Summers were made for love.

Reader,
Are you still there? Do you remember me - your once faithful friend and writer? I have not forgotten you. Tonight my head and hands itch for the keyboard, my blog and you.

It has been too long since I have sat down and forced my mind to mutate from private inner musings, to public utterances of sound and sentences. Forgive me for my hiatus. You see, I fell in love.

Is it cliche, dear reader, to tell you that my heart has finally and completely been captured in the most unlikely circumstances? Is it mere cheesiness to admit that in a matter of days I knew that I had met a man who had stirred my soul in a way that I had never known before? That in his eyes I saw simplicity and honesty, both keys perfectly formed to unlock my heart to once again hope, believe, trust and finally love again.

If it is all "hosh posh" to you then I say do not read on. For my head and heart are full tonight with the beauty that so many ignorantly shy away from, or foolishly take for granted: that beauty is love - the deep, lasting sort that changes a person from mediocre to the extraordinary as life encompasses more than a "me" but rather a "we".

But before I begin, let me describe the very object of my affection. I read once that the reason books are so meaningful and powerful is that they resemble real people, real events and real life more accurately than any other medium. In short, we see ourselves and those around us in literature. I agree with this principle whole heartedly, and as I began to match my friends and family with the names of so many characters dearly loved the thought popped into my head, " Derek is just like Mr. Bingly! Post needing the approval of Mr. Darcy and his sisters." You know, the Mr. Bingly who decides for himself that Jane is the only woman he wants, despite her low position in society and the scoffs of nay-sayers. Mr. Bingly, so kind, optimistic, good natured, generous, and happy finally grows up to be a man. This is my Derek. Only add a few more important virtues: charity, a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, integrity, gentleness, a deep spirit of service, hard-working, great communicator, spontaneous, intelligent and aware of the important things in life -- all of that and still it is a mere fleeting glance into the heart and soul of Derek. He is deeper and more beautiful than my flimsy words have power to express.

I feel already that Derek's influence has softened my edges and created a more beautiful and complete me. He is my match. Together, we form a more perfect phase of being and living. We transcend the earthly and touch the eternal as we commit, covenant, sacrifice, serve, cherish and love one another. My connection to Derek is far beyond anything I have ever shared with anyone before. He is the first person who actually SEES me. He sees and understands all of me, and he loves me for it. Despite my shortcomings, he sees vast potential in the person I am and will eventually become. In his love, I will become more than I have ever imagined.

God has offered me a gift and a miracle.

I have no more fears, only dreams.

Audaces fortuna iuvat

I’ve tried writing one poem and three blog posts to you. I write a line or two and scrap it, knowing you would laugh at my foolish attempts. I feel completely inadequate to address you in verse, preferring instead a long drive where words fill the space between lost glances and undiscovered feelings. Yet the beautiful person you are and hide is blooming and alive in the words on your pages. So I’m trying something new; communicating with you in your medium. I only ask for your patients as I try to navigate my feelings to the page.

You were the perfect person to join me and Jane Eyre. I could spend days, weeks, or months in a bookstore with you as my teacher. I love that you find beauty and magic in a town that stands as the epitome of American embarrassment, and remind me all over again that I know nothing about the world I’m living in. Thank you for helping me let go and say goodbye to the JSFB along with the fully stocked fending machine muffins, costing exactly $1.20. I pull out my cell phone a million times a day wanting to send you a message just so I can get my fill of your witty humor. Inevitably, however, I talk myself out of the idea until the next impulse comes, and I know before my hands reaches inside my pocket I’m giving in this time.

5.2.11

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

We look just like the terrorists: rejoicing in death and murder. I don't mean to say I'm not glad he's dead.

But, I had hoped we were better than this...

Day 1: South Carolina, Honda, Wyoming, and America

I graduated from the university. While many of my fellow graduates posted facebook messages of excitement upon leaving school, I did not join them. I mourn my lost desk space in the classroom's of my professors.

I am, therefore, determined to turn my time in South Carolina into a literary experience. Photographs, stories, writing exercises, nature, and working out (not very literary, but none the less important) will fill my time. At least, these are my goals.

