In Those Years

 In those years, people will say, we lost track  

of the meaning of we, of you  

we found ourselves  

reduced to I  

and the whole thing became  

silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life  

and yes, that was the only life  

we could bear witness to   

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged  

into our personal weather  

They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove  

along the shore, through the rags of fog  

where we stood, saying I

--Adrienne Rich

last day at the moa

dear love,

it's my last day working at the moa!! don't get me wrong, i'm grateful to have had the job but PLEASE let me vent about why i'm so excited to finally be done.

reason #1: there's drama! new boss, new student supervisor who really knows her stuff but has other peeps jealous and angry that she came in and took over. 

reason #2: we don't get to make our salads anymore! sadness. the main kitchen makes them and brings them up to us, and so i have nothing fun to do anymore except help people get their sandwiches, soups, and salads. boring!!

reason #3: i won't have to EVER have this conversation AGAIN!! "what kinds of soups do you have today?" "well, we have a chilled raspberry soup and our hot soup today is bacon potato." "chilled raspberry??!?! what is THAT?" "it's a yogurt based soup, and it's kind of more like a dessert that a soup. try it! it's one of our most popular dishes." blllaaaaaaaaah.

reason #4: i won't have to sweep, mop, scrub, squeegie the floors anymore! any my pants won't get that nice rim of bleach on the bottoms. rad. 

reason #5: i don't have to wear the shoes with holes in the bottom where my feet get flooded with nasty cleaning water every. single. day.

reason #6: no more gloves

there are some reasons why i'm a little sad to be leaving...

reason #1: i don't get to sing on the top of my lungs to the radio in the back anymore.

reason #2: i don't get to do my dump and run method anymore. (dump the water down the drain and RUN away as fast as i can so that i don't get splashed)

reason #3: the little old couple that comes in almost every single day will be dearly missed. they are pretty much the cutest people i've ever met. and then bicker about what they're going to order even though it's always the same things: he has the hot soup with the ham baguette, and she has the hot soup with a side salad. they always take the large tray so that he holds all their food while carrying his cain and she walks over with him to pay. they sit there and eat together, not saying a word, and then when they pass us to leave, they always tell us what good cooks we are. they are happiness.

reason #4: i won't get to make those italian sodas anymore. the best part was putting the whipped cream on so it stood like 4 inches above the rim of the cup...with a cherry on top. yum.

reason #5: i don't get to sneeze REALLY loudly so that it echoes throughout the whole museum anymore. 

reason #6: no more spying on people on dates. pretty much the best passtime you could ask for.

my 80-year-old friend?

dear love,

weeeeeeird day. at least i have something to blog about though! it all started when i walked out of the temple this morning...and this tiny little old lady was running after me trying to catch my attention. she yelled, "sista!! sista!!! i need a ride home. the bus don' leave for one hour. you take me home?" (add accent as you please, please). i felt a rush of anxiety, because people i don't know really scare me. but i decided she's probably just a nice little old woman and so i agreed to take her home and we hopped in my car. she had a really thick accent and i could hardly understand what she was saying. the next thing i knew we were talking about going out to lunch today to a peruvian restaurant that her son works at. so she got my number and told me she would call me later. 

three phone calls later. She called once to agree on a time, another time to tell me that she wanted to bring her 5 grandchildren with us, and another time to make sure i had her address. we agreed to meet at 1 and i frantically searched for someone to come with me. so katherine agreed to because she's the nicest friend in the world, and then we picked her up. she got in the car and told me that we had to pick up her granddaughter at school? and then we find out that the restaurant is actually a half an hour away and katherine and i looked at each other and decided to just bag it. it was getting too weird. so i told her we didn't have time to go all the way to the restaurant and that i would have to just take her home. i felt bad and i really was excited to have a little old lady friend but it was just a little crazy. adventures adventures :)

something i love

dear love,

something happened today that was refreshing. i was walking home from studying with my friend, and we were talking about dating or something related (what else would people at BYU ever talk about?) and all of a sudden, this guy chimed in and agreed with something I had been saying. neither one of us knew him but he was comfortable enough to just be himself and join in on the conversation. i think we need more of that. more friendly hello's and smiles as we pass by people we don't know. i think there's too much worry about what it will look like if your "too friendly" and i understand that fear, but really, wouldn't the world be better if we all just were comfortable joining in on some random person's conversation just to be friendly? i don't know if the rest of you would agree but that's something i love—people breaking the mold and just living life in the moment, not worrying about all the usual things to worry about. 

