Something More

I sat outside studying my script and attempting to give my skin means to not be so very white, when a robin landed on the chainlink fence across the yard. It was just the two of us, minus the near constant sound of passing cars a lifetime on a busy street has led me to ignore as white noise. He looked at me, the robin did, for a moment. And I wondered about all the life that's passed before. All the robins and all the people who have occupied the same space in all the time gone by, how we as humanity have shared the planet with numerous creatures, some we don't yet know and some that left our lifetime.

I thought about the purpose of me and the robin. Our spirits, our souls, our reasons for breathing on this planet at this moment.

I wondered if we're wasting our time, he on the fence, me on my lawn chair. But at the same time I think he's ever fulfilling his duty. He is ever constant in his quest for food, ever vigilant when crafting a nest, ever open to mating or taking a moment to stop and look around, to drop remembrances to a society that forgets there is life past our computer screens and smart phones. There is purpose more than studying a script. He's very careful with his time, the robin. Very purposeful with his life.

And I'm not wasting mine, in this chair. I'm multitasking. I'm getting two birds with one stone, if that's not too sensitive a euphemism to employ.

But as far as my purpose goes, as far as what God sent me here to do, am I wasting time? Who am I bringing to His truth by sunbathing in the backyard? Of what benefit am I, pensively reading or pondering the actions of a robin?

When I see it all clearly, when the robin and I pass this place to higher courts, will I shutter at all the wasted time? Will my productive time be yet classified wasted?

Am I meant to be the robin: each moment I breath dedicated to my purpose, or is that the blessing of humankind? Is that the beauty in what God allowed us to be, that I can take these moments in practices of man and still be welcomed home, because I also took moments to stop and look around and drop remembrances to a society that forgets there is life past this life. There is purpose more than this.

Believe not God is in your heart, child, but rather you're in the heart of God.

"I found God when I thought I was happy, when I thought this is as good as life can get." -Al Fox

I'm not going to be long with this one. I just had that need to write again.

First, let me just say watch this video:




There's not much more I can say than this. I echo everything, and it's interesting to me how similar a circumstance I share with someone whose past is entirely opposite of mine.

But I suppose it's not that we are different, but rather that Christ is the same. "Forget not whose hands you're in...You have a God and He is yours."

My first year of college, both semesters, my LDS Institute class was held in the same room (110 to anyone who knows the Ogden Institute on Weber's campus). There's a picture of Christ in the front corner of the room. It's not that generic one that I have in my room, or that Al Fox has on the bookshelf behind her. It was  a different artist's rendition, and it was the first one that made me think of Christ as existing, rather some childhood fairytale.

I suppose that's the trouble with being raised in the church, seeing that picture in every primary lesson, or every time I glance across my bedroom. There were lots of fanciful stories I was told in my exuberant youth; stories of pigs building houses, bears eating porridge, a girl dangling her hair from a tower, men walking on water, a man feeding five thousand with loaves and fishes, a woman being healed by touching a cloak's hem...

Everyone has their conversion moment. Even if you've grown with the gospel set before you and wrapped around you. There's the moment when it stops becoming folklore and the reality clicks into place. Where suddenly I know Joseph Smith did see God and Christ; I don't just know the story. I know.

Suddenly I know Christ walked this earth, that the atonement is more than a word, that Gethsemane was more than a garden. That there is reality and truth in these stories.

That reality and truth are these stories.

I was sitting in Relief Society in my single's ward a few months back, and they passed around a stack of wallet sized pictures of Christ with little quotes on the back. I was handed the stack and I grabbed one out of the middle and passed it along. The pictures had been different, but somehow I ended up with this one.

That's the one from that institute classroom. That's the one that, to me, is Christ.

I stuck the little picture in my Book of Mormon, and every time I open it the picture falls out. I've been so afraid I would lose the little picture and never remember the artist (Greg Olsen) and would lose that little miracle of having it brought to me. So one night I decided I'd check out the guy's website to drill his identity into my mind, and see how much a print of this would cost.

I was on my phone, and couldn't decide if I should take the initiative and buy it for myself or wait until farther down the line when marriage and moving out happen, perhaps requesting it as a gift from my mom.

I was going to navigate from the page when the thought struck me to set this picture as the background on my phone.

"I couldn't do that. What if it doesn't fit? The picture of Jason Mraz that is currently my background isn't saved in my phone. If this picture doesn't work I'll have to scour the internet for my old background."

But then I realized my greatest temptations come with this phone. That my steepest mistakes have stemmed from holding the internet in my pocket.

So I changed the background.

And I couldn't stop smiling.

Sorry, Satan. Chalk up another point for Christ.


I haven't been perfect, but it's harder to ignore that wrong doings are wrong when I'm looking in the face of Christ every instant I check the time.

