Today Is Lovely

largely because the sun is shining and the air reached up to it, finally collecting over forty speckles of warmth to stipple fresh freckles on my skin. It's a wonder what fragrant spell a mere dusting of sun can put me under. As though my heart was tossed in the dryer to get the wrinkles out, now hung neatly back in my chest the heat wraps me from the inside out. Like my lips were just pulled out of the oven, a crescent smile gently cools above my chin. Like the greatest vacation spent in bed in a book, my soul feels at home on holiday when my body is tucked into folds of sun cover.

My phone supposes cold will pull down the curved corner of this lemony quilt tomorrow till only bare sheets of snow fit the ground. The month is March, but the valley is Utah, so winter will still rule for a season. Tomorrow casts backward ideas into today, but tomorrow only might be; it might be flurriously cold, but no one can say for certain until tomorrow becomes today.

Today, the breeze paints my face with powder pastels; the buzz of a million blades of grass pushing to the sky carbonates my reservoir of blood; leafless trees point and whisper as I bounce along on my toes, and I feel so famous under the light of that high, bright spot I'm convinced they'll name a summer flower after me. Today is just that lovely.

Five Years Seen

We've all been asked before to consider the question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Considering the obvious impossibility to look into the future, I never truly pondered and prepared a realistic futuristic answer to this question whenever it was asked. I'm one of those goal-shunning, flow-going life-livers. It's not that I'm aimless (I have passion that steers me in satisfactory directions), I just don't like to think I see myself deciding myself five years from now, let alone just tomorrow. Who KNOWS what could happen in 24 hours! Why determine the destination before the route is guaranteed to even exist?

I'm not being entirely truthful. I do have hopeful destinations in my heart and head and I project them into the pretend future, and those idea-destinations propel my daily motions, my day-to-day actions, and everyday choices. I just wanted to use three ways of saying the same thing right then.

Feb. 27

On this day in 2008 I walked onto the top step of the descending escalator then stopped. But it soon became the bottom step and Terminal 2 spit me out on the great salt lake city pavement. My family picked me up and took me home from my mission. Soggy boots walked the streets of France mere hours earlier. Airplanes walk the air so swiftly.

And time has now leapt five huge strides to the present, and what have I got to show for it?

How about an awesome Top Five of the Last Five list? Here is where those five years have seen me.

2008

• Dated and broke up with the last "official boyfriend" I've had. Wow. I've dated since, duh, I've tried; but no one's called me his girlfriend in 4.5 years...

• Drove me some school bus.

• Grandma Bonnie offered funds for school. God bless that woman forever. I took an Editing class at UVU and discovered my passions had professional application. Switched the track right under my wheels. Vision changed.

Center: Biker Bonnie ;)

• Hiked to Havasupai falls. Joined facebook to prove it.

• And, Uncle Scot added Vickie to my family.

2009

• Little bro left on mission to AZ.

• Started up yoga.

• Dad added Shawna to my family.

• Sister gave me nephew #2

• I finished Math courses forever more.

2010

• Drove buses for the Vancouver, BC Winter Olympics and met my best Merilee and Seth friends. Also drove during Paralympics.

Swiss Wheelchair Curling Team

• Went to Alaska for the third time, this time to work with Royal Caribbean Tours. Also bought a ukulele. Combined the two to win best safety speech ever award.

• Treated my sister, my mom, and myself to a discounted 12-night Mediterranean cruise. Saw those pyramids in Egypt. And other things around the neighborhood.

• Also visited Paris and its Eiffel and Louvre.

• Got my first smart phone

2011

• Took a sculpture class, an astronomy class, and a biology class. Marveled at the sculpting of universes.

• Went to Alaska again. Did some deep sea halibut fishing! 

• Moved in with these dashing dolls.

• Found out I was famously awkward...awkwardly famous? AFP (Awkward Family Photos) selected this sibling picture to appear in the 2012 Calendar, the board game, and a 999-piece puzzle. We're the prettiest awkward.

• Went an entire month without wearing a bra. Sorta wrote about the experience on my blog; also wrote up the whole experience for my non-fiction writing class. Still don't know what I'll do with that work. In the meantime enjoy this from my Movember celebration that same month.

Pin the stache on the Biebe

2012

• Became Editor-in-Chief of Touchstones journal at UVU. That rocked.

• Had poems and an article published in V Magazine (now Hex), the arts and entertainment section of UVU Review newspaper.

See text here

• Scored the publishing internship for the summer at Deseret Book. Biggest miracle experience of the decade f'real. Met some new besties.

• Took a Digital Document Design class. Built a website that had a sweet homepage and a secret page.

I tweaked those buttons (except the middle one) in Photoshop

• This beautiful lady got a degree! 

She be my mama

Now

• Most recently my sister brought me nephew #3. Great way to start off a new year.

The past five years have been full. Blessings and challenges, heartaches and triumphs, pressures and joys, miracles and miracles and faith and learning and love. Lots of love. I imagine if I'd sat and pondered about it, I would have liked to have "seen" marriage and kiddies in these five years...but knowing my ways, I would have forgotten to be specific; so, just as well, I have seen loads of marriages and heaps of kids all over the place in these five years. Just not my own. All in good time. As the plane flies.