeing Sweeney Todd with Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball. It was a beautiful production and the odd thing was is that I imagined myself sitting next to someone I knew who wasn't there. Andrea was on one side, but the empty seat on the other, I would sometimes turn to wanting to share, but no one was there even though it seemed like they were. My mind does some of the strangest most beautiful things.

First day in London

Rain might often slow things down but when there is the whiff of exploring a new city, new dreamed-of museums and monuments, and seeing what can only be seen in photos rain is ignored and suffered through. I have been going strong since 5:30 am London time. It is now 00:22 of the next day. But what a day! The horrid part was finished quickly with moving my full 80 L backpack, rolling carry-on, and shoulder bag from Northfields to just south of Hyde Park in the rain. About a mile of walking in the rain was slow torture. Then I sat outside for 30 minutes waiting for someone with keys. But after that it was much better. By noon I had unpacked and completely organized my things and purchased groceries. After that there was only the British Museum! The first of many trips. Then a quick stop at Westminster for some very wet pictures and back to the flat before the theatre. Traveling Light at the National is what we saw but we intended to see Noises Off at the old Vic. We did some quick walking after getting off at the wrong station a ways away. But apparently they moved it to another theatre near where we first were but the National was close. I also got turned around on a station going to the British Museum. Traveling Light was about the beginning of Jewish Cinema and the first man who made a cinematic montage. A play about Russian Jews and film? Sounds about my cup of tea! It was nice with a bit schmaltz. But to top it all off I finished with some great fish and chips (fish were top notch and chips were decent). This in addition to the two large samosas for lunch, two Clif Bars for breakfast, two Belgian Waffles, and lots of candy at the National completed a day of British eating. Not too much different from Iceland. Maybe I just usually eat European type foods anyway. I really found food so easily unlike many other people. Anyway, about to collapse before another day.

After traveling for many days I finally arrived in London with an aching sore body and feet (I was carrying my bag backpack for a while). It was a fabulous trip despite any complaints I might have had. I got to go to New York and freaking Iceland. But enough about that. I am in a hostel and can hear BBC through the wall. Everyone listens to it here! I won;t just be one of a crazy minority, and if I am it will be because I am American and Americans are crazy. I wandered around Reykjavik and spent three whole hours at a spa either in the geothermal lagoon, sauna, or steam room. My foot (the one with stitches just out) did not like it, but who cares! Anyway six hours of sleeping will now commence with the tube running in the background (I love traffic noises to get me to sleep).

Packing is something that I try not to think about but just do, like a packing robot. But as I was rummaging through and recategorizing everything I owned yesterday, I was shocked out of my robotic state. I found a ziplock bag of pills. Thinking back I remembered I put this bag together as a prop for a play two years ago, but the sudden sight of it reminded me by of the play but of when I was younger and used to take all these pills. I had hung onto them, especially the psychotropic meds, in case I fell back into old habits, old insanities, and old illnesses. I don't like to think and remember all the past horrors. Selective amnesia is the best way to describe how I look at the past. I try to remember the good parts without accessing all the cruelties, craziness, and confusion that was my life for so many years. Packing strips away that selective amnesia. As I get out everything from corners of closets and behind books on shelves, I run into remnants that I have saved from my past. I chose to keep all these things because they meant something an remind me of times and places that meant things, but now they sometimes jar. In the bag of pills are antibiotics and some other medical drugs but also antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs that were the only drugs that could make me sleep for a year. I would stay up all night because I couldn't sleep. The antidepressants were pills I took twice a day for many years and seem as familiar as my own skin. I could probably draw them in my sleep. But it has been many years since I needed these drugs and even felt afraid that maybe one day I would fall back into horror that I try to never remember. I don't read my journals from when I was sick and I thought these drugs were gone long ago. But as shocking as they were they are a past that will always be as much a part of me as all the good memories. My past is mine and is in my hair, my heartbeats, my walk, my voice, my mind. So, though I will never take those drugs again either for help or for fun, they are a part of me and put them in a box.

Blue Whale

When I was much younger and lived in New Jersey, one of my favorite places to go was the room with sea life dioramas and a replica of a Blue Whale hanging from the ceiling in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This may seem a strange choice but I would have dreams about whales. I would be swimming in blue-blue water of a deep ocean without having problems breathing underwater and suddenly a grey wall would come up on the side of me. Slowly I drifted away and I would slowly translate the wall that took up my line of sight into a whale. I used to be very scared of deep water, especially looking down into progressively darker and darker water that continued seemingly forever. I never remember looking down into the depths of the ocean in my dream. I remember the water getting darker when the whale blocked out so much sunlight from my perspective, but then as I moved away the sun came out and this whale became not only a creature enormously large, but also surpassingly beautiful and peaceful. I am going back to the American Museum of Natural History to visit for a few hours on Monday and while I want to see the dinosaurs, I really want to see the whale. After moving away from New Jersey, I would dream about the whale and it replaced the greatness of my dream whale. But I haven't seen this whale in years and I will be seeing it in two days. I doubt it will even come close to the dream whale in the museum that has haunted my dreams. It will be nowhere near the wall of whale that brought so much peace. But what will it be like?

But for real . . .

I am going to start posting on my blog again for real. But don't believe me. You've all seen my lack of dedication in the past and how all my good intentions turn into time spent sleeping. But I am going to try this time.
This is my last week in Provo, Utah and it's raining. Surrounded by boxes in my room, I need to finish packing and writing a paper, but even better would be writing this blog post before I venture out to explore the world. And I am going to explore the world. I will be in London Spring term for Theatre Study Abroad for six weeks. All the shows and museums I'm going to see may be enough to stand up and dance a jig about, but there's more. Ekitzel is flying out from Shenzhen after the Study Abroad is over and we are going to explore Europe, Russia, and eventually wind our way to China. She is flying in on June 5th and we are spending until the 12th in London, at which time we will become increasingly bored (probably not) and will rent a car to drive to Edinburgh and then up to Orkney Island. I'm not sure if you have even seen Simon Schama's History of Britain, but if you haven't and you have 18 hours, you should. One of the first places Simon goes is Skara Brae, an ancient Neolithic village. It is older than Stonehenge! And it isn't a Henge! Anyway, we are going to see that then driving back down through Glasgow so we can return the car. Then it is off to Paris for 5 days where we will begin to speak with each other in German! Okay, maybe not. But we will eat a ton of great bread and cheese.
You are probably thinking that this sounds amazing, but I have yet to tell you about the train to Switzerland, hiking around Luzern, the overnight train from Zurich to Amsterdam, the Van Gogh Museum, Brussels and then following the Tour de France from Liege (home of great waffles) to Bolongue-sur-Mer, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Moscow, St. Petersburg, taking the Trans-Siberian railway from Ufa to Irkutsk, seeing Lake Baikal, hiking around it, taking a boat onto it, and then finally taking the Trans-Siberian from Irkutsk to Beijing.
That's about it. Then I have to fly back to Utah, course marshal the Tour of Utah for a week, then move all my boxes to St. Louis. No biggie.
So, I'm packing all these things I own and won't see until September, and I'm really questioning whether I need them all. But these shoes I will need. They are the ones I will be walking the world with before it happens. They probably won't look so good when I get back.

A post

This is a post that was solely created for the sake of creating a post. I have not updated this neglected blog in a long while. So, instead of thinking of a creative concept to write about or a mundane occurrence that brought a slightly new perspective, I will be recording marginalia as if it mattered. It doesn’t.
The last two weeks I have had Phantom of the Opera singing inside of my head. Not constantly but often enough to start to listen a bit too much. I don’t think things originating inside of my head should be given more attention time than things in the outside world, but my attention often disagrees. My brain can amuse me for hours. Far too many hours.
Finally “Abide With Me” would occasionally supplant Phantom, but didn’t oust it entirely. It wasn’t until the Tony Awards on Sunday when the number “I Believe” from the Book of Mormon musical took over my brain. I have been slowly trying to listen to the other numbers from the musical, but haven’t yet.
I am supposed to be studying for the GRE. I’m not. Well, I am learning vocab, but that’s about it. I think I should give up on math. I haven’t studied any since I was 16 or 17. I lie about my age consistently, but that was more than a decade ago.
I am trying to catch up with all the cycling races that are currently on my DVR. I recently reduced my hours so I could sleep, so I’m still catching up from that. I have one stage left of the Giro d’Italia, four stages of the Criterium de Dauphine, and the first four stages of le Tour de Suisse. So, lots of television time, during which I will be learning lines.
I finished the last performance of The Merchant of Venice from Utah Shakespeare in the Park on Saturday and rehearsals for All’s Well That Ends Well started Monday. I have a small part, which means more time to study for the GRE (watch le Tour de France). I am usually a pretty good student, but since school ended in April, I have felt particularly unmotivated.
My supposed life goal is to get a doctorate in English, but I keep forgetting that with the sun shining and the pool beckoning with it’s chlorine fumes. Also the mountains just keep staring at me, daring me to climb them. And the sun is a temptress – seducing me to go outside where I can lay down all afternoon and sleep in the grass. My favorite shorts have grass stains.
So that is the conclusion of the meaningless nothings that should not be noted.