I miss school. Or the idea of school. I miss the potential for knowledge and self-expansion more than I can say. Thus, my literary pursuit is accompanied by my extreme desire and sincere hope that my education will not subside now that I am lacking a classroom. And formal teachers. Although, I know I will soon encounter new teachers: nature, experience, along with the triumphs and follies of man will be my new mentors. I welcome them with open arms and a warm heart.

Even now- as I sit in the back of a tightly packed Honda Civic with a computer that intermittently falls on my leg which I prop up with a quick kick-I look out my window and into the dead space of Wyoming and feel the fluttering of butterflies deep in my belly. I cannot help but think back on the person I was last time I drove across the country like this: I think I was 7 or 8 and I remember the cans of apple juice lovingly purchased by my mother for the long trip ahead. As though the juice was the liquid of calm and patience that helped us along our journey. I remember the ever present ejaculations of "are we there yet?" or "stop touching me" and "did you just fart?" between me, my brothers, and a male cousin. I also remember the last time I left home: my mission. I was a child-naive, scared, immature, and as most children are: overly confident. I had little experience for what lay ahead. I remember being shocked by how much I missed the bubble of Provo, Ut and the unwavering support of my family.

Today, however, is different from all those other times.

Like the layers in the beautiful rock formations of the west, I have layers of my own: intellect, experience, and a truly tested soul. I am more and bigger than before. I may be in the same space-leaving home and cramped in a tiny spot carefully arranged for my "comfort"-but I am different, and I am excited to see how my newest layers will fare in this latest trip. I suppose that's why I love to travel; it affords one the opportunity to see the culmination of who they've become while catching a glimpse of their own potential. I am, dear reader, ready to see my own.

I am also excited to see America through my new lens of belief, doubt, analysis, and education all of which I have carefully crafted for myself.

In Wyoming there was a hotel called "Little America". The natural setting of Wyoming is brown, grey, and green.Yet, the hotel clashed with the terrain as it stood proudly with bright-red walls and stark-white moldings. Even the design was off; too eastern for a state so far west. I couldn't help but ask myself, what is more American? The sloping hills of brown, grey, and green or the bright-red and stark-white of the Little America?

Perhaps America lies in the clash between bright-red and brown.

Thresholds

Sometimes I have to look at my hands to remind myself I’m 82. I feel older, much older. It hasn’t always been like this. I’ve only felt this way since April.

I remember it was early April, because my daffodils were just beginning to bloom. I had worked so hard to get them ready in order to welcome spring properly. My mind was alive with images of the summer garden – of lawn chairs, lemonade, picnics, and ring-around the rosies with the great grandchildren. Our garden, his and mine, was a source of hard work and joy. The constant digging, picking, and watering offered physical exercise while allowing time for psychological restoration. In short, it was our fountain of youth; it kept us young and healthy. More importantly, however, it was our planned, peaceful utopia wherein we would spend our days elbow deep in tranquility and tulips.

My hands haven’t touched the garden since April. I look at my hands and hate how clean they are. How clean they have to be. I can’t come in his room unless I’m sterilized. As though my hands are extensions of the monitors and wires that line his bedroom – our bedroom. Don’t they know it had been growing in him for months while I touched him, unsterilized, ungloved? My hands were stained with dirt and still I touched him. If my hands, our garden’s dirt, could kill it I would burn the imprint of my hand across his neck. I would reach inside and sprinkle the soil from my hands and the dirt from my nails all around his lymph nodes. I could test the PH of his blood and fertilize him until he was strong again. I would prune again and again. If only these hands, these old, wrinkled hands, could bring him nourishment like they can my garden – our garden.

Thank goodness the alarm is going off. It’s time for his meds. These hands can work and in turn, offer my mind silence and rest. To be honest, I dread going into his room. He looks so pale and thin. A mere shadow of the man I have known for 62 years. As is our routine, when I pass him the pills he’ll smile and say “down the hatch.” I’ll ask him how he’s feeling, and he’ll respond with his painfully optimistic, “much better today.” I’ll want to scream NO YOU’RE NOT. STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, TO ME. YOU’RE DYING. Instead, I’ll just smile and nod. Then I’ll hold his hand and finish reading until he gratefully falls asleep, escaping the pain. These are my days. These are his days.

