Does anyone even read this any more??

The last month, I know, has been gut wrenching to watch. From all vantages. I'm so sorry that we have borne this trial, and I sincerely hope that you have found someone to bear it deeply with you.

In my academic life, I study how minority groups are visually depicted and represented. I find a fascinating application for my training in looking towards my own self, and the groups with whom I am family. Right now, I want to turn my attention to us; to Mormons. Specifically, to Mormon women.

I was  struck when the church decided (whether autonomously or not) to FINALLY display a photograph of the highest female authorities of our organization in the conference center this year. I wondered, when that happened, why it was happening just now, and I was intrigued that there was only minimal precedent for such a display in such a public place in the church. Almost every Relief Society room I've been in has little oval portraits of the presidents of that organization hanging on its walls. I hadn't really ever considered that such a view wasn't displayed for everyone. When those sisters showed up in the conference center, with their pastel blazers and heavenly puffed hair helmets, I was moved to finally see my sisters taking their place.

Being represented on a wall with a portrait in a public place has a long tradition in western culture. A portrait conveys a message of importance, of belonging and sometimes of wealth or great knowledge. Historically, portraits were reserved for kings and queens, emperors and pharaohs , members of royal courts and heroic dynasties. I saw these sisters taking their place in line with a long tradition.

But the fact that it took them until 2014 to finally be put up on the wall told me a different story.
In art history (my area of academic interest and practice), there is a great array of means to approach visual representation. In my particular area of study, the mechanism of the "post memory" has been useful. The post memory, essentially, is the means by which the struggles and hardships of our predecessors are imbued with meaning. It is the means by which latter generations inherit these struggles as a part of their identity, their narrative, their truth. I posit that Mormon women today are inheritors of the minimal visibility of our faithful sisters before us, and the deep capacity to remain faithful regardless. I would like to further suggest that that specific struggle has a great deal of significance and meaning.

A dear friend KB recently expressed to me the frustration that she feels compelled to "bask in the history of my foremothers. But it is too deeply overshadowed by [our] forefathers." KB isn't one to be lost on sentiment where it isn't due, and I want to tell her, to tell all of us, that there is meaning in joining the struggle to be seen, to be heard, to matter, and to make the story of the gospel whole.

I think often about when Eliza Snow was writing the words to O My Father. She was discussing the theology and nature of Godliness with her husband Joseph Smith, when he told her that we have a Mother in Heaven just as much as we have a Father there. She excitedly added that verse to her poem and encased our deep revealed doctrine of feminine potential in its lines. Eliza helped to usher forth the truth of the gospel, providing a projected potentiality for the women of the church. Why, then, have we taken to being so quiet about her, then? Do we have an obligation to honor her thorough silence? Does a half of the God of the universe speak in a primary voice? Does She speak at all?

And why, until Mormon revelation was the overriding Christian belief that Eve ruined all of existence for humanity?

It has been tempting for me to believe that the real truth is what I hear so very very often, even from people in the church; I'm tempted to believe that maybe God really doesn't value me as a whole being because I am a daughter. It's heartbreaking for me to even write this down. I am tempted to buy the line that I was made with the wrong parts to be a full participant in Zion. I'm really really tempted to believe it when people tell me (so often) that women are silent and invisible because that's how God wants it. It seems to make so much sense- all of my foremothers, all of the heroines and prophetesses of scripture are muzzled in light of their male counterparts. I am bereft at the fact that I don't miss their voice more, that we don't long more wholly for our Mother. There is no song we teach our young about the presidents of the Relief Society.

I could bemoan the inequities for days. But I will spare you (since you are here, you are probably already acutely aware), and instead offer this thought: I believe that as the women of the church, we link with these women- powerful role models: Heavenly Mother, Eve, Mary, The Other Mary, Emma, Lucy, Deborah, Miriam, Jael, Jezebel, Leah, Dorcas, The Woman Taken In Adultery, Ruth, Bonnie, Carole, Linda, The Other Linda, The Other Carol, Neill, Rosemary, Jean and Cheryl, Margaret, Maxine, Lynne, Lavina,  Kate, and countless others - in seeking to be seen, to be heard, to be faithful to righteousness. We inherit their struggle and their faith also in NOT being seen or heard, but valued abundantly nevertheless.