Best Conversation of the Month

Me: I wish Pizzeria 712 was open really late so I could get their pizza for my hypothetical pizza party.
Lawrence: You mean the one where it's going to be Mexican food or pizza?
Me: Yeah. . . Wait, how did you know about my hypothetical pizza party?
Lawrence: I checked your messages.

(phone was in my backpack during rehearsal)

Weddings

I thought my next blog entry would be a rant about the royal wedding and the pageantry involved. But after only watching a few arrivals, I was in awe over the utter pointlessness of ceremony, and felt sorry for the two fools smiling for the cameras. This cemented my plans to elope to Vegas and be married by Elvis. Vegas has great deals on hotel rooms and buffets. No planning needed. Some may argue that Vegas is commercial and crass, but after watching the 24-hour coverage of the royal wedding and seeing many couples spend thousands of dollars on the perfect wedding, I wonder what the difference is between Vegas and the thirty-million dollar picture-perfect, 700-guest, gourmet catered wedding on the beach in Maui complete with doves. Vegas is obviously commercial, but is commercial for the masses, compared to the selectivity that most people desire as an ambiance at their wedding. The white-robed bride is supposed to be detached from the problems that are going to be inherent in marriage. Weddings cost a fortune, but instead of being realistic as to their income, the couple (for a day or week) pretends to a much higher standard of wealth than they possess. I want weddings to start off in the seeming mundane reality. All romance stories end at the wedding or the consummation because after that everything gets “boring.” But everyday, especially those where nothing happens, is like the first morning of snowfall for the winter. It has happened before, and it will happen again. We will eventually come to hate snow for the extra time needed every morning to scrape and shovel it away, but for a few moments it is a sudden miracle. Like brushing your teeth with someone, or finding a good song on the radio – miracles are mundane. They are everywhere and all the time and every morning there is snow in May, we forget about miracles because who wants to wear a parka on top of a sunburn. So, instead of planning a wedding like many other girls do, I will dream instead about a crappy apartment in a complex populated by the Mexican gangs, whom I will probably get along with. I will dream about a sofa that was retrieved from a junk pile and sags in the middle and stacks of books all around because we don’t have shelves. I dream about having a horribly miraculous reality to share with someone.

Tragedy

I’ve been watching several Zhang Yimou movies and I wonder why do all Chinese love stories end in tragedy? The happiest couples end in death together, love consummated in spiritual eternity together. Somehow watching the tragic end of young couples moves us more than watching a couple live together, have children, have fights about toast and doing the dishes, and grow old. These couples eventually leave all drama with years they gain. Slowly they grow accustomed to everything they used to hate about each other. Toilet seats are now left up and toilet paper rolls are never replaced. Car attention lights are ignored and boxes are not flattened. It is all so mundane and boring. Each moment could be beautiful. Moment after moment leads to millions of moments and they all blend together and become unremarkable. But in tragedy, love is confined to only a few moments, so every moment is whirling kisses and dancing under rainbows in fields of poppies. Instead of taxes and grocery shopping, the only moments are those of incapacitating emotion. Beautiful moments are rare moments. If they happened every day, they would be as beautiful as taking the garbage out. But why isn’t taking out the garbage beautiful? Why can’t we slowly gather the plastic bag, then tie it up, hold it together and waltz out into the rain where we will run out to the can, then joyfully fling the bag into the can before we clang the lid down. Garbage duty would then be a wonderful thing.

Delaware Water Gap

We are off to the Delaware Water Gap!
Tents packed and rusty ancient stove,
Dad stops to buy marshmallows.
We make up songs about
Trash dumps and Jersey,
Driving up to the campsite raked clean
Blue sky and sun grinning
on our noisy machines.
Test driving the Nissan,
“Don't tell Mom!”
We finally settled down after supper
Slowly adults ordered children to bed
Fires began to be shared as adults sat
huddled by the light. My father
noticed me and with a broken promise
I stayed as he retired to the tent
and listened to stories with grave intent.
Free and alone, stranger's faces shone
and embers were almost blue
from heat against the cold night.
Wood burning and flickering light
then I gazed out into the dark
so still, no trucks or traffic distant.
And up above, more bright and clear
stars seemed much more near.
The last two and their homey voices
drift away from my fire.
Feeling the wildest breath of the trees yell at me
Now alone they stop whispering.
The star's stony silence and the trees
shouting in the night.
I sprint to join the wind in battering
the loud leaves and bowing grass
Trunks backed farther away, and when
I fell the earth warmed me from the day
Still I laid and the roaring earth beated out my time
the wind told me secrets from the trees
and then the stars squinted until I stood to see.
Trees quiet for a minute,
the stars tried to wish me near.
But the distance was too far
and the tree-wind fury too fierce.
I danced letting the wind steer
wild whirling in the tree-claimed night
until back to the fire I stared down.
Pounding from the ground.
Trying to be the new wild me.
Bowed head, asking the wind and the earth to let me stay.
Then slowly the stars dimmed with light
The trees were not dark but outlined with gray
The fire was low and the first bird call
heralded first daylight and the death of night.
Then I pulled my sleeping bag to the Nissan
And covered my head in a reclined driver’s seat
and could not dream.

mango

I hate you most when I remember the day
we laid on the soccer field hands melted together
warm salted skin still sticky
from the bleeding mango juice
when you flayed the fruit,
skin shaved off and
filleted out flesh for me.

I curse you when you said you liked me
And then handed me the knife and
showed me how to stab and slice
down to the pith.

I will rain down fire and ashes to burn
Your blood-juicy body
already empty of the sticky warm water
fed to hungry mother earth.
Empty table sits with my mangoes
waiting for me to feel mango lips
screaming from their orange damp depths.

A Race

What is the color of the sky?
I say “Not blue but gray
With purple and white added up high
today.”

Make me a man in a minute and a half
Call me a monkey
Try to make me just chaff
But I’m too black for you to see

I am black
My mother and sister are white
Two more brothers are Latino
And Dad is frying latkes tonight

When someone calls you dirty
What do you say?
Tuck it tight inside
And walk away.

White mother, try to make me
understand.
White hand in black,
cross the street, hold hands.

Would she lie?
My boy don't cry.
You are mine, toe to nose
and our skin color is just clothes.

Take them off and
we're all the same.
The colors people use
are just a game.

You say I'm white
But look at my skin in the light.
Is it white like paper or clouds?
No it is freckled and really light brown.

Except where you're burnt.
There you are pink
And tan brown where it doesn't hurt.
With a little yellow or orange I think.

So what color are you?
Not black like the cat
But I am brown too,
Just much much darker than you.

In a race someone
wins on a long straight track.
In a maze all are lost until they come
together to the center, coming back.

What is the color of the sky?
I say “No more clouds up high.
Sunset pink, Mom.
Sort of like you.”

Return of the Blog Entry

Did she forget about the blog? No. All creative efforts have been focused on a creative writing class and how to survive until the summer. But the summer has now smothered us all and the entries will continue with a vengeance unknown as of yet.

Muffin

I stole a muffin last night
And I’m telling you this morning
Because I thought you might
Notice and wonder where
it went. It didn’t walk away.
It didn’t fall into a refrigerator lair.
I just felt it should play
With me and my appetite
Until it lost to me in a fight
And I ate it up out of sight
Swallowing the evidence.
It was worth stealing.
Maybe I’ll replace it, but
Watch me or I’ll eat that one too
And there will be no muffin for you.

