Brain Freeze

I'm at work. I'm sitting in the Sociology lab trying so hard to write a draft of the challenges we have identified for evaluations of small NGOs (non-governmental organizations). But every time I start to look at the page my brain suddenly diverts to some other topic. To someone I want to talk to or something I need to do or to worries about how I'm going to survive what promises to be a quite busy semester or random questions about random things or I'll realize that I've just been staring into space for the past ten minutes without thinking anything at all that I can recall. And the paper I'm writing isn't even particularly difficult or boring.

I think I'm lazy. Actually, I'm fairly sure of it. I could sit around for hours and do nothing. Or perhaps not literally nothing, but things that are unrelated to work and school and other productive endeavors. As Robert Louis Stevenson reminds us,

“Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularities of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself”

I could spend all day listening to podcasts on iTunes and playing around on the guitar (I can't really call what I do real playing) or painting my nails or reading books that aren't for school or checking my emails and facebook and the weather and my blog and my class schedule and anything else I can think of about fifty times an hour, even when nothing new has happened. And I can walk down to the kitchen and up to my room back and forth trying to decide if I'm really hungry. And I can try six different things with my hair (and still hate how it looks). And I can take naps and read and re-read my class syllabi and call my mom on the phone and make lists about all the productive things I could and should be doing.

Maybe that is even my favorite waste of time. I think, actually, that is why I own a planner. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly forgetful and it would be very helpful to have things orderly and written our for me to remember, but I don't usually do that. And when I do I forget to look in my planner and forget anyway. But that's another story. What I like to do is write out schedules for my time...

Today, January 6, 2010:
7am wake up
8am eat breakfast
9am class
etc.

of course, I inevitably wake up at 7:45, skip breakfast, have to do some last minute homework and run to campus to get the computer lab and end up being late for class with half our assignment done. And then there are other lists. Like lists for the grocery store, which never work and I either forget them at home or somehow manage to forget at least one item I wrote down and purchase several that I wasn't planning on. Or lists of things to accomplish during the day: 2 hours of work, reading for English, reading for EDLF, paper for Capstone course. And I love to cross them out, but usually I end up crossing them off half way through the day when I realize that I'm only going to get to one of the ten planned activities and even then I will probably not get all the way done. And sometimes I start to wonder where all this time is going to. If I'm not working or doing homework or socializing or eating or sleeping, what do I do?

And my friends, it remains a mystery. It's as if there are little parasites sucking my time, like so many mosquitoes, thirsting for minutes and hours rather than blood. Sometimes I look at the clock one minute and the next an entire hour has just slipped away. And the older I get the more quickly all this time seems to just disappear out from under me. One year, two, nearly five since I started college. And sometimes I find myself stunned with this realization, half feeling like the same girl who spent hours of her days creating different lists intended to make the selection of a university simpler, wondering how I managed to get into a new decade and a new apartment and a new state, somehow. Sometimes I can't believe that I've lived for over two decades. It feels like I'm being shoved into some sort of time warp and as hard as I try I can't seem to keep time still for even just one moment so I can at least make sense of what is going on around me. Instead life flashes before me in great gobs--semesters and summers and trips and holidays and they slip past and become part of the every growing blur I'm leaving behind. I have horrible visions of myself waking up one morning age 52 and wondering where the past 30 years went. Where have I been? What have I done? How have I changed? And why is time playing these awful tricks on me? Why won't it just leave me be and allow me to enjoy my youth?

And now another twenty minutes have passed, or some such thing, and I have accomplished nothing really. I still haven't written a word of my paper or figured out what happens in the great lapses of missing time in my life. But I have grown a bit closer to age 52 and to 62 and 82 and eventually the end of this life. And I can't deny that it will be gone in a flash and I will be left baffled and confused, just as I am now. What a fickle friend this time!