I'd Like to Say We've Tasted Love

One thing I've come to notice is how life isn't what you expect. Meaning that a lot of the benefits/realizations/friendships I've received have come from moments when I didn't expect anything of the type to take place.

I could go with the laundry list, but I think I'll stick with what's relevant this instant.

You see, when my old pal Ellen (not the one with the talk show, though she is planning on chopping her hair off) invited me down to her home for the day, I was expecting to trade war stories of my single life and her newly married life. I was expecting to rehash and revamp our friendship. I was expecting to get to know her husband a bit more.

I wasn't expecting what I got.

(Yes, I got all that I expected, but there was something else. And it went like this.)

Ellen is one of two long time good friends who are married, and the only one I have "hung out with" since the name-change. Tonight was my first experience as the third wheel to a married couple; it wasn't awkward, that's not what I'm saying. I just...

There's something different about love bonded by marriage when it's not your grandparents or you parents or the spunky young couple that moved into the ward when you were thirteen. There's something different about seeing a peer--someone you passed notes to in Junior High, someone who went to your first Jason Mraz concert with you (and the Jonas Brothers...), someone who fangirled over the same low-level boyband that never got off the ground--there's something different when someone who was once like you is...

Complete.

I guess I just never really realized what marriage--and love--looked like until this late afternoon, in the backseat watching them out of the corner of my eye interact. I'm not from a broken home: I've had good models on what a successful relationship is, but it took my parents some 27 years to get where they are. Ellen and Sean are at seven months (in two days). This is what those 27 years looks like at the starting gate. This is what it would look like for me.

And I realized I haven't had that. I haven't had that flawless comfort and banter, that connection that still buzzes in the dead air between the passenger seat and the driver's. I haven't been linked like that. And it's not a thing that magically happens when an I Do is spoken or whatever it is that takes place at the alter in the temple takes place. I'm sure that helps, but the link comes before that. The love comes before that.

And as much as I've wanted it and been willing to give it, as much as I've tried to make it happen, I haven't had that yet.

And that's what I needed today for. That's why I had to gird up my little car and head into the valley. That's why Ellen invited me. That's what I needed to get that I didn't expect.

Every "relationship" I've had hasn't been that, not yet. And it doesn't mean I'm in the wrong or failing. It's just suddenly I'm aware there's more to be looking for than I have been, and that yes love is hard, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as I'm making it. It doesn't have to hurt as much as I convince myself it needs to. When it's right I should be happy; without having to talk myself into it. If it hurts, if it feels as disgusting as it does right now then it's time to walk away.

It's safe to walk away, knowing that the day will come when I arrive somewhere expecting to order an ice cream or interview for a job or whatever it is, and I'll walk away with something else. I'll walk away with someone else who won't have to hesitate in taking a risk and chasing me and who wants to include me in his life and surround himself in mine, who will have the faith in what he feels and the trust that God wouldn't let him make such a drastically wrong decision, but that sometimes we have to make a choice before He nods His head or guides our eyes in the right path. Sometimes it takes the exercising of our flawed reasoning to activate the divine hand of our Heavenly Father; sometimes we have to take that blind step in the dark and exert our efforts before He intercedes His. And someday, somewhere, there will be someone who realizes all of this in as narrow of a window as I do, and together we'll see more clearly. And together we'll progress.

And I guess that's love. And that's what I'm looking for.

Chasing Rubies

It's kicking in, this idea that I'll make it.
I'm dropping all the weights and chains
That kept me stationed back with "maybe"
And doing as I feel.
I'm making motions, striking chords,
Taking strides towards
Whatever is coming at me.

I'm plowing into darkness,
A fog of secrecy wrapping about my lungs,
But through the process
I am content.
Ready, aware, content
That regardless where I end,
I end there for a purpose;
For a reason undisputed by God.

It is comfort, this strength,
This remarkable means of letting go.
It is security to choose,
To strike a match of agency
And let the fire loose.

I am ready here, and waiting.
Good things are coming soon.

Exposition

People are always saying you're the author of your own life, you write your destiny.

Yes and no.

Life is like a novel, life is a story, but if you were the author you'd know what was coming next. You'd know what course would get you from point A to point B. You'd be the one creating it. There would be no need for faith or trust or error, because if you knew everything--if you were writing your life--you'd know the end. You know what to avoid and what to strive for.

You're the author of your actions. You're the embodiment of a character. You are victim to traversing through a realm scripted by another and choosing and succeeding and falling as you may. You are lenient on exposition, exposition only the author can provide. You can convince yourself all you want that you know what's coming next, but how could you really?