“Wake up Ben. It’s time for your medicine, love. ” It’s seems to be getting harder to wake him these days. I reach down and touch his cheek, “wake up sweetheart.”

“Huh? Wha…oh Winnie…” He clears his throat.

“Here Ben. Take your medicine, sweetheart.”

I lower my hand. The 2 pills gleam bright blue and green against my pale palm.

His hand remains motionless as his eyes travel upward. They stop on the pills. His gaze then shifts to my hands. When we met back in college, I loved how his deep brown eyes seemed to swallow the world in one gaze. They were so alive. They would look at you with a probing acuteness. As though he could size you up with one glance. He spoke little, and consequently his eyes never missed a thing. But since his illness, his eyes had faded. He would look at me and only me. His eyes stopped swallowing the room: the filtered sunlight through the window, the family photos that lined the opposite wall, his favorite and “lucky” baseball cap beside his bed – it was as though it took all the effort he had to look at one of anything. And now he was using that effort to look at my hands.

“What?” I whispered.

“I miss seeing dirt under your nails.”

I chuckled. “What do you mean?”

“From our garden. I loved seeing you fuss over your dirty nails. Even more, though, I loved how they stayed dirty. Winnie, I fell in love with you again and again over our 62 years together because you were never afraid of getting dirty – you chose to work alongside me.”

I smiled, forcing back the tears. I was about to give him one of the many clichéd expressions about how when he gets better we’ll work together again, but he interrupted me instead.

“Plant the tomatoes, Winnie. They’ll be late if you don’t get them started.”

“What are you talking about, Ben? I don’t care about the tomato plants. Let’s get you better first.”

“Plant the tomatoes, Winnie. I know how much you love cheese and tomato sandwiches. What will you do if you don’t have any from the garden?”

“You mean what will WE do…”

“Stop.” It was barely a whisper.

So this was it. My God…the charade of a miraculous cure had crumbled. I let my hand drop. The pills slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor. This time I let the tears come. No smiles. No masks. I let him see it all – the pain, the fear, and the crushing debilitation of powerlessness. I lowered myself to the chair and his hand reached up to touch my cheek. His hand burned hot against my wet flesh. His dry eyes were once again alive, and they swallowed me whole. He saw and understood everything.

He just let me cry. He shed no tears himself. Instead, he let me have my moment of pain without having to share his.

Finally he spoke up, “We sure did create a beautiful garden together Winnie. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I shared it with you.”

“Me too, Ben.”

I knew this was goodbye. I had rehearsed this moment a million times in my head. I had thought about what I would say, and what I would ask forgiveness for. Yet, words and language seemed to have failed. Nothing could express what our eyes and fingers intertwined could communicate. I watched him until he fell asleep and then peacefully died.

I let myself have a good month of mourning. You know, not wash anything – including myself – and only eating what was brought over by concerned neighbors. Today, however, I awoke to the feeling of spring in the air. The sun was bright and inviting. The air seemed lighter somehow. It’s not spring, of course, but I guess “the feeling of spring” is simply that sense of hope and belief that after death, something more is coming. It’s different, to be sure, but still something to find joy in.

I was hesitant to be out gardening again – especially without Ben. His goofy, oversized, garden hat would always bounce along the hedge rows as he worked. I was alone. No hat. No soft whistle to keep me company. For 62 years I had never gardened without Ben. I felt as though I were betraying him as I lugged the hoe across the yard and picked up my spade. Death was everywhere. My beautiful peonies bushes were bone dry. The roses too were barely salvageable. My once straight rows of vegetables were crooked and picked over with weeds.