There is a scripture that I found recently that caught me in a moment of my temptation to believe the lie that women's authority is null: it's aaaaall the way back in Doctrine & Covenants  138. It's embedded in this recounting of Joseph F Smith's vision. He is telling about a vast congregation who await Christ while His body lay in the tomb. Is says that, assembled among Adam and his male cohort, was also "our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God."

-D&C 138:39

I feel dumbfounded that this scripture isn't more well known and beloved and celebrated amongst Mormon feminists. I intend to learn it and use it every time I enter back into temptation to believe the lie that women don't matter or are lesser. It reminds me that daughters have place in the halls of Zion. Even on the walls with the sons!
These daughters' struggle is ours. I in no way praise the institutions of the world nor forgive the mechanisms of almighty history for forgetting these women, I simply ask that we see, as their inheritors, the light of the gospel in them and take them as our mothers. I want to be nourished by them.

And so. 
For those is us who are ready to be done with the church, I stand with you. I want to hug each of you in the lobby on your way out the chapel doors and weep with you. I want to shout out my anger with you, using all of the tones and swears unbefitting the "good girls" we were trained up to be. I want to walk around with you and know where you can still see God and I want to worship with you there. I know why you have to go, and I honor that. I don't blame you, or begrudge your choice in the slightest.

For those of us who can stay a little longer, I hope that you find meaning and a means by which you can honor our women in spite of the temptation to believe that we must be mute and invisible. I hope that we magnify and grow our faith from the realities of our predecessors. If there's one thing we are good at, it's honoring our pioneer ancestors. I believe that it's the thing that Christ would have us do.
I think we have a chance to make this into a blessed time for growth as a sisterhood, as a people, and as humanity.

new

Let's remember what it is to be new.

Pablo Picasso, Woman with a Yellow Hat (Jaqueline) ca. 1906

I sat next to a man at church yesterday who asked me where the priest was. I explained how we have bishops in the church an a little bit about the organization. I am not confident that he understood all of what I was saying because I was whispering to him during sacrament meeting, a time when we're supposed to be real quiet. In a ward the size of mine, it's easy for people to notice when you are un-quiet. He started me on a vicious cycle, and my defense of things that smaller and newer than I am kicked in right then and there. I wanted to ask the speakers to be kind and non-jargony. I wanted so hard for them to remember that "initiatory" and "baptism for the dead" and "celestial kingdom" are things that sound scary to people who aren't us, but are curious nevertheless. Those things are scary for the uninitiated. The man sitting by me (we'll call him Charles, because that was his name)   looked to me several times, imploringly seeking validation and a glance to know that he would be ok. He would be ok. I was reminded of sitting in my dad's ward in California as a teenager. I always remember that ward as a ward where I was watched nearly constantly by the children of the ward. I think they liked me because I liked them openly. I remember how they often would watch me while I sat in sacrament meeting. It's a weird feeling to know that you are being watched like that. I'm not trying to say that I was a perfect example all of the time. In the contrary, I was often the one who supplied those babies with coloring books and dinosaurs to distract their attentions. I know what it is to be new, and to not know what big words mean. I know what it is to not know where I could set my backpack. I know what it is to not speak the language, and not know who I could sit by in the cafeteria, or when it was appropriate to ask a question. I know what it is to be new.

I got a text this last week that has been sitting deeply with me. It said, "disciples are not people who never doubt. They doubt and serve and help each other with their doubts. They doubt and practice faithfulness. They doubt and wait for their doubts to be turned into knowing."

I don't know who said it originally, but I am deeply moved by the concept. Is that not precisely what we promise to do every week? Is that not what it means to bear one another's burden?

I had to leave the sacrament meeting about halfway through because I was so overwhelmed in looking at he meeting from the eyes of the new. I am new to some ways of seeing things, I suppose, as things have shifted in my family lately. My dad is getting re-married next month, and I don't really understand how all of that works. I am sort of in a mess about how things will straighten themselves out. Where do I fit? And what of my parents' temple sealing? I don't know how to sort things out, and the talks given were almost exclusively about the topic of marriage (aren't they seemingly always about that topic in singles' congregations?). I felt remorse for leaving Charles to his own intellect to understand all of all of the things. I went into the hallway and cried and cried. I felt abandoned again. Felt lost again. Felt new and scared again. I felt like I didn't belong. Again.

And it is truly by the grace of God that I was joined by one of the kindest women I have ever known in that hallway. My relief society president wept with me. She shared her love and compassion and empathy with me. She showed me how to be Christlike. And man! What an incredible thing!