The Wheels on the Bus

Back to school. Back to work. Back to, well, life I guess. It's a strange thing to go home to the house where I grew up, where my parents live still, and to see my family, my sister, my friends and to realize that as much as I love them all and as amazing it is that we are still in contact and can still fall into our old relationships as though no time has passed (after five years of separation), I don't really have a life there. It is more like an escape into the past; a world where I can postpone my responsibilities and the decisions that haunt me at every turn; a place where I can sleep in until noon if I want and where I can sit around and put together puzzles or laugh with my mom and my sister at stupid things and play with our pets or go shopping in the middle of the week with my friends and all the time without feeling the constant pull at the back of my mind reminding me that there are things to be done and appointments to get to and people to please. It's a magical thing. And a strange one too. It leaves me unsettled and confused. If I don't belong at home, where do I belong?

While I was in Tucson for two weeks for Christmas and New Years I kept having this strange feeling like I needed to go back to Utah. Like that was my home now. But the truth is, it isn't my home either. At least not in any lasting, comforting way. It's a temporary life I lead here. A transitory existence, shifting between different apartments, storing my things in stranger's sheds while I travel for months at a time, and living with new people every few months. And ever in the back of my mind is the truth that this was never meant to be forever. But I don't know what is. There is no such thing as going home anymore, and in less than a year when I receive a diploma and an invitation to enter the working world and real "adult life" I feel like I will suddenly be homeless in a very real way. Not only will my contract expire, but I will no longer have a reason to live in Provo. I will no longer fit in at my parents home. I will be, I feel, that ever so cliché leaf tossed with the wind, and who knows where I'll land.

It certainly isn't something particular to me, and I realize that, of course. Yet, it feels so solitary. There's a song I like by Taylor Swift in which she sings, "I don't know what I want, so don't ask me, cuz I'm still trying to figure it out . . . I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know." Me too, sista! Me too. It's a strange feeling. It's as though I'm walking along this path of my life and all the way it's painted out so clearly, the light shining through beautiful trees lining the road, even the bumps and hills I've traveled are there, solid and real, but then suddenly everything becomes blackness. I see my graduation and then...nothing. A blank. An absence. And I'm headed straight for it full speed and without any breaks. It's terrifying really. And yet, I'm kind of excited. I'm just hoping that hidden behind that curtain of uncertainty is a beautiful landscape awaiting exploration. And it may not be what I expect or what I know, but there's got to be something there. My life hasn't ended yet (though that is a scary thought!). And, you know, sometimes we need a little mystery. At least that's what I'm telling myself these days. So please, if you know differently, just don't burst my bubble!

The Newness

I have made a decision: 2010 is my year!

It sounds like a good year doesn't it? This year I will graduate from college (finally) and after that I guess the whole world opens up and I can do whatever I want...or maybe whatever I can get a job doing. For a while I was worried that when the walls that contained me suddenly fell away (metaphorically speaking of course... and perhaps optimistically speaking as well) I would be swallowed up by so much possibility; so much uncertainty; so much of the great unknown world out there, beckoning to me and terrifying me all at once. But right now I feel pretty good. I've decided that I don't have to jump out and consume the world in one great gulp. I can just take a nibble, small bite at a time. I can step out into that vastness before me and see where the road leads without trying to run it all at once. Sure, I'm scared. But I'm excited too. So far I haven't gone too far astray. And if I do, well, maybe that could be interesting too!