I very slowly dropped to my knees. The old familiar cracking and moaning of my protesting knees seemed to christen the affair. Even the humming birds seemed to have stopped by to act as witnesses for my communion with dirt, plant, and earth. I worked my spade, but I soon I dropped it; preferring instead the hot soil on my hands. The dirt slipping through my fingers felt as though an old friend had stopped by to lovingly shake my hand. I stabbed the earth again with my hands. I felt the dirt lodge into my nails. I smiled as I dropped the first tomato plant firmly in the earth.

the red plate

Growing up, my family’s kitchen cupboard was a cacophony of cups, plates, and silverware – all miss-matched, nothing a perfect set. We liked it better that way – each plate had a memory attached to it and the bowls’ barely visible print meant that it had been a favorite for cereal. Every mug was mysteriously acquired through a unique process of time – for example, everyone had a favorite cup that had been around for years, yet no one knew just how it had gotten there. All of which added to the charm of the kitchen cupboards, and our unique set of dinner wear.

At the bottom of the piled plates, faithfully lay the red plate. It was chipped, and completely alone – a one of a kind. Sometimes special, but most of the time ignored. It was never used unless it was somebody’s birthday. It was tradition in the William’s home to have your favorite meal cooked to celebrate your big day. More importantly, however, you were given the red plate. Only on such occasions, did the red plate mean much. But when the plate was removed from the cupboard, it was wondrous how beautiful the plate could become when placed on the table. It would lie full of bright pride as though eager to indicate the coveted spot of the birthday boy or girl.

As a kid, I never realized how different I was. Not different in the sense that I couldn’t tie my shoe, or I had a hard time reading, but different in my family. I never realized that my ideas, my likes, my passions were any different. Yet, over the years I came to realize that my family is as diverse as the plates we ate upon. Sporty, woodsy, redneck, strict, hippy: all miss-matched, nothing a perfect set. Me? I feel sometimes special, but most of the time ignored. Not on purpose mind you, but like the red plate, I only look good on special occasions. So I stay in the cupboard, on the bottom of the stack, waiting to be taken out and looked upon.

Note: this isn't necessarily autobiographical. as a writer, i have taken a few liberties. but that's not really the point. instead, i want you to focus on the FEELINGS the piece elicits and then, if you wouldn't mind, tell me what you felt when you finished reading the entry. i am trying to craft essays that create very precise emotions. thank you reader!

contradiction

i wrote this for a class:

Mormon Feminist – 2 words that describe me, and yet feels disproportionate on my tongue. How can I, after all, support Betty Friedan and Joseph Smith? Somehow I think it’s possible. I find my soul is big enough to accommodate contradiction. On my book shelf, for example, the Feminist Mystique sits squarely next to my Book of Mormon and other standard works – each book embodying belief, faith, and truth while admittedly incongruent in tradition. Yet, it’s within the areas of grey – the overlap of opposing ideals – that I find potential for possible expansion. It’s as though my sense of self is enlarged when I discover my personality can be a mixture of contradiction. I can choose what I will believe and find a place for it in my sense of self. In other words, the more I have studied the gospel and feminism I have found completeness in opposition. The yin is not whole without the yang, so too Mormonism is not complete without feminism. The gospel of Jesus Christ is based on equality. All covenants and ordinances are entered into individually. Salvation is obtained only through an equal dependence of man and women to each other. Betty Friedan’s conclusion of Feminist Mystique calls for all women to educate themselves before moving on to marriage and family. She asserts that women must choose for themselves to be stay-at-home moms instead of society (religious society too) pressuring them into such careers. I hold these ideals to be true with all my heart. I spout similar ideology to friends and family. I will teach my daughters the same principles. In short, Betty’s words have seared my heart and become a large part of who I am. To some, this may be a contradiction to Mormonism – you tell me reader, is it?

in short, this piece is meant to prove that we are all walking contradictions. what are YOUR contradictions reader? hate violence, but never back down from a fight? love nature, but never go outside? love your friends, but never talk to them? if you feel up to it, tell me about your own divergent parts of self. or at the very least, admit them to yourself - and then smile, because only in the parts are you truly whole.

post script

p.s.

i almost forgot about you...

