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