tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106280032024-03-13T04:06:36.600-06:00DramasticWhat is Drastic + Dramaticemilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.comBlogger272125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-68765138243336848022023-07-16T17:31:00.004-06:002023-07-18T10:47:07.860-06:00Scraped Knees<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am ashamed of my race.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">White?</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4cbe9e2b-7fff-454c-1a40-e93419e1aa3a"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Human,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But also yes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And how we look</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the most flammable things</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thinking</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keeping the world on fire is</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keeping us warm.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melting our silver in hot spotlights,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feeding the needy then </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Collecting the forks back.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Influencing without change,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perpetuating the cycle</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dig, imitate, consume, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">discard, bury, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">steal,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> dig...</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excavating from nature </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not wisdom but resource--</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But a little wisdom, enough </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To advertise what might heal our scraped knees.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To mimic </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">but not replicate</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To borrow but not return</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use but not make reusable.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">To extract dyes to color skins,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">To paint trophies.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Straining counterfeit treasure </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from expendable seas</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To pile on plastic hills.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing we all have</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In common</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Earth</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We claim dominion to divide, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">conquer o</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">ne another.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Myopic clay dolls.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flinging dust to dust, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our own ashes,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until we all</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fall down.</span></p></span>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-78693023265080416722018-05-11T14:21:00.001-06:002018-05-11T14:41:59.704-06:00Menstruating on Mother's Day<h2>
<span style="color: #990000;">Red.</span></h2>
Fruit. Ripe tomatoes bulging with heirlooms. Strawberries crawling with seeds. Cherries pregnant with pits. Seedless watermelon.<br />
<br />
Roses are. Mothers receive them into their arms like an aromatic baby plucked from the vine. Inhale the scented oxygen and maybe blink down grateful tears. Plunge cut stems into a vase with water and plant them on the table. My mother prefers a few clipped lilacs or a dainty bouquet of sweet peas. Me too. If roses, only wild, left growing in the ground, and then purple.<br />
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Blood, obviously. Carries oxygen to the cells, carries toxins to the lungs. Exhale a happy sigh, gather in the sight of momentarily reverent, adoring children. Inheritors of her blood and partakers of her body. Permanent residents of her heart. Product of genetics and miracles.<br />
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Makeup, maybe. Lipstick that chubby hands will later smear on the mirror, vanity, carpet. <br />
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Candy. What else could a mother ask for? Besides blissful sleep, no doubt.<br />
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The uterus. It thickens with blood. The heart. It thickens with hope. And then they shed.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">White.</span></h2>
My wedding dress was custom made to fit my body. Beautiful white fabric flowing from rib cage to the ground. The chest and arms wrapped in elegant lace with a randomized spread of floral stitching. Little beads glinting like dewdrops in the delicate webbing between buds. That day, the dress fit perfectly.<br />
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My skin is called white. Standing next to James, brushing teeth, I see in the mirror that his white skin compared to mine is more pink. He's the underdone middle in the chicken breast, and I'm the season-salted baked meat. My skin has had to adapt to an increase in body mass. We have hormones to thank for that. But also emotional eating, no doubt. Toothpaste spit into the sink is white—a tiny bit of pink if I flossed too well.<br />
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White like brand-new toe socks worn before washing. And I cut my big-toe nail too short, so now there's a copper smudge on one side where the sock protected tender toe from constant shoe. If the stain doesn't come out, I'll always know it's a right sock.<br />
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The whites of your eyes are hedged with reddish-pink lines; you'll see them peek out if you keep staring forward as you turn chin to shoulder. Or pull your lids down or up. Mostly you have to go looking for them to notice anything but white seas surrounding the iris islands. Unless you cry.<br />
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The stick I dip into the urine collected in the tiny one-ounce plastic sampling cup, hoping to see that second line of pink, is white like a ream of printing paper newly opened and shoved in the printer. The printer is out of ink.<br />
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White like the pantyliner pressed onto the fabric slinging between my legs, wrapping my womb, and pinching my waist.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="color: #f4cccc;">Pink.</span></h2>
A tempered red. Diluted with white. Just the right mixture of hope and heartache.<br />
<br />
Lamplight. The lamp beside my bed...really, it's ridiculous. It's a little girl's bedroom decor item. Light-pink fabric wraps around a wire frame in the bulbous shape of a purse. The handle of the purse lamp is giant clear beads. A white feathery-boa trim lines the rim, and the feet of the frame curl like Cinderella's pumpkin-vine carriage wheels. But its level of light is softly perfect. It makes my skin look somewhat fairy golden in the dark. Flaws are smoothed over, and I feel a sexy confidence, comfort. <br />
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Sex is pink. A mixture of love and intercourse. A little lighter pink when you're trying to make a baby the twenty-eighth cycle following twenty-seven failures. Sex can go a little darker pink when kids aren't involved. <br />
<br />
"Just have fun with it" is pink advice. A mixture of ignorance and positivity. Best for newlyweds. Fun doesn't make a baby, though. Bodies do. Biology does. If my biology isn't ripe, no amount of fun will plant pregnancy in my body. If your biology is fruitful: red congratulations. <br />
<br />
Newborns after first breath. A miraculous mixture of sperm and egg, of love and sex, of mother and father.<br />
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Life is pink. An infinite mixture of known and unknown. We're always counting. When we know what's coming, we count down the days, anticipate. Two days to Mother's Day. Twenty-eight days to my birthday. <br />
<br />
If we don't know when the event's arrival will be, we count up, hope. Thirty-three years, hoping for thirty-four and beyond. Twenty-eight cycles, hoping it's the one. <br />
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<br />
Counting calories to fit my body into that dress again. Counting pills to swallow. Counting days past ovulation. Counting the months to see when the due date would be.<br />
<br />
But if a white dress never fits custom to my body again, if I'm never wrapped plumply in pregnancy, I count on being healthy and happy. Which I am. Happy. A practically perfect pink happiness. Lifelong mixtures of red and white.<br />
<br />
Counting. <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Hoping.</span> <span style="color: #990000;">Shedding.</span> <span style="color: #f4cccc;">Cycling.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f4cccc;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f4cccc;"><br /></span>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-32892590954639725192018-02-28T17:34:00.000-07:002019-01-14T19:43:11.920-07:005 years, 60 months, 261ish weeks, 1825 days later<a href="https://happydramasticdays.blogspot.com/2013/02/five-years-seen.html" target="_blank">Five years ago I talked about the five years</a> before that. Shall we repeat the reminiscing?<br />
<br />
Where I've seen myself in the past five years, 2013-2018 edition.<br />
<br />
2013<br />
Shortly after the last post, I finally got a degree that measures in sensigrade (that's a creative writing major's play on words, using sensigrade in place of centigrade. Get it? Like sense and grades because school. OK done.). I went off to a planned internship at some Church technical writing gig, and it was a good launch into reality.<br />
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<br />
I was in a musical! Ensemble only, of course, but it was still quite a fun experience that I'm happy I did once.<br />
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I went to Orlando for my first-ever SCUBA diving trip, which I loved and hated simultaneously cuz the ocean fascinates me and freaks me out simultaneously. My companions said at one point they saw a barracuda while I was facing the rest of them in a submarine regrouping huddle. By the time I swirled around it was long gone and I was very glad. I probably would've stopped breathing.<br />
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Also stopped over at Universal Studios and it's the best. BUTTERBEER. Say no more. Except Honeydukes and Seussville. #heartsforeyessmiley<br />
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I got my first big-girl job writing and mild editing for Food For Health International. I moved in with the best girls ever, LaShiz and Smash.<br />
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Eventually the stress of working at an unstable company gave me ulcers, so into the next year:<br />
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2014<br />
I got a new job! The one I'm still at, where all I have to do is edit and tell people how wrong they're doing their job and it's great. Moved from Orem to Murray for work. Lived with this piece of classy act. Love my Carrie.<br />
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I joined Tinder early in the year and met some fun guys and had some great dates. Until I had a stretch of very stressful somewhat scary experiences, then I took a break.<br />
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I bought a big-girl car! A Ford Escape I named Giacamo.<br />
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I turned 30! Wha? Guess that's what happens if you live long enough. My mother got me the natural (?) gift of 30 pounds of cream cheese, which became the theme of my birthday party. And for a month after.<br />
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I decided to browse Tinder again, look for some leads. Saw this one bearded guy with the name of James. Swiped right.<br />
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Met Gandalf, finally. Also went to Lagoon for a work party.<br />
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Met that James guy in September; we went on lots of dates. I told him I loved him in October, he asked me to marry him in December, and, into the next year...<br />
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<br />
2015<br />
We married each other! That was a good, good day in March.<br />
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James started college courses for becoming a diesel mechanic, and I baked a lot. I like that now I shall report about two people instead of just one. James is my life. We did lots of fun things like travel (Bear Lake; Seattle; Union, Oregon), eat out, hike, combine families, laugh, and love and love and love. That kinda covers a lot.<br />
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We did a paint night thing. That was so fun!<br />
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2016<br />
I participated in a cookbook club for a bit. That was so my jam.<br />
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James got a new job at UTA. The difficult school and work hours this man endured to build his career...gold medal.<br />
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I did this cooking competition thing at Harmon's. I came in a very close second. Works for me. It was a stressful blast.<br />
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I got a fourth nephew, pretty much for my birthday. Thanks, Autumn!<br />
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I acquired two new sisters!<br />
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Went to Disneyland with Autumn's family during Halloween. THE BEST.<br />
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We bought a house suddenly. Yeah.<br />
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We adopted the Mighty Dustructo Dog, Midas! Our world (and house) (and slippers) was never the same.<br />
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2017<br />
Life pretty much became all about surviving Midas and mortgage payments haha.<br />
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One more sister in the fam, the courageous bride of Baby Jay. I got to make their wedding cake, which was a first, but fun!<br />
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James turns 30 on the 30th, his golden birthday! Man, it was such an epic surprise party.<br />
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After a year of trying to get pregnant, we learn chances of getting pregnant on our own are about, oh, 2 percent. We slowly start figuring out what it all means and what's best to do.<br />
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In the meantime, enter two nieces, a month apart!<br />
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James finishes school!!!!!! What a relief. He's really happy in this picture. ;)<br />
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2018<br />
So far so good. Main thing to report is the first try-to-make-me-pregnant procedure we tried was not successful, but we've got a plan ahead of us. I wager little fingers and toes will make their appearance in the next five years. But whatever happens forward, wow, what a blessed, remarkable, rich five years in the backward direction. I really love life and all those who share it with me.<br />
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<br />emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-29636113429049313172018-01-09T10:08:00.001-07:002018-01-09T10:08:20.529-07:00How God Told Me I Should Eat More Bacon<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dare you not to crave bacon after this post.</td></tr>
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This story pretty much originates Sunday evening in the car. With husband as my captive audience, I babbled on about the parable of the ten virgins and audibly contemplated what I could do to improve my faith. I decided I should renew my effort to pray after waking up. Too often I don’t even roll out of bed right away, and, when I finally do, my attention usually dips directly into my phone to see what notifications it gathered for me while I slept. I got the gentle prod once again to seek heaven’s notifications before any others.<br /><br />So Monday morning I acted on this faith improvement effort. From a willing heart, my prayer included something like, “My path is quite predictable each day, so it won’t be hard to arrange something for me to be able to do for thee, God. And I’ll do my best to recognize the promptings.” <br /><br />And then my morning proceeded to have a very unpredictable path. Or unusual, I should say. Nothing is outside the range of prediction for God.<br /><br />Instead of taking the Trax blue-line train to work, I decided to drive in so I could drop off the women’s shelter donations my sisters had given me after their recent move. After I dropped those off, I approached a branch of my credit union farther along the route to work, and I thought, “Eh, I’ve got a minute.” <br /><br />Didn’t feel like a prompting... I could’ve easily ignored the im<i>prompt</i>u thought to deposit the cash I had in my wallet, but I quickly slowed, turned, and steered to the drive-through.<br /><br />At the drive-through's first-lane window stood a petite and elderly Asian woman. Her right hand shook steadily, her head slightly bobbing in sync as she spoke and completed her transaction. Aside from it just being odd that she was in the drive-through without driving apparatus, I didn’t pay her much mind. As I reached to send my cash through the vacuum tube, she wrapped up her errand and scuttled away from the window and toward my lane. Between lanes, she paused, and my side-eye observance noted that she was busy with something. Then she spoke. To me.<br /><br />“You go to Trax after this?”<br /><br /><div>