Keys

Lost again
They treat me like the worst friend
Dumping me and dear john send
And moving around just to confuse
Without a forwarding address
Do they want to me to lose
My mind because I want to find.
Small, they seem to always need to
Be found
But location confounds
Do I not pay enough attention?
Do I abandon and ignore?
This behavior is the typical convention
And attention would be a chore.
Get over it and show yourselves to me
Or I’ll make new copies and you’ll see
Only the inside of a drawer tomb
Until I lose the new ones too.

China

far away and surrounded by strangers
a restaurant
sitting with an empty chair is
a reminder of a lost table almost full
my abandoned seat
walking away with box
take out boxes stack in bins
a less intimidating companion than
an empty restaurant chair
staring silently
shamed into loneliness
take out eating in a secret room
curtains pulled
TV blaring foreign blasphemes
chasing away the echoes
a book near enough to hug

fourteen hours from now the abandoned
table will creak with use and
the raucous patter and loving argument
will commence again in front of paper plates
they are in the past
future me will be waking the next day
working without remembering the echo
echoing over to them

Untitled

I wonder in the wandering feet far reaching
Is there a haven I am seeking
Or another sky far distant
Hues hallowed and nonexistent
Dreaming of a lonely figure found
Underneath horizons stretching unbound
A pinpoint to focus all wrapping around
The planes rolling, circling on and on
Until it hits the black unknown beyond
The world and space and time
Empty with echoing silence except a heartbeat, mine
Mingling with the silent center, all in time
With my walking feet and the beat
So loud and solemn there is nothing
And then something more than me and my wandering beat
Still and divine, every moment and line
Frozen, with a breath I finish and slump and sigh
Walking on to see eternity close up
And then run away because I’m shy

Island

I was thinking about family this holiday season. I love my family and I hope to have one eventually. But why are they so necessary to happiness? I am going to spend Christmas morning serving in a homeless shelter. I could spend it with many people who have offered, but I don’t really want to. I feel closer to my family working at a shelter. When I was young, My parents would go every Saturday morning and we were eventually allowed to join helping cook and serve lunch for hundreds of people. We usually had to pour drinks, but that was fine. Rachel and I switched off at who got to go. Yes, going to a homeless shelter was the ultimate treat on Saturday mornings! But I always enjoyed those times just giving juice to people. I brought them a slight amount of happiness with no emotional commitment. That’s probably why I like acting as well: bringing people a slight amount of happiness without any emotional commitment. Just serving on Christmas makes me think that I should have been serving all year. I know there’s usually not enough time to commit during the school year, but I am going to Draper four times a week for three hour long rehearsals each time. It makes me think about how skewed my priorities are. Maybe it was the many years of therapy, but I have looked for ways to make me happy, not as much other people. This is probably because I now know that I have no control over the emotions of others and cannot make them happy no matter how hard I try. I think this belief has lead me to give up trying to make other people happy. I did try to make my Grandmother as happy as possible, but that was because she was sad and dying. Also she liked me to try to make her happy. But I can still make people happy as long as I remember to not try to validate myself through people’s happiness. I now try to validate myself through theatre, which is not good either. But I will not be able to be with my family until Christmas night, if the weather does not delay my plane flight. And my entire family will not be gathered this Christmas anyway. My Dad is in China working and Mario and Will will not be coming. I wonder if they will ever come to another Christmas?

So why does being with my family make life seem more whole? Is it because I grew up with them and childhood years are supposed to be happy? Is it because they are supposed to love me? No, its because they know me. They know the parts of me I don’t like people to know. They know the secrets behind the open book. They know the bindings and the glue the book was made of, hidden underneath. Also, I know them. It is not exactly safe though having people know you. Sometimes they know you and still do not necessarily understand you. They can hurt you more deeply with this knowledge than anyone else could. But still they are people that belong to us. We have a claim over them, and they have claim over us. It is wonderful belonging to people, but at the same time it is horrible. We want to make them happy and we tie ourselves up with them so there is no disentanglement. But as a part of them we are happier and make them happier. No one, besides sociopaths, can exist alone in the world. So, I guess no man is an island, except for people like the Unabomber, who I’m glad is an island.

Martha

I went to the Christmas Devotional on Sunday with my sister. I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go. I actually wanted to sleep more, but we went. She loves Christmas and everything about Christmas. She loves the decorations, the traditions and the movies. I am not a Scrooge, but I am not nearly as excited about any Holiday as she is. I like the time to relax and be with people, but I never really got as much enjoyment over celebrating Christmas as she did. I probably would have skipped having a tree in the apartment we share, but I don’t think that ever occurred to her. She wouldn’t even let me put up a small fake tree I had. Last week she told me that we had to find a good time to go get a tree. She wouldn’t let me get out of it either. She insisted we go together to get a tree. I think I don’t like celebrating Christmas nearly as much because I am lazier than she is. Or maybe it is because we have different priorities. She values beauty and comfort over things like homework. I am much more obsessive about homework than she is. I like to get things done and accomplish assignments. I usually read books from my reading list for classes before the semester begins. On the other hand, she prepares perfect recipes. She will experiment with baking and spices until she has something perfect. She tastes these small tastes that I often cannot even detect. She likes things to be nicely decorated to her aesthetic taste. I eat food from vending machines and am content with a couch and a computer. I may get better grades, but I’m pretty sure she enjoys life more. People look at us as sisters and think we are almost exactly alike, and the truth is we are very close to opposites. We look similar, talk similarly, tell stories the same way, have a similar sense of humor, but we are very different people. I have more characteristics in common with each of my parents than I have with my sister. But I also get along with her best out of the whole family. We are only nineteen months apart and we are best friends. I was thinking on Sunday as we were going farther and farther the Sacrament meeting time that I am often very similar to Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus. I am very good at doing things, but I don’t really take time to appreciate the beauty of things. My sister I think is much more like Mary. She loves taking time to appreciate the beauty of life. I wouldn’t have gone to Salt Lake but instead have gone to sleep without her urging me. I would have left the apartment like it was without decorations. I suppose I need to slow down and think about what is more important in life.

Where am I?

No light but up as we stare at the starry blue blue sky
And wonder why we haven’t a care why
Controlling fears still tears fill ears with lies
But for us it is hard to hear over the buzzing of the flies
Only the drably neglected even try
For we live with the wettest leaves that make a sidewalk soft
Wispy wind and rain that we shake and quake aloft
The call of unnameable colors and kindly quiet
But blare the busy frogs in the half light
Shouting ever echoed jumping to the stars
Swearing my allegiance to bright reddish Mars
Song the silence, light, then darkness drips
In piled-up purplish patches of puddles
To jump in and sit until drying they go
Away where all the lilacs jump and scream
Telling the darkest secrets of the world and
All manner of undisclosed dreams
Moving mountains cover careless truths
Daisies dance to the Muses' wild wind
Dancing barefoot on mountains I commune
Earth warm and coolly moist makes my feet
Tingle with the turfy secrets underneath
Or left my hair wallowing without a hope
a care a prayer as breeze whispers in my ears
Grass slowly going speaks of something knowing
Reaching to the diamond heaven's sea

That is where I find my soul
Wandering within and without
Stealing stealthily siren to my senses
Again tonight too late I will not wait

Nature

How many times are we still? How often do we appreciate the small things? I was falling asleep standing up last night and I was trying to keep active so I would stay awake. I needed to be constantly active. I am often like that even when I am not in danger of falling down from exhaustion. I need to be constantly doing something or thinking about something. Zen Buddhism emphasizes staying still and trying to sense the world around us. As college students we put more trust in multi-tasking. We have so little time that is not going to be used in studying or sleeping that there is no time left for stillness. And often when I do have time to just be still without falling asleep, I feel it is wasted time. Yesterday I was walking from campus to my car. The sky was beautiful with a deep, deep cerulean sky and white clouds reflecting gold sun all over the sky. The mountains behind were lit and I was able to see all the rough ground and shrubbery on the mountains. It was the kind of beauty I have never been able to capture fully on film. If I take a picture it always seems to be a pale reflection of what I have seen. I have tried to manipulate the saturation and color levels. I have also made it a high dpi with digital or used a telescopic lens, but nothing ever really helps. I have so little time to really enjoy the beauty and majesty of nature except for walking to campus from where I parked and driving home from work in the morning. It really makes me wonder about the values we have been taught by our society. We learn that we need to work hard to succeed with the result that people are working as hard as they can. Seldom do we have time that we take to just ponder. Even when I am reading my scriptures I seldom leave time to think about what I am reading. Praying for me has become hurried as I have less and less time. I begin to wonder what I am planning after college. Will I be working as hard as I am now and will I ever have the time I want to enjoy the world around me. The last time I went camping I was 14 years old. By the end of high school I was skipping camping and other family trips to work or do school work. This Thanksgiving I worked and I caught up on school work. I just wish that I could go and spend time outside or go hiking. Maybe I will have time this Christmas break before I start getting ahead of my reading for next semester. In this busy world I keep putting simple things aside in order to 'get things done.' I wonder what I will remember more as I get older: what I got done or what I really experienced. Experiences take time and are not always necessary except for our souls and the development of keener insight and understanding.
This world is a creation and is full of beauty. I feel very ungrateful because I don't take the time to appreciate it more fully. The world is alive and as much a part of the creation and the plan of happiness as we are.