Here I come World... you'd better get ready!

gibberish

Sometimes I think there are so many thoughts inside my head that I just might explode. And other times I feel like all capability to think at all has been sucked out of me and I am left dazed and baffled. The world is a beautiful place. And it's a scary place. And it's a difficult place. And there are times when I look at myself and all humans and I am struck by the truth of our nothingness and just how pathetic it is that we try to make ourselves seem smart or cool or in control. We are all bumbling and stumbling and searching and striving to make a little sense of the world and of our lives and to find a bit of happiness in a world that we have made quite a mess of. And the miracle is that we do find happiness and we do find hope and we do find love and peace and joy. It's a miracle that we function from day to day. It's a miracle that despite all the terrible things people have done to each other throughout history that we have continued and persevered and even thrived. It is a miracle that there always have been and continue to be people who let the facade fall from them and embrace their nothingness and in doing so bless the world with goodness and mercy and a vision of what we should be and could be and can be. I guess I don't think we all have to be Mother Teresa or drop everything and devote our lives to service; but I know I could do more. Couldn't we all do a little more? And how beautiful would it be to wake up in the morning and not pretend that we are smart or collected or prepared, but rather acknowledge that we are just trying day by day and moment by moment to make something of our lives and recognize that we are all the same and that none of us is any better than any other and take hands and lift each other and find that when we are just our little scared selves together we can become something great and we can see great changes occur in the world and love finally reign. Because we are not cool or super smart or really together or completely courageous. We're not fearless and we're not flawless. And pretending to be only divides us and pits us against each other in a fake battle which none of us ever really wins. But if we united in our imperfection we could find that when we place our different flaws together we fill in each others gaps and pick up each others slack, and we're all a little lighter. What is there to lose?

Maybe I'm crazy, but I really believe that.

I bet you think this song is about you

So I work in a phone room and I wear these super attractive earphones for three hours a day. It's fun. And what's even funner is when I walk twenty minutes home across BYU campus and see three people I know on the way only to realize when I get into my house that the headphones caught on a piece of my hair which is now sticking straight out like some sort of strange off-center unicorn horn. Today I walked into the bathroom about halfway through my shift and noticed that one side of my hair was plastered to the side of my face in a nice round headphone shaped patch. I thought to myself, they should be required to put up mirrors at our desks! with significant haughtiness. And then it hit me. I'm kind of a little vain.

Ok. I'm really really vain. And I think about how I look ALL THE TIME. and what makes it worse is that I pretend that I'm not vain at all. NO. Not me! I don't look at myself in windows as I walk on campus. I don't check my hair in the reflective screen on the computers in the JFSB computer lab. I hardly even glance up at myself while I wash my hands in the bathroom on campus.

At least not when anyone is looking.

When I'm by myself its another story. I think I could sit in front of the mirror for hours on end. In fact, I may have done just that. I like to analyze and scrutinize my face and my body and my teeth and the different potential facial expressions I can make and maybe made in front of that cute boy today--I hope he didn't realize how goofy I look when I do that weird thing with my mouth when I'm thinking! It's bad. And sometimes I even get out my camera and take a photo or two just to check if what I'm seeing in the mirror will hold up under further inspection. And, I mean, it's kind of strange that the only face I've never really seen is my own. It's not that I'm delusional, but you need to be prepared!

Let's stick with that.

P.S. Just to rationalize my own vanity: the favorite location for studying (and scriptures reading) in my apartment is in front of the mirror on our stairs--at least for a few of my roommates. It makes me laugh. And it also bugs me because, hello!, you're blocking the stairs!

Like "Seeing"

Maybe.

Today in my creative non-fiction class we were given 25 minutes to wander about campus and attempt to SEE--as in Annie Dillard's beautiful essay "Seeing", which I recommend to everyone! When we got back we started writing a bit, and I'm going to finish here what I started. So, here goes...