I responded with “not exactly,” and she asked where I <i>was</i> going. I said (and repeated three times) downtown/City Creek/food court. I think she recognized the food court version best. She asked for a ride. Her next errand was to get her husband’s medicine. Only a brief pause before I said “sure” to this harmless little lady. I cleared my bags from the front seat, and she climbed in. <br /><br />We got to wait for a few minutes as the teller bounded away to prepare my cash deposit (it included all the loose change my husband and I saved up the entire prior year for a new-year treat, so he had to get it counted up), and she asked me questions.<br /><br />“You LDS?”<br />“Yes.”<br />“You serve mission? Where?”<br />“France.” Repeated two times.<br />“That nice. How old are you?”<br />“I’m 33.”<br />“I’m 79!”<br />“Wow, you look great for 79,” I say, and I mean it. <br /><br />She laughs as I look at her, and I can see she has what looks like all her original teeth, which look like they’ve been hard at work, say, chewing ham and bacon for 79 years. But she has thick, peppered black hair; a youthful face iced with wrinkles; a sturdy resolve and purpose in her posture. <br /><br />“I laugh and get 10 minutes back of life.”<br /><br />She laughed again. <br /><br />“Laugh twice, twenty minutes. That’s how I stay young.”<br /><br />Two seconds of silence.<br /><br />“You have kids?”<br />“Nope.”<br />“You not married?”<br />“Yep, I'm married. I am married.”<br />“How many years?”<br />“Almost three!”<br />“You like pork?”<br />“...”<br />“The pork?”<br /><br />It sounded more like “poke,” but I felt 80% confident she was saying “pork.”<br /><br />“No, not so much,” I responded, hoping it was a fitting response. It’s the truth, anyway, if we’re talking about pork.<br />“Pork is ham and...what it called… ...oh, bacon. Bacon. Ham is pork, right?”<br />“Yep.”<br />“Woman needs ham and, yep, the bacon. You need ham and bacon.”<br /><br />Which, incidentally, is the not-so-faint aroma she had carried into my car with her. For this, I was glad my door was ajar (my driver-side window doesn’t roll down) as we waited on the teller receipt, but I was just too delighted by this random stranger in my car to be at all bothered by the smell of home-cooked-meal-saturated clothes and/or breath.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicken bacon swiss pizza I made once.</td></tr>
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“Okay,” I nodded. “Do you have kids?” I continued, somewhat surprised that I’m not surprised that I’m thinking bacon might have helped her conceive.<br />“Yes. My daughter turn 51 this month on the 13. My son is 48.”<br /><br />She hummed something as we passed a moment without words. Her right fist clutching the handle of her blue fabric bag drummed its involuntary beat.<br /><br />I got my receipt and we pulled away, back onto State Street and headed to work via Trax. She said other things, trying to figure out where exactly we were going. I asked her which Trax line she wanted to take. Red. So I changed lanes to turn left at the next intersection to take her to the Courthouse Trax stop. She was so impressed by my decisive navigating skills, she dug her small fingers into my shoulder and pressed with a force equal to her impression.<br /><br />“You so gooood!” She laughed again, and I couldn't help but join in for the love of life.</div>
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“So where are you from?” I asked. </div>
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Without hesitation, her response skipped in between beats of her hand. “Heaven!” Another and heartier laugh. “But I was born in North Korea.”<br /><br />I smiled. Aha, the realization finally blossomed. Heaven had predicted her arrival into my day indeed.<br /><br />As we got closer to the Courthouse Trax stop, she quieted and it seemed her thoughts began taking the precursory steps that would complete her next errand. The morning rush-hour traffic halted us two cars from the crosswalk, but she was already scoping her path toward the train.<br /><br />“So I get out here?”<br />“Well, sure, I guess.”<br />“I get out here.” </div>
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With her right hand, she gave the seat belt button a concentrated push then returned her grip to the handle of her bag. Out she went the way she came, the happy mother of some lady whose birthday is this Saturday, only looking back to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind in the front seat.<br /><br />Mumbling, she shuffled away to get on with her day. Her charity taxi fare was paid in full, and I reset my course for work, running only a few minutes late.<br /><br />So let’s quick recap what we’ve learned: You ask God to put something in your path. Your path is so out of the ordinary that it’s impossible not to recognize that only God could orchestrate the random arrangement of crossing paths. The messenger from that arrangement feels the need to respond with “you need the bacon” after finding out you’re married for three years, you’re 33, and you don’t have kids yet. <br /><br />All those in favor of the interpretation that God wants me to eat bacon? Any opposed? Your vote has been noted. I’ll be eating the bacon.*</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A recent BLT constructed with homemade sourdough bread.</td></tr>
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* In all honesty I probably won't eat more than I do now, which isn't much, but I recently heard about <a href="http://pedersonsfarms.com/products/" target="_blank">Pederson Farms bacon</a> and I think I'll try its products sometime.</div>
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-52088938796439529552016-02-12T15:03:00.000-07:002016-02-12T15:32:14.966-07:00Valentine's Mayday<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Disclaimers: This post isn't uplifting. It's important. Also, my husband is zero percent abusive, don't concern yourself about me. But maybe you or someone you know is wilting from unspoken weight and terror. Be alert, be brave, be respectful and caring when you reach out.</i></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.designbyhumans.com/shop/t-shirt/machine-head-detailed-illustration-shirt/11539/" target="_blank">Design by Humans</a></td></tr>
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Being in a poetic relationship with words, sometimes an idea hits you, drags you from your slumber, tosses and pushes you until you finally break down.</div>
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And say something.<br />
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Write something.<br />
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Even when you know it's not going to be politically comfortable. When you'll be bruised as insensitive, appalling, offensive. You open yourself to criticism and attacks from worldwide strangers because you dared to say something even when you don't know everything. From the depths of denial, victims will lash out, shaking their chains with fury. Survivors will whip you because have no right, no idea. <br />
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But when the idea, as disturbing and haunting and vagabond as it may be, raises its clammy hands and strangles the brain until surrender, the poet must speak.<br />
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Publishing controversial thoughts always draws from the shadows of anonymity those who find the argument. Those who wield wounds for wounding, hurt for hate.<br />
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Keeping it in, that hurts too. Silence invites more hurt. Not saying anything is exactly how fear and control want us to curl up and lie. <br />
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You won't like the Valentine poems that found me, that I exhume here. They may make you uncomfortable. You might have plenty to say or hurl when you're done letting me pluck at your eyes.<br />
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But if even one lover recognizes the need for help, call for rescue, time for escape, rise of courage, then sweet is the victory of words. The criticism will melt like truffles in my mouth. <br />
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I don't know why these thoughts suddenly came pouring into my mind and kept me awake from 5 this morning. I'm not experiencing abuse. I'm not crumbling in silence. But poems are always floating, waiting to intersect the open mind and heart through which they can find their voice. A poet is always trying to reach unknown depths through empathy to be a receptor of inspiration.<br />
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Each thought, like a faded soul finally finding a body again, formed a word and crawled along my brain, clawing to be heard. Not just by me. Through me, by anyone with faded soul seeking a voice through these resurrected words.<br />
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The words wailed into the universe and linked elbows with the fates, leading me—by no coincidence, I'm convinced—into this experience later in the morning:<br />
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Waiting for the train to work, I open my phone and start releasing the tortured words onto the screen. Train pulls up to platform. I find an open bench in the front car and sit down.<br />
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I look across from me to find a woman with a freshly red, swelling ridge curving from the end of her eyebrow to under her cheekbone. She also has long blonde hair, thin-framed glasses, pink sweatpants, a white sweater, a large bag next to her, but that stinging mark reveals an invisible feature of her soul: hurt. I look back to my phone as it catches fire under my fingers.<br />
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A couple stops into the ride enters a plump man in a dark hooded jacket and beanie covering his head; visible neck, arms, and hands tattooed; three spiked rings on the three major fingers of his right hand; earphone cord spilling from his right ear. He sits across the aisle, facing the same way I am.<br />
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Another stop in, he speaks up. "I hope you have a better day." His words are reaching across from me, for her attention. "I hope you have a good day. Did someone do that to you?"<br />
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I'm feeling heat rise in me, a little uncomfortable but grateful. I can only assume she nods because she doesn't speak, because I don't look up, and he continues. "Have you reported it? You should. Try to."<br />
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I look up and she looks ashamed, embarrassed. The words howl up from my phone. <i>Do you see? We are everywhere! You must write us into extinction.</i><br />
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I try to paint my face with encouragement, support, love for her.<br />
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It's her stop now.<br />
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"Don't be afraid," he pressed. She nods hurriedly, leaves hurriedly.<br />
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I look at him now. "If I saw a man doing that to a woman, I would f*ing murder him." <br />
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I shake my head to acknowledge his passion, but I look away, out the window where I see her walking away slightly tilted, maybe from the weight of her large bag.<br />
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Before I get off I say to him, "I hope she is brave. Thank you for saying something." <br />
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He raises a painted, spiked fist. "Seriously, I would f*ing murder the guy. You have a good day."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOJXmou-FG7wt7DJpoLaWTni8CTzXsVlZn2I_9tEf4-rrBefGt5JZd8_Q_Y9YMmVwuGMtcoZBBapz6_TkJZTIppI7yUv5B8X7qUKM7wEvx31dJghtORhO3ytstIydp0s1kciB/s1600/pretend.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOJXmou-FG7wt7DJpoLaWTni8CTzXsVlZn2I_9tEf4-rrBefGt5JZd8_Q_Y9YMmVwuGMtcoZBBapz6_TkJZTIppI7yUv5B8X7qUKM7wEvx31dJghtORhO3ytstIydp0s1kciB/s320/pretend.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>I dissolve when you whisper in my ear</i><br />
“No one else would ever love you”<br />
<br />
<i>My heart beats wildly when you get home</i><br />
and I see that you're drunk again<br />
<br />
<i>You're funny, Valentine,</i><br />
when you get others to laugh at my expense<br />
<br />
<i>When I'm talking to you, I sigh to see the glow on your face</i><br />
from your phone screen<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw42HSOQyFYe55Dz7s8WP6M7NVrI4sLSYULmldMBszrTsGS-9VzMeWmcNAbh8JXd2nvgCI3WJaSukEHRyEV7RgPGKedvkJqNoKZj93p2d519sRLfXP6Fy7SQ0BtPk2oQRL3HcP/s1600/melty.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw42HSOQyFYe55Dz7s8WP6M7NVrI4sLSYULmldMBszrTsGS-9VzMeWmcNAbh8JXd2nvgCI3WJaSukEHRyEV7RgPGKedvkJqNoKZj93p2d519sRLfXP6Fy7SQ0BtPk2oQRL3HcP/s320/melty.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>My cheeks turn rosy red</i><br />
<div>
when your palm whips across my face<br />
<br />
<i>Nothing gets the fiery passion hotter</i><br />
than when you touch my child<br />
<br />
<i>You take my breath away</i><br />
when your hands reach for my throat <br />
<br />
<i>My body trembles </i><br />
when you force yourself on me<br />
<br />
<i>When I stumble, you catch me</i>—<br />
each time—and never let me forget I'll never be good enough<br />
<div>
<br />
<i>I've never felt more alive than with you</i><br />
<div>
Gone for the day, and I can breathe again</div>
<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlYgNuJo88zyEoOKb0Xl54GzlTqi15dKfwhOf7sSsikuUGfWUzBX1ndi8qVvficH942lvlYsi1XazFt52yzY999renccu1s2pxxOx_YvyLbY9kqHdrOROJL8403THTo4qAA4rB/s1600/bandaid+heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlYgNuJo88zyEoOKb0Xl54GzlTqi15dKfwhOf7sSsikuUGfWUzBX1ndi8qVvficH942lvlYsi1XazFt52yzY999renccu1s2pxxOx_YvyLbY9kqHdrOROJL8403THTo4qAA4rB/s400/bandaid+heart.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The woman in pink sweatpants deserves real love, a gentle and supportive hand. The feisty, spike-fisted man deserves to be loved. Do you believe you can be truly loved without exceptions, concessions, neglect, abuse?<br />
<br />
We all deserve love and respect, recognition of our value and uniqueness. And when we are wrapped in such love, chances of us hurting others diminish. You are worthy of true love, of which my poetry is devoid. The hardness of abuse and neglect is never an expression of love; it is a flash of uncontrolled agony from someone also in desperate need of real love.<br />
<br />
But friend, brother, sister . . . if you recognize abuse in your life, your abuser needs even more love than yours alone. They need help. That help needs to come from professionals, people who can also offer you help and protection if needed.<br />
<br />
Be brave. Use wisdom and love. Be supportive where you can. But be safe, be healed, love as you would be loved and unbroken love will find you. Time may not heal all wounds, but what time cannot heal, love can, it really can. Especially knowing and embracing the unconditional love your Heavenly Father has for you can heal your hurt.<br />
<br />
Reach out to someone you trust if you need to talk. Try The Hotline below. Contact me. I'll virtually hold your hand. With a gentle hand up, you can rise above and find solutions.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.thehotline.org/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSmlVksG9Tw4RMKZNWck6bkYKn5fg1lnV1s5_lr95iNTXRKvhwtlbvPgEdB9GSDhSl3Tnx_mk7RDqWysvVuijkGNVwxGI4GIpvNIi7U_X293QNbVZulVpJGT4xPBYo0ZlhWFAU/s320/everyone+deserves+love.png" width="320" /></a><span id="goog_885045797"></span><span id="goog_885045798"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div>
<a href="http://www.thehotline.org/">http://www.thehotline.org/</a></div>
<div>
Be what you deserve to be.<br />
<br /></div>
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</div>
emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-32336967501884010752015-05-21T12:17:00.003-06:002015-05-21T12:24:49.029-06:00An Opinion on CompassionI have been accused of holding an opinion I have not earned. It definitely makes me wonder how opinions are legitimately earned. My friend Nathan forwarded me an anonymous message from a parent who read my words online and said I have absolutely no right to an opinion about ADD/ADHD because of what I ignorantly wrote. She says since I have no idea what it's like to have or to parent such conditions, I have no right to any opinion. She mentioned how it's ignorant people like me who make it literally terrifying for her to take her child anywhere. <br /><br />Certainly the people who formed the opinion about me haven't spent time with me, but reading the brief words I put on the Internet felt like a sufficient enough source to form an (incorrect) opinion about me. If the Internet does anything best, it is breeding swift opinions. The comment I shared about parenting cultures and dietary improvements wasn't even a full opinion about a much larger matter, but it got misapplied as my clearly ignorant entire opinion about those diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and the parents that care for the young diagnosed.<br /><br />My accusers demand that I need compassion. I'm feeling in myself an opinion that opinions may be prerequisite to compassion. Tender and open opinions. <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6MvMxlR6mP84dGkFu5E5IOkfgcQrAG1mqqk_e9moVLPVIkoclyMFwmAvTGW_B6YtGCxz1WrEHRepTakd0HA68Sg16BesDBz6_dLN3klQ0SG9KMLbYyO3M117xhUF43bgzrK5/s1600/CompassionKids.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6MvMxlR6mP84dGkFu5E5IOkfgcQrAG1mqqk_e9moVLPVIkoclyMFwmAvTGW_B6YtGCxz1WrEHRepTakd0HA68Sg16BesDBz6_dLN3klQ0SG9KMLbYyO3M117xhUF43bgzrK5/s320/CompassionKids.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blog.peacerevolution.net/2015/02/28/learning-real-needs-people-life/" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source</span></a></td></tr>