Directing

I am directing a short play for a theatre class. I have stage managed, run shows, and been an assistant director, but I have never actually directed a play. The responsibility doesn’t scare me and the fact that we are being graded doesn’t bother me. What is bothering me the most is putting my trust in the actors that are performing. We are performing on Friday and while they are coming along well in rehearsal, I am worried. They all have a tendency to laugh when kissing (yes there is kissing in the play). But we have a preview tomorrow for the TA and then one more rehearsal I will be at before Friday’s performance. Of course this week I also have a final dress rehearsal for the play I am acting in which opens on Friday at Provo Theatre Company. I’m only acting in that so I’m not nearly as worried. I am not the best at trusting people. In High School I would take over and do almost everything in any group projects I was involved in when I did not trust the other people in the group. I didn’t trust many of my classmates in High School. My group projects at BYU have been better since I trust the people more; but I still volunteered to be director of this play. I felt I had the most experience. But now in this project I am going to be giving all the control of it over to the actors. Before yesterday night’s rehearsal, this fact was scaring me. The rehearsal went well, but we didn’t have one of our actresses. I am stressing out just a little. I’m sure they will do the best they can. I hope they don’t screw up. But in the end I will have no control over what they do onstage. The performance is in their hands. I have never put something as important as a final grade in the hands of other people before.

This whole situation reminds me of the fact that Heavenly Father trusts us. I suppose our parents feel similar trepidation at watching their children move away and knowing that they will be nowhere near them if they need help. But Heavenly Father has put the power of agency in our hands. Even more than just agency he has given us the Gospel and with it the power to know where we are and what we are supposed to be doing. He knows that we will screw up, but he still trusts us to figure out what we should be doing. And he has given us the power to right our mistakes through the Atonement. He has put us down here on this vast stage with an outline of a plot and it is up to us to perform our lives. We have help, but in the end everything that really matters to us is in our hands. He helps us with direction, but it is up to us to follow that direction. It is up to each of us to earn that final grade.

I’ve told the actors everything they should do. I’ve told them to memorize lines and cues, project, and pick up the pace. I’ve told them where to go and which ways to turn, but as I watch them slowly improve, they are making each of the characters and the entire play uniquely their own. This would not be the same play without them. This wouldn’t be the same play without any one of the people involved. It is no longer just a play it is our performance. And tomorrow they will perform in front of our TA. I hope they don’t laugh and completely mess up the wonderful performance I’ve seen. I hope the same thing when they perform in front of 100+ people on Friday. But other than hope, pray and remind them again of everything they need to remember before they go on, there is nothing more I can do.

Sleep Deprivation

I was thinking about sleep deprivation over the holiday. Yes, I was thinking about the deprivation I will experience next week as I was catching up for the past few weeks. In the world today it is harder and harder to treat our bodies like temples when we are expected to stretch them to the utmost of their capacity. We are supposed to be studying, reading, working, volunteering and somehow also finding time to take care of our bodies. I have been neglecting caring for my body lately because it does not come at the top of my priority list. But where should caring for our bodies come on our priority list? It can’t come before studying scriptures or praying. I don’t think it should come before school work either. The only other thing I have that fills my schedule is theatre, which is something I am very passionate about. Should taking care of my body come before my passion? Probably, but I still sacrifice sleep as I near an opening night this Friday. And I will be sacrificing more sleep next semester when I stage manage Pirates of Penzance. Of course most of this sleep deprivation is made possible through my job at night. It provides a great time to do homework and reading for classes, but it makes sleeping more than 4 hours at a time a challenge. I have allowed myself to put my passion before sleep. I know I can only do this for so long before my body loses some of its youth and demands more sleep. I suppose I won’t give up theatre because I’m worried I won’t have it for very long. Most married people I know don’t have the time that they had when they were single to commit to theatre. So if I ever get married, I’m worried about giving up something I feel so passionately about. I know of a couple that met in a theatre and continues to be heavily involved in theatre, but that is one couple out of many. I remember the wife having morning sickness and almost being late to dress rehearsals.

We are supposed to find joy in life but at the same time we are supposed to live in moderation. Moderation between what makes me happy and what I know is good for me is a hard choice. I think it is most important that I still pray about my choices and do listen to guidance on my decisions. I haven’t been told to not do theatre, but if I am ever told that I know I will listen. I may sulk but when Heavenly Father tells me what to do, I usually listen. Our bodies are important but our spirits are equally important. The spirit affects the body and without happiness and passion I do not find the same joy in life. I know what truly brings me happiness is the Gospel and the scriptures. At the same time I know what I am passionate about and while it may only give happiness for a short time, it is something I am talented in and something I will try to use for the benefit of people around me. I suppose that is the most I can hope for anything I do.

Black Friday

I was driving home from work yesterday morning, Black Friday, and I saw this old man walking. He had a heavy coat and plastic bag. He may have been poor or homeless or just someone walking around at 7 am the day after Thanksgiving. I had been watching guests at the hotel where I work getting up early since 3 am to go shop. They will be standing in lines and braving large angry crowds to buy merchandise at rock bottom prices. It makes me wonder what the Millennium will really be like when there will be no rich or poor. How different it will be when we will all have what we need and no more. I have so much right now that I really don't need. Christmas is coming and we all seem to have wish lists. We don't really need most of the things we want. There is a book I love which has photos of families from all over the world outside of their homes with all of their belongings. The families in Ethiopia and Mali had so little. The house in Mali was made of dried mud. The family in Ethiopia had a two room mud house. These people represented the average income for people in their countries.

Life changes. The housing crisis has now spread and has become an economic crisis. Life is much less stable than it was a year ago or even six months ago. We are still far above most of the countries in the world, but we are not headed in a good direction. But if we are to have no rich or poor among us, then we will have much less than we have now. I myself have to become used to having less. Maybe not having a car and less clothes. I think the worst thing for me will be fewer books, dvds and no cable. We didn't have cable when I was growing up. We didn't get a dish until I was seventeen, so when I got my own job and my own place to live, we had cable. I did grow up with thousands of books. The first nursery was in a small apartment of my parents and one wall of it was covered in stacked colorful books and they somehow squeezed a crib in there. I keep thinking how hard it would be to sacrifice my books. But then I think of that old man I saw walking home. Are my books more important than food for other people or heat? No. If I miss them, I'll just have to write others. I can make up enough stories in my head to entertain myself, so I could always write them down.

Thanksgiving

My family is slowly moving to China. My father has been there less than a week. He finally got a call through last night from the international phone card information I emailed him on Tuesday. Of course he called at 1:30 am when I am at work since I work nights. But it was good to know he is surviving the culture shock so far. My father is not one of those über-social people but when he is stranded in a culture full of people he cannot understand and who do not understand him, he needs to talk to his family much more than usual. We had a very long email from him Tuesday morning (Hong Kong time which was late Monday night here), which told us everything he had done so far and told us he was unable to call us from his cell phone. We are a family you have to read between the lines to understand. I emailed him back soon to let him know I would buy an international phone card tomorrow and email him the details. He missed us and speaking to people in English since he doesn’t know Chinese. It reminded me of how lonely we can sometimes feel in this big world. What would we do without families?

I have two brothers who grew up for a long time in an orphanage after their father died. Watching them try to be normal is almost frightening to see how much influence having a family can have. They did have a family but it was very dysfunctional and then they were in an orphanage for a few years and these experiences have disrupted their lives so much that they will never be normal. The eldest of my brothers has finally spoken to my father again after not speaking to either of my parents for three or four years. He didn’t call my father when he had been shot in Iraq and was transferred to a hospital in Germany. The hurt these two boys have experienced is incredible. They don’t even want an emotional connection with people because of the possible pain it could cause. They don’t trust people.

