But my books? Never.

I'm packing up my room tonight.  My lovely little corner of the world that has been a sanctuary from the stress that has surrounded it for the last several years.  I'm thrilled with the change and excited to set up shop somewhere that will be more mine than this place has been.  Somewhere more friendly.

I'm also reminded of how many books I have when the boxes I procured are quickly filled not with the rest of my room but almost entirely with my book collection.  Putting them into boxes fills me with mixed emotions.  I see books that are worn bare and think that I ought to buy a new copy but the old one is so loved and has such a story to tell and I wouldn't want to hurt its feelings.  I see books that I bought in important places or locations that remind me of trips or lucky finds after wandering through the labyrinthine shelves of a used bookstore.  I see books that I purchased but haven't read yet and want to, books that I was given as gifts.

I'm reminded of lessons in elementary school about how you should have an emergency kit underneath your bed that contains food and clothes in case of an emergency.  I remember thinking as a kid that I would ditch the clothes and grab my beloved copy of Little Women - the first pretty book I ever purchased with my own money.  It was hardback with a ribbon and beautiful illustrations.  I'd also grab Anne of Green Gables and all of its sequels because I'd need them with me wherever I went next.  But what about The Secret Garden?  Or Matilda?  Or Peter Pan?

I am almost certain that, given an emergency situation, I would burn in the fire or die in the flood over the sheer agony of the debate in trying to decide which books to save.  I know they are replaceable. . . but it would feel like betrayal.

It all reminds me of the Professor in Little Women.  Jo asks him if he brought all his books from Germany.  He explains that he had to sell basically everything to come to America.  "But my books," he says with a smile, "Never."

For Mom

When I was a child and I woke in the middle of the night and was scared or didn't feel well, I would tip toe down the hall to my parents' room, where I would quietly approach my mother's side of the bed (the right - always the right) and stand.

I wanted her to wake up, but I didn't want to wake her up.  It felt rude, knowing how much she was sure to want her sleep and not want to be woken in the middle of the night by me.  But I needed her.  So I stood.  And waited.  Nightgowned and ghostlike and pale-skinned next to her bed like a horror movie.

"Mom!" I would whisper.

"Mom!"

If that didn't work I would touch her arm.  She would startle awake, patiently address whatever issue (however real or imaginary it was), and I would go back to sleep, blissfully unaware of how creepy I had been.

I remember one time sleeping on the floor in her room because I had the flu and was vomiting.  As a certified emetaphobe, I just knew that being with mom would make it less terrifying.  I remember waking and knowing that I was going to throw up - and also knowing that I couldn't bear to do it alone.  So there, on the floor of her room, I puked into the bucket she'd given me instead of going to the bathroom to take care of urgent business.

My mom hates vomit too.

She kindly asked me to please go to the bathroom next time.  But she still came with me while I cleaned out the bucket and waited for me to stop feeling clammy and dizzy.  Never mind that she too hates vomit more than anything.

Now that I'm older and several hundred miles away, I can't creep into my mom's room at night or throw up into a bucket at her feet (not that I'd want to, 'cause that's gross - she was totally right!) but mom still has a knack for patiently and kindly listening to me and helping me with my questions and concerns about the future.  She tells me that I'm wonderful and that she loves me.  She tells me I'm beautiful and that she's proud of me.  She doesn't harp on about my lack of dating life and tells me that she's confident that I'm a good teacher and making a difference in the world.  Like every good mother does, she tells me that I am smart, and important.

Today it's her birthday.  Not a particularly significant one (unlike last year!) but a birthday is always something to celebrate.  Thanks to performing in a show and being sick, I've been delayed in getting her a gift (sorry Mom!)  So for now, I want to thank her.  For paper dolls when I was sick.  For introducing me to Jane Austen.  For taking me to Prince Edward Island and telling me to go to England.  For letting me take the car to the library to feed my love of reading.  For driving a few hundred miles just to see me on stage.  For making breakfast for all of my friends and hosting infinite numbers of game nights and movie nights for loud groups of teenagers.  For listening to every rant about work or dating or politics I can throw your way.  For tickling my back while we watch a movie.  For strawberry freezer jam.  For orange rolls at Christmas and help in unique Halloween costume choices from a bookworm daughter (who would settle for nothing less than Harriet the Spy or Laura Ingalls.)  For hugs.  For loving God and sharing your testimony of Him with me.  For being my escort in the temple and making my dress.  For laughing with me and discussing with me and being the best Lorelai to my Rory I could ask for.

I love you mom.  Happy Birthday.

Feminism and Faith: A How-To Guide

I've thought a lot about how I'm going to say what I want to say in this post. It's a topic close to my heart for many reasons and I hope that it is taken well no matter where you stand on the ideas of feminism and/or faith.  It's a bit long.  Bear with me.

Lately my Facebook feed has virtually exploded with a resurgence of articles about current issues with feminism in the LDS church, largely related to the Ordain Women movement.  I am fascinated by the commentaries on both sides of the argument, and baffled by how vicious and personal the arguments have been.  "You're just doing this for power and social stigmas!" shouts one side.  "You don't understand what it means to be a woman!"

"No, YOU don't understand what it means to be a woman!" replies the other side.  "Don't you see how oppressive your environment is?  Don't you see the cultural inequalities?!"

I find myself often sitting in the middle of such arguments.  For example, I understand why girls feel left out when they watch their boy companions passing the sacrament.  The boys have a clear, definable task in the overall picture of how the ward functions.  They are thanked every week for their assistance in giving the sacrament to the congregation.  They are also honored with great ceremonies for earning their Eagle Scout Award, while the girls, when given their Personal Progress Award are given little more than a pat on the back and a brief acknowledgement in church.

But I also understand that I am a loved daughter of God.  I have many personal experiences where I have felt that love.  I believe in Him and in His love for me.  I believe that by following the counsel of the living Prophets, I will be blessed.  I have faith that God has a plan for me.  My interest in the movement largely comes from experiences I have had where I feel of God's love for me and trust in me.  My life has not taken a conventional road, but I feel very firmly that I am where God wants me to be at this time.  If it is true that where God wants me to be at this time is not married and not as a mother - then surely I can't be the only one on this planet who has a less traditional role to fill.  Surely God has plans for the women of this church that are not only linked to our ability to get pregnant.  I don't know what the afterlife holds for me, but I doubt that it is a perpetual eternal maternity ward.

There are many who have a difficult time reconciling how these two sides can exist in the same person.  How can you be a faithful feminist?  How do you seek for greater recognition for and understanding of the roles of women in a church that advocates so ardently for recognition of the differences of gender roles?

This in mind, I'd like to present a few dos and don'ts for people involved or not involved but interested in the current Mormon Feminist movements.  These points aren't strictly related to the Ordain Women movement, but do, I think, provide a good framework in supporting greater understanding:

1. DON'T get caught up in the nit picking of the comparisons between men and women.  Although many people compare feminism to the civil rights movement, the simple fact of the matter is that men and women are different from each other in some universally significant ways that aren't just biological.  The church teaches that gender is eternal, and while we may not fully understand how this pans out in the afterlife, God seems to have some ideas on roles set aside for men and set aside for women.  We may not understand all the facets of this in the grand scheme of things yet (which is where some of the confusion is currently coming from), but throwing everything out seems a bit reckless.  There is power in strong sisterhood and strong brotherhood, just as there is power when the two come together.