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I have never been a parent to a child with special needs, but I have years of experience loving precious children, many of whom have special needs (and special powers, I am of the opinion). I have also never been a parent at all, but I have opinions about children and parenting that are valid since I've been a human aware of other humans for 31 consecutive years. Does that earn no opinions? Living while caring about others? If one has to have lived a thing before they can have an appropriate opinion about it, then we have, all of us, earned very few opinions indeed. <div>
<br />Open opinions engender compassion; compassion perfects our opinions.<br /><br />Being the tender-hearted human I am, I feel like my entire being is nothing if it isn't made from compassion. I am who I am almost entirely because of other people—my parents and siblings and darling husband, the people who hurt me and who have been hurt by me, the people I've loved and lost. <br /><br />I'm not sure what compassion is if it's not being aware of others, recognizing suffering, and then extending in the least my heart toward them (if not my physical support when possible) simply because I know I don't know what it's like to carry the burden they carry. Perhaps compassion requires gaps in personal knowledge. If we all had experienced everything, I'm not sure if we'd be more or less compassionate. <br /><br />But God knows everything. If we can't be everywhere we want to be to share our love, I know that He can carry our compassion to others and in the form of love bestow it across the world. Compassion is my favorite truth. I can't lift the fallen bricks and stones in Nepal, but my compassion, I have to believe it, has reached their hearts and lifted at least a moment of hope in a world apart.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-wubmGp1mbutVn-QVPJTS2plWlt5YDXjhtqC6EGbl2OrfcJvNtfw5EVXpsBFMkiTvBE-xgXMAm6mzGPi4ORtyQyuVw0UNTfqqLQ-BpYOgedvAQ-6TdbRSdwIt2wWsdIsyGCb/s1600/nepal.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-wubmGp1mbutVn-QVPJTS2plWlt5YDXjhtqC6EGbl2OrfcJvNtfw5EVXpsBFMkiTvBE-xgXMAm6mzGPi4ORtyQyuVw0UNTfqqLQ-BpYOgedvAQ-6TdbRSdwIt2wWsdIsyGCb/s320/nepal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/19/quake-nepal-demolition-idUSKBN0O41A820150519" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source</span></a></td></tr>
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Well, I can abide people jumping to conclusions and forming incorrect and incomplete opinions about me, and I almost just let this all slide. But what I can't abide is this incorrect opinion causing another parent to believe there's yet another person out there adding burdens and strains to the already consuming role of parenting a child with special needs. I also can't bear for those adults who have this condition to think I don't respect the measures they've taken to find inner peace and control that might have seemed helplessly out of reach. <br /><br />And into the thankless silence that often surrounds parenting, I shout a resounding THANK YOU. Thank you for paying attention to your children, for attending to their needs, not because you feel like their condition is stressful on you, but because you see how they're suffering, struggling, and that crushes you most of all. Thank you for being a safe place for your child to be authentic and to recognize that if they do have a need for extra help, it's okay to accept help. Parents like you are the sunshine and rain in life. You help children grow.<br /><br />And I believe that it's parents like you that are the majority of humans in parent positions. My Internet comments, to clarify, were aimed toward parents not like that. There are some parents who don't take into account meeting deep, nascent needs of rapidly developing human beings with loving, steady discipline and proper, healthful nutrition, and who then, if their child repeatedly acts out, turn not first to their methods to see if perhaps anything could improve, but rather turn to a medical professional for a fix. Parenting is absolutely challenging, and beating ourselves down when we know we're doing our best helps no one. But there are some legitimately poor ways to parent, just like there are poor words to choose to represent your full opinions. Poor patterns of parenting should change before medication changes a child's chemistry when not needed, can't we agree on that? And that's what I meant. Changing a light bulb that keeps burning out won't repair faulty wiring. <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzoLWesnhjgnTm2Y6yu4R6yRCRKD1p0hTAsN6uZfKhoEQ0e4aFHCxWOsqcjmFquv0vwCMB5fGfsMkrHaGh4qOGRQI1KUT-tEGat3qbzRKbkkJfqLmJNyi0x38Vx48H3I18w2hR/s1600/a+light.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzoLWesnhjgnTm2Y6yu4R6yRCRKD1p0hTAsN6uZfKhoEQ0e4aFHCxWOsqcjmFquv0vwCMB5fGfsMkrHaGh4qOGRQI1KUT-tEGat3qbzRKbkkJfqLmJNyi0x38Vx48H3I18w2hR/s320/a+light.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.meh.ro/tag/lights/" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My comments clearly didn't apply to that good mother who says I'm an opinion impostor. She's NOT the type I was thinking about. But she interpreted it personally, which is too bad. <br /><br />If she really knew me, she would know that when I find out that someone I know has diagnosed ADD/ADHD, I don't silently reel back inside and exhale, "Whew, thank goodness I don't have that and that really sucks for her." I think, "Wow, I never would have guessed. She sure balances her challenges well. I respect the hell out of her." She would know that when I see a rowdy child, I don't immediately wonder, "Jeez, what's wrong with that child and his parents for letting him get so wild?" I will be the first to smile and wonder, "What's going on in that magnificent explosive mind of his? I'm so glad his parents let him chase his imagination where it grows wild within him." She would know I would be the first to offer to play some silly, endless game with her child because I recognize that it's precisely what his brain and soul are connecting with in that moment and he should get to see it through. She would know I am a trustworthy option if she had to attend to something where she absolutely needed to leave her child in someone else's care. <br /><br />She would know that for five years I was a school bus aide and driver who loved, LOVED (if I there was an I'm-feeling-a-choking-sensation-in-my-throat emoticon, I would insert it here) children just like hers deeply, daily. She would know that I authoritatively gained a monstrous opinion of respect for her and dug deeply into compassion because I witnessed those parents and grandparents and dedicated guardians prepare their children for school, stand with them at the bus stop every day, help them onto the bus (and sometimes with tough love rather force them onto the bus), and then they would stand, nearly crumpling from worry and trembling, I suspected, because sending their child away on the bus that morning felt as terrifying as it had felt letting them go the first morning—every single morning. And yet surrounding that worry and trembling, I observed, seemed to be a thin glaze of relief. A few hours of time to get a few of her million things done until she would walk to the curb again to receive her babe joyfully back into her arms. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSn1Vt6pZ-_ALriPD1zh8LMvJvslb6MortwIuwvNkO69W7N2OKoIAu5Vy1qc4lbxyecloQLmnYzDm4tEWQNU-NntwsXPRKR1LZMdVEicGNINGh5MckQuLFCDV8FGQ16n-dJkY/s1600/bus+driver.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSn1Vt6pZ-_ALriPD1zh8LMvJvslb6MortwIuwvNkO69W7N2OKoIAu5Vy1qc4lbxyecloQLmnYzDm4tEWQNU-NntwsXPRKR1LZMdVEicGNINGh5MckQuLFCDV8FGQ16n-dJkY/s320/bus+driver.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
She would know I've sensed the awesome power and intelligence and purest love locked behind a variety of physical impairments. She would feel my compassion for what I don't know that she goes through daily, because I observed her child and formed an opinion: that he is wondrous, perfect, brilliant, challenging, developing, filling the mysterious universe within himself. And I love that child. I know in part, I love that child because, through compassion, I sense how much his mother loves him. <br /><br />She would have so much more than an opinion about me if she knew more than those words that introduced us.<br /><br />As inherently flawed people, we have flawed opinions. I appreciate when people present their opinions about my opinions; it gives me a chance to consider my opinion, whether it needs development and discipline and a change in its nourishing. I'm of the disposition that if I'm wrong, I'd much rather not be, and so I listen to others. I prove what they say against what I know about myself and what I perceive to be truth. I want to be like a child, always discovering this big world, never shutting out its wonders and realities. <br /><br />And children are the most compassionate people I know. Not because they know much, but because they love much. And God bless the parents everywhere who love much. I love you for your dedicated diligence. It counts, every imperfect moment, every joyful moment. Keep living the moments. You're superheros, in my opinion.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUWXAQeXhQdC_I7-kMcWUKkvfMRxVjYy2t8u2pHtKs_unpX4U_t07Xl5vLVtjnciK24Uf6doFAocN0ts5cKP5Kfi6AnVqhOd4B5qfvVRG7kPeNOeeutsFUjQh-CVRmjm5Ed1a/s1600/a+superhero+parents.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUWXAQeXhQdC_I7-kMcWUKkvfMRxVjYy2t8u2pHtKs_unpX4U_t07Xl5vLVtjnciK24Uf6doFAocN0ts5cKP5Kfi6AnVqhOd4B5qfvVRG7kPeNOeeutsFUjQh-CVRmjm5Ed1a/s320/a+superhero+parents.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://geek-news.mtv.com/2013/09/11/superhero-parents-take-their-kids-back-to-school/">Source</a></td></tr>
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-60312415219027841402014-07-25T00:16:00.000-06:002014-07-25T00:19:25.767-06:00Positive Pioneer Post<div class="MsoNormal">
This evening I missed the southbound train by one minute. It
really pissed me off at first. For the first 30 minutes I grumbled inwardly and
mourned all the things I wouldn’t get to do because of the wasted hour. Then I
allowed a touch of humility to reach within and I gave up the struggle to be
mad. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
See, here in Utah it’s Pioneer Day. A day for a little humility. A day we
celebrate our state’s “founding fathers” as it were. Those trusty Mormon
pioneers gave this sorry desert a chance and made it something incredibly
beautiful. A day like today reminds you how far this land has advanced and how
swiftly now our world can chase its visions and dreams.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/winrr/WRCWOT.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/winrr/WRCWOT.JPG" height="222" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A day like today we eat a lot of food. Waiting for the
train, I thought perhaps I could go walk somewhere not too far from the station
to get some dinner, but there’s really no point as I wasn’t hungry. My work
provided some delicious <a href="http://randrbbq.net/" target="_blank">R&R BBQ</a> catering for lunch. That thought made me
remember a train of thought I had at lunch as I conquered the heap of food on my
paper plate:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This chicken isn’t my favorite. / <i>So what . . . you’re going to
throw it away?</i> / Of course not, I won’t waste anything. / <i>Good</i>. / It’s just not
my favorite. / <i>You know, some people are so starving they would consider that
chicken wing a delicacy straight from heaven.</i> / Yeah, I know. / <i>Some pioneers
starved to death and then surviving pioneers ate the dead pioneers so they
wouldn’t starve to death too.</i> / I’m eating here. / <i>Some people alive right now
would gladly, nay, desperately eat the skin, fat, AND bones you’re throwing
away. </i>/ I know, okay! I’m a spoiled first-world woman who had so much to eat
she won’t even be hungry for dinner. / <i>Well I didn’t say that, but you should
be more grateful.</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I am grateful. But it’s good to really get a minute to sit
and sit and sit to reflect about just how many things you have to be grateful for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So in honor of the 24<sup>th</sup> of July, here’s a list of
24 things I am grateful I got to do just today, 24 things in only 24 hours not
every pioneer got to enjoy in...almost ever.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
1. I woke up<br />
2. in a bed in an apartment in a safe neighborhood in good health.<br />
3. I got a hot shower and the drain is no longer clogged so I don’t have to wade in sudsy shower-body juice as I wash.<br />
4. I dressed in clean clothes. And didn’t have to wear a hundred pounds of quilted skirt. Plus I wore some really cute earrings that are probably fancy pirate ship steering wheels but alternatively work as fancy wagon wheels.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUoGU5aFSRaHKQCo9C9zCHO-vXS1a4Z_LjWSe72H6hJLlbjeMcyA4dGuiF9PCWZitUYcEhKMTyMAEByuA3Ko0CYy0F_9-hpHuxM9LnUfV0cXhA5Fl4PwEP40JHewO_b8OVzZI/s1600/IMG_20140724_233546_896.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUoGU5aFSRaHKQCo9C9zCHO-vXS1a4Z_LjWSe72H6hJLlbjeMcyA4dGuiF9PCWZitUYcEhKMTyMAEByuA3Ko0CYy0F_9-hpHuxM9LnUfV0cXhA5Fl4PwEP40JHewO_b8OVzZI/s1600/IMG_20140724_233546_896.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
5. I ate breakfast.<br />
6. I put on sunglasses to protect my eyes from sunrays.<br />
7. I drove a functioning, comfortable car to an efficient, comfortable train, then switched to a Trax ride direct to downtown, and walked a short jaunt along a cheerful manmade creek meandering through an air-conditioned mall to my work building.<br />
8. I took an elevator 13 floors up. (I know . . . I didn’t take the stairs today since I was running a bit behind. For shame.)<br />
9. I enjoyed a busy day of work at my full-time job in a comfortable chair surrounded by climate-controlled air.<br />
10. I helped myself to a free buffet of barbecue goodness, followed by some delicious pioneer-theme desserts. Peach cobbler. I’m forever grateful for peach cobbler.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.centercutcook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fresh-peach-cobbler-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://static.centercutcook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fresh-peach-cobbler-4.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.centercutcook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fresh-peach-cobbler-4.jpg" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
11. I communicated instantaneously with distant friends through a handheld slab of incredible technology.<br />
12. I found out a new human I get to call cousin has joined Earth today! Welcome, Juliann. There’s a lot of good things going on, doll; grow your hair long, your feet steady, your soul wide, your heart deep.<br />
13. I drank stays-cold-for-hours water from my insulated water bottle whenever I wanted.<br />
14. I listened to music I enjoy and skipped the songs I didn’t feel like listening to.<br />
15. I sent documents to a printing device that spits out paper materials that exactly match digital materials I produce in an astonishing desktop somehow connected to all the knowable things on the planet.<br />
16. I got to productively earn my daily bread.<br />
17. I played a little Sudoku on my phone.</div>
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18. I wrote a blog post on a lap top computer.<br />
19. Writing words letter by letter in a word processor that lets me erase my errors and change my document at will, effortlessly.<br />
20. The train came before my lap top computer battery died and I got to plug in to onboard electricity and keep writing.</div>
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21. That one girl stopped me from leaving my wallet behind at the train station platform. (Oh, the special hell that would’ve been. I’m so grateful for so many things that don’t happen in a day.)<br />
22. I sit comfortably as I chug-a-chug smoothly across miles of land at high speeds, beautiful Wasatch mountains by my side the whole way.<br />
23. I didn’t have to eat a family member, friend, pet, or anything usually considered inedible to make it through the day.<br />
24. I took a picture of the sunset.</div>
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Well, I’m officially degrumpified. What an amazing world we
live in. It seems unlikely that the pioneers could have pictured just how far
they would take humanity with every step they walked and walked and walked
those many years ago. But a deserved and reverenced thanks to you, faithful
pioneers. When the next generation looks back on the trail my generation trod,
may they marvel at our steps and find in ours a same hope and inspiration prepared
through yours.