She literally embodied the spirit of the Relief Society in that instance, that selfless moment of reaching out to me. I shouldn't have needed it- I should be one of the strong ones. But she didn't care. She didn't want me to cry alone. She didn't want me to sink. And she reminded me that it's okay to be new. It's okay to not know, and to re-asses and ask again and again and again. There are always answers. She reminded me that charity never faileth.

Let us have patience with being new, and kind to those who don't yet know.

honest

For the first time in some time tonight, I was completely honest and up front and open. And it felt completely terrifying and scary and vulnerable-making.

And I cried harder and more than I have cried in some (great) time.

But it think things are going to get better.

I think I am going to learn how to be more deliberate.

Some few people whom I have loved in my life told me that they loved how I "live deliberately". I never knew what that meant, and I have to confess that I wasn't really ever living deliberately; rather I was living insecurely. I was living so that things appeared deliberate. In actuality, I was mostly scared that people would see that I was scared of not-belonging, that I wouldn't feel loved, that I wasn't smart, that I wasn't right, that I was ugly or that I was needy or that I was weak. I was scared that I needed too much validation and that I needed too much love. I was scared that I wouldn't be forgiven.

I got really good a keeping that to myself.

But tonight, I was really honest, and I really cried, and I really said all of the things that needed to be said. And I'd be lying if I said that I felt great after getting it all out. In actuality, I think I will just go to sleep now and probably cry some more, but it's a start. It's a cleansing. I remember in some movie with Nick Cage (ummmmm...), where he is talking about how it's remarkable that humans cry. And yeah. It's super cheesey, but it's maybe also true. Also, Nick Cage. Anyways- maybe it's the first step to let some of that go.

I am going to congratulate myself on expressing my needs and my expectations in a really grown-ass way. I am not going to feel bad for crying. I am going to feel proud that I respect myself enough to say what I need and to explain where I'm coming from. And I am going to feel good about being vulnerable. I am honest. Sometimes that hurts the worst, but I find solace in believing that it's for the best. I promise I'm not trying to be mean. I am learning to trust, and I am learning how to have faith. I am learning about love and about how sometimes, it's really, really hard to do love things. It's hard to be in a family. I don't really know how to not, though, so here I am.

believing

I need to write this down so that I don't forget it. It isn't for you, it's for me. If some kernel of it touches you, that's great, but I need to write it to remember.

I have been troubled lately by the trend of Mormonism-discussing articles. It seems like people who have had an experience with the church are using their experiences for capital. Perhaps it is the fervor surrounding what Newsweek and the New York Times last year called, "The Mormon Moment" that has sparked the interest. Perhaps there are political motivations. Regardless of the motivation, it appears that my religion has become fodder for articles and columns rather than a means to access God. Honestly, it's why I won't be voting for Mitt Romney this fall. I want my religion to stay peculiar. I want it to stay out of the mainstream. We have never been mainstream, and I am not ready to apologize for that. It has become a cultural stamp to say "I was once Mormon, and here are all of the reasons why I was wrong and I am stupid for doing it". I am tired of reading those things. I am tired of hearing the reasons why these people think I am stupid for remaining active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

I understand the implications.

I have read the history, I have intimately known the racism, the sexism, the bigotry. I understand that heritage in proclaiming my love for and adherence to the church. I can see the danger in accepting that.

I am not blind in my faith.

But when it comes down to it, that is precisely what I have: faith. I often think that the only things I have are faith and an enduring hope that faith will be rewarded. I am increasingly comfortable with that. I do not know many things. I am constantly impressed to think about how little I actually KNOW for fact. It seems that there is always another modifying element that comes along to challenge my certainty in all things. I'm not just talking about churchy things here: social, emotional, academic, secular, scientific, etc. Knowledge seems to work as a manner of disproving past theorems, asserting the rightness of new ideas to replace old ones. It's the work of so much philosophy and science. I respect that, but I am not going to root myself in it as absolute truth. I spend a lot of time at church asking questions and challenging the knowingness of my fellow Mormons as well. I don't direct my frustrations with knowing at the secular world alone. I want to push to see if they really know, and if they do, how it can be so. I rely a lot on Alma to back up my challenge here. Is their belief mistaken for knowing?