2. DO: Recognize that there are people in both genders that don't feel like they quite fit the stereotypical mold, and that God may have a plan or pattern for them than is different from yours.  The plain fact of the matter is that not everyone in this life will be able to (or maybe even want to) live the image of a perfect family.  The other plain fact here is that personal revelation exists, and many of these people are active members of your ward aching because they wish they fit the mold and they just don't.  I feel this as a single woman with a successful career and no husband.  A married couple may feel this if they can't have children - or don't want them quite yet.  Or perhaps they do, but they don't want many.  Or perhaps they have, for whatever reason, reversed the traditional roles and find that it's best for their family that the wife works and the man stays home.  There are hundreds of possibilities.  The one clear constant here is that you are not their personal judge, and how they live their life is between them and God.

3. DON'T knee-jerk-judge because of the word "feminist".  The word 'feminist' is such a buzzword in Mormon culture.  It calls back to quotes made years ago during the cultural feminist movements of the 70s-90s where women were burning bras and demanding equal pay for equal work (gasp!).  It reminds people of negative connotations implied over the pulpit in General Conference and other settings.  Although there are surely some remnants of this in the current "Mormon Feminist" movement, most Mormon Feminists I've come in contact with are faithful women of the church.  They are mothers.  Loving and supportive wives.  Homemakers and crafters.  Many of these women would, from all outside appearances, seem to be as Mrs. Cleaver as they come.  The strains of Mormon Feminism are similar to those of cultural feminism, but are not exactly soul sisters.  The women involved in this movement do not hate men, and they do not hate the church.  If they really hated the church so much, then they would leave it.  As it is, they are doing what they can in the only way they know how to support each other and to raise awareness of a concern.

4. DO: Recognize that we are on the same team.  This goes for everyone.  Right now we have people outside the Ordain Women movement who are terrified that these women (and men) are rebelling against God, and that they are making demands instead of asking questions.  We have women (and men) inside the Ordain Women movement who don't understand why something that seems so obvious wouldn't be readily accepted on the other side.  On both sides of the coin are people set in their opinions and beliefs and experiences.  Women and men who are happy with their current situation and women and men who are not.  Ultimately, both sides need to come together and recognize a common goal: trying to do what God wants us to do, and to draw closer to Him.  We talk about the path being straight and narrow, but that does not mean that we walk like lemmings in an identically shaped and formed line.  It means that we walk in the same direction, and through the same basic steps.  When we come from a place of teamwork, then recognizing the differences that arise becomes and opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself, and about others.  It is an opportunity to love as Christ loves.

5. DO accept that everyone has a unique role to play in the eternities just as they have unique roles to play now.  I have a hard time imagining a heaven where every house looks the same and everyone does the exact same thing all the time.  That would be terribly boring, and I don't intend to be bored in heaven.  That wouldn't be heaven.  That would be hell.  One of the key parts of the creation was the intent to make the world both beautiful and varied.  This extends into humans.  We forget this, sometimes.  When we aren't discussing religious things, we accept different personalities and tastes, but when it comes to the gospel, we often seem to expect or imagine that everyone will feel the way we do and apply virtues the way we do and have the same vision of eternity as we do.  Although it is true that Zion is a city where the people are of one heart and one mind, this does not mean that we will all feel and think the exact same way.  It means that we will have minds single to the glory of God, and hearts that are soft and pure.  It means that when we ask God a question, or come to Him with a problem, we have the strength to accept whatever his answer may be.

6. DON'T forget why you belong to the church in the first place.  It is easy to get wrapped up in discontentment.  It is true.  The church evolves and changes over time to help meet the needs that arise.  It is also true that until we bring our concerns to the Lord, he will not fix them for us because it would interfere with agency.  It is also true that there are better and worse ways to bring those concerns to the attention of the Lord and the Presidency of the church.  Making demands of the Lord is a dangerous path.  Prayers are not a "Room of Requirement"that transform our lives into exactly what we need them to be at the time.  This is, ultimately, my concern with any movement that has the strains of protest in the gospel.  When I bring a concern to the Lord, am I really bringing him a concern and willing to accept what answer I receive, or am I making an all or nothing demand?  Am I throwing out everything that has been good because of something that is hard?  The Lord has promised that He will hear and answer our prayers.  He has also told us that He will not answer questions we don't ask.  It is not uncommon for a problem to be brought to the Lord's attention and a solution to be given that is much, much better than we could imagine on our own.  And, miraculously, His solutions are those that will lead to happiness no matter our personality quirks or personal preferences.

Ultimately, my prayer is that we will all learn to get along a little better in the different ways that we express our beliefs. I firmly believe that it is just as important for Mormons to learn how to live with each other as it is for us to learn how to live with our non-Mormon friends.  There is simply no excuse - ever - for blaspheming your neighbor because of their doubts or challenges or weaknesses or questions, and I think this is perhaps even more true when that person is sitting next to you in Sunday School.

Trains

When I was growing up and imagining train travel it always looked quite glamorous.  People might bring rolling luggage on an airplane, but train platforms were full of trunks and formally dressed bellhop like men carting everything around.  People took your ticket as you entered and bowed to you and you nodded haughtily back because you were on a train and you would go sit in your compartment and revel in your own luxuriousness.  In general, it all looked like this:

So beautiful.  So Edwardian.

My first real train experiences came in England and later in the states.  In England most of the trains we were on were either local or short trips on the national rail.  Most of the trains double as commuter trains and they're industrial and efficient and the only hint of old-school romance comes in the form of a train worker who comes around with a cart every now and then selling drinks and sweets.  (It's as close to Hogwarts as I've ever been - that and going to Christ Church College.)

My train experience in America was the Christmas my parents decided that it would be totally rad (and cheap) for me to take Amtrak home.  "It'll be fun!" they said.  "You'll be with friends!" they assured me.  "22 hours isn't THAT bad." they promised.  So I agreed (what choice did I have?) and met the train at the station at 4:00 AM (aka. the deepest butt crack of dawn.)  The train was a whopping 45 minutes late as I recall - and should have been our first hint that we were going to be on that train for way more than 22 hours.  Train travel in the western US is a joke at best.  Signs in the cars were made using cardboard and sharpie.  The dining room at our disposal served microwaved hot dogs and was positioned in a room that looked like it probably housed several rapists.  To make things even more exciting, I was sitting next to a friend who was literally a week away from proposing to his girlfriend.  I've never tried harder in my life not to touch someone accidentally while sleeping next to them.  Many many long hours later, I got off the train and vowed to get a flight home, even if it meant paying extra money.  

Before going to Germany this summer, I had high expectations of train travel.  I had heard that the German rail system was amazing.  My experience with trains in England compared to the states was enough to convince me that I was about to have the train experience of my life. This ended up being rather true. . .only maybe not in the way I anticipated. 

Picture this: 

1. Hotter than normal summer. No air conditioning.  Windows on the train are locked.

I have no tolerance for people who have air conditioning capabilities and don't use them.

2. Crowded train - standing room only. 

3. Men in lederhosen and/or football team t-shirts (two different occasions, y'all.  This happened twice.) 

No, not like this.  This would have been adorable.

More like this, only on a train.  A crowded one.

4. Lots of beer.

Seriously.  I think this is an accurate representation.

5. And, on one occasion - you combine this with a loud, portable boom box playing "American Idiot" on repeat with increasingly drunken voices that occasionally shoot into horrible sounding falsetto.  Also group team cheers.  And lots of German swearing that I understood about half of.  (Why is it that the vocab words that stick when I study another language are the bad ones?!)