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<br />emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-71815832598560281682014-04-14T13:31:00.001-06:002014-04-15T11:30:25.193-06:00The Flipping Dating Game<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the thought of marriage intrudes my mind, I usually shrug the idea </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">off </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">with, “eh, that only happens to other people.” So far, in my case, such has been the case. But sometimes a brief blast of clarity makes me stop and ponder what marriage must really be like. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes when I pay a bill or wash the dishes or floss my teeth or pick out an outfit for the day or look at my pillow, it hits me what it might be like to have another person always in the mix. How much one person’s presence can change everything!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes it’s when I see couples riding silently in a car, no smiles, no apparent interaction. I get really curious about what their separate thoughts might be and if they’re truly happy together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">This morning it hit me when I caught my naked reflection in my full body mirror and stopped to consider it for a second. I thought, “Man. That’s the sight he’d be free to see any time. Miles of limbs covered in fair, sun-shunned skin."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s in these moments I realize that marriage would change everything in my life and yet so little would change about me. If I married tomorrow I’d have all the same bills, the same dishes to wash, teeth to floss, clothes to wear—but a pillow to share.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo <a href="http://climbingothertrees.blogspot.com/2011/08/im-just-going-to-come-out-and-say-it.html" target="_blank">credit</a>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes I look at people who are married and I wonder. I sit in awe that anyone finds anyone else available and willing to pair up with another for life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not just beautiful women who marry; I’ve seen rather “unattractive” people enter matrimony.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not just talented artists or great cooks that marry; I’ve heard from the lips of many a married woman that she believes herself void of talent, unless it’s wielding a can opener. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not just the long-legged or thin-waisted or dainty-handed that get to wed; every sort of shape has found herself left-finger ringed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">If those qualifications were all it took, I’d so be hitched.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">(And shoot, it’s not even the married who enjoy marriage, since half end up divorced.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t given up yet for my own chance to enter the statistics, but so far marriage only happens to other people. But what all those people have in common is that they found out how to complematch another human and make a lasting partnership.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Complematch is a word I just made up. Let me demonstrate its definition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember Memory, that Milton Bradley matching game we played as kids? Oh, it was one of my faves. It came in every variety of versions, including my preferred “Fronts and Backs” edition. I don’t boast any terrific memory, but I’m incredibly visually observant, so I owned this game.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why I like using this version of the game as example rather than the original is because Fronts and Backs required matching on a deeper, more interpretive level. There weren’t two of the same; there were two corresponding halves that together completed the whole match.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Easy enough to see where this is going, right? Dating is a matching game. We flip over a lot of opportunities, but ultimately we’re going to find one match that really complements the half of life we’re able to bring to marriage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Errrk. Stop. Nope, I don’t believe in “the one.” So let’s dive deeper.</span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><img alt="magic school bus sub.jpg" height="354px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/aqe-zOPmAzVf-ndQ6BeVcJvrUZPbcczmm06t_fIL4ZdzMRroUf7MfAPYGsR32DeTUg3V1X2U_6JHIba0Guk9BplAZAYP7miZJIToh6XCSrN4UOpNpCaI50fNJi-xrSCSOA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none;" width="474px;" /></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dating is a matching game with no true matches and no exact “one, true other-half” matches. The real life dating game offers a lot more options and interpretation when searching for a complematch (yep, it’s a noun too).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s say the card I flip over shows a strawberry. Okay, I’m a strawberry. I embrace my strawberriness. I go great with tons of things! In all the flipping dating I then proceed to do (dang, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">flipping</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> dating), I can find a lot of relationships that will utilize what I have to offer and complement me well. I could flip over the “cream” card or the “jam and peanut butter sandwich” card or the “short cake” card or the “pie” card or the “Pop-Tarts” card and all of these would offer me a fine complematch in the end.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, I have already dated the pb sandwich, the cream (it soured after a while), a few Pop Tarts, and I kissed a short cake once. They all taught me valuable things, we had some great times mixing flavors, but I’m still looking for my pie.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><img alt="em strawberry pie.jpg" height="255" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/70wR3kbqmMcPUBtmD6CBk_l4QScfzmsXo6-8BGE4zmm-DipADt_Ej-OiXyKQXgoLP0d82QYBfFwMu0m1CEOrHzGKcTO4wa5AOODS-AwSMRtnwwGaUMuVGLqkW7D7PPkWKw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none;" width="320" /></b></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-e256cda1-61b3-d1f7-18a2-6c2483fc8300"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve seen complematchary (adjective. boom.) couples in some unexpected pairings, but they’ve interpreted each other so well that I can’t help but stick up my thumbs at a fine match made. With other couples it just seems obvious. Duh—if you’re fries, flip a burger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then other couples just did it wrong. First card they flipped they took their chips and cashed in. Or they didn’t even pay attention to the card in their own hands to begin with and just got flip-happy until they found whatever prettiest card they could keep and made the match. That’s a no-no. Can’t play the game until you know the card you were dealt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, if you know pretty much what you’re bringing to the table but you aren’t quite sure how to interpret a good complematch for yourself, you just have to just start flipping and find out. Don’t slobber all over the cards or no one will want to play with you. Don’t flip more than one card at a time. Don’t overturn the table in impulsive frustration when it takes a lot of time and effort.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I’ve played this flipping dating matching game, I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I understand and interpret as complematchary for me. I’ve been dating for 14 flipping years and there’s something very valuable that I’ve learned. When a relationship ends and you have convinced yourself that you’ll never find a match that will complete you in quite the same way that peanut butter sandwiched your strawberry spread, life has a way of convincing you of just how wrong you are—if you let it. There’s always crunchy peanut butter, raw ground peanuts, Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan, Reese’s—and don’t forget those surprising generic brands that often become the favorite. And finally, there is always ice cream after peanut butter, my friends.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes it'll even come with a cone. Bonus!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">(That is not to say don’t stick with a good complematch in case there’s the possibility of a better match out there. The game ends eventually, don’t go out without a match.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because of this realization, I can look at others’ relationships and not experience jealousy. They made a complematch by being who they are, in the place where they were, and at a time when they were ready. I am not that girl which is why I am not married to that guy. Such logic is handy for quelling frivolous feelings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also don’t get offended or depressed when a guy ultimately flips me back over and goes for a better match. One thing I know for sure that I want in my complematch is someone who’s interested in being with me. (I know it’s a lot to ask. I’m getting so picky as the years advance.) We’ve all been on both sides of that coin toss; be patient and open for the next opportunity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, to all my single-card-carrying homies out there I say, the day of our complematchation will come. There may be moments when you’ll want to flip out, flip the bird, or just flip over and go back to bed—but hang in there and go at your own honest pace. Just keep flipping.</span></div>
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-85210634012953204602014-02-18T15:05:00.000-07:002018-01-09T13:20:41.133-07:00If He Were to Ask My Feelings for Him<br />
With smoke drifting from my mouth, I would tell him how thirsty I am.<br />
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I swallowed fire-breathing dragonflies when his lips opened mine.</div>
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Smiling under the weight of his frame I would tell him how he makes me breathless.<br />
He has roped my body to the ground on every side with tiny disarming looks.<br />
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With music lifting from my laugh I would tell him how happy I am.<br />
One touch of pixie dust and I could fly forever.<br />
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Tracing the veins on his arm with one finger I would tell him how he magic-tricked my heart.<br />
Everyone else has disappeared.</div>
emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-89205456168468457382014-01-01T21:13:00.001-07:002014-01-01T21:14:55.159-07:00All These Poems about Stars<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfmik9fPH-5P-GPgmgyrK62RQ62nB6Z-oMQvDVCiwey1Kdi34M2V0rAIXTgAykR5KlnzxusBWXQxszC0VeuEDZx7l7LkN5ko9PYQfsCYETfyjy-79m3zIyxbShpwFQyybs-hT/s320/mystic+mountain+star.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/12/image/a/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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I’m wordsick of the poet's pen<br />
collecting constellations.<br />
The nightsky isn’t ink, a cloth, or swatch<br />
of every dark degree.<br />
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Stars aren’t glitterbits spilling,<br />
eyes winking or pinhole pierces.<br />
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Not loveletter ciphers from heaven's quill.</div>
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Our eyes squint obsessively to interpret </div>
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endless pages of punctuation.</div>
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Stars are sidereal bodies<br />
a stoneage throw away, reporting lightyears<br />
of birthing, flexing, gloating, exploding,<br />
launching theirmeggedons on distant planets<br />
ripe with impious aliens.<br />
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We spend fortunes to bend </div>
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lenses that maximize their mystery,</div>
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but they repay us no mind.<br />
They don’t watch or wish when we fall.<br />
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-63216251133430525882013-12-28T14:23:00.001-07:002013-12-28T21:11:35.383-07:00From Degree to Career: A UVU Success Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I started my UVU education with a decided Creative Writing interest and over the years, thanks to the excellent English Department staff, I developed a great passion for language in all its applications. In addition to my creative courses I received a Technical Certification which ultimately made all the difference in my career path. I graduated April 2013, participated in a post-graduation, paid internship, and started searching for a job September 2013. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's proof that I graduated ;)</td></tr>
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When the stress of two solid months of job hunting, resume revision, vast networking, daily monitoring of job sites, a dozen applications submitted, a few flop interviews, and abrasive self-polishing culminated with a month-long illness, I finally realized I was experiencing what they all said I might—the real world. For an English major who views herself with average skills and average gumption, the real world is initially ugly and destructive to the confidence. It's far more romantic when viewed from within those poetic university walls. </div>
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Despite dwindling confidence, still I knew I had highly applicable skills, admirable creative powers, and I was confident in my real-world experience gained from five separate internships. However, when November arrived I was, in every way, down, to say the least. But I kept pushing myself, if for no other reason than I had no other option. In my searching I came across an article whose author expressed similar difficulty to find a job and he gave some tips. I followed one tip: Ask everyone. You never know who doesn't know they have a lead for you until you ask.</div>
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While I had thus far been beefing up my LinkedIn profile and reaching out to professors for leads, I had neglected one very obvious resource: Facebook. It's so obvious I just hadn't seen what it is (a social networking site) for what it could be (a job networking resource). While I had used Facebook to toot my graduation horn and to tell people about my great internship, I had for some reason neglected to share my job-hunt woes with my Facebook adherents. I took a humbling moment to undress in front of my peers, tell them I was struggling and in need of any leads, clicked "post" and hoped for the best.</div>
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Within minutes a friend (who had just had a baby, mind you, and had so many other important things she could do) took 3 seconds to reply to me about her sister-in-law who had posted about an open position at her work place, a sales copywriter, someone to write about food. Hello, perfect. I researched the company, delighted when I saw it wasn't an MLM company, tweaked my resume to represent my most applicable skills, and sent in an application. That was Saturday night.</div>
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Knowing full well they wouldn't see my resume until Monday morning at the earliest, still I couldn't resist dropping by the following Monday and asking to learn more about the company. I talked to the main HR lady and we had a very pleasant conversation. She mentioned how the Director of Marketing would be looking into interview during the week. I left with great hopes.</div>
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I didn't hear back. By Thursday my hopes had turned to panicked desperation. I had to do something or this opportunity would simply, quietly, agonizingly pass me by and my life would continue just the way it had been. I had to take my fate into my own hands. I got the number for the Director of Marketing and called. She didn't answer, so I left a message that essentially said, "Hi, I've applied for your available writing position and I have been hoping for just such a position for so long. I haven't heard back from any of my recent applications, but I really want this job, so I'm calling to fight for a chance to interview for this position. Thanks."</div>
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Later that day she called me back. We set up an interview for the next day. My insides twisted with every imaginable feeling between desire and despair, but when the interview came, I was confident, spewed naturally with creative passion (that I'd built at UVU, that's the truth!), and what would you know, instead of making me wait until Monday to hear back from the HR lady, the Director set up my second interview with her right then for the next Monday. She would decide whom to hire after she got back into town. She would be leaving after my interview and getting back Wednesday. Wow! Did I ever get the last-chance interview or what?</div>
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I did research for the average Utah salary for sales copywriters, did a little interviewing practice with my brother, and I showed up Monday armed and ready. I was so confident . . . and then she told me it was down to me and one other candidate. I think I may have preferred not to know that. To come THAT close and lose out would hurt. But I knew I had been myself, prepared myself, and had nothing to regret in my initiative to go after a position I REALLY wanted.</div>
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Wednesday came. I was trying to keep my mind busy by writing on one of my many blogs when I heard my phone chime. It was the chime tune that meant I had received an email in my professional inbox. My heart leapt, time slowed, and I calmly reached for the device that held the literal fate of my life. The moment I saw: </div>
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"<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Hi Emily,</span></div>
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Attached is a job offer from Food For Health International...."</div>
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I thrust my phone into the air like a victor's trophy and burst into tears. ha ha.<br />
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I now have a salary position as a sales copywriter with Food for Health International. I have been there a month and a half and have recognized with surprising clarity where so many of my skills learned at UVU are being applied in the "real world."<br />
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In school, we often don't think these movements we mimic to fulfill assignments will in fact become legitimate skills used to accomplish a professional need. In my job now I see even some of the earliest movements I learned at UVU in real application. Writing in different voices to different audiences—I use that every day. Revision—oh, if I could have realized how crucial that practice is in the real world, I would have taken paper revision so much more seriously. These aren't just assignments to give us work that earns grades, they are practice to give us skills that earn paychecks. I'm glad for a constant push for revision in school, because as a professional (!) writer now, I'm constantly revising, and it doesn't scare me because I already knew how hard it was to revise academic papers, so I knew I could do it.<br />
