Favorite Sheep

The streets of black are your own
Meadows of jade and envy.
Greed and crowds are empty flocks
The wolves embodied in kin and friend.

One sheep is bleating amidst the fold,
Its message loud and pure.
Its knees are bruised from atoning
Its crippled heart, implored.

The raging fold engulfs it
Wool tainted by the blood
It searches for the crook and pen
A pasture for the vessel and the arms

Of the Shepherd strong who hearkens
And with his hand he guides
To every sheep that's lost
Amidst the steel and glass and wire.

The woolen blood now washed free
Wrung through the bread and sun.
The Good Shepherd always hears the bleating,
Always loves the one.

Thirteen Moons

I just finished Thirteen Moons a novel by Charles Frazier, about William Cooper Howell the "White Chief." His life, was intriguing and so was the book but I was so frustrated by the ending. He and the love of his life Claire, the cautious yet passionate charge of Featherstone were the aspects of the story I liked best. He loved the way her kisses changed- sometimes she tasted like cinnamon, or pine - always trying out new plants and things to taste like. He loved that she smelled like ink always, and confessed to Will that sometimes she felt like an apostrophe - "A faint little mark to stand in for something more complete. a place keeper, a convention." He dreamed of her every night - the girl with the silver bracelets. Their sealing together at 17:

Be sleepless.
Sleepless and thinking of me.
Wanting me.
Only me.
Change right now.
Change.
Now I own your thoughts.
I own your breath.
I own your heart.

He confessed; I believe the words entered me and changed me and still work in me. Those words eat me and sustain me.

Years later after three days of passion, she has to leave- because of the indian removal laws. She tells him to get on the cart, to come with her. Then - this. This moment each of us may have at some point - our "Lancelot moment." "Hesitate to get in the cart, and you are lost. Maybe every life has one moment where everything could have been different if you had just climbed on the cart." But Will did not.

Claire says, "I would have burnt all of this down at a word from you." And drives away.

Will - "I thought then that if she would look up and say one more word, I would turn my back on the life and the place I had made, on the people who had taken me in... and I would follow her anywhere... I was a young man, but I believed my best life was over."

Years later, after her marriage ended, they meet with a twist of fate at the same summer lodging.He thought she looked just as beautiful at fifty then she did at sixteen. He asks her later, "How come I'm still in love with you?" He asks her to marry him. She replies, "I have to go away tomorrow." And as she leaves, Will tells her,"This will break us both."

AND THAT IS IT.

I wanted to throw the book across the room but there were still forty pages left and I had some slight hope that she would come back but no. It just ended. I was mad at Frazier and I was mad at myself for getting so attached to the fictional characters but mostly I was upset that an author can have that sway on people, and that they can let things end unhappily when you read to inevitably, come to a happy ending. After reading it I felt like Will too.

- This will break us both -

Confession

I am sort of obsessed with something lately: babies. I went to a ward party with my parents in Connecticut and the whole time I was holding someone's baby. I held Clara, Paolo, Mischa, etc. Except the whole time I was wishing I had my own baby. I don't really want a husband, I just want a baby. I don't really want a toddler and definitely don't want a teenager, but I do want a baby. It doesn't help that with all the NYC shopping we went into baby Gap, Anthropologie, and some other tres chic baby boutiques. I don't mean to sound strange, but I do want a baby. Just not all of the unnecessary pieces that accompany one.

Post- Thanksgiving Gratitude

I am grateful for a lot of things, and have so much to be grateful for! Here are some of the things and people I am grateful for:

1. Music. LOVE IT! My recent favorites: Coldplay, Coldplay, Coldplay, Debussy, Ryan Adams, Nickel Creek, and Taylor Swift.

2. Family. I love love my family. I had the best break ever with my sisters and was so happy to see Lacey, Drew and Emmy! I also love having classes with Missy and Jess and seeing them almost everyday.

3. Reading. Obviously... I am pretty obsessed with books but I am very grateful for them. My current reads: The Book of Mormon, Jesus the Christ, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Good Poems (by Garrison Keillor)

4. Good friends! I have the best friends in the world. Shout out to Liz, Laura, Chrissy, Becca, Ryan, James and Ashley. (and of course all of my other friends) Love you guys!

5. Little Kids. My all time favorites: Callie, Taylor, Emmy, and the four kids I nanny- Sophie, Nick, Cade and Zach. I am so excited to see them this week.

6. Prayer. I know I can access Heavenly Father any time, anywhere. Even if I knew for some reason He wasn't listening I would do it for me. Luckily, I know He is.

Happy late Thanksgiving!

Some Days

Today was a bad kind of day.
Here are some things that went horrendously wrong:

1. I failed my Italian oral exam. Well, maybe not failed but my Professor patted me on the back at the end, so I took that as a negative sign.

2. I wore shoes that were not water-proof and it poured rain all day. They went through my socks and so I was freezing and wet all day long.

3. The saddest part of my day was my drive home from Alpine. It was pitch black and I completely rammed into a deer. I felt so bad for it I sat in my car and cried for about fifteen minutes before I called my Mom or checked the front of my car to see what the damage is. Poor little deer, I hope it is still alive, even though it was a reckless deer who ran into me. I feel so bad for it.

But my day livened up a little because I stopped at Chef's Table on my way home and the lady saw I was crying so she gave me a giant box of mashed potatoes for $3.23 and then I watched 90210 on my computer in my pajamas. Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it. (and hopefully no dead deer)

Book Friends

I have a lot of friends. I am one of those people, divinely gifted, to have friends everywhere I go. I have all kinds of friends too. Friends I like to shop with, friends I like to eat with, friends I like to study with. There are friends who have sleepovers with me, and we share our deepest secrets, and friends who laugh at me when I do something ridiculous and love me anyway. I have energetic friends, pessimistic friends, sarcastic and hilarious friends.