Oy. 

Suffice it to say that if my love life weren't enough to convince me that romance is dead, then a four hour train ride with loud and drunk football fans was enough.  It's stuff like this that keeps me single. It's stuff like this that makes me hug my car a little tighter and blare the air conditioning until I freeze.  Stuff like this that makes me profoundly grateful that I had a mother who taught me manners and how yelling loudly in an enclosed space is annoying and you shouldn't do it.

Thank goodness Europe looks like this:

Or I'd never travel.

Revamp

Dear Friends:

I am packing for a seriously awesome trip right now.  My clothes are packed into OCD approved little "packing squares".  I have piles of plug adapters and my camera batteries are charging and my guidebook is highlighted to within an inch of its life and my passport is out and I found my pack-now-fill-with-chocolate-later carry on and I am so. excited.  I love Europe.  It's been far too long since I put myself through some serious jet lag.  Bring it on.

But you know what else has been long in coming?

Some legit personal essays from yours truly.

See - once upon a time, this blog was meant to be a place for me to practice said form of writing with the intention of stock piling a set of essays with which to send into the publishing world or the grad school world or the internet world (check!) or whatever.  And after England 2007 I did pretty well.  I was full of ideas and had friends to share them with and I got writing scholarships and I was moving.  And then this thing called grown up life happened.  And now I spend more time reading the writing of other people than I do writing anything of my own, and it feels like most of what I write (while not a complete waste of time - right?) leans on the political/social commentary train more often than it does the interesting personal story train.  The second one is the train I love more.  Unfortunately, everything I've started in that area more or less revolves around my hot topics of the life of the perpetually single, teaching, and the perils of depression.  I have been suffering for creative ammunition because, frankly, I'm kind of tired about obsessing over those topics quite so much in my writing because I feel like I've exhausted all the angles and I am preeetty sure that you are tired of reading about my dating life, because, let's face it, no one cares about it.  Including me.  It's monotonous.

Also I've stopped doing what I used to be so much better with, which is observing and writing about others and my interactions with them (not in a mean gossipy way but in a human interest way).  My writing (in my journal and out of it) has been a basic travel log.  Boring.

So this is my promise to both you and to myself that in the next year, I am going to revisit the writing I love most of all and whip out some real, legitimate essays.  In the next two weeks (and later on my next exciting adventure) I am determined to find some creative muse that will give me ideas again.  It's time.

The Ideal

When I was in college, I took several ASL classes.  My school required that every student, as part of their general education, take either an upper level math class or another "language of learning".  I decided I'd rather take four semesters of a foreign language than one semester of statistics.  It was totally worth it.

The first three credits for the language requirement were conversation based classes, but the final class was a deaf culture class.  To be honest, I found this class to be a little frustrating.  The ultimate message of each class at the end of the day seemed to be the same: "You are not deaf, therefore, deaf culture dislikes you because you oppress us with your hearing."  It didn't matter that I was learning ASL and supportive of people doing so - I was (am) hearing, and therefore will always sit on the outside of the deaf world.

My teacher explained all this to us using a rather intricate and complicated series of circles.  The outer most ring of this circle consists of people who fight against deaf culture or have deaf children that they give cochlear implants to.  Slightly in from this are people like me who learn ASL and are supportive of ASL but have no real connection to the world of the deaf.  Next comes family members of those who are deaf who speak ASL, and so on to the core of the circles.  The core consists of the perfect deaf individual.  This person is deaf and born to deaf parents.  He or she attends deaf schools, including Gallaudet University where he or she will meet another deaf person, get married and produce more deaf people.

This ideal, the teacher admitted, is incredibly rare.  The majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents.  Most deaf parents have hearing children.  But the ideal is still there, and still the dream of any proud deaf individual.

I've been thinking quite a bit about this analogy in the last year and how it could, perhaps, be used to explain other cultural conflicts.  For example, in my corner of the world there is a different ideal: A child is born to Mormon parents, who were born to Mormon parents, and so on back to what would, ideally, be Mormon Pioneers who have really interesting conversion stories and were home teachers to Joseph Smith.  (It is also acceptable to be a first generation convert to the Mormon church, because it is a romantic novelty.  Second generation is somewhat more culturally problematic.)  This child will have parents who attended a culturally acceptable Mormon university (or, if they are slightly more rebellious, the other two major universities in Utah, but this is because playful rivalry is the spice of football season and where would we be without it?)  The child will attend one of these universities, where they will marry their eternal companion before graduation (but after a mission.)  If they are female, it is expected that they will be pregnant when they graduate, or that they will work for a year or two after graduation before leaving work to raise their children (like they should.)  If they are male, they will pursue a stable, respectable career.  They will have a decent number of children (somewhere between 4-7 seems to be about average), participate actively in the church and other related programs, and carry on down the line to future generations.

I don't know that I have too much beef with this ideal.  Truthfully, I was raised in it more or less.  My family have been good, church going people for several generations.  I attended one of those previously mentioned "appropriate" schools - as have both of my parents, all of my siblings to date and most of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  For most of my childhood, my dad was a member of the Bishopric in our congregation, thus making our family one of the "best" or "most prominently known" families in the area.  Rock on.

There is that little hitch in the perfect ideal of my plan, though: as has been widely discussed on this blog, I am perhaps the world's worst dater.  I despise dating.  I don't despise men - I actually really like men.  I am totally open to the right kind of relationship.  I just suck at getting them going and, for the time being, my future looks to be a very single one.  I don't meet that ideal.  The longer the ideal slips away from me, the harder it will be to fit.  And, somewhat more problematic, comes the part where I admit that I don't have a desire for a large family.  Never have.  Both of my parents come from small families, growing up with two siblings each.  (My dad had a third sibling who died when she was quite young.)  And things get even more complicated when I confess that I don't have any desire not to work.  I enjoy working.  I love my job.  I'm not opposed to working part time instead of full time - I do think it's important for parents to actually be involved in the lives of their children - but I also know that I will go absolutely stir crazy if I spend all my time with them.  Small children are cute and fun but I get bored by them quickly and I hate bodily fluids and waiting for kids to sound out words makes me impatient.  What's more, it's quite literally in my genetics to need lots of plates spinning at the same time to be happy and content with life.  I need to be involved in the world around me or I'm a depressed mess.

But this post isn't really about me.  Not entirely, anyway.  Lately my Facebook feed has been filled with a number of posts surrounding a presentation given by the owner of a swimwear line that is anti-bikini.  A portion of the argument that is made is that how a girl dresses can positively or negatively impact the thoughts and behaviors of men; therefore, girls should cover themselves as a favor to their male counterparts.  Now, I have major beef with this argument from any way you phrase it.  I simply cannot condone an argument that suggests that a girl should be responsible for the agency of a boy.  That's a load of crap.  It reminds me of an advisor I had during my first year of teaching who told me once that I should never "unintentionally offend someone".  Unintentionally offend someone?  What the heck does that even mean?  If I were to spend my life completely paranoid about unintentionally offending others I would never get anything done.  Ever.  The most productive people in the world are those who act knowing that they probably will offend or bother others and then they decide that they don't care.