I want us to become more comfortable with faith. There are so many things that we cannot know, and I am happy to accept the limitations of my capacities. I can acknowledge my weaknesses. In so doing, I also must assert that there are many who seem to know more than I do. I wear my questioning nature as a badge of faith. I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ can withstand my questions, and righteousness will reign. I believe in absolute truth. I do not know it for certain, but I believe in it. There is power in belief.

I am increasingly comfortable with not knowing. I am increasingly comfortable with relying singularly on faith. I am, herein, seeking to praise that virtue. I want to hear more people in the church stand at their pulpits on the first Sunday of the month and tell me what they BELIEVE. I am tired of hearing what they presume to KNOW. I am saying that there are limitations to what we can know, but there is not a limit to what we can believe.

I study systems of value in the history of humankind. I have seen empires fall and rise based on the certainty of particular systems, assertions of knowledge. Assertions of knowledge lead to dangerous, hateful places. In so studying, I have come to the conclusion that we are all different. We are all trying to adhere the most to the things we want the most, the things about which we are most certain, the things which congratulate us the most. We are all seeking for the best situation for ourselves and for those we love. We use logic to deduce the best possible means to accomplish our goals. I will never deny the power of logic in decision making, but I would really like to introduce and affirm the power of faith in decision making. Not in knowing, but in believing. Faith, inherently, has uncertainty built into it. That's why it's scary.

I went to the Nauvoo Pageant this past weekend. I have to insert here, that I have found a lot of ways in my life to disconnect from Mormon culture. I hadn't ever seen Saturday's Warrior. I never fell for any of the missionaries who visited the wards of my youth. I didn't own a Jody dress with an ugly pastel floral print. I didn't plan to marry until after I had graduated from college. I have friends who are homosexual, and I had stepped foot in a bar before the age of 22. I enjoy a nice Diet Coke now and again. I unapologetically pepper my language with swears. I didn't want to go to BYU, and I have never been to a Cougar's football game. I only ate at Brick Oven in Provo once (it was gross). I often forget what happened in Kirtland, and couldn't name the prophets in order for you. I sought to defy the faith of my ancestors in a lot of venues, sought to differentiate myself from them for a long time. I went to the Manti Pageant a few years back as a tongue in cheek, semi-ironc statement. I can take responsibility for those decisions I made.  I was defensive against an institution that sometimes manifests human insecurity and selfishness. I was defensive against a culture that sometimes moves in ways I think of as unholy, ungodly, monotonous and harmful. I was defensive against institutional harm that has been done to my people. I was defensive. And I accept that.

I hadn't really wanted to travel to Nauvoo with my ward in Lincoln for the utter cliche of it all. But my heart was softened while there, as a piece of the evolution of my faith. I was in conversation with a friend from the ward here who was baptized a few months back. He thinks really deeply about things, and so is interesting to talk to. He is pretty logical about most things, and it's refreshing sometimes to hear things from a Spock perspective (I function mostly as a Captain Kirk). But after we watched the pageant, he told me that he felt like his heart grew three sizes bigger, that the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt overwhelmed with peace. I felt like he was witnessing to me the meeting of the head and the heart. Together, they testified to him and allowed the Spirit to teach him about the Gospel. He told me he felt like the Grinch in the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, when he goes into the town and everyone shares their canned food with him. When he feels bad about them all being hungry, but still celebrating Christmas, so he gets the "roast beast" they had prepared- while he is slicing it, his heart grows too big for the frame. That part. He felt like his heart was going to burst with love.

I love that feeling.

I am also completely terrified and addicted to that feeling.

I cannot explain the logic in it, and I want to assert the power of feeling the Spirit. I want to acknowledge the courage it takes to act on faith. I want to sing praise for my pioneer grandparents whose exodus makes no logical sense. I want to give love to the polygamist sisterwives of my ancestry, who resisted based on logic, but committed because of faith. I want to thank all of them for their humility and willingness to build, what they believed, was the kingdom of God on the earth. I think I am coming to understand why there is such a focus on pioneers at church. I always hated how much of a focus there was on that... It seemed like ancestor worship that detracted from a testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the center of my faith. But I think I am coming to know the principle that is at work in those stories of which there are not a few. I am coming to see the common thread that knits my heart to theirs. I am coming to know that it is precisely that testimony, that faith to act on the mission of Jesus Christ is what provokes the focus. We liken the past unto ourselves.