On the other hand misery loves company and my brothers have hurt my mother in a way I didn’t think was possible. The most loving, kind and forgiving parent, she has not been able to forgive my brothers. My sister has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder from things she has witnessed from my brothers. My mother is also not able to forgive herself. She sees herself as partially to blame for not observing more closely what was happening and allowing them as much leeway as she did. So, despite giving us a foundation and a place of belonging in the world, families are also those who can hurt us most.

The holiday season has begun and families gather. My family will not be gathering this year. We have not been entirely together for many years and with my father in China we will not even have both parents together this season. I have been telling some pretty sorry stories about my family, but the truth is that despite their problems and separation, my family will always by very important to me. How important I don’t realize until I see my brothers trying to cope with a world they cannot entirely deal with. The family is divinely instituted and my family, as crazy and as messed up as they are will be together after we die. We have been sealed together and will be together forever. I’m not sure how that will work, but I’m hoping divine help will be given. I have faith and hope that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he told my parents to adopt my brothers and we will be able to see the importance one day as well. Until then I am just grateful that some of my family supports me and are faithful members of the church. I am also grateful that living with such a challenging family has made me much stronger than I ever wanted to be.

gaze

Bereft of looks
Mirrored gaze
I thought it meaning
Something more than
Melon colored mornings
and musky chocolate dusk
Into eyes staring deep
deeper than eyes bore
Drilling under skin to heart
To find the soul misplaced
out of body, gaze set free
Taking to the air
Flying far from here
to youthful leafy trees
swaying hammock
Sailing in pure breeze
Now lost to age's looters
pure joy no longer a friend
now enamored of passing fancy
Passing preferred
No lingering, no staid
permanence, but a flight
breathless over my body
looking up again, eyes still
stare, but then away
as mirrored eyes finish
.And return I to flesh
farther from which I went
Knowing nothing more than
the dream my soul sees in
eyes
looking.
Aching for permanence.

Finger Bowls

I remember one time in the Minneapolis Museum of Art I was looking at one of Monet's Haystacks. I love impressionists and just looking at the paint strokes, oil paint so thick it was probably still drying, made me tear up a bit. Just seeing that beauty and realism captured in paint moves me in a very strange way. Religious art has never touched me as much as impressionists. We are told to seek after everything lovely. Monet is beautiful to me. Of course Kandinsky is too beautiful to me too, but not in the same moving and tearing way that touches my soul. Going to the exhibit of religious artwork in the Museum of Art was nice but having studied art for a while in a non-religious institution I am influenced too much by historical contexts and painting styles. I thought one of the pieces of art was very reminiscent of paintings of Arthurian legends from the same time period. The piece of art in the entire exhibit that moved me the most was the painting of the three bowls containing blood, water and spirit entitled The Third Triptych. These bowls at once reminded me of finger bowls we used in my family for hand washing at various Jewish celebrations. They were passed around the table for ritual hand washings. My parents had to explain the symbolism of cleansing ourselves before God. Like every child, symbolism had to be learned. My mother explained Catholic beliefs and symbols and my father took Jewish. The hand washing always seemed a little excessive to me as a child, but when we occasionally skipped it after I was older and we had many more kids and less time, I felt that something was missing. We may be taught symbols, but growing up we have our own symbols we have gained from learning and our families. I was taught different symbols from people who were born and raised only Mormon, but Mormons are taught different symbols from other religions. This painting did not make me cry over the technical details such as Monet did. This painting moved me because of the symbolism and how I connected with those symbols. One of the paintings had a prayer shawl hanging in the background. It also had lilies and other symbols, but I connected with the prayer shawl. Prayer shawls means sabbath to me and going to synagogue on some holiday or something.

Anyway, back to the painting I really liked. The water, blood and spirit all portrayed as being in finger bowls, which we use to cleanse ourselves and bring ourselves nearer to God, was simple in a way but very meaningful. In the New Testament times, they did not wash as frequently as we do, so hand washing was probably much more needed. Foot washing was probably the same. Peter asked when Jesus was cleaning his feet if he could clean every part of him, but Jesus replied that only the feet were needed. Now we still symbolically wash our hands, but because of our knowledge of Christ, washing our hands in the finger bowls has changed to not just being a symbol of cleansing ourselves so we can be nearer to God, but also symbolizes the Atonement and how Christ cleansed us all. The symbol of washing our hands is the same, but the meaning behind it has expanded to encompass more that it used to. So now the body of Christ is displayed in the three bowls, the same type of bowls we use to symbolize the cleansing power of the Atonement. His body cleansed us and saved us from sin.

Trials

Trials are never fun. My sister's car died this morning and is too expensive to fix. My car needed 500 dollars worth of work to keep it running last week. My sister is flying to Minnesota to drive a car of my parents back this weekend. My family is moving to China. I am broke. My car, even with the 500 dollars I spent on it may not last very long. My grades are not the best because I am working a full time job at night. My hair is messy today but I think I may want to go to an audition. Yes, another audition. I know I'm crazy. Life is crazy and I occasionally feel more at home with the craziness of life than the structured, normal times. But when the trials are really bad, after the initial breakdown, all I can think is that God must love me a lot to make me suffer this much. I know Jesus loves me because my life totally sucks. It's strange logic, but to the masochistic half-Jew, it completely makes sense. If I was having a good life, I would start to wonder about my decisions and if they were really in line with God's will. Maybe because I'm so busy dealing with the latest crisis or bit of bad news, I'm not worrying about my standing with God. My thought is: would he be giving me this many trials if he didn't know I could handle them with His help? Probably not? If I wasn't at least sort-of on the right path, I'd be punishing myself with unhappiness, so I'm going to be happy about the trials. My mother would always say: no one's dead, no one's in prison, so we're okay. Of course sometimes when she would say that Uncle Scott was still in prison, but I think she was just referring to the immediate family. Of course there was that time that Dad was in prison, but she wasn't in town for that.

Anyway, the point of this entire diatribe on trials is that in reading the account of John, I am reminded that Jesus knew what trials were coming and he still continued to help others and fulfill His mission. I suppose I shouldn't be amazed by this, but he knew what trials were coming. Greater trials than any other man had had to endure, and he was still helping other people through their trials. He was comforting his disciples after enduring in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was looking out for his mother when he was on the cross. He was forgiving people while he was suffering more than any mortal man could endure. How was he so good? He was the Son of God, and a God himself. He was at one with the father's will. How could we possibly be like him? I don't even know where to begin. But reading the Gospel of John, my favorite gospel, he is showing us in every word how to be more like Him. Examples are given, but more important to me are the words, the commands he gives. He is the light and life of the world. He is our example and has given us the light of the everlasting gospel to be our guide. We have to keep trying everyday. We have to keep trying, not only because He wants us to and has commanded us to, but because we really can't make it through trials on our own without that Spirit that comes from keeping his words and regarding them as our salvation. We have to keep going no matter what because it will never be so bad that we can't go on without his help. We are all stronger than each of us realizes. We are strong as keepers of the commandments and we are strong as those who can have the Spirit to be with them. And we have to keep going on, because the world is only going to become harder to endure, not easier. And to look at the highlights today no one is dead and no one is in jail. And more importantly I know that trials is one way I can become closer to my Savior; to become more like He is and wants me to be.

coming home

rummaging the children to get to the door
cement turns to fake grass covered stairs
iron bars follow me up and criss cross the
communal hallway houses the cold air and tonka
trucks lay with other fallen spoils of war
damaged and un lying desolate and abandoned
next door smells the seasoned beef simmering with oil
swelling the chill air with spices and then the
welcome mat lies looking always blankly up
unlocked the warm dark room awaits stilly wrapping
in the gentle deep exhalation and warm pins
prick my soul with peace
until the windows awake showing the black
and yellow noise all slipping around me and
lifting off the layers
until I am warm and naked

A personal God

Maybe it was all the Jewish holidays this last month or the struggles I have been having surviving day to day sometimes, but it occurred to me what a very personal God we have. I suppose many Christians believe in a God who is close to them, but not all do. My mother, while during Catholic school was never taught to pray personally. My father, raised without much religion most of his life, when he was studying to be a rabbi, would go up into the mountains to pray in true Biblical fashion. But we are taught to pray over everything. We pray over our 'flocks and fields' or anything that is important to us in our lives. We pray before sports events and theatrical performances. Coming from a place where prayer is considered to be something that you do in church or in a way that doesn't call attention to itself, this is still shocking. This praying over everything is still shocking to me even though I've been here three months.