The bigger problem with the responses that I've seen to this video, though, go back to that cultural ideal.  For some reason, people in my corner of the world wear their non-Mormon friends like a badge on their arm.  A sign that they are good and accepting of those who do not share their beliefs.  This is what it is.  But we are, as a culture, far less tolerant of those who are different within our own boundaries.  We can tolerate the friend who drinks or has a tattoo who doesn't come to church with us, but we cannot tolerate the woman who dresses her infant daughter in a sleeveless dress in the middle of summer because she should know better than to allow her baby to project an image of immodesty.  We can support our friends who have extramarital sex because they "just don't know any better", but cannot tolerate the woman who comes to church in pants to support gender equality, or the woman who has questions about why she can't be ordained into the priesthood.  Why is it that we are so intolerant of our own kind?  Those who are coming to church because they need so badly to have the support and understanding of those who are supposed to, in one form or another, share their beliefs?  People who have covenanted to lift the burdens of others - even when they don't understand those burdens.

The fact of the matter is, the Utah Valley Ideal is just not going to happen for everyone and, frankly, shouldn't happen for everyone.  One of the primary factors in the creation of the world was the need to promote variety.  A variety of climates, topography, animal life and - yes - people.  We need traditional, comfortable families just as much as we need less traditional lifestyles in the culture of the church.  It's time that we stop punishing people for applying their worship differently than we do.

This post has gone on long enough.  But if you're still up for more reading, then check out this article.  It says so much of what I've tried to - only much better.

25 in 25

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I give to you 25 things I've learned in the last year in order of how I think of them.  This will, I hope, make you as wise as me someday:

1. Healthy food tastes better when you're 25 than it did when you're 20.  In fact, it tastes so much better that given the choice between ice cream and red peppers I will almost always choose peppers.

They always welcome me like this.  No joke!

2. Night is still infinitely preferable to morning, but there's a switch that goes off in your brain on your 25th birthday that suddenly makes 2:00 AM very very late.  Also, several years of a regular work schedule will make it impossible for you to sleep in past 8:00 AM, which, when you're still childless, is just unfair.

3. Sometimes you still don't feel like you could possibly be a responsible adult.  Like when you walk around your old college campus or when you go to IHOP in your bloomers after a show.

4. The stranger the food combination looks on the menu, the better it will probably taste.  (Pear and gorgonzola cheese on pork.  Trust me.)

5. That being 25 and single with (two) good jobs means that you have the incredible luxury and privilege of traveling wherever you want, including Disneyland.

6. Also, going to Disneyland is always fun, and no matter how old you are the Peter Pan ride will always make you want to cry a little and walking down Main Street will make you want to skip.

Still pretty sure my letter got lost in the mail.  That's alright.
I'm fine getting it late.  

7. Flying a kite is magical.

8. How important it is to shut down your email when you leave work.  People will understand if you don't answer until morning, and if they don't, they're probably going to be just as big of a jerk at 10:00 PM as they are at 8:30 AM.

9. That seeing a teenager succeed and say something awesome or do something kind or have ridiculous amounts of potential is incredibly rewarding.

10. Also - that I definitely picked the right career path.

11. That a part of me will probably always live in Neverland, Hogwarts, Narnia and Avonlea.  I'll never completely say goodbye to Sherwood or Camelot exactly.  Also I'm not going to try to.  I like my imagination, thank you very much.

12. That not all adults act like adults in the good way.  There are still plenty of oddly petty and grudge-holding people out there.  I don't want to be one of them.

13. That I have some serious work to do if I'm ever going to get to all the books I want to read and re-read before I die.  Also, that there better be books in heaven.  There is no end to the number of times I want to read Anne of Green Gables.  Or Little Women.  Or Sense and Sensibility.  Or. . .

14. There is almost nothing better in this world than hearing beautiful music played live.

15. That I have a pretty incredible set of parents and siblings and extended family.  For the most part, we all get along.  That's so, so rare.  And so lucky.

Alarm = little panda.  Me = big panda.

16. That your work environment can be a living hell with the wrong boss - and heaven if you have the right one.

17. That letting go is sometimes more important than holding on - especially when it comes to annoyance.

18.  That spending all morning devouring a good book is not wasted time, even if it means you're behind on a hundred other things.  You'll be happier doing the rest if you took the time to get away.

19. That my day is infinitely better when my bed is made and I feel pretty.  Taking the time I need to get ready in the morning is worth it, even on Saturday when no one really sees it.

20. That I will probably never be anywhere on time in the morning.  Mornings are the devil.

How I read books.  No joke.  More than one at once.

21. That taking yourself on a date somewhere you like is time and money well spent.  The company is infinitely better (and better looking) than the jerk who ignores you at the symphony or the boring one at the bookstore or the creepers.

22. That no one is immune of an identity crisis.  No one understands themselves as much as they pretend to, and generally you win out by giving people the benefit of the doubt.

23. That I can keep learning without the help of professors and assignments and classes, but it takes more discipline and it's important to surround myself with smart people who can help me talk through ideas.  I still can't learn as well as an island as I can with a group.

24. There is very little in this world that a fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookie can't solve.  (Especially with the ratio of cookie to chip is in favor of cookie.)

Now I want one.

25. I am more capable, more smart, more kind, more gracious and more talented than I sometimes give myself credit for.  I can do hard things.  I can do more and be better.  I am not a failure.  I am flawed, but not wasted.  Weak, but not powerless.  I have the power to be better than I am, but what I am is still pretty good.

Oh Say, What is Truth?

The word "true" gives me a headache.

Growing up, I used the word like I was handing out Halloween candy - freely and to anyone (or anything) that came to the door.  "I know the scriptures are true" I would say in testimony meetings.  "I know the church is true".  "I know the prophet is true".  The word "true" was applied to dozens of things and ideas and people and I felt it.  I felt it.

As a child, I designated truth as anything that was not false.  It was a clean, nice, straightforward definition.  The answer was either right or wrong.  The choice was either good or bad.  There was no middle ground when it came down to it.  No room for a "but what if. . . ?"  There was no grey area in which truths and falsehoods could co-habitate.  It was all or nothing, baby.

When I was in high school, I took a World Literature class from a fabulous teacher.  One unit that still stands out in my mind was a unit where we read several creation stories and flood stories.  Nearly every corner of the world has these stories, we were taught - and our job was to guess why.  We read the story of Noah and the Ark compared to folk tales involving turtle shells and Zeus' angry flood to get rid of the extravagant Bronze Age, and others.  The flood stories fascinated me especially.  It made sense that so many cultures would want to know where the beginning of everything fit - but flood stories?  According to how I'd been brought up, Noah and his family (and their menagerie) were the only survivors of the flood.  Shouldn't there be only one story?  Only one truth?  What if there had been many different flood interpretations - were those stories still valid?  Were they also true?

Later, in college, I took an Anthropology class from a professor who had grown up more or less in a mortuary.  Her father was the mortician and she had found the experience so interesting that she had gone on to study birth and burial rights with an emphasis on East Asian experience.  She told dozens of stories including one about a family who had a dead body in the back room of their house for ages until they could afford an expensive funeral for her - they had ancient royal blood in their family and, though they were impoverished now, had to provide a certain standard of funeral.

The story that stood out to me most, though, was one about a woman she met who had converted to Christianity.  Christianity was rare in that particular location where Buddhism and other local belief systems reined supreme, so my professor had asked the woman what it was that had told her that Christianity was right.  "I had a great pain behind my forehead," the woman had responded, pointing to a spot between her eyes.  "And I knew it was true."

Come to find out, the woman had been raised to believe that great spiritual experiences give a person headaches.  It was a far cry from the "warm fuzzy feelings" I'd been told about all my life.  But since I, too, believed in Christianity - could I also stretch my beliefs beyond fuzzies and into headaches to conduits of truth discovery?  Where were headaches in scripture?