I believe that faith leads to action. I am trying to resist the demand to know, and trying to be content with the power of faith.My sweet missionary baby brother directed me to this talk today. It has a lot in it that I find applicable to my assertions, queries and ideas here. The gospel is amazing. I believe it to be true.

reassess, re-envision

It's POURING rain outside right now, pounding hard on my double panes. I can barely hear the trains sporadically cutting through the tumult of weather. The thunder is absolutely deafening and the lightning shatters the dark of my bedroom and makes it look a little bit scary. I wish you were here to buffer the scariness. Nebraska in May, I guess I should have anticipated as much.

I never knew what a thunderstorm was, really before moving here, and I doubt I will ever un-know this.

Today at church, the teacher asked us to list places that we thought were beautiful, and I said, "NEBRASKA." Everyone laughed, and my ears grew hot with shame because I was completely sincere in my assertion. Earnestness met with ridicule is hard to bear sometimes; I've never learned the lesson from that. I think she wanted me to say "the temple" or something, but "NEBRASKA" was a more fitting answer for me then, and maybe now, I'm not sure. I didn't want to cover it up, so I just allowed myself to feel hot and ashamed. I think I heard one quiet utterance of agreement, but it's okay. You should come visit (again): I'll show you (again).

Sister friend was here for a week last week, and her absence makes the lonesomeness even more lonesomey and missing-y. So I spent the night at someone's house and had a really REALLY awkward morning.

It's hard to be by myself. I feel floaty in a detached, not-that-good, sort-of-lost kind of way. I had come to believe that I was getting good at being alone.

I'm not.

I need to remember what I am doing here. And where would I be if not here? I need a better system to lay down roots. I never learned that, really.

I think I would feel less like I had to convince myself of things every day if there were more feeling present. Prospects (so many) have shifted in dramatic ways lately, and things are different. I need to reassess and re-envision where things are headed. A relative stranger with insider information recently commented that she had heard that I "had some major life decisions to make". She was right, but I was annoyed that she would offer such an intimate assessment of my life, and the means through witch she received such knowledge about me left me completely enraged/frustrated/vulnerable-feeling. I didn't really know what to say to her, and defaulted a mumbled, "I think I would like to get married". Would I like that? It would solve nothing...

Maybe it would solve some thing(s), but I would still be this person. I love this person. But this person could/should/can/will/must be more/better/bigger/rounder/wiser/kinder/patienter/knowinger than present. How do I keep getting myself stuck here?

...make progress. make progress. make progress. make progress...

Mom comes for a visit next week. I hope that I will have figured some things out {by} then. I want to figure out some things with her, some things about her, some things about just me, and I want her advice on how to make myself not-alone. She is a pro at not-alone. Is she also good at not-alonely?

Is that a thing I can do? Surely.

And I force my dad to girltalk with me about every little emotional whim. I consider it payback for something, I'm not sure what, but it feels gratifying somehow. It feels like he's got my back, even if it's just because someone else now knows how I feel. He has a lot of hope invested in me, that is sometimes shocking to hear voiced. It makes me wonder how he sees what he does, and it makes me hopeful that he is right in his fullness and seeingness. Or maybe it's a lack of seeingness that is making him so hopeful. But even still, he thinks that I'm going to be okay.

I think wind is lucky because it can go wherever it wants. It's probably never lonesome. I think I need to learn to make plans, for the first time in my life.

I'm sorry if I make too many words up, but English is an insufficient language on its own.

The Big Three

Remember this?

Well today I am feeling grateful for prophets who answer my questions and try to push me to meet my needs. Yep. Grateful.


Jeffrey R. Holland | How Do I Love Thee? | February 15, 2000 | BYU Broadcasting

too proud for love

I know that both of these songs (CLICK! CLICK!) are so incredibly old, but I feel them both so much right now. I am going to bed tonight feeling confused, apprehensive and maybe even a little bit worried. I miss feeling comforted.

A wise woman told me to try to have more charity today. Another one encouraged me to have more faith. What's left? Hope. I have a lot of hope, almost in absurd quantities that should perhaps give cause for concern but rarely do.

I think I am going to get those other two working better/more for me. I've heard they work best together.

 

I apologize, I don't know where this image actually came from , I have had it saved on my hard drive for a very very long time, but it basically epitomizes my feelings at this moment. Like... all of them, especially that tornado and that heart.

I do my best when I shouldn't be.