dear 2011,

you and i have clearly gotten off on the wrong foot. let's start again shall we? in case you somehow missed the clearly written goals in my planner, let me remind you: 2 hook -ups in just as many weeks was NOT on the list. instead, "get into at least one mature and rational relationship that lasts longer than 1 week or 1 month" WAS a part of the plan. so please, if you wouldn't mind, comply with my prerecorded goals. otherwise, help me avoid all other douchebags in provo, and the surrounding areas.

also, help me figure out what to do with my life.

thank you.
-A

a letter of sorts

dear customer who told me i look good for my age: i am NOT old enough for that compliment

dear winter semester: you're my last, and therefore i refuse to succumb to you. every other semester has dominated my life. not you too.

dear brick oven: i walk past you every monday, wednesday, and friday at noon. you make my forthcoming lunch seem so unappetizing. will you stop filling the air with the delicious aroma of pizza? thank you.

dear room: i finally have you to myself. i love the freedom entitled in allowing you to be messy. i'm sorry for your fate, but i fear you will continue to stand as a monument to "free space" as books mingle with shoes upon the floor.

dear friends: please remember me. remember me as i am, as i was, and as i want to become.

dear winter: you make have taken the sun, but you have not taken my smile.

sincerely,
A

New Year, Last Semester

This is it reader. The final semester of my undergraduate degree. I started...uh, I'd rather not admit when...I started a long time ago (cough...2004).

Maybe it's all the hype about the New Year and looking back (or for some, refusing to look back) that I feel the need to review and then impart a few truths about me and my relationship to BYU.

When I first came to Provo I was an idiot. Seriously. An idiot. If I could see my 18-19 year old self again I would punch her in the face. That's the age when you think you know everything, but ironically you know nothing.


This is me at the end of my freshman year. BRIGHT blond. GROSS!


You see, I was a small town girl. I had small town ideas. As the Lord put people in my life, my world and consequently my place within it began to expand. I am so grateful that I finally caught the vision that I, ME, I could do it - I could do anything:

Travel to Europe. Be a Research Assistant. Make straight As. Get 2 dates on the same day. Fall in love. Hurt someone so deeply they moved away. Make friends I will have for the rest of my life. Cry so hard it hurt. Laugh so hard I cried. Stay up all night playing. Stay up all night writing papers. See my success. Feel my failure. Change what I didn't like about myself. See examples of what I wanted to become. Find people who believe in me. Find my MANY PASSIONS in life. Begin to love and accept who I am. Learn what I need from others, and to walk away if it's not given.

And somewhere along the way I sorta grew up.

Thank you Provo. You held my hand while I stumbled, tripped, and sometimes fell along this journey called college...or life really.

College is full of waste too. Wasted dreams. Wasted food. Wasted money. Wasted talent. For me, I wasted too many hours and too many late nights to stupid boys that didn't even matter. I wasted time thinking something was wrong with ME rather than assuming something was wrong with THEM.

I wasted time chasing other people's dreams. I came to college and I refused to be an English major. I tried out 6 different majors. They were all horrible. But everyone kept telling me that I shouldn't do English. Yet, switching my major to English was one of the best things I ever did.

I wasted time not being myself. I tried to fit my life, or my personality, to other people's molds and ideals. I was scared to face who I was. Sometimes reader, I am still scared to admit to myself who I am. But I'm getting better. I am learning to love all of me. Even my weaknesses and flabby stomach.

Alas, I am sitting at the end of the first day of my last semester and I can't help but think back to the first day of my first semester. I don't even recognize that young freshman girl. Yet I know she's inside of me still...somewhere. She has melted away into parts, into segments of my self. I look back and I am amazed. College has NEVER been what I expected, but it's been everything I needed.

The truth is, I'm scared to leave. But I am ready to try out my wings. I feel as though they have grown a little stronger. I am ready to face the cold winds of change.

Also, laptops (not desktops) are necessary; The honor code IS a good idea; Talking to the professor, while scary, is your best means for success; be the favorite roommate and clean your dishes; and never miss an opportunity to talk to someone new. You never know where that will lead you....