But I also have book friends.

These friends are special friends, and hard to come by. In a sense, they understand everything I am saying without me having to say anything at all. They understand my obsession with Caleb Trask, and my fascination with India after reading both Elizabeth Gilbert and Jhumpa Lahiri. They don't mind when I tell them about my new favorite Anne Sexton poem and a tear slides casually down my cheek, and they don't judge me when I cancel my weekend plans to start the fourth book of the Sisterhood series. They have an unfathomable crush on Rudy Steiner and Gilbert Blythe too, and they wish that Cold Mountain had a different ending. They eagerly awaited the Seventh Harry Potter for literature's sake, and that book dominated our lunches for months following. My book friends and I may have nothing else in common - except our bridged obsession with characters, and stories, and villages and castles far away from our own. They understand Kafka when he said, "A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul." They smiled when Kate and Richard worked things out, and laughed at Rachel's humor in the Congo. They even cried aloud when Hans Huberman's accordion was found, and giggled when Ramona cracked the raw egg on her head.

They understand the canon, because they live it.
Every day when they open their books.

Flight

I was a good girl.
I drove all the way home between the white lines.
My vision was blurred -- not from tired, not from tears
But from love.
I drove all the way home between the white lines.
I felt like an animal --
with no feelings, no thoughts to guide me through my actions.
Just pure, hard, courage
That I didn't think I had.
Somewhere in my engorged organ
I felt a thump.
Then nothing.
Nothing at all
as
I drove all the way home between the white lines.

Secret Message

"Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face."

where we are

"i envy those
who live in two places:
new york, say, and london;
wales and spain;
l.a. and paris;
hawaii and switzerland

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what is wrong
is the result of where you are. i have
always loved both the freshness of
arriving and the relief of leaving. with
two homes every move would be a homecoming.
i am not even considering the weather, hot
or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope."
- Gerald Locklin

I agree Gerald. And I am soon to be one of those you envy. One who lives in two places. One hot and dry, one cold and wet. Both home. I am talking about hope.

Book Thief

"'Hair the color of lemons," Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me?"

At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty from the waiting.

Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend.

"Of course I told him about you," Liesel said.
She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it."


Thank you Rudy Steiner.

Feeding the hungry Jews. Rescuing "The Whistler" from the water. Giving the teddy bear to the dead pilot. You are beautiful. You have set a standard for young men everywhere. Go Jesse Owens. Go Rudy.

Tell the Truth Tell the Truth Tell the Truth

It is hard not to cry sometimes.
For me, it is hard not to cry most of the time.
But there are some things you can't not cry about.
Luckily, I know a good place to cry.
When you are in the shower, you are most likely alone.
You have the noise of the water coming down on you so you can cry as loud as you want.
You can wail and scream and pant, and its alright.
You are alone.
The water may as well be Niagara falls. Piercing, reeling, bloody.
The water also mixes with your tears.
You can pretend that the salt water and real water are both coming out of you.
You can pretend that the rage and rush of the fountain are all of your feelings.
Enough to drown you.
You can release everything you feel when walking through crowds of people.
You can forget your family is moving.
You can forget that you are missing a major piece of you.
You can pretend that the tears are just chemical properties.
Part of your physiology.
Instead of the gut-ripping, intensifying, earth shattering feelings they really are.
Luckily, I know a good place to cry.
When you are in the shower, you are most likely alone.

What We Need

Courage

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heartwent on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

-Anne Sexton

I believe it too.

Girl in the Glass

I didn't always like me. My adolescent years, in fact, were sated with me not liking me. And, although later then desired, I am beginning to realize that I never really knew me. I knew my imitation. I knew my supposed best side which transformed into a monster threatening to mask who me is forever. I knew the me that I thought everyone else wanted, never really being... me. Over the past couple years, she has unearthed herself. And you know what? She is not as even tempered, or as beautiful physically, or popular. But she in fact, is more honest, and more passionate, and more fun. Much, much more fun. She is also unfeigned, and not two-faced, and not insecure.
This realization felt like synesthesia to my heart, where my sight and my heart began to correspond with the young girl in the mirror. "I know her," I began to feel. And I began to love the girl staring back. I also, began seeking for her approval, because the girl on the other side wanted me to be me, and a good me. And I had so much fun, beginning to understand that girl, and beginning to let her be her own kind of beautiful. No longer an imitation.
The girl in the mirror prefers to go barefoot if possible. She thinks no makeup is desirable, and gossip is overrated and unkind. She has compassion on those who struggle socially, instead of pretending she is above them. She waits sometimes three days to wash her hair, and often would rather watch Pride and Prejudice for the 151st time with her Mom then see friends. She keeps secrets. She confronts those who have hurt her feelings, and is quick to anger and quick to forgive. She is nice to people, and honest with herself and Heavenly Father and wipes tears away from her eyes when she talks to friends and they are real tears, and not pretend. And her split ends, and flat chest, and unshaved legs are part of her, and her smile is real and same with her hands. And she is me. And I love her. And I didn't always, but I do now. And I am excited to take her along with me for the rest of my life.


-- Some luck lies not in getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known. --Garrison Keillor, Lake Woebegone Days

Testimony

"I’m not interested in the insurance industry. I’m tired of being a skeptic. I’m irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."
- Elizabeth Gilbert