Then there were bigger problems: what about truths that weren't "real" per-say?  If truth and lies are the equivalent of non-fiction and fiction, then it suggests that anything that doesn't exist in the concrete, tangible places isn't true, or at least cannot promote or produce truth.  This doesn't seem quite right either - Christ himself taught through parables - fictional stories that represent good virtues.  I had myself seen hundreds of movies and books, listened to hours of music, pretended to be someone else in theater - some of these experiences made truths clearer to me than any "real" experiences.  Were the truths taught via. Jane Eyre or Ender's Game or Charlotte's Web any less valid than truths learned from the time I spent not reading?   

One of my classes has just finished reading Life of Pi, a book based on the premise that the stories we tell - about our own lives, and about our faith - are part of what bring us to God.  The character Pi Patel is thrown into rather horrific circumstances that involve being stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger.  At the end of the story when Pi has finally reached land and the authorities are questioning him, he tells them two versions of his story: the one he's told the entire book, and a rather more disturbing one.  Although it is never verified - it is suggested that this second more awful version is the "true" version.  The version that has been told the entire book is the version that Pi has been telling himself to help cope with the awful things he has seen.  It is a story that enables him to try and move beyond tragedy - it is the story that allows him to understand the meaning of his experience and what he can learn from it.  In much the same way that we, when faced with things we don't understand, try to predict why God might be "doing this to us", Pi has constructed a highly symbolic tale that he determines is more true than reality because it is the story that changes him more.

One parent disagreed with this analysis.  "Pi's fabrication does not relate a more profound reality," he wrote.  "The story was not about truth, but about storytelling.  The problem I see with it is that if the truth doesn't matter, then any story is as good as any other story.  Or any story is as meaningless as any other."

"No!" I wanted to shout.  "The truth does matter!  It is everything."  And then I would, if I could, tell him how much I need stories in my life.  How much we all do.  How stories of Mormon Pioneers remind me of my heritage, and stories of my childhood make me laugh, and how stories of a desperate prostitute doing all she can to save her child inspires me to never give up and how stories of magical wardrobes teach me about the purpose of my life.  I would tell him about how the Book of the Dead teaches me not to fear dying, and the writings of Confucius teach me to be patient with myself and others, and the stories of Peter remind me that even flawed sinners like me can become great. That the Olympics remind me of the essential qualities of human goodness and that Claire de Lune taught me how to feel.  I would tell him that the story of springtime bursting into life again after an awful winter is awe inspiring to me.  And I would tell him, more than anything, that all of these things have brought me closer to God.

I don't fault this parent for being frustrated with the end of Pi, but I do ache for him.  I ache because, from my perspective, the world is full of stories.  From how we interpret the events around us to less spontaneous, more artistic and refined variations - they matter.  And they change us, and they make us better.  And they teach us to empathize with perspectives that are not ours.  Is that not a less limiting definition of truth?  Truth is more - so much more - than simple exact reality or total fantasy.

Read the Instructions Exactly

Dear World -

Today my students are sitting in a nearly silent room taking a state test.  It's very exciting.

Yesterday we had ethics training on the proper way to administer a state test.  For example, I'm not allowed to distribute colored candies to my students suggesting correct answers to them.  I told them this, and they laughed.  I'm glad they laughed - it meant they know me well enough to know that I wouldn't ever do that.  I hope they see me as an honorable person.  So no candy.  I am, however, encouraged to bribe my students with bonus points or prizes for doing well on this test.  "They won't do well any other way," the government says.  "Teenagers need to be tricked into learning" is what I hear.

I was livid.

I also had a conversation recently that bewildered me a bit.  "You don't have your class rules posted," the individual said.  "No, I don't." I replied.  "I don't need to."

"They should see the rules.  It's helpful for them because then they know what is expected."

I don't need to post rules in my classroom.  I don't have class management problems.  Instead of posting rules, we post values.  Each year we select a quote from a poem or essay that matters.  We post them in the classroom and every year we add a new one.  This year the quote is 'Carpe the heck out of your diem.'  Last year it was 'I am a part of all that I have met'.  One year it was 'Live like a champion today'.    I don't want to set a ceiling on expected behavior, because I want them to do the unexpected.  They don't rip up my room because that's not the kind of student I expect them to be.  But sometimes the administrative world of teaching doesn't quite get that.  "If rules aren't posted, how do they know?" I can see them thinking.  "Teenagers are always looking for a way to goof off.  Posting the rules fixes that."

Clearly these professionals don't see what I see.

I told my students about those thoughts today.  Reminded them (as if they needed reminding) that there are people in this world that think very little of them.  That think they have so little integrity and honesty that they won't do anything without a cheap, tangible, sugary or point laden reward.  I told them that I think better of them than that.  That I trust them.  That I love them - each of them - for the wonderful individuals they are.  I told them to kick the test in the face because they are the kind of people who should do everything to the best of their ability because it's right, not just when they feel like it or when they care, but all the time.  Even during state tests.

I've been aching for them lately.  For me too.  Because although I carry myself with confidence, I feel like I'm still flying by the seat of my pants most of the time with this teaching thing.  There are still many topics that I don't present as well as I could.  Subjects I'm a little more vague on than I would like to be.  Ideas that I struggle to communicate well.  I'm still learning, still so new at this teaching thing.

It's hard, teaching.  It's such a strange balance of instinct and study.  Every now and then I get emails from parents wondering why I don't teach a certain topic a different way.  "Clearly," they tell me, "This would be so much better".  Maybe they're right.  "You should start an after school writing club," another parent suggested.  "Not everyone is as good at writing as you."  Yes, I think.  I know that.  I read more of their writing than you do.  Maybe I should start a writing club.  Maybe that would fix it.  Or maybe your kid should pay attention in class.  Or maybe I picked vocabulary the day I taught certain lessons that just didn't connect.  Or maybe the kid came in from lunch tired from a full stomach or frustrated because of an argument with a friend, or tired from a late night baseball game.  Or maybe my instructions were confusing and I could have been a little more clear.  Maybe somewhere between the kid and me it's just going to take a few more tries.  Maybe it was a perfect storm of all of the above.  Who knows?

Oh, how I wish that teaching were as easy as giving a state test.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if all I had to do was read the instructions exactly on how to teach a topic?  How to understand each student?  How to communicate with each parent?  How to talk about each book?  It would be so much easier.  So much less stressful.  It would make so many more parents happy.  It would produce wonderfully predictable results.  "If you take my class," I could say, "I will turn you into THIS."  But it isn't that easy.  I'm an imperfect person still trying new things.  Sometimes I connect better with one student than with another.  Sometimes my class changes lives.  Sometimes - hopefully not as often - it stresses and frustrates them instead.  Is that a sin?  I don't think so.  It's unfortunate and inconvenient and downright frustrating - but that's life.  I can't be everything for everyone.  I'm not that good.

In the mean time, I keep trying to move forward.  I pray that my students will be patient with me as I try to figure things out.  That parents will forgive me my imperfections and that God will help students to learn when I fall short.  I do my best.  I try to learn from mistakes and get better each time, because I owe it to them.  They deserve the world.

Please - for me - the next time you see a teenager you know, please tell them how wonderful they are.  And remember that with few exceptions, their teachers are honestly trying to do what they think is best.  Maybe what the teacher is doing isn't best.  Maybe for some it is and some it isn't.  It happens.  But they mean well.  No one in their right mind would enter this profession otherwise.