I like driving. I sometimes think I like it more than normal people should, but I don't believe in should any more. Should breeds guilt and insecurity, and I'm not into that business.
It stays light for longer here than anywhere I have lived, except in Alaska, where the sun licked the shore for at least 20 hours. Those were the longest days and the incongruously best nights I have ever had. But Prairie light is different, it's diffused over the country and seems softer and brighter at once, and for so much longer. Tonight, it was light until 8m at least, and the prettiest juxtaposition of complimentary colors. Blue. Orange. Pink. Cyan.
The light of the world.
And then it all melted.
Into a backyard with a stream running through the middle of it and a waving neighbor lady. Big groups of us swarmed there, joking about fish, and forgetting the lesson, and exposing our secrets to one another. We are so tender. I've been so honest lately.

I declined the first hug in over a year and a half tonight, but I made up for it with all that honesty.

..................................................................................

Before I left, I drove for a while. I parked behind this apartment building and watched the prairie wind push the grass around and defy the dissolved stillness of that diffused light. It seemed like every piece, every blade was animated and it jumped around with ferocity in all directions. It reminded me of those fake candle lights that flicker until their battery runs out.

(Imagine this as a gif, where every blade is animated in a different direction. Spring is alright in the middle.) 

Horses made noises in the field down the road near where that body was found.

Who was it?

Who was it?

I thought about that body while I watched the grass dancing. I was reminded of that scene in that book I loved first, where the girl sees the wretched old man with holey shoes, and can only think about his mother kissing those same feet as a baby boy. Who kissed the feet of that body?
It led me to thinking about my own baby-foot-kissing-mother. I came inside and looked at that dress that was sent to me: She was so tiny! So full! What was she like? I used to spend hours and hours thinking about my parents. I used to wonder if we would have been friends and how they probably looked and what they liked to eat when they were my age. It's probably normal kid stuff, but I haven't honestly been so fixed on the idea of them in years. How many years? I remember asking both of them what they loved about each other first: she was a great conversationalist, and he was sincere. His hands were cold, and her smile was killer.

I tried on her gloves and then I put on some perfume and thought more about that body. I turned on the A/C earlier this week and then forgot about it; the heat is desultory here I am learning.  So tonight, the vents puffed out soft tufts of faux-chill.
Diffusion of light, diffusion of force (is that what wind is?), diffusion of chemistry in my bedroom, diffusion of a corpse in the field.

In my mind, it all looks the way broccoli looks from the top of the "tree" but with more colors. They are pastel and dusty and taste like chalk. Call me morose, I guess.

And now my hair smells like the last time she hugged me before I left, minus the scent of the beach and tobacco.


*oh, and in 100% unrelated news,  this is something I did recently. The "co" of "co-curator Amber Mohr" is me.

Crossroads (But Not The Brittney Spears Movie)

  My mom keeps trying to get me to try online dating. The concept feels so inauthentic to me that I hardly give it a second thought. After telling her about my stresses about school, being awoken by gunshots at 4 AM, and the terror of having a human body found near my house, she wanted to know my romance-related woes. Could the demons lurking under bridges in my neighborhood and in my intellectual spaces not satiate her? She needed more. Like a soap opera to which she is addicted, She wanted me to tell her everything (about one narrow topic, hitherto only a small sliver of a [my] very rich life). 

  I told her everything there was to tell. I spare no detail with her sometimes.

  And then she (again...) asked if I thought online dating wasn't a good idea. After all, she found her last few boyfriends on various websites. My sister chimed in, for she too was an internet success story. They even offered to craft an online presence for me. While I think their concern is somewhat warranted and their offer indubitably kind, I'm just not convinced that a website will fit the bill.  Is this what we have come to as a people? Are we so replete with authentic human interactions that we are capable of boiling ourselves down to a webpage and advertising the hell out of ourselves, pimping our education and our favorite films, music and qualities about ourselves? I guess I just think some things require actual interaction. Some things must be felt.

We then got into a discussion about what was wrong with me. 

  The topic did not help me feel too nice.

  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!??! 

  Time to say farewell to my pride. Yet again.

 Historically speaking, my family hasn't really been one to put much pressure on us for not dating or being in a relationship or being married. I have spent time being grateful for the breathing space. This was especially poignant after my parents' marriage dissolved after 27 years. I too needed to give myself time and mental hiatus. But looking back, I think I may have stopped pushing myself, stopped progressing and learning how to trust and interact appropriately with the male sex. I have installed mental blocks that are making it really, really hard to jump beyond myself. I want to jump, but those blocks are making it hard for me to see that I might land on the other side. They make it hard to see if it's worth it to try. I am not interested in blaming others for my lack. I want to feel empowered to act on my own behalf.