The praying before plays was the first thing that really shocked me. My experience of theatres has shown me an environment very dissimilar to any religious environment. The theatre and church have always been very separate communities I belonged to. So praying in a theatre was about as shocked as I have been in many years. I have felt the Spirit while involved with theatrical productions, but I am usually alone in these feelings. The prayer before plays may seem normal to some, but to me it seems like a fissure in reality. So I always knew God cared about these very small things that I did, but seeing other people acknowledge these small things that God blesses us with was nice and interesting. It's just like the way God blesses us with personal prayer. I wonder how many times my dad would climb those mountains in California to pray? Was it everyday, or was praying only for particular guidance in a large and weighty matter? And I wonder if my mother said her own prayers to God as she chanted the set prayers.

Prayer is something very small, mundane almost. Except it is communicating with God. This was all inspired by rereading the account of Jesus taking on our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. He called to his Father, and our Father. In the times of greatest distress he called out to his Father, as we all have called out to Him in our times of distress. And even times when we just needed to be clear on some things or talk about some things. He is actually listening to all the small things we say to him and watching all the small things we do everyday. He knows us and not a hair on our heads will be lost (or pulled out) except he knows it.

To my sister on her birthday

You are my paper lunch bag and my Toblerone
Honeysuckle afternoon, losing all my keys
Fire escape rust and blood Hibiscus flower grown
Walks in the cemetery, most allergic breeze
Napping with Winnie Pooh, and Piglet all alone
Finest film I’ve known with my favorite French cheese
My red ants in New Orleans and a dirndl frill
Waiting for late late ride, boxes packed to fill
Moo sounding cello and Nutcracker dance
Three flights up to front door. Three more: not a chance.
The big zoo in my dreams and all the Russian things
Our cone of silence, mocking bird, and all Ping's dings
Umweltverschmutzung, and funerals, except one
But together and apart, this life's sadness will be won
Lonely as a lightning bolt, one second then no more
Back to the home before the jolt, from its haven torn
But echoing we speak and never loose track, nor
The calls, texts and emails from the darkness scorn


So with your lunch and life, you are the outcome new
Of all your dreams and plans and schemes, to which you have been true
No more or less than missing memories
All falling silently, your birthday leaves

Rosh Hashanah

Happy Rosh Hashanah! Okay, I guess it brings back my childhood, but I always loved the Jewish holidays, including the solemn ones around the Days of Awe. Maybe it was my Dad trying to blow the shofar he bought and totally failing. You just can't be solemn at that type of occasion. He tried so hard and there was never any noise at all. We all tried and no one could make a single note that sounded like the Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments when they blew their giant shofars to move the Children of Israel. They sounded like majestic horns trying to move the millions of people like cattle. Anyway, that was always a fun part along with braiding the challah bread and being allowed to eat lots of bread and honey. So, now my sister to baking the challah bread and I'm going to eat some tomorrow. I'm glad she's here to bake, or else I'd have to go to Einstein Brother's which I've been informed has individual challah, but they aren't that good. Tradition! Tradition! It seems like traditions carry on because they make us feel safe and secure. The Jews in the time between the Old and New Testaments were scattered and the temple was destroyed, but they still held onto what they believed through traditions. They didn't have the gift of the Holy Ghost per se, but they knew what their ancestors had believed and they knew the words of the Torah, and with their traditions, they survived as a people through many subsequent problems and diasporas. The Jewish laws may have been geared more to the letter of the law versus the spirit, but they did indeed keep the Jewish people separate from whatever people they tried to live among.

I guess hearing about all the laws they had back then regarding the number of steps around Jerusalem being as many steps as you could walk in a Sabbath day or how nothing that has touched milk can touch anything with meat, or vice versa seem like little things that shouldn't have made much of a difference to a people trying to survive. But all these little things became little things that made the Jews different, or special. I am not kosher and I don't adhere to any rabbinical laws regarding my actions on Saturdays or Sundays, but I do remember the holidays. Sometimes I just remember them in passing with fond memories of the past, and sometimes I search through the 7 grocery stores in town to try to find who sells Manischewitz macaroons for Passover (last Passover, and only one store sold any but chocolate chip which I don't like that much). I'm not Jewish, except in that my father was and I grew up celebrating Jewish holidays, but a part of me will always be Jewish because I remember these holidays and remember what they are in commemoration of. Why do I love these traditions that have no strict religious meaning to me anymore? Because I grew up with them, and even though they may have no strict religious meaning, they mean something to me. They remind me of my ancestors and the traditions they had to keep themselves a separate, obedient people.

This of course begs the question: What am I doing to keep myself an obedient person? Eating challah bread and macaroons definitely does not make me a more obedient person. All these outward celebrations and laws are not what makes a person obedient. What makes a person obedient is a change of heart and to internalize the gospel as much as possible. Feast upon the words of Christ, for behold the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do. I suppose that more than food and celebrations, we should be feasting on the words of Christ. But as much as I love the scriptures, I still like lighting Chanukah candles, winning Gelt, and playing 'find the matzo' (which has no purpose).

Entitlement

Yes, I am better than you
And should be treated like it too
Don't think to class me with the common
I am as lofty as any Brahmin
Gourmet lobster tortellini, not ramen
And if I'm not given everything I'm due
I will sue.

Illness

I've been thinking about illness and healing in the New Testament quite a bit lately. It's probably because I've been ill and reading the New Testament. Healing is something that the disciples and Jesus do throughout the New Testament, but others can also heal in the name of Christ. Then when Christ heals he will in conjunction with this sometimes cast out devils, sometimes forgive sins, and sometimes neither, he just heals them.

Mental illnesses seem to be the ones that need devils cast out of the people who are sick with them, while just healing, or forgiving sins seems to be for physical illnesses. I was just thinking about how many mental illnesses are still influenced by evil spirits today. We have a few people in my family, including myself with mental illnesses including depression, PTSD and bi-polar, and while they may be influenced by evil spirits, most of the time, those that are sick are being influenced by their brain-chemistry, their past or other things that may have happened to them. I suppose their experiences or condition have made them weaker, and that is how the evil spirits began to influence them. This is all conjecture really though. Even with priesthood blessings and faith, it still takes those who are sick a long time to heal, if they ever completely heal. Sometimes the real gift they are given is the ability to be strong enough to live with the disease. Then those who do not have faith don't ever really recover. They find ways to live. They try to forget the things that made them this way. They try to forget their problems. They find ways to try to find happiness in life.

I was just really thinking about the difference between mental and physical illnesses and how Christ could heal them all, but in different ways. Then I suppose he heals everyone of us in different ways. His ways are not our ways and healing mental illnesses is more of a process these days, even with the diivine help of the Lord. But learning to perfect ourselves and be more like Jesus is also a process. We all seem to learn and heal and grow line upon line, precept on precept.

I am very glad the Lord healed on the Sabbath. Being sick on the Sabbath is not fun, and I'm very glad blessings and other ministrations are welcomed and encouraged on the Sabbath.

Wilt

Evil all around
Chemical green grass I’ve found
Too green and too straight
To allow curving cusps create
Colors forced to perfection
No rot decay to allow reflection
Alternative banished

Burn Burn and fire turn
All dross into ways to learn
Grow and ash I know
Scorched and I regrow
No change, no fire, standing
Still waiting, fearful of expanding
Wilt

belong

I don't belong
Where my sorrow sings a song
My joy cries all day long
And mother says nothing is wrong
Wrong. I don't belong.

Where then is my home?
Am I a stranger lost?
Do I merely roam?
How far should space exhaust?

I'll never be fit for here
Inside me is lonely
But I fit so perfectly
I don't belong, but I'll be near.

How I feel

I do not hunger except for you
And the softest way you say: untrue
Me and everything I say and do
I am untrue to me and you

But if I am I know it well
And you know so I do not tell
Fissured cracked, a broken belle
Beauty fading, a death knell

You see the fear I hide
Bleeding pain always denied
Monster strong living inside
Eating me alive. I've died.