The Young and the Beautiful

My birthday is coming up.  It isn't an overly significant birthday other than the fact that it marks a decade of dating failure to celebrate.

When I was sixteen I had my future figured out.  I'd go to college and get good grades, of course.  But I would also date regularly because I'm hott like that and I would have my pick of the boys because I'm smart like that and I would be married when I wanted because I plan like that.  And I would be young and beautiful and fresh faced in all of my pictures and everyone that came to my wedding would congratulate me on my wonderful success of graduating head of the marriageable class.  A++ to me.  And years down the road my beautiful, smart, well planned children would look at pictures of that day and talk about how awesome and young and Audrey Hepburn-esque I am.  Extra credit, small child.  Extra credit.

Reality, as you know well oh regular reader, has turned out somewhat differently.  I'm at the point in my life where the Mormon community will breathe a sigh of relief if I ever get married at all.  "That was a close one!" they will say.  "Dodged a bullet!!" they'll add.  "Thank goodness they found each other.  How wonderful."  If I do get married, it won't be purely an occasion of celebration.  It will also be an event tinged heavily with relief.  "Glad that's over." they'll think.  "You finally made it!" they'll write on the cards.  And my pictures will feature an "older" dress because the younger styles will look weird and pretentious on me.  (Business suit, anyone?)  My friends with their 3-4 children will come and I will smile awkwardly back.  From where I sit now, I totally wish that elopement was a culturally acceptable option for an overaged Mormon woman still navigating blind date waters.  Then I could disappear for a year and everyone could just forget the whole thing ever happened and treat me like normal.

So.  In the name of trying to forget not really significant birthdays that are still a little bit significant in the not so great way: I am laughing at this, very appreciative of the advice offered here (especially the part about giving me dating advice if you got married at 18.  Completely different ball game now, y'all), and thanking my lucky stars that I am, on the whole, happy as a social menace (thanks a ton, Brigham).  I'm quite content with my independent ability to grow old while traveling instead of changing diapers and cleaning up vomit volcanoes.  Look on the bright, bodily fluid (and fart) free side of life, right?  Of course right.

Justice

When I was a freshman in high school, I remember walking into choir one day and hearing rumors about one of the cheerleaders.

"I hear she's suspended," one person said, pointing to her empty seat.

"No she's not," another student nearby piped in, shaking her head with an all-knowing scowl.  "She's pregnant.  She's going to that special school."

Pregnant?  "Well!", I thought, "I wouldn't put it past the girl."  She'd always been a bit of a pain to work with from my estimation.  Didn't seem that bright.  Didn't seem that put together.  Of course she'd managed to wind up somewhere stupid.

Fast forward a few months.  I'm on an overnight trip with my show choir and there's a girl vomiting.  As a certified, life long member of the emetophobia society, I'm freaking out.  I'm steering clear.  "I don't want to get sick!" I say to another choir member.  "I'm washing my hands like crazy."

"She's not sick," my friend tells me.  "She's hung over.  Don't feel sorry for her."

I didn't.  I was furious.  How could she be so stupid?  She totally deserved what she got.  Hung over and whining about it?  What a moron.

When I was a teenager I had a decently simplistic view of bad things happening to people.  I wasn't quite so extreme as Miss Prism from The Importance of Being Earnest who claimed that the good end happily and the bad unhappily ("that is what fiction means!").  I knew from my own life that bad things happened to good people.  No one is immune.  Some people were stupid and brought troubles upon themselves more often and more readily than others, but that was their fault.  Some people just had rotten obstacles to overcome and that was just a testament to God working in mysterious ways. . . whatever that meant.

To be honest with you, the justice in the universe hasn't ever really eaten at me as much in my life as it has this year.  I can study Holocaust literature and, perhaps horribly enough, find the poetry in the story that God is weaving in his universe.  Sure, the Holocaust was horrible; but how wonderful that the world now has so many examples of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of incredible odds, right?  Isn't that a blessing?  It's so easy for me to write off the crap of the world as just another step on the hero's journey.

But it's getting harder.

This year has been, more than any other, full of inexplicable injustices on people around me that I know and love.  It's been an especially hard year for some of my students.  I've seen so many of them struggle with illnesses and family drama and friendships that aren't easy any more.  I've seen them given challenges that adults would crumble under.  That I would crumble under.  It's breaking my heart to watch.  The world is in front of them and so full of possibilities.  Or it should be.  "Why is this happening to me?" one student said, looking completely exasperated.  "I'm going places with my life.  I have plans.  I am smart.  Shouldn't this be happening to someone who is destined to a life of flipping burgers?!"

Yes.  Yes it should.

To have students come into my office seeking refuge, understanding, help, a listening ear - I feel completely unprepared and unqualified to offer anything.  Every time I open my mouth to try and offer whatever advice I can I feel young and inexperienced and completely moronic.  What do I, with my healthy, safe, convenient life know about helping them with their struggles?  With my family that is whole, with my finances that are secure, with my job that I didn't even apply for?  How can I help?  Everything comes out so trite and pithy and easy.

But I can't turn them away.  I can't pass them off to some counselor.  Because, somehow - and I'm not entirely sure how this happened - they learned to trust me, and I can't give that up.  I can't break that. I owe it to them.

They don't prepare you for this in school.  They don't talk about this on the stupid state test I had to take to upgrade my license.  They'll warn you a little about how you'll love your students and want to do anything for them.  They don't warn you at all about how they'll worm their way into your own dreams and heartaches.  How their successes and failures will hit you too.  How an uncertain future for those who deserve so, so much more will make you wish that you had done more with your own life and question the judgment of God.  I heard all these stories about your biological children.  But what about the other ones?

In Memorium 55 - Tennyson

The wish, that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave,

Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife, 

That Nature lends such evil drams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life,

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust to larger hope.

Brothers

Growing up one of my favorite shows was Road to Avonlea.  It was on cable, which meant that watching it was a rarity in my house.  We only got cable during special promotional times when the neighborhood got it for free.  I remember asking for those channels and hoping that the free promotions would come back because I was convinced that I was Felicity King.  I was the oldest child, I had a younger brother that annoyed me to death, and I was always right.  It was meant to be.  I'm convinced that I asked my mom to get my hair permed when I was about five for the sole purpose of looking like Felicity.

Of course I completely missed the part of the show where they let you know that Felicity is a jerk.  I remember one episode, for example, where the parents leave overnight for an anniversary trip leaving the 13 year old Felicity in charge of her siblings and cousins.  Whoops.  While the rest of the world felt bad for poor Felix and his nasty sister who made him do chores when he wanted to fish, I sympathized with Felicity for having a brother that was hard to punish because he always looked so dang pleased with himself.

So when the younger of my two brothers was born, I was determined to "train him up in the way he should go" by indoctrinating him with a love of sarcasm, British humor, and a healthy dose of cultural sophistication/snobbery.

I lucked out on siblings.  Andy (the Felix in my life) and I learned to get along as we got older (and I moved out of the house).  Although he still claims that I "made" him watch Avonlea related media (you could have left the room!) we get along great now.  Jared and I are great friends and always have been. I don't remember ever arguing with Jared.  (Minus, I suppose, the time when I determined that I wanted my own room and pushed him, in his crib, out the door.  Or as out the door as I could.  It got stuck.  Whoops.)