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I'm so grateful for my diverse and well-organized education at UVU (and above all, for my generous Grandma who made it all possible!).</div>
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I want to pitch two cents into the internship collection tray. As early as 2010 I started looking into getting internship credit. Worried I might not run into enough applicable opportunity, I actually created my first internship. I proposed to revise and edit the tour guide commentary manual for the company I worked for during summers. The proposal was approved and I used my spare time that summer to hone my research, revision, and writing skills. <br />
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From there I went on to apply for internal and external internships, securing two of each in my remaining years at UVU. The on-campus opportunities are so awesome. The English advisory staff wants us to expand ourselves AND the opportunities. I have watched the <i>Touchstones</i> Editor-in-Chief internship evolve and expand in graceful fashions in the years I was involved with the journal. It is supremely satisfying to know I was a part of that movement during my time at the university. <br />
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My external internships gave me professional world experience that was truly invaluable. I found out about the first, an editing internship with Deseret Book, through a UVU professor's connection to BYU. The other I found just following signs on campus, up to the meeting room where they talked about the opportunity. I know that I secured these internship positions because, through my UVU education, I gained experience in the field to qualify and confidence in myself to interview. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I even modeled for a cover during my Deseret Book employment. So cool.</td></tr>
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To those about to face the real world, I say, be ready to keep working hard! Expect resistance and don't give up, especially on what you want. To those still discovering what their passions are, I say, don't just mimic, absorb! You will use the skills no matter how small they may seem now. There's plenty to fear in our economy, but education is worth every effort and penny, and it will prepare you for a beautiful ride into the professional scene. No matter how much education you get, make it count. It will pay off if you use it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glasses aren't function, they're metaphorical: The Future Is Bright!</td></tr>
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-75057885663453582252013-10-22T23:15:00.000-06:002013-10-22T23:15:04.348-06:00OCEAN in MeI took a personality test and just wanted to keep the results handy. More a post for myself.<br />
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<a href="http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/info/" target="_blank">About</a> the <a href="http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/" target="_blank">test</a>: Based on "Big 5" factors of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. OCEAN. The numbers resulting from my survey answers are the percentages of that quality in my personality. So I'm highest in agreeableness and lowest (phew) in neurosis. I agree with these findings. My only neurotic tendencies probably come from witnessing grammar abuse.<br />
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My results:<br />
<a href="http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/results/?oR=0.825&cR=0.694&eR=0.375&aR=0.861&nR=0.219">I'm a O76-C69-E18-A87-N7 Big Five!!</a><br />
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<br />emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-74211167071318823772013-10-09T12:22:00.002-06:002013-10-09T12:22:24.623-06:00Unexpected LifeIn the spirit of Halloween, a revised short story!<div>
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<br />“Do you even remember what it was like to . . . grow?” William whispered into the darkness. He knew they should be quiet, pretending to sleep, but his worries galloped through his mind tonight.<br /><br />“Well . . . kind of.” She rolled onto her back to stare at the same deteriorating ceiling that his gaze circled. “It was like full . . . and stretchy.”<br /><br />“Stretchy?” He chuckled. She swatted his chest.<br /><br />“Yeah, I don’t know how to describe it. But we were aging, we were <i>going</i> to grow old together—” she stopped before regret sounded. “Back then, there was past and there was future; the memories and dreams breathed to make the present stretch. But now, it’s just . . .”<br /><br />“Dead,” he said.<br /><br />“Dead,” she whispered. Then burst out, “Why on earth would anyone leave a living, growing child on our front door? Us? They must have been blind or they would have noticed the lifeless neighborhood, the limping houses lining the broken sidewalk?”<br /><br />“Quiet, dear. You’ll wake her.” He couldn’t help but smile, though. That Lucille was always so lively, even after all these years apart from the living.<br /><br />“Sorry.” She buried her face in his shoulder.<br /><br />“Well, ours were the only lights on that night, as we ‘enjoyed’ a nice glass of wine.”<br /><br />“Oh, I swear I could almost taste it!” Her whisper shot to the ceiling.<br /><br />He smiled seeing the moonlight catch her pale, outstretched hands. He grabbed her left in his right.<br /><br />“So we must have looked like an ordinary, loving couple. Totally understandable for someone to mistake us as living if they saw us drinking wine in a lit, furnished dining room.”<br /><br />“I suppose. But it makes me wonder. What sort of person even comes into this neighborhood, and with a child no less? I mean, I haven’t seen more than a mangy cat chasing a skeletal mouse in—what year is it now?”<br /><br />“2010, dear.”<br /><br />“My goodness. Has it really been sixty years already? Time flies when you’re not living in it anymore, doesn’t it,” she sighed.<br /><br />“It certainly does. I don’t know what would have inspired anyone to come this way. There must be some reason.”<br /><br />“I’ve been thinking about it every moment since she got here. It scares me to death—okay well, it terrifies me—to think I’m responsible for the life of another person, so small, so unaware of this ghastly world! How can she be anything but ruined by everything around her?”<br /><br />“I’m scared, too, dear. But, oh, how I almost feel my heart beat again when she smiles at us. Don’t you just love that?”<br /><br />“I do. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. I’d die again for her.”<br /><br />“Now we’re just starting the life we never had. Well, sort of.”<br /><br />She smiled. He knew she smiled because she always did when he said “sort of.” Just enough to where her lips etched a moon-shaped dimple into her cheek that caused a reflective sparkle in her eye. He lived for that smile. Or died for it. Yes, he had chosen to die for that very smile.<br /><br />“It’s hard work pretending,” she continued. “Like eating, breathing, sleeping. Gosh, sleeping is perhaps the most dreadful of all. I mean, not that I don’t mind lying here with you, dear, but there are just so many other things we could be doing right now.”<br /><br />“But we can’t wake her.”<br /><br />“Yes, I know. Not that reading, for example, is loud, you know.”<br /><br />“I know, Lill, but we’ll get careless if we don’t have some sort schedule and stick to it. Children need schedules. It’s going to be a big change for us. Everything has changed and will just . . . keep changing. That’s what life is, change.”<br /><br />“Except <i>we’re</i> not changing anymore, Will. We don’t <i>stretch</i> anymore. Our hearts stopped and our blood stopped and we don’t age. How long is she going to fall for that, do you think?”<br /><br />“Oh, I didn’t notice my parents getting older until I was out of the house, I think. Parents hold some sort of ageless charm while kids grow up, too busy with their own growing to notice those already-grown, adult figures making any changes. I’d say we’ve got a good sixteen years before she suspects anything. If we stick to pretending.” He poked her ribs.<br /><br />“Ayy!” She squirmed and wrapped a fist around his culprit finger. <br /><br />“Parenthood,” she breathed. “We’re parents. Finally, after . . .” She looked down at her stomach.<br /><br />“After all these years,” he spread a hand on her lower abdomen. When the doctor told him his son hadn’t made it and that his wife wasn’t expected to make it either, he had done this same thing. He lay down in the bed next to his wife, held her feverish head to his chest while he spread his other hand over her tired womb. <br /><br />He cleared his throat to scatter the haunting memory and moved his hand to her cheek. “You are going to be an amazing mother,” he said. “You can do all those things you loved doing—cooking and preparing lavish meals, sewing and mending clothes—living again, for this child.”<br /><br />“Yes, I will. I will do my best to pretend that I am as capable a mother as any living woman.”<br /><br />“Oh, you won’t even have to pretend, darling. You’re a natural, I’m sure of it. The world is scary, but there is so much love, too. Think of all the marvelous things this one child could do to change the world? She has changed our world so much already.”<br /><br />“We’ll have to move, won’t we?”<br /><br />“She’ll need to have friends; we’ll have to make friends.”<br /><br />Silence met his ears. He turned his head toward her. Out of habit impossible to kill, her chest rose and fell with a characteristic sigh.<br /><br />“You will do beautifully.”<br /><br />“We will,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Thank you for sticking with me.”<br /><br />“Till dusk and till dawn.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it.<br /><br />A baby’s cry echoed down the hall. Lucille leapt out of bed faster than a grasshopper from underfoot.<br /><br />“I’ll go!” And she was wrapped in wails down the hallway.<br /><br />William crossed his arms behind his head. A father. At last. </div>
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-342491997648464582013-07-05T02:08:00.000-06:002013-07-05T02:08:10.661-06:00Land that I LoveI hiked partway up a mountain an hour before sunset tonight. The lovely display of nature yawning and sinking to sleep behind the far mountains was an idyllic setup for the firework shows to follow. From up where I sat I was able to see several dozen shows popping up around Utah valley. It was a game of whack-a-mole for my eyes, scanning up and back, a quick visual mallet-bonk on each erupting spark. I shut my eyes and yet behind closed lids they still reflexively chased the echoing bursts, pops, and whistles entering my ears from around the valley. These words danced in my head and even escaped on a tune from my lips:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air . . . but the flag was still there</i></blockquote>
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Thought stirred with feeling as I sat atop the hill thinking of all those people celebrating.<br />
<i>So many people have filled this valley since those pioneers rolled in 160-some years ago. </i><br />
<i>This is a great big world . . . small in comparison to some, but so very big. </i><br />
<i>This country has supplied more than a fair share of glaring rockets and bursting bombs in other countries. </i><br />
<i>So many dogs are scared right now.</i><br />
<i>Land of which freedoms, home of how many truly brave?</i><br />
<i>All those people having their individual celebrations—most are seeing only one show. I see them all.</i><br />
<i>Do I feel guilty about that? Nah.</i><br />
<i>All those spurts looks like that part in </i>The Dark Knight Rises<i> when all the manhole covers burst with flame, except these burst with sparkles. Maybe more like an active lava field where pressurized molten sparkles spray from the street-lamp-speckled earth. A herd of fairy whales surfacing, clearing their magical blowholes, splashing up and down and up from electric puddles around the baking city.</i><br />
<i>Everyone down there is celebrating because, probably, they believe in America. It's interesting that every single inhabitant of this country can believe in America without needing to believe in God. And that doesn't comfort me, but somehow it represents freedom to me, and if we can't be one nation under God, I'd somberly accept one nation unified at least in the belief of that old American hope.</i><br />
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As I later drove home to Salt Lake valley, even more shows exploded along the way. As I rounded the point of the mountain and saw the celebrations going on above the quiet prison, I thought, <i>do prison mates get to watch fireworks? Surely no choice that lands you in there is worth losing the freedom to celebrate. There is no hero's welcome in prison for a citizen who gives up his or her life on the battlefield of impulse to steal a cheap replica of freedom.</i><br />
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For me it seems easy to love America. I don't know, maybe patriotism is just something you're born with, as with bones or strands of DNA. And America's become so normal to me I forget how great she is, how she could be if we let her. She's only as free as the feet treading on her. And when she's sick, hurting, bruised, I get sad. I get sad because it takes a lot of people to hurt such a large country, and so when it gets to the point where she's hurting, a deep lot of things have happened to get her there.<br />
<br />
And yet she finds ways of healing her wounds, of drawing the attention of those who should be caring for her to step up and remember. Stand up and defend. Bend the knee and remember compassion. Reach out and help a neighbor.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me.</i></blockquote>
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It is written and many believe that freedom, liberty, is an inalienable right. That means it can't be taken from the possessor. Did you know we also define it as the possessor can't give it away, either? This implies that freedom is a human right, not an American right. Only those humans, true patriots who don't hurt their given country and would that no country be oppressed, will gain access to practice that right.<br />
<br />
The lyrics above give an insight to where one access point of freedom is found: men who died. How does death unlock the right to freedom? If we can possess it because others died to defend it, surely we must believe we could lose our access to freedom if others die in a pursuit to pump it into the unsuspecting structures of foreign societies. I'm not saying other countries couldn't use help to lift the oppression of their governing powers, but how can patriots be born if the citizens die at the hand that reached to help them?<br />
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Because some covet oppression so much they cannot even see the value of freedom, countries war to reclaim their inalienable right to freedom. Our world has fished some real crazies from the ever-evolving seas of tyranny. And so patriots go, prepared to give their lives, to give the countries an opening to freedom. And I won't forget how I'm free.<br />
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My government would never die for me; it cannot give me the right to freedom. These days, true patriots who desire to be elected to an office for the pursuit of real liberty aren't often found. By their works we shall know them. But unfortunately, by the media are their works filtered, twisted, polluted, and glazed so that we hardly know real from script, authentic from special effect. The media likes reality TV, beauty pageants, talent contests, game shows, and that's what the political scene has become, nearly entirely forgetting the men who died who set up their rights to stand, speak, offer to serve in government.<br />
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So many have forgotten that government is a service. Some who seek a position in government want it to serve them. Few would ever die for their country if it came to it. There are a fading number of patriots elected to fill our government.<br />
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But what do I really know? I don't stroll through the separate world that politics has become in our nation. It saddens me to see America's own blood attack itself and weaken the immunity. She'd heal well with some unity.<br />
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And all that said, I still believe in America. I believe in my creator, God. I believe in the inalienable rights we're trying to latch on to like newborn babes. I believe that goodness prevails in the hearts of many, many Americans. I believe that many others are one kind gesture away from believing in themselves again. I believe we can revive our nation one treading step, one better choice, one sacrifice for the greater good, one person at a time.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We don’t have to consider just statistics to be reminded that America is still good. . . . Most of them are honest. Most of them try to do their duty and live unselfish and responsible lives. Most Americans honor their commitments to their marriages, their families, their employers, their communities. Most Americans show compassion and courage to the needy. Most Americans still look at their children and see strength and optimism in their eyes.” – <i><a href="http://deseretbook.com/Seven-Miracles-Saved-America-Chris-Stewart/i/5081933" target="_blank">Seven Miracles that Saved America</a></i></blockquote>
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What is a nation without a free people? A government. I love this land for what it stands for deep down: opening the right to freedom to all mankind. She's old, worn out, but still beautiful. Now if God were allowed to do a quick facelift to smooth out those few 237-year-old wrinkles she might just feel good as new.<br />
<i><br /></i>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-63848734968155401742013-04-22T01:10:00.002-06:002013-05-03T15:45:15.538-06:00Poetry Reading – Felling<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10201149692324191" width="420" height="500" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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What the judges said:<br />
This poem is an enviable example of word as subject, displaying phonetic craft which utilizes onomatopoeia internal rhyme and assonance. The sounds in this poem are the strongest of the poetry competition, enhancing the author's idea, and moving the reader through the poem at a specific pace. Beginning with the title, "Felling" is a very poetic, language-centered, sensual jou<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">rney.<br /><br />What I said:<br />Felling<br />I never thought of sex before<br />as a sexy word. The hacking<br />hatchet chopping<br />trunks cracking splinters<br />splitting rings of life apart;<br />factories snatching branches,<br />whittling forests into firewood.<br /><br />I hear the milling lyric making love<br />mixing hum and la from a pull saw<br />bending, begging—catching;<br />music wobbles, giggles when a handle slips<br />then grips again, mapping latitude<br />lines through layers of life, composing<br />honeycomb cradles in the moonlight.<br /><br />Emily Fairchild 4/18/13</span></div>