  And maybe now, my parents are beginning to feel the fact of the time-lease that is their daughter's female body. My body. The prospect of progeny is an enticing one for them, it seems; perhaps I do not provide them with enough charm any longer as a 26 year old child.

  I read an article about the word gals. The word, as the article's author seems to understand, is... well... stupid. But she makes a point in saying that, 

that mantle of womanhood can be too heavy—many of us who are the right age to have sympathized with Britney Spears when she sang "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" in 2001 are still stuck in between (I was 16 at the time that song came out) . As a 20-something female, there are moments, romantic and professional and Shania-Twain-approved, when I feel like a woman. Other times, I really do feel like a girl (though not as often as I am called one). I never feel like a lady except in announcements made also to gentlemen and I only feel like a dame when I watch old movies. What I feel like most of the time is a guy. A female guy.

  This comes, appropriately, on the heel of hearing a lecture last week entitled "Guyland" at a gender studies conference at which I was a (grown-ass-woman) panelist. The lecture was largely casually written off as pop-sociology. But to some extent, my attention was caught in the idea of extended adolescence and the allure of irresponsibility, ad infinitum. The prospect of being a "forever-dude" is certainly an entertaining one that smacks of fountains of youth and promises eternal springtime filled with "going to shows, bro", and staying up until three AM eight nights in a row. Filled with the stuff of college and flexing your wings for the first time, rather than learning that wings were meant for long-distance, stamina- requiring flight. Wings are meant for adult things like paying bills on time and regularly brushing your teeth before going to bed. Wings that are meant to bear and teach babies.The guyland appeal fights with my determination to age honestly and gracefully into a wise, wizened, and self- actualized old woman one day. I can see myself as that: I'm old and wonderful and kind.

  But for now I am 26 years old.

  Today.

  And today I wrote a professor from my undergrad to see if there would be a teaching position for me in the summer. That's right. That's me today: actualizing real, grown ass-woman, careersy aspirations. I don't know if I will get the job. I will keep you posted on that, but I am making strides.  This is one of those "Shania-Twain-approved" occasions. My mom never asked about it. I didn't push the topic.

  I understand that my zeal for education and a career might seem antithetical to the accepted roles outlined here. I don't know to what extent I am prepared to submit to those fully just yet, but I think that I want a family. I sometimes see babies and want to cry at how much I want to touch them. I think I would be a good mom. I think I have the capacity to love small things and make real food for real small humans. I am good at comforting babies and helping them feel loved. I am good at teaching them about the world, how wonderful and full it can be; I am good at inspiring wonderment and imagination. I am good at playing with them and helping them laugh. I want to make real promises to a real man human and make real things happen with him. I want to do that in a certain sacred place, wherein we will incur the permission of Heaven. I really do want that.  I feel it very deeply and feel powerful in writing that down.

  But I also can admit and embrace that my career-related aspirations might be somewhat intimidating to real human men/potential marriage prospects (this isn't the appropriate place to discuss my opinions about men who are intimidated by successful women, but know that I have a few). And my object in clinging so desperately to the hope of career opportunities is not grown from subversion, rebellion or even in doubt or fear. It's rooted in the feeling of ability and control (it is somewhat vulnerable-making to explain this here). 

  My career is the only thing in which I feel validated to satisfactorily control. It is the one thing in which I feel a degree of autonomy based on my own abilities and skills; the arena in which I can thrive at being ambitious and definite in pursuing the thing that I want. I do not feel this validation in my relationships with men, nor in my friendships with human beings of either gender. I frequently take the role of passive acceptor. This role often leads to being alone, and sometimes (not always, but sometimes) being alone leads to being lonely. I am learning that I cannot be antonymous on a project which inherently requires the contribution of two. There is certainly pride tied up in the focus on education and career. Pride, of which I am leery, as I know the dangers and pitfalls of pride intimately well. I read stories about it every day from this book that I'm kind of in to. I need to move and be moved, see and be seen. Perhaps that is the key to finding a successful relationship; admission that I cannot control things/others/fate?

  It's time to say farewell to my pride again. 

  How do you submit to waiting?

  Is there a better location than Guy/Gal Land? My lease here might be up; rent certainly is cheap, but there are too many dead bodies showing up in ravines and shooters lurking in the neighborhood.