Yesterday, Jared got a mission call.  In my church, boys and girls have the opportunity to go out into the world and serve their fellow men.  Only they don't get to choose where they go.  Most people find out via. letter from the presidency of the church.  Families and friends gather around in the living room or Skype from long distances, people post videos of their call-opening on the internet - it's a pretty big deal.  But in true quirky Jared fashion, things didn't go quite as planned.  His call was accidentally sent to a girl's apartment and then lost.  Desperate to get his call, he contacted the mission office and was, after a series of strange events, emailed his assignment.  So instead of gathering around the fireplace with video cameras, my family called in from the most random places you can think of.  Dad was at work.  Mom was in the office at school surrounded by her co-workers.  Alli was pulled out of class to go to the office of her school and surrounded by a different set of secretaries.  I was holed away in the office next to my classroom.  Andy was, of all places, locked out of his apartment.  And Jared, best of all, was sitting in one of the buildings at BYU by a vending machine and random people that had no idea he was about to open an email that would change his life.

I love when the universe throws comedic irony into otherwise important moments of our lives.

So very calmly, without pomp or circumstance or tears my family gathered around a phone fireplace to hear that Jared was going to Brazil, like he'd hoped for.  We were happy.  And then we hung up and went about the rest of our day.

Sometimes I wish that I had sisters closer to my age.  Poor Alli is so much younger than I am that neither of us really knows what it is to grow up with girls around.  But even though growing up with brothers brought arguing and being dragged to t-ball and scouting events and other unholy smelling things, I am glad that I have the brothers I do.  For the patience they teach me, for the men they've become, and for knowing that they've always got my back.

(Seriously, though.  They still tackle me.)

Kill the Beast

"Day after day

Give me clouds, and rain, and grey, 

Give me pain if that's what's real,

It's the price we pay to feel. 

The price of love is loss, 

But still we pay, we love anyway."

"Light", Next to Normal

It was like I was watching fragmented parts of my own life swirl together into recognizable shapes through a kaleidoscope.  The story of a family torn apart by the unexpected and sudden loss of a loved one, a daughter that put huge amounts of pressure upon herself to succeed, a daughter overshadowed by her problem causing brother, a mother caught in the throws of depression but unable to find a good way out of it. . . I went to the musical that night expecting to hear music I loved and to hear it performed well.  What I didn't expect was for it to be so personal.

It was like the first time I'd seen The Glass Menagerie.  Stunned at how whiplashed I felt as I saw myself and those I loved echoing through the bodies of fictional characters with lives confined to less than a hundred pages of text.

It started, I think, when my uncle died.  I was twelve and came home to a house so empty and cold and silent.  I remember the silence being particularly dreadful.  It wasn't the silence of a house asleep but the silence of a house stunned.  I remember my mother at the top of the stairs looking exactly as the house seemed to feel, and my father. . . my father had aged a hundred years or more as he told me that his younger brother had killed himself.  I cried because I was scared to see my dad so upset more than for my uncle.  I'd barely known his brother.

Uncle Bob had manic depression.  Later I would find what that meant.  And it was scary at first, but then it made sense.  Scary when I read through sections of his journals and saw the shift in his emotions so rapidly.  One day on top of the world, the next in the depths of despair.  Over and over again.  It must have been utterly exhausting and so, so horribly lonely a life.

But after the initial fear, I started to see it.  I saw it in the way that my father would respond when he was discouraged or frustrated.  The way he would react quickly in anger and just as quickly in sorrow for having lost control.

I saw it in the way that I did the same thing he did.  Lash out.  Say things I didn't mean.  Use words and glares with full intent of injuring the person opposite me until half a second later I realized what I was doing, and who I was doing it to, and I hated myself for it.

But a name for it.  A name for "it".  That helped.  Depression.  Not manic.  No, I was too level for that. Not wild enough.  Too practical by nature.  But it made sense.  It helped me to understand why I so often didn't make sense to myself.  That on a perfectly lovely day in which nothing all that bad had happened I could want nothing more than to curl up alone.  It helped me to understand why it was such a perpetual battle to be happy with myself and to understand why I was the way I was.  If I had a name for it, I could beat it.  Right?

I live in a part of the world where happiness is passed around like a drug everyone is expected to take, or at least pretend to take.  (If you aren't happy, then clearly the solution is that you need to pray more and go to church more.)

Except for me, faith so often works more like what Tennyson describes best in his poem collection In Memorium, where he describes feet that "falter where (they) firmly trod" and "lame hands of faith" that grope for understanding that is out there, but is not here.  Never, never in the middle of my emotional challenges have I doubted that God is there and loves me.  It's not my style.  I have too many evidences to the contrary to doubt that love.

What I learned in that evening performance of Next to Normal was that I may never ever be rid of that depression.  It's part of my genetic makeup, after all, passed to me from one generation to the next and no solution yet.  Temporary remedies, perhaps, through therapy or medication or, in my case at least, downright stubborn will to keep moving forward - but no solution.  Watching Next to Normal I saw a family that fought so hard to keep together it hurt, and when it ended, the solution was not the "normal" happy life they had always dreamed of.  Normal, says the daughter, is "way too far away."  Next to normal.  That was the goal.  If killing the depressive beast entirely wasn't an option, then containing it and harnessing it would be sufficient.

This year, this quarter century year, has been one of intense pressure.  I set high goals for myself.  Goals that are worthy and respectable and good, but goals that are lofty and difficult to reach in the impatient amounts of time I would prefer to give myself.  Perhaps, then, this depression I battle is my kryptonite.  My extraterrestrial reminder that I am, after all, only human.  My reminder of the lesson taught so eloquently by Eve, who learned that the value of love was only as great as the potential loss it was tied to.

No.  I don't need to kill the depression beast.  Chain it down and tell it who is boss now and then - but if the laws of nature or genetics won't let me ever be rid of that awful monkey, I'll get by.  I can't wait for life to be perfect or entirely happy.  "Some ghosts", the mother sings, "are never gone.  But we go on [. . .] and you find out you don't have to be happy at all to be happy you're alive."  And I am happy, so happy, to be alive.

Oblivious

I am convinced that if I'm ever going to get myself a man it's going to be in London.

This is primarily because I'm nearly positive that it is the only place that I get hit on.  At least openly enough that I recognize it.  My gay-dar is infinitely more trained than my he's-just-that-into-you-dar.

Let me explain.

I heard a story once on a talk show by Dev Patel, the star of Slumdog Millionaire.  He told the host of the show about a day when he was riding the Tube and reading one of the papers that they hand out to you as you enter the station.  These papers, I'm convinced, are there for the sole purpose of encouraging people to look at something other than other people.  And it works.  Riding the Tube is generally a quiet, private sort of experience.  People ride alone together, so to speak.  This in mind, it is both surprising and not that on Mr. Patel's particular journey when he discovered himself as the centerfold of the newspaper everyone was reading, that the only reaction from the person opposite him was a small double take and a turn of the page.  No conversation.  No "is this you?"  No autograph request.  Just a shrug of the shoulders and move on.

This is what it should look like.  

This was the experience I was prepared for the first time I went to London.  I dutifully grabbed the paper, read about the latest "news" and gossip and worked out a crossword answer or two between stops.  I must have done it pretty authentically because I was asked for directions.  Twice.  (And was able to give them.  Both times.  After a week in London?  Yes.  I am amazing.)