— at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UVUwolverines">Utah Valley University</a>.emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-54583892073876716132013-04-01T23:14:00.002-06:002013-05-18T09:41:06.176-06:00April's Fool: The Hundred-Dollar Penny<br />
Somehow I've been 24 years old my entire college career. Guys always guess 24/25 to be my age. And I still feel 24. I'm afraid as soon as I graduate, 28 will catch up to me all too swiftly.<br />
<br />
Because I started college at 24, already the average age for dateable boys on campus was a bit on the low side. But the real problem was how as time went by, the boys kept getting younger, and I aged without really getting any older. They would always think I was 23–25, but those numbers didn't always stay. So because it happened so often that guys sort of reeled away and grimaced once they heard the number of years I'd been on Earth, I just made a habit of separating school and dating. Like church and state, dating and schooling just didn't seem able to co-govern in my mind. I expected the church setting to be my reliable dating source (ha), and the school to be my skills and education source.<br />
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This final semester, as a last-ditch effort, I decided I'd make an attempt at repentance and take the Dating and Courtship class. Might as well get some good prophetic advice before I leave the university environment and its ripe breeding ground for dates and marriages, which environment I neglect as often as I trudge straight through it. I've been learning a lot of good things in this class, and putting them into practice in life. Such learn+apply behavior has been making my dating life less pathetic, though my date quota hasn't increased one bit. So that's a nice side effect already.<br />
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Today, though, the dating class offered a lesson I never would have expected and still may not fully understand. We were talking about tips for selecting a good mate. At one point the teacher settled down in a chair and said he would need a female volunteer. No immediate hand rose. He said, a girl who likes money. I kicked my hand to the sky, joking about enthusiasm for the money part, but ready to climb on stage for the magic trick.<br />
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As I approached, he briefly told me that if I wanted more than I was given, I would need to give up what I had to get it. Those were the rules, that was the system. I sat down in the sideways-facing chair he pulled out for me. I faced him, the class faced us. When he reached into his pocket, we heard chattering coins. He lifted out a quarter and placed it on the table between us.<br />
<br />
"Do you like that?"<br />
"A nice quarter."<br />
"What could you get with that?"<br />
"I could use it at one of those bubble gum machines."<br />
"Would you like something better?"<br />
"Sure."<br />
"What's the system?"<br />
He holds out his hand.<br />
"Have to give it up if I want something better," I say, placing quarter-George face-up in his palm.<br />
He whips out a dollar.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"How's that?"<br />
"Better."<br />
"How much better?"<br />
"Uh...four times?" I doubt my math. Four times or three times better than a quarter? Four quarters, one dollar. . .<br />
"Oooh FOUR TIMES! Who told you that that bill is worth more than this coin?"<br />
I reach way back into the memory of elementary school days searching for a name. Was I really supposed to remember who told me—ohhh wait:<br />
"Society says this paper is valued at four times that coin. It has the value we say it has."<br />
"There you have it, class, it's the value we GIVE the money." He turns again to me. "Would you like something better?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
Hand out, bill in.<br />
Then from his other hand, Jackson's wavy hair and suave grin slide across the table.<br />
"What do you think of that? Is that green paper better than this green paper?" He sets the $1 and $20 side by side.<br />
"Yes."<br />
"But why?"<br />
"Same answer."<br />
"Not because this face is better than that face?"<br />
"Jackson's got better hair." No offense, George.<br />
"Would you like something better?"<br />
"If you've got something better than a twenty, yeah."<br />
"Oh, so now there are stipulations to this agreement?"<br />
"I'm just saying, so far you've been pretty reliable."<br />
"Ah, you're beginning to trust me. So would you like something better?"<br />
"Uh, sure."<br />
Hand out, bill in.<br />
He slaps a penny on the table.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">actual penny :)</td></tr>
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<br />
"Oh," I say.<br />
"Tell me how you feel right now?"<br />
"Shortchanged." I smile. Class laughs.<br />
"How else, other words."<br />
"Cheated. Betrayed."<br />
"Good. Why?"<br />
"Because you said—" No he didn't say he would give me something better. He asked if I wanted something better. "Because it's not worth more than the $20," I finish.<br />
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As I repeatedly flip the penny and catch it, he explains to the class how he believes a lot of us are dating loose change, not expecting more for ourselves; or how we're dating $20 bills, but always looking for the possible better, greater mate. (It's not a wholly lucid analogy, but we get what he's getting at, right?)<br />
<br />
"Do you want to keep the penny?"<br />
"No, actually, I don't." It's dirty and pennies are practically useless.<br />
"Aren't you worried that you'll get something worse than a penny? Is there something less than a penny?"<br />
"Yeah, nothing," someone in the class says.<br />
"Has anyone been to the Philippines? I've been to the Philippines. They have what are called <em>centavos/sentimos</em> (something like that). One penny is worth one hundred <em>centavos</em>."<br />
I just stare at him. So he might hand me a <i>centavo</i>.<br />
Hand out, penny in.<br />
A $100 dollar bill slips onto the table.<br />
"Here you go. Have a seat."<br />
Wait, huh?<br />
"What? Seriously?"<br />
"What, would you like something more?"<br />
I'm just thinking, no way I'm going to actually take my religion teacher's money.<br />
"It's yours if you want it," he says.<br />
I stand up and take a couple steps.<br />
"Are you for real? I mean—" I feel quite awkward.<br />
"You can trade it in, but what's the system? If you want something more, you're going to sacrifice what you have."<br />
"I'm good." I go to sit in my seat. I'm not sure if he was hoping I would keep playing.<br />
I'm almost back to my seat and he says again, "You sure you wouldn't want something more?"<br />
"I'm just—I don't know. Confused. You said take a seat. I thought the game was over."<br />
"It's up to you. You can keep it, or you can wait for something more."<br />
"What do you mean, wait for more? This sounds like gambling, Brother Sackett; we aren't supposed to gamble." The class laughs.<br />
<br />
I'm approaching the front of the room again, so unsure what's expected of me. I'm a true from-the-crowd volunteer. I'm not "in" on any of what he's getting at, but I'm trying to play along as best as I'm grasping his analogy. I like analogies. I'm not about to spoil a good object lesson by being a lousy subject.<br />
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"You can keep the hundred dollars, or you can trade it for something more. How far would you be able to make that $100 go?"<br />
I recognize that the larger the amount I have, the easier it is to consider investment to see results. I say, "Actually, I could save it, invest it maybe."<br />
"Ah ha, I like this girl! Invest the money. But you could do that with all these amounts, right? The $20, the $1, the quarter—though that would take a long time. What matters is if you invest, you get more out of your money than just money."<br />
<br />
He then goes on to explain how if we value relationships, we invest in them. If we constantly think something better will come along, we'll never invest, we'll never get anything. If we do choose a $100 but one day down the line see $1000 walk by, will we be committed to our investment?<br />
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I've been trying to understand this object lesson better, but I don't know if I'm wholly grasping it. But when I think about a quarter earning a bubble gum, $1 buying a Redbox movie, $20 securing some groceries, it took the $100 amount for me to finally realize I could invest and save that money, get more out of it than "things," and I realize, I've probably had a fair too many "thing" relationships, where I'm not looking at the possibility with quite the right intent. I know I'm a loyal person, a giving person, and I will invest fully in my husband. Am I willing to sacrifice what I have now to get something better? Will I be willing to sacrifice things to build investments and interest in the future, when I've already selected my mate? I think so. Do I see the value of a person as God sees it? Can I recognize the potential of investing together, helping each other polish up and become more valuable? These are the nuggets I take from this lesson, I guess.<br />
<br />
So as I sit there, $100 bill face down on the table in front of me, the teacher wraps up his lesson. He mentions how, in the thirty years he's taught classes and used that object lesson, only three girls kept the $100 bill. Apparently these girls all eventually felt shallow and the other people who knew she kept the money perceived her as shallow too; either the guys didn't want to ask her out or she personally felt like none of the guys wanted to date her once word got around that she kept the $100. At this point I'm thinking there may have been something missing from our version of the object lesson. If you give a girl $100 and tell her to keep it or trade it for something better, is she stingy for not trading it for something better? How is she suddenly an undesirable because she volunteered and played along and got a sweet payout for it? She's the victim here! See, I'm confused.<br />
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Class ends, people pack up their stuff and leave. I already decided minutes ago that I wasn't keeping the money. Just not right. Why not right? I don't know. It's his money, I'm not leaving with it.<br />
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As I walk up to the front of the class he says, "So, Emily, are you still thinking about it?"<br />
"No, I'm not keeping this," I say, smiling.<br />
"You can keep it if you want, or you can take this penny as a reminder."<br />
I don't remember if he said as a reminder for something specific, but he holds out the penny and I reach for it. He pinches it tightly; I had to pull it from his fingers. He says, "If you take this, as soon as you find your million dollar man, you have to come back and tell me."<br />
"I will." I put it in my left front pants pocket and walk back to collect my things.<br />
"Well, a penny isn't too much, it's too bad." He's saying something like this with a farewell tone, a goodbye lilt.<br />
"I came to class without any money, so I can leave with a penny and be better off."<br />
<br />
But this strange thing was happening in my throat and behind my eyes as I walked away toward my job on campus. Something inside me, something rational and greedy, said, "Wow, you just forfeited $100 for a penny." I replied silently, "No, I never had $100 to forfeit." But I felt a loss and tears threatened to go in search after it. (Sometimes I'm a real wimp against tears.) I felt sacrifice within me, felt a recognition that I'd done this before, but the parallel sacrifice of an actual relationship.<br />
<br />
I'd had $100 boyfriend once. Really didn't want to give him up, thought I had what I wanted. When I felt it wasn't right anymore, that I couldn't invest in him and get an eternal return, I gave him up. And what did I get in return? Well, I'm not involved in a lousy investment for one. Beyond that, I don't know. I just felt like it's better to have a penny that can become something than $100 that'll run dry in no time.<br />
<br />
So basically I traded $100 for a year-2000 penny today. Am I April's choicest fool? Meh. I'll keep that penny. And you know what? I think I'll start keeping pennies in general, as many as I find, as many as make up the change from paying with cash, and I'll collect them until I find that man. And my wedding day present to him will be a $100 bill.<br />
<br />
In God I trust. I'm willing to see my investment climb penny by penny, because isn't that how life goes anyway? Some moments are $20-good; some are $100-amazing, but mostly it's pennies feeding that porcelain pig, keeping it fed day to day, and taking us safely through the rainy days.<br />
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-84432992798999875872013-03-31T23:03:00.002-06:002013-03-31T23:04:04.675-06:00Easter Is LifeI read this poem for the first time the other day and just love it. It's not particularly religious or Easter-themed . . . but life itself is something of a pure religion. It expects a lot from you . . . all of you, really; it gives you whatever knowledge you seek from it; and you'll die for it—martyrs, all of us, for the faith of breathing.<br />
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<i>Poem After Carlos Drummond de Andrade</i><br />
<i>"It's life, Carlos."</i><br />
<br />
It's life that is hard: waking, sleeping, eating, loving, working and<br />
dying are easy.<br />
It's life that suddenly fills both ears with the sound of that<br />
symphony that forces your pulse to race and swells your<br />
heart near to bursting.<br />
It's life, not listening, that stretches your neck and opens your eyes<br />
and brings you into the worst weather of the winter to arrive<br />
once more at the house where love seemed to be in the air.<br />
<br />
And it's life, just life, that makes you breathe deeply, in the air that<br />
is filled with wood smoke and the dust of the factory, because<br />
you hurried, and now your lungs heave and fall with the<br />
nervous excitement of a leaf in spring breezes, though it is<br />
winter and you are swallowing the dirt of the town.<br />
It isn't death when you suffer, it isn't death when you miss each<br />
other and hurt for it, when you complain that isn't death,<br />
when you fight with those you love, when you<br />
misunderstand, when one line in a letter or one remark in<br />
person ties one of you in knots, when the end seems near,<br />
when you think you will die, when you wish you were<br />
already dead—none of that is death.<br />
It's life, after all, that brings you a pain in the foot and a pain in the<br />
hand, a sore throat, a broken heart, a cracked back, a torn<br />
gut, a hole in your abdomen, an irritated stomach, a<br />
swollen gland, a growth, a fever, a cough, a hiccup, a <br />
sneeze, a bursting blood vessel in the temple.<br />
It's life, not nerve ends, that puts the heartache on a pedestal and<br />
worships it.<br />
It's life, and you can't escape it. It's life, and you asked for it. It's life,<br />
and you won't be consumed by passion, you won't be <br />
destroyed by self-destruction, you won't avoid it by<br />
abstinence, you won't manage it by moderation, because<br />
it's life—life everywhere, life at all times—and so you<br />
won't be consumed by passion: you will be consumed <br />
by life.<br />
<br />
It's life that will consume you in the end, but in the meantime...<br />
It's life that will eat you alive, but for now...<br />
It's life that calls you to the street where the wood smoke hangs,<br />
and the bare hint of a whisper of your name, but before<br />
you go...<br />
<br />
Too late: Life got its tentacles around you, its hooks into your heart,<br />
and suddenly you come awake as if for the first time, and<br />
you are standing in a part of the town where the air is<br />
sweet -- your face flushed, your chest thumping, your<br />
stomach a planet, your heart a planet, your every organ a<br />
separate planet, all of it of a piece though the pieces turn<br />
separately, O silent indications of the inevitable, as among<br />
the natural restraints of winter and good sense, life blows<br />
you apart in her arms.<br />
<br />
<i>Marvin Bell</i>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-90395859796250607602013-03-30T02:08:00.000-06:002013-05-18T09:42:01.756-06:00Victoria's New Secret<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Our main appeal is for women. We are not for men to look at but for women to feel good about themselves."</i></blockquote>
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When a life-changing dilemma sprouts in a little girl's soul, she will think of little else until she works out a solution.</div>
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I was about twelve. Breasts were a shy, uncertain, recent addition to my body. My body had been so busy growing upward it neglected filling in curves until it seemed every other girl had a little something to fill the training bra. I was sidled up next to my mom on her bed. We were watching some family TV show that I wasn't paying attention to in the least. My mind reeled for squirming words in the rushing flow of thoughts obsessing about bras. It was time for me to wear a bra, I just knew it. It was strange; I'd never worn one before, so I'd never had to ask for one before. But when Mom buys all your clothes, and she's had enough breast to feed six kids, she's not only probably a good source, she's probably my only source for bra dealing. And trust me, Mom knows a good deal.<br />
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It seemed like hours that I sat there, my heart like a dryer loaded with soggy shoes, rounding up any available nerve and wrestling scattered words into a proper row. This was neither the time nor place to discuss lingerie, but like I said, once possessed by the problem, girls will obsess over a resolution or burst. As most men know, this never changes. </div>
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When the words finally came out, they dribbled toward Mom's ear in a terrified whisper.</div>
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"Mom, I think I need a bra."</div>
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"What?" Her eyes stayed on the TV.</div>
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Oh horror! Don't make me repeat it! Then Dad might hear. Other siblings heaped on the bed might hear. . . . Oh humiliation.</div>
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"I think I need a bra." If snakes cry, that's what I sounded like.</div>
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"Oh honey, you don't need a bra. Maybe next year."</div>
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My heart shuddered down my spine and triggered a whole series of unpleasantries. A loud buzzing silence vibrated in my head. My face no doubt seared red, sending a steam thick with embarrassment toward my eyes. I blinked rapidly to keep the pricking fog away. </div>