 

A Little Bit About

work and life and stuff: (assorted notes). These are things that I want to write so that I will remember them someday when I am old and too tired/busy/scared/forgetful/ashamed/hopeful to remember without aide (possibly very soon).

My job is really cool. Today I spent the morning from 10-2 divided between placing images (paintings and photographs, mostly) and artifacts (old stuff, you know) around in the museum I work at. I took a break at one-ish to get a smoothie. I think my boss likes me. She spends a lot of time every day giving me compliments, which are mostly about my dresses, but almost as often they are about my work and ideas. I feel successful in business. (Mostly I think in terms of True Stories).

I share an office at school (I have one at work as well) with seven other people. They are nice, and I think I am starting to feel comfortable enough to let them know me. We talk about poop and real life things that require trust to discuss. I have a real hard time doing that sometimes... I protect myself too much. Trying to work on that.

I have spontaneously hung out with three new people this week, and have made plans to go out with four other new people in the course of next week. It is not easy for me to be sociable in large groups, so I feel good about these small, one-to-one activities. I get scared when there are a lot of people.

Thursday nights are my favorites. Class and work and social obligations are minimal; potential for relaxation is maximal. These are the nights when I bake bread (every other week), think about babies, and let myself be calm. I think about bread and babies so much probably because I have spent the balance of the week engrossed in discussions and debating marxist- feminist- post-colonial theory. It seems in some way, that I am making them real and giving practical application to theoretical models on Thursday nights. I used to think these thinks were dangerous thinks to think, but anymore, I take comfort in them like old friends. I think we are finally getting comfortable with one another in real ways.

I listen a lot throughout the week. I don't talk as much as I used to.

Tap water here is NOT delicious, unless it is refrigerated for several hours. I try to be sure to have at least one bottle in the fridge every night before I go to sleep, as a gift to myself when I wake up in the morning. I miss mountains and their reserves of things (including, but not limited to water). 

I am learning that I need a lot of validation every day, and am trying to listen to what my body wants more. Today, it wanted water and steel cut outs and hugs. It got all of those things, and so maybe it will tell me more soon. Learning to trust better/more.

I almost always run out of money before the month is out, but this month is different.

I feel very selfish and self-absorbed much of the time. Trying to learn to be more than that.

TYoPA

This year may have been the worst time ever to deem "The Year of Physical Affection". I don't know anyone in Nebraska with whom I can share my physical affections without being 100% creepy (100% creepy is never my objective: I max out at 89%).
If you are reading this, and you plan to see me before the year ends, plan to make up for lost time.
And Let's PLEASE make it as awkward as possible for everyone else in the room.

My mother understands trees

My mother is a master tree steward. She loves trees. I think she loves me too. I had a hard conversation with her last night- I am coming upon a time of great trepidation and nothing seems certain for me in the coming year. I look forward to it with hesitation and a sense of unknowing and frankly, fear. 

I walk in BYU's Summer term graduation ceremony in a week. I am terrified. It's the beginning of the end of this incubation which I am not ready to leave just yet. I don't know where to go- I have no home but this one.  will not have a job beginning in January (which seems like a long ways away, but really is rather pressing.)

My mom interrupted my tears and told me about trees. She said that it's so tempting to take a sapling that is just starting and plant stakes deep into the ground on its sides and tie it so that it will grow up straight and true.

via

She went on and told me that those are the trees without substance- without any strength or soul. When trees are growing in the wild, they encounter a barrage of insults and challenges. They don't all make it- and they DEFINITELY aren't all perpendicular to the earth. And as wild trees are growing, the winds and storms that push them around cause tiny deaths within the pulp of the tree- micro fractures in their structure.  

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The good news is this: as these micro fractures heal, the tree takes what it has learned from the wind, from the death caused by its incessant pushing, and strengthens itself there. That dead material becomes strong wood that holds the tree against future storms. This old, fractured part moves outward to become a fortress of bark, and new material is allowed to grow within that stern exterior. 

New life flows from the ends of the branches.

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These are the trees that are strong. These are the ones with substance and soul- ones who defend themselves against dearth of water and against pestilence. 

My mother understand what it means to be wild- what it means to be grounded. I question her in so many ways and against so many things. I don't know if I know how to trust her, or anyone for that matter. I think I need to learn from the trees and learn again how to trust myself. 

No stakes.