On BYU campus there are numerous bundles of nature scattered across an otherwise predominantly concrete, artificial landscape—big buildings and broad sidewalks, metal canopies and rocky-black pavement all around us. When you happen to stumble upon one of those semi-concealed corners of campus where nature has gained back her rule (not the carefully human crafted nature--the planted and pruned potters and cement surrounded trees and grasses--but areas where she runs free in all her creative brilliance) there are subtle surprises patiently awaiting any viewer who opens her eyes a little wider and actually seeks to see. This brisk early-winter morning I strolled serenely about on the concrete walkways trying to see what nature—real nature, mind you—existed here, anticipating the moment when I would be baffled with beauty, as sometimes happens while I'm trudging home on cold nights and am suddenly stunned as one of the campus deer makes a brief appearance between bushes and trees--gleaming in the moonlight as if it were some unearthly being standing there nibbling on crisp green stems. I was chilled and mourning the winter dullness as the sun glinted off dew coated grass through a hazy veil of sky, looking for something other than the dimming autumn leaves slowly fading into brownness as they began their slow decay into the earth. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a patch of dark-green hearts of various sizes draped about one another as they loosely hung around a railing placed to protect human travelers from the steep descent on its opposite side; the vivid forest darkness of the little hearts—and the big ones too—contradicted the paling, softening hues of yellowing grasses and crumbling leaves laying nearby, brightened by comparison until I was pulled in to see them more closely, to examine their splendor. Looking at them it amazed me how perfectly nature had imitated hearts in this radiant vine, sprawling stems resembling great green veins intertwining and connecting this multitude of living viridian fronds, each delicately laced with its own vascular webbing. And it occurred to me, the little hearts I draw in the corners of my notebooks and that children cut out of pink and red construction paper on Valentines Day are much more similar to the shape of this perennial than to the actual organ that beats in our chests--unless you've ever seen a boy try to draw a heart, those often end up looking more blobbishly like the actual thing--lopsided and unattractive to the eye. But not the hearts we use to symbolize our greatest emotion, our deepest feeling; those hearts are perfected and smoothed, faithfully fashioned into something worthy of the affection and humanity they represent. And like those human made emblems, this creeper, dense and dark with a heavy hanging of lovely appendages, spoke of something deliberately glorious, even in its out of the way, unglorified dwelling. A perfection of form. Not flawless. Not uniform or symmetrically balanced. Not even fresh or untarnished. Yet, that these living leaves lingered in the last days of life before falling snow and freezing temperatures suck dry even the heartiest brambles and bushes demanded regard, respect, even a certain awe. Here was gorgeous, glorious, unsuspected, unprecedented beauty.

Oh what the eye can see when it is open to all the grace of God! Let us see and let us glory in the earth's greatness--gratitude in sight.

I'm back...

Or maybe I'm just beginning.

I have had this blog for almost a year now, and as you may notice I haven't used it much. Well my friends (I feel silly addressing this as though anyone but myself is reading it, but alas, as that is the general point I will continue to do so nonetheless), all that is about to change. I am going to try to use my blog much more often (I am weary of making specific promises, so I won't say once a day, a week or a month... but more than three times a year. how's that?). Why, because I need the practice. I need to write. and write and write until my hands cramp up and my eyeballs bug out and every idea in my head is drained into words, as inadequate as they are to express those worlds that live within us. I need to learn to let everything I am and everything I feel and everything I learn and see and ponder and wonder and guess at ooze out into ink (or keystrokes, as the case may be) and create at least semi-coherent thoughts and sentences and paragraphs, and just maybe even meanings. And you, my hypothetical audience are my experiment. Should you be reading this, and should you continue, I welcome you to my journey. This is my new test. My new attempt. This is my essaying-self taking form and flight and striving just to be. For I am afraid to try, but trying is all there is for me right now and I have realized that even though a lot of things I try fail, the trying is worth it every time. And on those rare occasions when I do actually succeed--even in minuscule unimportant things (like teaching myself to crochet--yes, it's true thank you very much :) there is a satisfaction that defies all expression--well, at least, I'm not going to try to express it today--perhaps another day. Perhaps quite soon. We shall see.

In any case, here today I commit myself to this essaying. And not every blog, surely, will fall into place with the grace I desire--but essay I will, even when I fail utterly and completely, as I am so wont to do. So here I go. . . Into the vast and terrifying world of the great writing unknown. May I come out utterly altered, even perhaps just a little harmed, and better for it!

And for now, adieu dear you--whoever you be.