This is not your novel. This is your chapter, your moment in a volume that will span the dawn of man to the demise of evil and beyond. Your part is as integral as the others, with regards to the furthering of the plot and the benefit of other characters. But fundamentally, you are all the same. You are all as unknowledgeable as the rest, you are all moving through space trying to pen something worthwhile of yourself.

But you can't.

Not without the author.



More or less I'm using a literary metaphor for God, if you missed it. To speak plainly, for I feel the inclination to do so, it occurred to me how little I know. I've been waiting. I've done what the author has hinted and I've stuck around; I've waited. This weekend I gleaned some information I'd been lacking for several weeks, information I rather considered vital, information that has brought me back to a state of peace or homeostasis. I was wondering over the idea of why it took so long for me to learn that, why those simple statements were spared from my ears for such a length of time.

And the word popped into my head: exposition.

In my acting class we're studying performance of monologues, and one thing the teacher keeps stressing is 'why now.' Why does this character need to say this now? People don't walk around telling their darkest secrets or spilling their hearts out or rampaging at a constant rate. There is something that has brought them to that moment. What brought it about? Why now?

I'm not the author here. I'm not the author and God doesn't take the monotonous path of foreshadowing in a Rowling-like fashion each pivotal moment of my life. He will answer me if I ask, He will extend a hand in help, but He is all knowing. He is Creator and Master, and He knows when to plant seeds and when to let truth bloom. He knows when 'wait' will suffice, and when exposition should be delivered.

How can I not trust this? How can I not trust that though I stumble in a whirlpool of menial things, my mind stretching far from the here and now, crafting ideals and hopes for puddles beyond my residence, how can I not trust He understands my story? How can I not trust He's mulled for centuries how to unravel my tale and deliver my potential. How can I deny Him the opportunity of instigating and witnessing so great a story unfold?

How can I deny the author the pleasure of allowing a character to fulfill her course and contribute to his novel as only she was meant to? How can I dare try to write something better?

Heavy Hearted

She cut me like a knife. I staggered back and felt the air fill the gash where skin used to be suspended. I slowly clenched a fist against my heart and wished it didn't sting as much as it stung.

I've never been scathed by something she'd said before. I'd been miffed and confused, maybe exceptionally irritated, but never scathed.

It was as if, for the first time in my life, my mother had dumped boiling water on me and then pushed me down a flight stairs to let the blisters bloom. I knew she didn't mean it, with each step I crashed past I knew it was just a mood she was in, but that didn't stop her words from ripping everything I've ever held in consolation from my fingers, every picture of hope off the walls.

He did it well enough, in high school. He showed me that love was a fragment of my own mind, something of my own make that would never be reciprocated and never reciprocated in the way I expected. Love would always fall short, and time and time again experience proved him to be right. He showed me the dark side to men--the dark side of everyone; the side that plays more into our prideful pompous hearts than leans into the thought that perhaps I'm doing wrong by someone else right now. Perhaps I'm crossing a line.

But the Barbie doll house didn't go up in flames until my mother had to tell me I was wrong. And as much as I knew she didn't mean it, as much as I knew it was frustration at a thousand other things and that was the thing she chose to vocalize about, it couldn't help but hurt when Mom said marriage was pointless. It couldn't help but hurt when I was so elated by the idea that someday-someday-I'll have that thing I reached for as a five year old, that thing I acted out with dolls, that thing I idealized with Disney cartoons: that someday I'll have love.

And she spat in my face.

My parents aren't getting divorced, I don't want people to think that my life is crumbling to pieces. It was a bad day on her part. But it's made every day since that much more worse for me, because suddenly I have this nagging fear at the back of my mind that I had quieted. This doubt that keeps rising that it's still just a construct of my mind, it's still just part of my imagination, and that love won't find me and that I won't find it, and that even when I do it doesn't matter.

Because it's pointless.

I wanted to say, If that was true, then why do so many people do it? If that was true then why has unity between man and wife withstood the test of time, why has that lasted? Why am I here if a procreation of love was pointless? Why would God let something so beautiful be pointless?

I know He wouldn't. He couldn't. But this dense tar of doubt clings to each glorified expression, growing stringier and needier with each desperate yank I make to rid myself of it.

I have optimism. I'm not saying I don't think anyone will ever find me attractive, or that anyone will ever be a kindred heart to mine, I'm just...

When you wake up as a teenager and you're awkward and your hair is greasy and you're chubby. And you have braces. And clothes make you look like a bloated box and you sound like a man and the only thing pretty about you is your eyelashes, but you fiddle with your eyelashes and pull at them because you've been doing it since you were a child and they're getting thinner and thinner... you start to doubt that any of those really cute boys that you keep talking about with your friends will ever actually look at you and remember who you are. And when that part of you dies, when that awkward phase ends and that part of you dies and you start to look the way you'd always hoped you did but acknowledged deep down you were terribly far from, you have to rebuild yourself and say that you weren't making things up when you were a kid and everyone was equally as ugly. That you just took a minute longer than everyone else to stop being hideous.