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Maybe she was right, but . . . but next year would be junior high, and I was a growing woman! I'd already started shaving my legs, scars o' plenty to prove it. I knew what mascara was and could apply it without gouging out my pupils. Certainly those soft, gradual curves on my chest finally hinted toward proof that I needed a real bra.</div>
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Well, eventually I did get a bra. I didn't enter the harsh, peer-pressured climate of junior high without proper protection. I share this memory to stress the . . . well, stress of being a young girl discovering what curves mean. I mean, everything starts bulging, right? Bottom back, top front, around the middle, lips and arms, hips and thighs—Barbie never prepared us for all the extra bulging!</div>
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I also remember certain panties I had around that age. Here's how much "sexy" was on my mind: It was a seven-pack of soft cotton undies. Each pair, in tiny, looping letters, had a day of the week written on the front. Each was a different color, too. Tuesday was green. Sunday, white. Saturday, yellow. At some point I got a set of animal print undies. That was pretty daring. I don't think Mom was still buying my underwear then.</div>
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I don't think Mom would have seen a need for me to have sexy underwear. Probably most moms have that sensibility. Certainly most dads must. (<a href="http://evandolive.com/2013/03/22/a-letter-to-victorias-secret-from-a-father/" target="_blank">Like this one.</a>) And so I would need to be saving up my allowance to go buy undies to keep up under the pressure of junior high trends. I knew the power of trends. I'd actually been the first to show up with shaved legs in elementary school. I remember feeling embarrassed in gym when a popular girl leaned over and whispered loudly, "You shave your legs?" But then everyone else started, had to keep up. In junior high I'm pretty sure I set the jellies trend. Remember those? So fun. That's a fashion resurgence I could get behind.</div>
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Anyway, what if, during those delicate days of transition from girly to womanly, I had been offered a secret temptation, a line of lacy undies with more than the days of the week scribbled on them, front and back? How would I have responded to the call to reach my potential as a "bright young thing"?</div>
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Well, that's the Spring question Victoria might be asking. But now, oh reader, I want you to picture in your mind a nasty old man photographer doing the asking instead of some beautiful, suit-dressed, professional (bulging) woman. He's got to sell these undies, so he needs bright young models, right? (Which parents do we need to beat with canes because they actually allowed their young daughters to model these things? Or does Vickie just use her youngest-looking, size-negative models to launch the line? And at what age does it honestly become okay for any girl to sell her body?) Back on track, old creepy dude:</div>
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"Hey young thing. I think you're bright, I know you're young, and you're just the 'thing' I need to sell my new line of underwear. Come into my store, see how you look, imagine how you'll feel wearing those lacy gems around school. Maybe a little pink peeking from your waistband?"</div>
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Call me crazy, but I wager 99.999% of Moms and Dads who are worth the title would NEVER allow their daughters to follow after such enticements. Are there any moms and dads working behind the scenes at Victoria's Secret? Or were they all gagged with panties and tied up with bra straps and locked in the stockroom? </div>
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Do lace undies help a girl become bright in her studies? Is a thong strap rising up the butt crack the proper way to lift a young girl into womanhood? Is the new spring line of "bright young thing" targeted for too-young-year-old girls a good idea? No. No no no. Not okay. And I really don't feel like I need to argue that any further. These underwear have text messages on them. </div>
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"Feeling Lucky?" "Wild" "Call me"</div>
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These looping letters cry for attention, and <i>not</i> from other females. WE DO NOT NEED MORE TEENS' UNDIES SEEN.</div>
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This petition formed on change.org just needs a few more signatures. Go, click, sign, be wise. Preserve a truly bright future for young girls.</div>
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<a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/victoria-s-secret-pull-bright-young-things-campaign?utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition" target="_blank">Victoria's Secret: Pull "Bright Young Things" campaign</a></div>
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And now that you've done that, let me say a positive word about Victoria's Secret bras. I love them. They're the only ones I buy. I've tried other cheaper brands and styles, but truly there's something secretly wonderful about the design, fit, support, hold, shape, and style of VS bras. I have no urge to spend money on fancy panties until I marry, but I wear a bra daily, and I want to be comfortable. </div>
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But this positivity doesn't come with loyalty. Seriously I don't need a bra to feel sexy, I don't need a VS bra at all, I just like them. If the "Bright Young Things" line is launched, I will not return to one of their stores. Already I avoid stores and catalogs because I have a profound aversion to VS advertising. I read this article, <a href="http://www.beautyredefined.net/victorias-little-secret/" target="_blank">Victoria's Dirty Little Secret,</a> and two large reactions were pulled from within me: first, a buried memory resurfaced with bitter flavor; second, I received a revelation for VS's new should-be advertising strategy.</div>
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First, the memory. Elicited by the line, "Sometimes we forget how easy it is to turn our heads, change the channel, flip that magazine around."</div>
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I'll be brief, because this doesn't need extensive reliving. 2008. My boyfriend and I are in a precarious stage of love—that place where you essentially make or break it: accept the problems every relationship has and work through them together, or decide your problems might be better suited worked through with someone else. . . . Anyway, we're at my house, watching TV, snuggly and happy for the moment. Then a sultry VS commercial comes on. I playfully cover my boyfriend's eyes, but he cranes his neck to avoid the shield. He's teasing, right, so I pull his face toward mine, toward the woman he loves and can gaze at in person, love in that very moment, not drool senselessly in the permanent distance between him and the woman on screen. But he resists yet again and suddenly my heart breaks. I release his face, stunned by the instant constriction of my chest where my heart no longer beats with confidence. I get up and walk away—something had to keep moving if my heart was out of order—and the tears follow. He follows too, but the realization of differences too vast to bridge had become very clear in that moment and something empty had just taken his place. </div>
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Too unfair to blame VS for damaged relationships? My feeling is, "a plague upon any who objectify and exploit the human body, especially the female body, to sell their products, to gain revenue." I wish there was no smutty content from which we have to turn our heads. It damages. Everyone. </div>
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Second, the solution. Inspired by this very odd Christmas moment.</div>
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Yeah, I don't know. Brothers are males, too. Just because you live several years under the same roof with them doesn't mean you understand them one grain of salt better than any other male.</div>
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Victoria, you make great bras. Bras cover breasts. We don't need to see the rest. The rest IS the secret. Beauty, the gift unwrapped by only the worthy, lies behind that bra—but even deeper than that: true beauty is within her heart. The models you employ may not care that their bodies are fondled by so many (mostly male) eyes. They probably think they feel sexy. Then they get a paycheck and their Photoshop-remodel twin polishes the photoshoot with a little more secrecy. The article "Dirty Little Secret" quotes a VS spokesperson in the '90s as saying, "Our main appeal is for women. We are not for men to look at but for women to feel good about themselves."<br />
<br />
Vickie, honey, really. I never feel better about myself when I look at your commercials or your magazine ads or catalogs. I never once believe that as soon as I put on those matching undies and bra that I'll somehow magically LOOK like this:<br />
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<a href="http://faystyle.com/girls/files/2012/11/Candice-Swanepoel-Victorias-Secret-2012-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://faystyle.com/girls/files/2012/11/Candice-Swanepoel-Victorias-Secret-2012-1.jpg" width="237" /></a></div>
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Your customers DON'T look like this. This model doesn't even really look like this. I may not speak for all, but I doubt I don't, when I say, we, your "intended customers," don't want to see it. Whenever I walk by a VS store, I roll my eyes and look away, hoping my three rotating bras will last that much longer so I won't have to reenter the museum of billowing smut for replacements.</div>
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Vickie, because all I truly care about is the fact that the bra makes me comfortable (not feel like a supersexymodel, but just comfortable to be my sexy self that exists regardless of whether you do), invest some of those billions in your new supersexywoman campaign. Keep your models, but cover up all the parts we don't care to see in superwomen costumes; keep your Photoshop goons, because they have much better skills than I; and make this your new slogan:</div>
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Your secret's safe with us.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUfrva1Qbyras1ehCfZoaoy2Ct2K3v_rode2kpLyiVp958Rf0Cm5jDoVpICeLTAIrI9iz7mNWMG7sO7aTPFtRbFZwOI-aNgfJqa5HDaZJI0uSI2FGJPEY-N3oDuIOARbDHsR3S/s1600/VS+bat+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUfrva1Qbyras1ehCfZoaoy2Ct2K3v_rode2kpLyiVp958Rf0Cm5jDoVpICeLTAIrI9iz7mNWMG7sO7aTPFtRbFZwOI-aNgfJqa5HDaZJI0uSI2FGJPEY-N3oDuIOARbDHsR3S/s320/VS+bat+girl.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Because feeling <b>safe</b>, feeling my man's eyes crave only me from the inside out, THAT makes me feel sexy. If you really care about women feeling good about themselves, you'll do something about it.<br />
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You're welcome. emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-86615813900601854182013-03-02T15:21:00.001-07:002013-03-02T15:33:36.089-07:00Today Is Lovelylargely 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQB3r1QcDy7yBD9fvWyNUqdX2lQaSZR7fo1QmitG3xGyeAERmh6sVYyj92bJvm8SLFRJ0_yOmkgoJ3mmY2Sckd2iDmDZVWJuZqJlQMPBHWrJ9T2GekOMciZYS7srfjFnokMTcR/s1600/france+sunflowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQB3r1QcDy7yBD9fvWyNUqdX2lQaSZR7fo1QmitG3xGyeAERmh6sVYyj92bJvm8SLFRJ0_yOmkgoJ3mmY2Sckd2iDmDZVWJuZqJlQMPBHWrJ9T2GekOMciZYS7srfjFnokMTcR/s320/france+sunflowers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-56499727299065421742013-02-28T01:06:00.001-07:002013-02-28T01:06:28.067-07:00Five Years SeenWe'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?<br />
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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.<br />
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<h2>
Feb. 27</h2>
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.<br />
<br />
And time has now leapt five huge strides to the present, and what have I got to show for it?<br />
<br />
How about an awesome Top Five of the Last Five list? Here is where those five years have seen me.<br />
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<h2>
2008</h2>
<ul>
<li>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...</li>
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<ul>
<li>Drove me some school bus.</li>
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<ul>
<li>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.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Center: Biker Bonnie ;)</td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>Hiked to Havasupai falls. Joined facebook to prove it.</li>
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<li>And, Uncle Scot added Vickie to my family.</li>
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<h2>
2009</h2>
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<ul>
<li>Little bro left on mission to AZ.</li>
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<a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/12867_1311090296562_5480488_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/4423_178153455491_7009843_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/4423_178153455491_7009843_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li>Started up yoga.</li>
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<li>Dad added Shawna to my family.</li>
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<li>Sister gave me nephew #2</li>
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<ul>
<li>I finished Math courses forever more.</li>
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<h2>
2010</h2>
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<ul>
<li>Drove buses for the Vancouver, BC Winter Olympics and met my best <a href="http://slipperysandals.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Merilee</a> and Seth friends. Also drove during Paralympics.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swiss Wheelchair Curling Team</td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>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.</li>
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<li>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.</li>
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<ul>
<li>Also visited Paris and its Eiffel and Louvre.</li>
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<ul>
<li>Got my first smart phone</li>
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<h2>
2011</h2>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Took a sculpture class, an astronomy class, and a biology class. Marveled at the sculpting of universes.</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li>Went to Alaska again. Did some deep sea halibut fishing! </li>
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<ul>
<li>Moved in with these dashing dolls.</li>
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<ul>
<li>Found out I was famously awkward...awkwardly famous? <a href="http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/" target="_blank">AFP</a> (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.</li>
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<ul>
<li>Went an entire month without wearing a bra. Sorta wrote about the <a href="http://happydramasticdays.blogspot.com/2011/11/something-you-dont-know.html" target="_blank">experience</a> 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.</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/316694_2770910311700_124174166_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/316694_2770910311700_124174166_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pin the stache on the Biebe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
2012</h2>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Became Editor-in-Chief of <i><a href="http://research.uvu.edu/touchstones/" target="_blank">Touchstones</a></i> journal at UVU. That rocked.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<a href="http://research.uvu.edu/touchstones/touchstones-current-issue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://research.uvu.edu/touchstones/touchstones-current-issue.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
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<ul>
<li>Had poems and an article published in V Magazine (now Hex), the arts and entertainment section of UVU Review newspaper.</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/425568_3412093060868_1444019888_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/425568_3412093060868_1444019888_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See text <a href="http://happydramasticdays.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-connection.html" target="_blank">here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<ul>
<li>Scored the publishing internship for the summer at Deseret Book. Biggest miracle experience of the decade f'real. Met some new besties.</li>
</ul>
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<a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/526696_4241957446959_563342567_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/526696_4241957446959_563342567_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<ul>
<li>Took a Digital Document Design class. Built a website that had a sweet homepage and a secret page.</li>
</ul>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfzXNfBReecJA3K5Y4_QU7BcAdG4iM3rKVDo5drAOOSWlEp3aIdXbcOeagv26KFRiA6HcBW0VPxzakO4izvk_XzD6kl97aoebIlYeP1CvxjsUrxWmqzNYLaakNY17P8Kn8laHi/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-25+at+10.35.08+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfzXNfBReecJA3K5Y4_QU7BcAdG4iM3rKVDo5drAOOSWlEp3aIdXbcOeagv26KFRiA6HcBW0VPxzakO4izvk_XzD6kl97aoebIlYeP1CvxjsUrxWmqzNYLaakNY17P8Kn8laHi/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-02-25+at+10.35.08+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I tweaked those buttons (except the middle one) in Photoshop</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<ul>
<li>This beautiful lady got a degree! </li>
</ul>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/532042_10200278488464639_493811650_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/532042_10200278488464639_493811650_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She be my mama</td></tr>
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<h2>
Now</h2>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Most recently my sister brought me nephew #3. Great way to start off a new year.</li>
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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.</div>
emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-42545435963405630902013-01-25T20:12:00.001-07:002013-01-25T20:13:40.766-07:00Coping with Pain, SurveyAs humans, I believe we've all come to know a thing or two about pain. From heartaches to stomach aches, we all have different ways of coping with the sometimes indescribable feelings. I am compiling responses to the survey below about coping with pain.<br />
<br />
Depending on the quantity of responses, I will include as many of them as I can for my article which will be going into Hex magazine at my school, Utah Valley University.