dear love,

may was not a prolific month. it was a good one though. i'm sitting here at home with not much to do. it's been so long since i've blogged, it's almost like i forget how to do it. so i'm getting in the zone with a little bon iver and a little chocolate milk. 

so let's see...what's been on my mind lately? lots. where to begin? (10 minutes later)...i've been really trying to think of something, ANYTHING to say. i don't think anything that's on my mind is bloggable. even though life is crazy, and the people in it are a little bit too, i'm happy and life really is beautiful. i'll be back in a few days with something awesome to say. until then.

look alive

dear love, 

thought one: tell me if you've ever done this: stood in front of the mirror as you are getting ready for bed, closed your eyes for a good 20 seconds and then opened them really close to the mirror to watch your pupils go from huge to tiny? maybe i'm the only one, but for some reason, this just fascinates me. it's never really possible to see our eyes when our pupils are really dilated and i love to try and trick them to get a quick glance of what my eyes look like with absolutely no light. it's crazy how our body naturally adjusts itself in different environments to come to the ideal way to take in the world around us. it's kind of a metaphor for situations i constantly find myself in. whenever i see a situation or trial or opportunity in life the first few minutes, hours, weeks (depending on what we're talking about) are hazy and unfocused. but things happen naturally to adjust and work themselves out to be able to see again, and to alter the amount of light let in for understanding, and it just naturally works out so that we are learning the exact things we need to learn through those different times. we might try to control our eyes, and keep them dilated when we look into the light, but the effort is futile because of the beauty and perfection of our physiology. just as we may try to alter our own situations, and make them the way we want, we need to understand that things will work out. we will adjust and learn what we need to when we need to learn it.

thought two: what is better than a bike ride on a warm spring night? katherine and i did that tonight and had one of those conversations that really just makes you feel like you care for someone and are cared for in return. i love conversations where you ask questions, and the responses speak to your heart, and they could have easily been something you yourself would have said. and the girl makes me laugh! and we learned how to say thank you.

thought three: advice advice advice advice. everyone wants to help, and everyone wants to be involved in things that are important to me. but i've really learned that i already know what to do before people give me advice. this is not to say that i never need it, because heaven knows i do, but i sometimes get wrapped up in asking people what to do and forget that the answers are usually clearly sitting in front of me. i forget to trust where my heart is, and i forget to follow it. so i'm resolving right here right now to do just that. pay attention to my heart: learn, introspect, study, and listen to it.

california

dear love,

i just arrived in san diego yesterday, and i've already successfully done some of my favorite california things. 

today i went to the beach. not the BEST day for the beach, but i needed it. jordy had to go to work so that meant i had the day to explore on my own. so i suited up, screened myself (cloudy days are the worst for bad burns), and set out to read my book on the beach. i took a long walk over to the beach, sat and read for maybe 2 hours, then walked around the stroll just behind the sand, and looked in some of the cute shops around there. 

on my walk home, i was privileged to come across TRADER JOE'S. and smiled. and walked in. i tried desperately to search for a little taste of the past, and i knew there had to be something in there that would satisfy that. i walked around the whole store, ate a delish sample, and surprisingly nothing was really begging me to eat it–until i saw them. honey whole wheat pretzels. they don't sound that amazing, but they are. so i bought those and a mango and i was good to go. 

so the trip so far has been a greeeatt successss as they say. i've already been to the beach and shopped at trader joe's!! and tonight we're having a barbeque. good california days.