And you build yourself again.

And the last thing when you want when you're constructing yourself anew and establishing footing in a skin you didn't think you'd ever appreciate, is to hear that the thing you've been rooting for your entire life, that all encompassing goal, the end all of end all of everything, isn't as great as it's cracked up to be.

Closer to Fine

I brought a palmfull of water to my face and let it drizzle where it may. My hands rubbed over my closed eyes and across my mouth for good measure. Sometimes I wish I was absorbent, where water would never run down my neck or drip onto my blouse. It would seep inside of my pores and...

I imagine the water droplets making passage into my skin, and like white blood cells they begin swirling through my being, fixing and protecting me. If that's actually what white blood cells do.

If I was absorbent it wouldn't matter what they did. The water would fix me.

But as my reflexes lead me to wipe my face dry of the water that hasn't run down my neck or dripped to my blouse, I know there's no easy way to fix me.

She keeps saying I remind her of herself when she was younger. I'm tempted to scoop more water to my face but stop, knowing this time I am no different than moments before. I am not absorbent.

I panic so much because if parallels are the way she claims, destiny has written me a widow who never had a mate that could die: an old maid.

That's what she says I am.

I have to stand up. This kneeling by the stream is killing me in more ways than physical taxation on my lower limbs.

I always thought the first male to be truly interested in me would be the one I wed, not due to a sinking feeling that no one else would come along and I better take what I was given, but that no one hitherto approached or acted as though he would. It gave me reason to believe the one with the strength and desire to stick around would be the only one in the universe. It was not a matter of succumbing to fate, but that of accepting that I would be a fly on the wall until someone came to pull me into the action.

It falls back to romantic comedies from a young child's perspective. It stems from Disney and true-love's first kiss and one-take love stories. I idealized it so with dolls that it has cemented itself as fact in the core of my heart. Someday my prince will come. And unlike my mother and the majority of females the country over, I would not require a list of 64 Mr Wrongs that marshaled with pointing lights to the prince. Mine would come when he came, and he would be the only one.

But soon I began to panic that those who have thus shown interest are those I am not...of want to wed. It suddenly occurred to me through my own clumsy way of handling romance that I would need at least a percentage of the 64 so I may cognate how to respond to the prince. But the seed I planted at a tender age has been nourished daily by each cycle of my blood, and now towers indefinitely in my foresight, obstructing all but the notion that he who comes first is him that remains. I've choked with the idea that I will end with a second-rate companion because I am doomed to be sealed to he who comes first.

This is not so, but I cannot uproot this false truth out of my being.

Try as I might I am not absorbent. Water will not fix me.

I slump beneath a tree, wishing the breeze would lift me up to that Virginia in the woods where I could write and muse and sing in peace. Where I would walk with wilderness and thrive under branches and canopies or green. Where I could do all I dream to do without the prying eyes and responsibilities that cascade around my failing body like a landmine of clutter, choking with each tendril that reaches my shaking frame.

But in the depths of my quest for solitude, I do not wish to be alone.

In my mind her voice echoes again, like a bitter cricket continually causing friction between his legs.

If I am her, I will be alone.

The thought drowns me more than being permanently siphoned to a man not fit my make. In reality, along would not be secluded in a forest glade with no concern of taxes or the obtaining of food. Alone would mean in public and in bed. Alone would mean being auntie to the merry spawn of my brothers who fulfilled their one true task as males by carrying on the family line; this would only serve as comforter if I was a carrier of hemophilia and knew b not mating I was sparing my children and theirs from the condition my blood most fears. Alone would mean a general shame to the girl of yesterday who only ever picture love, who made movie after movie in her imagination with her dolls apexed on the ideal of it.

Alone would not be an alone of peace and creative plundering of the mind.

Alone would be hell.

I find myself staggering to the stream, whether I will attempt another prayer of absorbency or merely submerge my head until the constable lifts me out by the hair, my spirit floating off to the only place alone means not alone, until I find I'm sen to a sort of purgatory where those who left before their allotted time are sent, with no husband to follow my acrylic painting landscape like a map to my resting place of despondency to drag me from it to his arms.

I suppose I have decided neither; my fingers curl around the bank but I neighter plunge them nor my body in.

The air breathes the tender word Patience, and I know it's right. It's the action potential of my mind that bring the panicking to pass. I will survive this the way I have health classes and airplane turbulence and learning of FGM. It's a matter of focusing my eyes, breathing at a fixed and concentrated rate, and pleading with the God above to spare me.

And as he has in those near-breaking moments and the moments I now fail to remember, he will lead me safely again.

I will not be her. I will not be alone.

Water will fix me.