i can grow flowers where dirt used to be

I'm terribly bored at the moment.

Summer has brought more free time -- at home and at work. Summer has brought me sunny days to work on my tan and a calm ocean to cool my skin. Smoothies, lemonade, lots of watermelon. Movie nights. Long jogs. Great books.

I am only about a week in and I am ready for things to pick up again.

Thank goodness I will start my internet classes soon. I'm not looking forward to Biology or History, but I am looking forward to being done with them.

Last night we had a Christmas party. That was great. I feel like we have to start calling our hang out times "parties" and give them certain themes just to get by. I love Laie, but there is just not much to do.

I do, however, like that I have time to cook and to plan out my meals. I like eating balancedly. Hmm. That should be an adverb but I don't know you can change that into an adverb. I have been writing an English Skills Assessment test all morning and my brain is starting to pick at itself -- analyzing its own grammatical structures and word choices, comma placements, and style. Dear Brain, please stop.

I just wished I like vegetables. But I read a research paper about that: picky eaters. I can't help it. It's genetic. Thanks Mom and Dad.

I bought a pattern and some fabric. I am going to sew a dress.

I think by now I am so used to being busy that I don't know how to really relax and enjoy my summer. I'll put that on my list, too.

dear joel

I've spent my entire life missing someone.

I suppose I should explain. I'm going to try to do this, but the only way I can describe it is a little strange. And you can bet if it sounds strange, then it sure as heck feels strange. But, it is part of me, and I am still trying to figure that out.

I am a natural born giver. There is just something in me that doesn't feel satisfied hogging all the goodness I see. Now, people are always giving to people, and I try to do that as much as I can, but often I find myself giving to everything. When the day is so beautiful, your soul aches to gobble up the sun and cozy up for a nap in the clouds, gulping the cool breeze down like a glass of lemonade, I cannot help but break off a little piece of me to send off with the birds and the butterflies and all the winged things to stay forever in the wonder of that day. Sometimes when I hear a lovely song, the same sort of thing happens. The notes unravel and soar in and out of me, feasting until I'm left with all sorts of bites missing. Sounds a little morbid, I know, but something happens to me. Physically, spiritually, the whole kabob -- a part of me takes off with everything beautiful that stops by.

Sometimes Beauty will leave me a little something behind -- I've got leaves twisted in my hair and a flower behind my ear, butterflies in my stomach, and a sweet taste on my lips. There is music in between all my nerves, running and racing with every stimulation. I've got color on my skin and lovely faces behind my eyes -- planting soft kisses when I dream. And then there are the hands -- all these extra hands wrapped up in my heart -- squeezing and pumping it for me. I feel pulled in a million directins and I can hardly sort out what's happening with the music racing and those wings flapping at my sides, the roots settling in just when I'm ready to move.

But amidst all this hubub, this blessed chaos, there is one still spot, right at the very core of me. It is hollowed out and smooth. The sounds and shades skip around it, and it sits and it waits. It's a wonder how a person can feel so lonely, even with a whole world growing inside of them.

I miss my brother.

so this is the new year

1 January 2008

Today is January 1st, 2008. It is 12:40am and I am sitting on the cold carpeted floor of my colorful bedroom in my beautiful home in the dead of winter in Dayton, Iowa. The chill and late nights are beginning to get to me and I can feel my throat tightening and grinding with each inhale and exhale. This past semester has trained my body and mind to stay awake late, and I'm finding it hard to break that habit here at "home."

As I listen to the sounds of a noisy heater and quiet house, my mind races with eagerness for the future. The past months have been tough -- full of illness, regrets, and let-downs -- yet I feel I've learned and loved so much. I have had a taste and I want more. Every romantic plotline, in film, song, or prose brings my heart to teeth, pounding with fury at the taste of love and adventure and life. I can hardly wait to see what life will bring me. Though I've made some hefty mistakes, I am more resolved and determined than ever to both seek the best and let the tao do its thing. My Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I want to find a way to let go and let Him lead me as I skip after with childlike eagerness and heart.

I want to make something, do something, be something! I am not out to change the world, but to change myself and to mean something to somebody. I want to offer myself up and be some kind of sliver of truth -- to be a part of something beautiful, to give hope and to give light.

Though I love my life at BYUH, I can't imagine staying in one place for long. I want to travel and study -- see what this glorious earth and its brilliant lives have to offer. I want to fall in love with a set of mountains, to dig my toes in the sand of a beach, to lie in a lush meadow, to grace my eyes with the arts and sounds of architects and poets. I want to feel the earth and taste the sky with every day -- to dance with joy at the sun and the rain and the moon, marvelling at a majesty far grander than my own comprehension.

While my mind has wandered into a field of daffodils and kisses, my toes are becoming numb and my toosh sore from the concrete below the abused grey carpet. My sleepy eyes burn and my nose drips a little. I am brought back to the present where I am unhappy with my body, my living arrangements, with my past, and with the weather. The future, full of realized hopes and dreams, seems so warm and inviting. A bout of chills shakes my being and the tiny goosebumps covering my skin remind me where I am: now. the tao. here. this moment. Soon it will be gone and never another quite like it. Men are that they might have joy, now.

So what am I waiting for?

read this book

6 June 2007

"son of a witch"

"A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partway through their lives. They woke up, were they lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do: feeding themseves with currants. Walking the dog. Knotting up a broken bootlace. Singing antiphonally in the choir. Suddenly: This is I, I am the girl singing this alto line off-key, I am the boy loping after the dog, and I can see myself doing it as, presumably the dog cannot see itself. How peculiar! I lift on my toes at the end of the dock, to dive into the lake because I am hot, and while isolated like a specimen in the glassy slide of summer, the notions of hot and lake and I converge into a consciousness of consciousness--in an instant, in between launch and landing, even before I cannonball into the lake, shattering both my reflection and my old notion of myself."

it's a beautiful day

3 January 2007

Yesterday I woke up feeling like cool rain and warm sunshine.
I walked outside and basked in the feeling of being alive. Beneath my feet the earth turned and churned. But my feet stayed planted and I moved with nature. Soon the soil gave birth and life sprung up all around me, entangling me in its goodness. And still I stood planted. I closed my eyes and hummed with the heavens as I became a part of the sun and the rain.

real life home life

10 July 2006

My mother walked in and sat down next to me.

"We went for a walk. We just went down the hill by the farm. There was a goat with it's head stuck in the fence. Your dad worked at it for awhile and finally got it's head free. Then it just stood there and peed for the longest time."

And then she used the back of her hand to wipe droplets of sweat from her forehead and left the room.

working back

I've always loved to write, and I used to do it all the time. I had a blog awhile back, but it got away from me. My summer is finally starting, so I figured I would start finding my words and loosening up my fingers. Time to think and to create; to learn and to make decisions.

I'm starting in the past, rereading and reposting, reconsidering what I've written in the past couple years.

So here we go.