The survey is set up to be anonymous and I hope to gather many honest, sincere responses by <b>TUESDAY JAN. 29</b> at midnight. It should only take about ten minutes, depending on how deep you want to go into your philosophies! (but your response length IS limited because so is my time :])<br />
<br />
Once the article is featured, I will send out a link to the magazine's website for all to see.
This should be really quite interesting to get a panoramic view of the strategies our neighbors have of coping with pain. PLEASE share and forward this link to your friends and your friends' friends (the more varied backgrounds the better) and so on!<br />
<br />
If you need any more information, contact Emily at mlefair@gmail.com<br />
Thank you!!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3Wp2wWnaRfE9Wrb" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>SE/?SID=SV_3Wp2wWnaRfE9Wrb</a>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-4174291515030459002012-12-12T19:15:00.001-07:002012-12-12T19:15:23.001-07:00Looky!I made a website!<br />
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<br />
http://digitaldesign3340.com/fairchild/exhibit/index.html<br />
<br />
<br />
It even has a secret page! Go find it, go, go!emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-87863012489300470452012-12-07T13:04:00.001-07:002012-12-07T13:10:19.765-07:00Peacemaker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I had two poems published in <i>Touchstones</i> journal this semester. They asked me to read one at their release night event, <i>My Word!</i>. I read "Peacemaker" and I think it went really well. I was nervous at first. Usually I'm not so bad, but I had to calm my mind and whomping heart with some discreet yoga breathing before going up. Man, sometimes it just feels good to get applauded for doing what you love.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1OohhDblx9hquGmqejtjZxMvGeeB6ATgMY15Rvwj65mkW6s_9dqtIuSybMeZJyg_2QXVJRS8qMeAse3xhPRs_3gLnPrkDUmR6v3KaQ-EYr9ExusfIfQ3I8p4tu-C6K60IyWF/s1600/2012-12-07+12.51.21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="image of Touchstones fall 2012 cover "Color" by Frankie Mercado" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1OohhDblx9hquGmqejtjZxMvGeeB6ATgMY15Rvwj65mkW6s_9dqtIuSybMeZJyg_2QXVJRS8qMeAse3xhPRs_3gLnPrkDUmR6v3KaQ-EYr9ExusfIfQ3I8p4tu-C6K60IyWF/s320/2012-12-07+12.51.21.jpg" title="" width="191" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">beautiful cover by Frankie Mercado; digital medium</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoo6Rya0j_fD5mDDYMp3rvGZ0PgBQJYKD92jl93SWfJJrlWyIlZGQcXy3uUWhQOfcY_AcNkF64jmHq4XfjgnURBydi1jzMuinKuKzxghJ4mMHrgXX0LobGTxTe1tyaytYRQGp/s1600/2012-12-07+12.52.45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="back cover of journal; my name included in list of contributors" border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoo6Rya0j_fD5mDDYMp3rvGZ0PgBQJYKD92jl93SWfJJrlWyIlZGQcXy3uUWhQOfcY_AcNkF64jmHq4XfjgnURBydi1jzMuinKuKzxghJ4mMHrgXX0LobGTxTe1tyaytYRQGp/s320/2012-12-07+12.52.45.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">some wonderful publications this semester!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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So, the sound and image matchup of this next media clip is off. Kinda drives me crazy. But the sound doesn't suck, so whatev; now you can listen as you read along! (*the hanging art in the background is not Japanese, though that would've made its presence cooler. It's Vietnamese for "patience," which is a key element for being a true peacemaker.)</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxKwHZNliram5KDBXvmu9mmsOVfqjBIhy4P3XiCAhm1RQnT6wVMTBylEvju7-2T1MJEmuKr-ZUD0AM' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3562311918940395" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes, when I exit the school, I see this plume of white smoke some distance to the north. Oftentimes it makes me ponder what it must have been like waking, breathing free on a still morning in August, year 1945. </span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3562311918940395" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could have been born any time, any place, but as it happened, my grandpa, yet unmarried, was at war the morning Enola Gay awoke, breathing, pregnant with the death of hundreds of thousands of volunteers of the enemy. Drifting on divine wind, Gay dropped her Little Boy; a steel stork with nuclear delivery, a warrior child whose entire life would last 44.4 seconds in freefall.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I might have been placing a pot of rice on the flame, or pouring steaming water for father’s tea, and I know I would have felt a pausing measure of profound pleasure in the whispering morning air, cool like clammy palms, so I would have stepped out to the porch to listen. I wouldn’t so much hear the lightning geyser erupt in town, but every eyelid wipe would try for weeks to scrape the inverse x-ray pillar from my retinas.</span></b><br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here from school, where I see the smoky finger poking at the sky, my guess is the town of Pleasant Grove would disappear, every cant slab of concrete an unmarked headstone. I used to live in PG. I want to say I remember what that plume is from. I can't. </span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I picture the people in the surgical clinic above which the Little Boy released his nuclear tantrum: the nurse bowing, lifting the page of a patient's chart; the patient turning his sick gaze toward the window, his breathing subtle like the leaves nodding sleepily at the summer morning sun—</span><br /><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 72pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">then in the profound silence of full volume noise, an instantaneous slurping of every atom simultaneously resisted by a force that turns teeth to ash snatches their two bodies, etches them for an instant in the transparent monolith of time, the rupture of artificial sun searing each human statue, radiating skeletons framed in charcoal silhouettes—</span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and after leaving a melting tear in the earth, their stunned souls rise on a smoldering halo of smoke.</span></b>emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-57528529214147079682012-10-03T18:17:00.000-06:002012-10-03T18:17:30.594-06:00Dead end
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the man you believed <o:p></o:p></div>
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my appetite when <o:p></o:p></div>
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that secret gagged<o:p></o:p></div>
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his teeth, captivating<o:p></o:p></div>
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the woman hanging<o:p></o:p></div>
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on his arm, dazzling<o:p></o:p></div>
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her left ring finger. He will take<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10628003.post-47819811853295810642012-09-20T21:13:00.002-06:002012-09-21T21:45:41.611-06:00JackFather of ten children including my mother, WWII navy sailor, 3-year missionary in Brazil, counselor for married couples and families—this man has left unfading footprints of good all over the world. In his old age as he slowly loses footing on the current reality in which he lives, I am honored to be a physical product of his goodness and will never forget the many great things his life has brought to mine. The <a href="http://happydramasticdays.blogspot.com/2012/03/24-short-stemmed-proses.html" target="_blank">rose</a> he would send would carry the scent of eternal grandpa love, which smells something like chimney fires, newspapers, button up shirts, and Eastern Oregon wind.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDPgVQGvJh8hjBIGAG5alwOeB1C1UyNX3m9RanSBfnIN-noZYF-xwbrBRhy-jaQNSaMGgLwCSVO9wOJ0yYUDYooMHHNrQO2UNK52JgHe6THScvOTm3dsdGIG7FwunQIbKnVqki/s1600/grandpa+and+hannah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDPgVQGvJh8hjBIGAG5alwOeB1C1UyNX3m9RanSBfnIN-noZYF-xwbrBRhy-jaQNSaMGgLwCSVO9wOJ0yYUDYooMHHNrQO2UNK52JgHe6THScvOTm3dsdGIG7FwunQIbKnVqki/s320/grandpa+and+hannah.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">grandpa Jack and cousin Hannah, 2009</td></tr>
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<br />
This week my grandpa's progressing dementia steered him through a stroke. Mom told me Gramps was still a bit responsive, could at least still hear and seemed to recognize words expressed, and that we would be able to call and tell him goodbye. He would hear us.<br />
<br />
Since his condition has been somewhat poor for months now, the expectation of his departure was clear, and so there's been a degree or two less heartache to see him get closer to that end. I pressed "call" with remarkable composure.<br />
<br />
Tom answered, said things were as stable as they'd be for the next unknowable time. "He's just been waiting for your call." I know Gramps wasn't remembering people lately and how they're connected to him, and Tom was just saying what he said to say something, but it painted in my mind the possibility that though a stroke further immobilized Grandpa's body, perhaps it had unchained his mind, and perhaps he truly was waiting to be reconnected to family, to hear voices, and say goodbye.<br />
<br />
Tom asked if I was ready, I said I guess so. I heard some movement, then from a distance Tom's voice said, "K, Em, he can hear you."<br />
<br />
That's when I noticed another sound, one that had blended in with Tom's movement so I hadn't recognized it: the soft, uneven rasp of life's surviving breath.<br />
<br />
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<br />
It's a wonder sometimes how an old body sticks around so long when so much of its cognitive functioning has shut down. We take each breath, yet we hardly notice them. It's a perfectly automatic reaction to life. The breath of life. Our souls keep working the diaphragm, pulling, until they're called to another home. My own breath caught in my throat.<br />
<br />
"Hey Grandpa. It's Emily. Big Em." I cleared the tightening in my throat with a laugh at my family's nickname to differentiate me from the other Emilys. But the laugh only tipped those inevitable emotions over the edge of my eyelids.<br />
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<br />
Strange thing, talking through phones. I was thinking about this the other day: sound travels millions-of-words-a-second fast from one mouth to another ear. We're miles apart yet we're instantly connected through sound.<br />
<br />
But silence travels even faster. Knowing he was there, hearing me, but unable to respond . . . that communication transmitted directly, immediately to my heart. I muttered something about gratitude for history and legacy. I kept offering a silent moment ample enough for that warm voice to give even an incoherent reply. I said with a warbling whisper, "I love you, Grandpa."<br />
<br />
And then I was quiet. I just listened. And wept. I wanted to tell him more, things going on in my life, but I had this feeling like, in a couple days, he'll be privy to it all, in ways inexpressible, and so the silence felt okay, felt right. It felt like goodbye.<br />
<br />
I pictured the home phone resting near his ear, propped on a pillow. I projected myself there, phones connecting and disappearing, relaying more than sound, and I imagined my heart resting on his shoulder and I wrapped his still, breathing, unresponsive body in my love.<br />
<br />
Tom picked up the phone and broke the illusory connection projecting through a cascade of tears. "Em, are ya done?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah, I'm not really sure what to say, I guess." I was sitting in the hall at school, crying, watching walking people pass in front of me while my ear was linked to the echoes of North Benson Street, Union, Oregon.<br />
<br />
I think it is possible to be in two places at once.<br />
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emilyfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17014206204170797788noreply@blogger.com2