Partially and living is hard
Breathing by machine yard by yard
Perpetually scarring and scarred
Bleeding internally, exterior hard

But now your soft touch I crave
Your voice upon my earlobes lave
Peace given, when pain I gave
You tried but there's nothing left to save

I'll cause you pain I daresay
So, cause me more and go away
Or take pain out on me alway'
Love will my pain allay

P.S. This is just a poem about nothing. Don't read into it.

Too too too tired

Chemicals kick me to no effect
Dew douses me but I’m not wet
Fading fast, fading slow
I have nowhere else to go
Sleep forbidden
Trying tiredness hidden
But inevitable escape
Naps inconvenient I make
Dipping in and out of sleep
Try to swim but going under deep
Falling jerk again I wake
Unaware of seconds slaked
Uncounted time lost again
Lord, strength to me lend
Then the darlings start to stir
Idiotic questions and queries heard
Stories told and discussions snug
People wake me like no drug
I think I hate them until the sun
Rises and out they come

Done

Crazy unreal you call my view
Strange and odd I would seem to you
Understanding ugly dark surreal
From the disturbed night I steal
But sunny days they don't know
I let no indication show
Hand raised I want to say
The poem
She is me long ago
Not demented but looking for a place to go
Hating and adoring are more possible things
Like twines of the same string
She is I and I am me
My hand goes down, I won't let them see

Weather

Cool and hail predicted
Sun he interdicted
Damp rain feared
Cool breeze cheered
Weather channel drenched
My interest quenched
Internet digests
Of weather to report
More import than quests
Foreign and my retort
Temperature treatise
For our location
Far, too far to meet us
Concerned about situation
No words soft
No feelings aloft
Subdued, no word spoken
Weather the single token
I then smile
Where weather is concerned
I don’t count miles

Four

4 am and the body
Sags, a puppet
With nothing left
Being held up
By stimulant and sturdy
Front desk

Caving the curvature
Frames the top and drop
To the floor
Empty inside, no more
On elbows body bowing
A husk

Backpack

Hauling heavy straps
Weighing down traps
Strength slowly taps
Longing for loss of gravity
Free from polyester fetters
Creeping towards morbidity
A shell full of books and letters
Hunched on my back
My education in chains calling
All the information my head lacks
Knowledge slowly sprawling
From my back to my head
From books brimming with
In the dark slight bouncing
Words unbound now shift
No longer tiny tomes trouncing
Muscles tighter trying
Knowledge into them seeping
Carrying a load no weeping
Too much and I begin crying

I cannot stop until my back carries nothing
And my brain lets nothing more in
That would be something

Jewish-Mormon Heritage

I'm feeling Jewish. Yeah, that doesn't happen that often and it has been inspired by my New Testament class. As a Mormon Cashew (half-Catholic, half-Jew, all Mormon) I usually feel particularly Jewish around Chanukah, Purim, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Passover. But in my New Testament class we are reading a book: Between the Testaments which goes over the history of what happened between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. I really had never studied this particular part of history before. I knew about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, but I never was really sure when the Maccabees came into the historical record. Maccabees, for those who don't know are a Jewish family who fought against the Greeks who destroyed the temple and persecuted the Jews in Judea. We tell the story of the Maccabees every year at Chanukah. We have innumerable picture books and children's books at home from which I learned about how the Maccabees (meaning Hammer) fled to the hills after attacking the Greeks and staged a guerrilla war, which they finally won. When they came back into Jerusalem, they needed to clean the temple which had been desecrated by the Greeks and rededicate it. They needed sacred oil, prepared and dedicated by the priests to light the temple Menorah (which should always be lit) and rededicate the temple. According to my beloved picture books, they looked everywhere, but they could only find enough oil to burn in the Menorah for one night. The miracle of Chanukah is that the Menorah burnt on that oil for eight nights, which is how long it took for the priests to consecrate the oil.

This is story I knew from celebrating Chanukah growing up, but it is interesting to now learn about what was happening in the world around the Maccabees. I never knew who the Greeks who were attacking them really were and why they were attacking, except that the Jews were always getting attacked. It seems strange to only now be learning about Antiochus IV of the Seleucid Empire and his relations with the Jews and the Romans which led to the atrocities carried out against the Jews. It is only now that I am learning about the real history, that I am realizing the gaps in my own knowledge. The difference between the stories I was told and the real history of what happened is stark.

You are probably wondering why learning about this historical time period in particular is making me remember my Jewish heritage. I don't know. I always loved various parts of the Old Testament. I felt akin to those people who were somehow distantly related to me. My connection to those old prophets translated to feeling a strong connection to the old prophets in the Book of Mormon. But, besides loving the gospels and the words of Jesus they contained, I have never connected in the same way to the New Testament or the Doctrine and Covenants. I love the New Testament because I always remember the first time I really read and understood the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. I didn't realize I had a testimony until that day. But as to feeling a connection to Matthew or Paul or any of the Saints mentioned in Acts: I never did. I felt a connection to John and the Savior, but those are the only people I connected to, and the Savior wasn't even writing. But, today in seeing how the Old Testament and New Testament are connected through these hundreds of years of history, I almost feel like I'm coming to the New Testament from a completely different angle. That seems cheesy, but it's true. And I'm wondering what I will learn from this chance to relearn the New Testament and if I will be able to not only become closer to my Savior but to also come closer to the authors and Saints of the New Testament.

Prose

Why don't I post more? is the question I'm sure some of you have asked. I don't have time is the answer. Poetry takes more time than one would expect especially if one is working, going to school, in a play and enjoys television. I will be using this blog to give mundane updates on the state of small forgotten things in the world. Do not be surprised. Do not be alarmed. Poetry will still come, interrupted by prose and one-sided monologues of speculation. Oh, I will also be writing about a class. Instead of the dreaded and tedious writing journals, we are required to blog about our impressions. I support this so any readers will have to share in the tediousness of my new school life. They will also probably learn more about me, which I do not support.

Clouds covering mountain

Stroking the crags with wispy fingers
Caressing troubled terrain
From deep blue, gauze now lingers
Secret the summit, dense the white refrain
Peak hidden from the sun
Much unseen
Mystery beckons me

Exhausted

Soothing voice
Hark me not
I have no choice
Drowsy day caught
My mind drifts
Into sweet deep dark
Monotone will not lift
Head to hear the lark
Shout! Loud words profane
Take me from the wandering lane
Swoop and wake
My breath from me to take
And force anew fresh exhalation
Brain startled back
Head jerks with no explanation
Away again from blissful listful
ness

Hole Reinforcer

Through empty eyes that stare
At me through broken tear
Hole torn and into space it weeps
No more absense complete
Trying to stay put but no hold
Falling to the floor so cold
Once ripped never mended
Tape makes worse to the obsessed
with uneven sticky mess
To be thrown away but wait
Doughnut shaped sticker?
I hesitate.
Divider so precious, will it be lost?
With only one hole shaming the others
Saving at what cost?
Can it be patched for a while
Can loss be detained?
Sticking both sides evenly matched
To see the effect, if it works
My constant divider, I've become attached
But soon another will let go
Now or next Monday
I'll never know, but not yet
Hanging on determinedly
I'll wait for the next hole doomed
Then let it go free

Resignation

Does the end come slowly
Trickling everyday
Or come like lighting
Bolting with massive speed
Does it slowly crush us
Sucking life and limb and air
Or does it depress us
With nothing left to care
Will it all just end
or continue to beyond
Like the nitrogen cycle
or the phoenix’s saddest song
Will we be transformed
beyond our wildest dreams
Abandoned in hopeless struggle
Beside life’s greatest stream
Lost to dreams and memories fading
Will we fight with no rest in sight
Troubles always coming until
Crying out to gods and the end
And in the middle we find
The deepest of our peace
Wells up from space inside
From God or from breathing air
We neither know nor care
But relaxing we sit tight
And wait for things comforting and trite

Deep breath and then again
Harder the fight and on to some end
Tragedy or pathos, will it come
Eventually when least expecting
Happiness comes a creeping
If worse can come now
I can only wait and ask how

Summer Sonnet

I sing a song of sunny summer day
Meadow my muse and Puck, my wicked guide
Fishing stick swords and magic steeds bestride
Idyllic afternoons have run away
Swallowed by drear industrious display
Mischief is dead and foolish dreams subside
Where my wistful wondering child haunts chide
Could I faeries and sighing streams betray?
With childhood forgot there is no haven
Naught to do but grieve no joy to leaven
Summer sweeps in to scare terrors and tears
Pixies prevail, all monsters fall craven
Day dreams, sunbeams are manna from heaven
Imagination’s light eye sees no fear