My goal whenever I travel is to fit in with the crowd.  I don't like to look like I don't belong, especially abroad where the reputation of Americans is nearly always polarized.  But sometimes weird things happen in crowded public spaces.  Such an experience descended upon me once when I was on my way to Mary Poppins with my friend Kate.  Crammed into a car with standing room only, Kate and I stood gripping a pole and trying not to hit the people next to us on our way to the West End.

Now, before you understand the full weight of this story, you have to know that I have never been one to draw attention to myself with amazing fashion choices.  Bad fashion choices, well, that was nearly all of elementary, junior high and high school.  I'm not trendy.  I've got a big forehead that bangs won't cover because a double cowlick makes such a prospect practically impossible.  I have smallish eyes and was in various forms of retainers and braces for about eight years while my orthodontist and dentists worked to widen my over-small mouth (Yes, I see the irony) and straighten my teeth.  I went through a period of time where I was attempting bangs that didn't work.  Probably because there really were only two bangs.  Two little strands of hair that were meant to mask my five-head.  Yes.  I was that girl.

So I've never had many delusions of grandeur when it comes to looks.  I don't think I'm ugly.  I don't think I'm model material either.  Just normal.  And I'm ok with that.  I'm especially ok with that in foreign places because it means that I get to blend in and hopefully not label myself as rude American loaded with money tourist (since they're, I hope, only 1:3 on that.)

Sometimes, though, fate has other plans.

In the middle of our journey to Poppins we were joined by a man and his (daughter? wife? girlfriend?) significant female other of some variety.  Said man broke every rule of Tube etiquette and he broke them with me.  He asked me where I was from.  "America."  He asked me if I'd ever been to Boston.  "No." (Please stop talking!)  He asked me if I knew where a certain street was in Boston.  "No." (Duh. I haven't been there.)

This is what it was really like.  Creeper.  

And then the coup de gras.  He started to address the entire train, which disrupts everyone and makes everyone feel awkward, and he puts me at the center of it all with proclamations of "Isn't she so beautiful?!!!" directed to randome riders and about me, all punctuated with "And I'm a Born Again Christian, and God loves YOU, and you and you and you-" while he pointed at each member of the car.

Not exactly the subtle ride I'd hoped for.
 

Never been so happy to see the exit.

This may have been the most obvious and public display of affection I've experienced, but it wasn't the last.  The other two were also in London.  One in Kensington Gardens after church (I looked like the daughter of a politician that day - pearls and headband and all) and the other in an Indian Restaurant with a flirtatious waiter who brought me food I hadn't ordered and told me I should move to London.

I'm assuming that this is a sign that if I can get the creepers to come out of the woodwork more openly then maybe I'd have better luck with the Darcy's of the British world.  Right?  RIGHT?!!

(Yeah.  I know.)

A Part of All That I Have Met

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

"Ulysses", Tennyson

There is a quote by L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, that always made a huge amount of sense to me.  When asked if Anne were based upon a real person, she said that although she had invented Anne, it felt like a lie to say so because as soon as she did, she was sure that she would be standing behind her because she felt so real.

It's the only way I can possibly explain to you the very real relationship I feel with Anne, Jo, Mary and Elizabeth.

Forgive me for a moment while I swoon over books.  This is not my normal philosophical fare - this is pure and total indulgence in what I love.  You see, I didn't have a sister until I was twelve.  Aside from my own mother, there aren't many female influences in my life that mattered more to me than these four, and, later on, their creators as well.

It all started with Anne.

And really, it didn't start with the book.  It started with the movie.  I was obsessed with it.  And when I found out there was a book, I would go to bed every night with my mother's copy of it clutched in my hands.  You see. . . I was only about four at the time.  I couldn't actually read it on my own yet.  But I wanted to.  I still think that Anne was what drove me into reading as soon as I did.  I wanted to read because I wanted to read her.  And it was so, so rewarding.  From Anne I learned that every problem has an imaginative and entertaining solution.  I learned that I could conquer any situation if I had enough nerve.  I learned that it was good to dream and to hope for wonderful things for myself, but that it was also important to be involved in my own life enough to make things happen.  Good things don't come to those who wait - good things come to those who care enough about their life to work for it.  From Anne I learned that the world is a beautiful place if you allow it to be.  I learned that the world is my oyster.

After Anne came Jo.  Little Women was the first beautiful book I ever owned.  For my birthday, or was it Christmas?, the year I turned nine I saw the most beautiful cloth-bound copy of Little Women at the bookstore.  It had a ribbon in it and color pictures.  I read that book to pieces.  It was like reading my own existence.  I found myself sitting somewhere in the middle of Jo and Amy - I was never the tom boy that Jo was.  I loved dressing up and enjoyed pretty things, for example - but most of the time I lived with Jo.  She had a temper she wanted to contain but couldn't.  She had a massive love of life and was placed in a time that really wasn't ready for her.  She wanted a life that was more than most everyone around her would have been satisfied with.  The older I got, the more I felt like Jo was written exactly for me.  Our desires and ambitions were so similar.  We are passionate people who live enthusiastically and don't ever intend to stop, even when it makes the world a little uncomfortable.  From Jo I learned to be happy with myself.

Next came Mary.  She's a little different than the others.  She's a nasty little thing - stubborn to a fault and unkind to others, but the way I saw it she was just misunderstood.  She had been thrown into rotten circumstances and came from a place where she wasn't really cared for.  Who could blame her?  From Mary (and later from Emma) I learned that I could overcome my flaws.  I knew that I was kind of hard to be around sometimes.  I had worked out how I wanted things to be with my life, and sometimes manipulated my friends into fitting that vision - which (rightfully) put them off me.  The word "bossy" was often attached to my name.  Only I didn't like that.  What kid does?  Mary was my guide.  I figured with the right amount of symbolic gardening (my attempts at literal gardening were utter disasters) then I, too, could be someone people would actually want to be around.  I could temper my passionate side and be a good person.

I wasn't raised on Elizabeth.  I didn't really discover her until high school.  And while I enjoyed her, it felt so very cliche to love her since everyone else in the world worshiped her, or seemed to.  (Not that my other literary sister friends aren't cliche. . . ignore that.)  But she was impossible to resist.  It was the banter.  The complete candor about the world and the general sense of snark about everything.  Nothing was safe.  The world seemed built for Lizzie's enjoyment alone, and everyone in it was on a stage where Lizzie sat in the top box like Statler.  I wanted to be the Waldorf to her Statler.  I wanted to be that funny.  To find someone that could handle it and play back.  (Heck, I still want that.)  And although I still find myself relating more to Emma in the long haul (because she is so openly and recognizably flawed but has good intentions), I want to be Lizzie.  I want to be that comfortable with myself.  (And, let's be real, I want to wear the dress.  And go to the ball.  And say "make haste!"  Oh, and own Pemberly.  'Cause it's pretty.

I don't know that I have some kind of overall point to this beyond my feeble attempts to say "I LOVE BOOKS!" in a way that isn't so "kid in a candy store".  If I were to move toward internal philosophy, I would say that these four women/girls are very much so a part of the "nurturing" that enhanced my "nature" as I've grown up.  Their creators as well.  L.M. Montgomery in particular, but all of the women who penned these marvelous characters were independent, strong, forward thinking individuals who fought for their happiness and their place in the world.  Most of them suffered from one form of depression or another.  All of them were religious in some way.  I can't wait to meet them.  I can't wait to thank them for giving me friends that made me not feel so alone, both real and imagined.  It makes this whole "independent woman" thing so much easier to forge through.