Spring day inside

Coruscating up and down the walls
Sunlight from the windows falls
Trees shake that I do not see
Shadows free reflecting
Outer life and breathing worlds
All around the building curled
Sighing gently with green new birth
Exhaling shadows breaking light
Dancing sprites o’er all the earth
With the lion’s tortoise pace of spring
Lazily loping through new fields
Reaching fingers through anything
Walls and windows don’t stop the
Wildest romp of season end
Blowing within office walls the voice
Of untamed might and riotous demands
Howling at the structure that defies
Nature in its rising swell of power
Conquering every gleaming glass tower
Calm the sun washes all with sleep
Warming tempers to a pleasant heat
Waiting until another day when
No desk set at liberty I commune
With my wanton spring

People

I hate people, they really suck
They’re mean, and insensitive schmucks
Some especially need to be chucked
Terrorists come and abduct
Take to Afghanistan and ditch
Abandoned forever unless there’s a snitch
They’d be back with the newest sales pitch
Sarcastic comment, or wanting a hitch
Stupid people are always worse
I need to learn a voo-doo curse
But then friends can also be jerks
Annoying as hell, to be given to the Turks

Calendar

Squares of days easily thrown away
Ripped out, shredded every new day
Turning the page making a large X with no delay
Closer creeps the weekend
With time that I can spend
With a dream that it will never end
But then comes the Monday X
When I escape for Tex-Mex
Or wonder if I can work a hex
On phones to make them stop
Customers to make them drop
In a deadly heap, on top of which, I’ll hop
But more days to come and nothing to do
But tear out the day and rue the time when I’ll be through
No money, and no one thickheadedly hovering
So I make my large X and see time passing
Wondering what the next calendar will bring
A bright new corner or a loud death ring
Is it knell? I can no longer tell.
Too many X’s, too much of a daze
My mind has stopped, surrounding vacuity crazed
That I’ve survived this long has me amazed

Madness

Slowly it comes I sense it near, the screaming madness comes, I fear
Creeping so slowly with every new event, forgetting things, emotions pent
Holding it together, surviving, with phone calls and texts while driving
Every week longer, will there be an end?
Confusion and moonstruck madness I portend
Calmly I seem to have lost all dreams
Sleep has been abandoned, eating is random
Only when I have a moment trying to catch up
Does my maniacal laughter indicate I’m stumped
Toward mad Bedlam sending, quiet my precious sanity rending
Will it come with thunder, fist shaking at the heavens, world split asunder
Or quiet whispering sounds that aren’t there; creeping up on me as I sit in my chair
One more thing and one more thing to be done
I can’t handle anymore right now, I must run
Give up, quit, die, show me how to leave this endless circling ride
What more can I do to help you? Wait until the world ends, all things new?
Confusion, like waves inside my head, reason pays no mind
Tossing and turning, trying to be kind, No no more or I’ll lose my mind

The pain of punctuation

When we truly feel, quotations seem unreal
Can you put a comma in stanzas of pain and drama
Pour out the soul on paper with no consideration
Should periods put an end to our vexations?
Paralyze our angst and proffer us punctuation
To stall the coming tide of tearful sentiment.
Please give me semicolons to shore up the banks.
Flooding feelings, running over piled pediments;
For the rescuing apostrophe, we give thanks.
Floating far from the shore of reasonous remarks
Ellipses elongate this sentimental lark . . .
Then back we come past fury and frustrating rages,
To a place of calm and peace-enlightened sages.
Order and punctuation prevail in synchronized accord.
Until emotion sways and they are pushed out the door!

Sick

Empty of feelings emotions are dead
Sitting here softly naught in my head
Wishing I wasn’t here and could go to bed
Rest on my desk I feel like lead
Has filled every limb except those aching
And bruises come with no real making
If I’d been fighting it would make sense
But nothing in my body could be tense
Empty bereft I live with regret
This day offers no hope
Despair is all
Sickness and fatigue have come to call
Just can’t leave too much to do
Life is suffering is all too true
No alleviation writing brings frustration
More work more consternation

emails

Where’re I come, where’re I go
A dabbling steam of emails flow
In and out, to friend and foe
Ads for pills and weight loss all come in a lump
Hasten the deletion of all such junk
Twisting the ways of routers so trained
Delivering delightful and disastrous note
From loading out to the world wide
web they weave their way
Wending to the inbox end
But if reply then back out they fly
In journey ne’er complete
They talk to all they meet
But letters burned correspondence condemned
No saving, eventually all forgot
Deleted without a thought
So our lives on email rely
Yet fade too on digital ocean of time
Fleeting all, naught to turn sublime

Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball Extra Fine

Flowing so smooth
Ink staining paper
In elegant grooves
Slightly serious the line
Leaves meaning behind
Becoming solely
Sensuous in its winding
Meandering gush
Letting words go
Letters now simple designs
From pen tip to
Draw the language
With infinite finesse
The pen takes over
As words I craft

My loving poem to Wednesdays

Winding hopelessly until waking
Sunlight my spirit slowly breaking
Into hopeless monotony of making
A living with no hope of redemption
IRS will give me no exemption
Kill me now as a preemption
Catastrophe comes all clumped
Bleakness of life has me stumped
All that’s left is to get dumped
Why can’t the end come soon
Drown the office in a monsoon
Waiting for Friday night or noon
Time weighing down the living
Death a cheerful grin giving
Resentment for work unforgiving
Feeling downtrodden disheartened depressed
Always stuck in the Midwest
Living on caffeine and still stressed
Without money, dispossessed
Too tired to mount a large protest
I have a plan. Have you guessed?
To escape work week I detest
It involves poison and a large arrest
It’s only Wednesday with too much to go
When it’s over maybe I won’t feel so low
It’s only the hump and it’s going to blow

Calculator

Beautiful buttons
Spread under screen
Numbers come out
Don’t mean a thing
Adding subtracting
My mind doesn’t follow
Pencil and pad?
Step into tomorrow
People don’t add
It’s all done by machine
Mental math is
A phrase obscene
Multiplication division
A torture so mean
Without calculator
I can’t do my math
Ask me sine cosine
Behold my wrath
Without calculator
I’m really dumb
Take it away and
My mind goes numb
It no longer turns on
Thinking seems wrong
Wonder what I’ll do
Maybe ask you

Rubber band ball

Rolling forward without regret
The rubber band ball will be caught in no net
With fearsome color and elasticity
Will never be a conductor of electricity
Bouncing on its merry way through office left and right
With hundreds of bands pulled and stretched so tight
Without purpose or compulsion, rolling forward motion
With nothing to do but roll or sit with no notion
Nothing but contempt useful objects have for
Ball with never a plan after or before
Never contributing or accomplishing chores
Rolling simply in colorful bouncy abandon
Happy in its useless joy
Like a bouncing baby boy
Too happy for the life it leads
No glimmer of cynicism or greed
Simply rolling though there is no need
Living gloriously without direction or aim
Sitting on my desk wanting to play a game

Trash Can

Trying to completely escape
All untimely messes we make
Throwing away plastic, paper and tape
Cans, bottles, bags, empty folder tabs
Too-old cake
Gathered all in a tub plastic lined
Filled with treasures we’ll never again find
Making plains into mountains, never mined
To the future our eyes are blind
Eventually the trash will break out
No longer confined
To generations coming, uncaring unkind
Too much to do, we don’t think they’ll mind
So filled again to the rim every other day
Tossing into the can junk that cannot stay
Making my world clean, an immaculate cliché
Filling mountains, so easy lives can stay and play
Cans overflowing with no thought of who will pay
I wonder if my trash will be taken out today

Staple Remover

Ripping removing rending
Alligator teeth viciousness lending
Tearing to singleness sheets
Pulling away piles of neat
Groups parted and lone paper tending
To try to join again all gaps mending
Bound loosed and taking out the bind
Dittos let go uncertain what to find
Solitary pages now free
No longer us now a me
Lonely

Pens

Everywhere increasing
With no policing
Against penetration
Of every surface and location
Filling the world
Fingers clutching curled
Never releasing
Writing unceasing
Tapping and too many
10 for a penny
Disappearing every time
It should be a crime
Rolling around
Where they go confounds
Hands try to find
Later resigned
Then from nowhere
It rolls to the brink
My pen I snare
But it has no ink