Easter Is Life

I 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.

Poem After Carlos Drummond de Andrade
"It's life, Carlos."

It's life that is hard: waking, sleeping, eating, loving, working and
        dying are easy.
It's life that suddenly fills both ears with the sound of that
        symphony that forces your pulse to race and swells your
        heart near to bursting.
It's life, not listening, that stretches your neck and opens your eyes
        and brings you into the worst weather of the winter to arrive
        once more at the house where love seemed to be in the air.

And it's life, just life, that makes you breathe deeply, in the air that
        is filled with wood smoke and the dust of the factory, because
        you hurried, and now your lungs heave and fall with the
        nervous excitement of a leaf in spring breezes, though it is
        winter and you are swallowing the dirt of the town.
It isn't death when you suffer, it isn't death when you miss each
        other and hurt for it, when you complain that isn't death,
        when you fight with those you love, when you
        misunderstand, when one line in a letter or one remark in
        person ties one of you in knots, when the end seems near,
        when you think you will die, when you wish you were
        already dead—none of that is death.
It's life, after all, that brings you a pain in the foot and a pain in the
        hand, a sore throat, a broken heart, a cracked back, a torn
        gut, a hole in your abdomen, an irritated stomach, a
        swollen gland, a growth, a fever, a cough, a hiccup, a
        sneeze, a bursting blood vessel in the temple.
It's life, not nerve ends, that puts the heartache on a pedestal and
        worships it.
It's life, and you can't escape it. It's life, and you asked for it. It's life,
        and you won't be consumed by passion, you won't be
        destroyed by self-destruction, you won't avoid it by
        abstinence, you won't manage it by moderation, because
        it's life—life everywhere, life at all times—and so you
        won't be consumed by passion: you will be consumed
        by life.

It's life that will consume you in the end, but in the meantime...
It's life that will eat you alive, but for now...
It's life that calls you to the street where the wood smoke hangs,
        and the bare hint of a whisper of your name, but before
        you go...

Too late: Life got its tentacles around you, its hooks into your heart,
        and suddenly you come awake as if for the first time, and
        you are standing in a part of the town where the air is
        sweet -- your face flushed, your chest thumping, your
        stomach a planet, your heart a planet, your every organ a
        separate planet, all of it of a piece though the pieces turn
        separately, O silent indications of the inevitable, as among
        the natural restraints of winter and good sense, life blows
        you apart in her arms.

Marvin Bell

Victoria's New Secret

"Our main appeal is for women. We are not for men to look at but for women to feel good about themselves."

When a life-changing dilemma sprouts in a little girl's soul, she will think of little else until she works out a solution.

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.

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. 

When the words finally came out, they dribbled toward Mom's ear in a terrified whisper.

"Mom, I think I need a bra."

"What?" Her eyes stayed on the TV.

Oh horror! Don't make me repeat it! Then Dad might hear. Other siblings heaped on the bed might hear. . . . Oh humiliation.

"I think I need a bra." If snakes cry, that's what I sounded like.

"Oh honey, you don't need a bra. Maybe next year."

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. 

Today Is Lovely

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

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

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

Five Years Seen

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

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

Feb. 27

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

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

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

2008

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

• Drove me some school bus.

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

Center: Biker Bonnie ;)

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

• And, Uncle Scot added Vickie to my family.

2009

• Little bro left on mission to AZ.

• Started up yoga.

• Dad added Shawna to my family.

• Sister gave me nephew #2

• I finished Math courses forever more.

2010

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

Swiss Wheelchair Curling Team

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

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

• Also visited Paris and its Eiffel and Louvre.

• Got my first smart phone

2011

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

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

• Moved in with these dashing dolls.

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

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

Pin the stache on the Biebe

2012

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

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

See text here

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

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

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

• This beautiful lady got a degree! 

She be my mama

Now

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

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

Coping with Pain, Survey

As 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.

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 TUESDAY JAN. 29 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 :])

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!

If you need any more information, contact Emily at mlefair@gmail.com
Thank you!!

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3Wp2wWnaRfE9Wrb

Looky!

I made a website!


http://digitaldesign3340.com/fairchild/exhibit/index.html


It even has a secret page! Go find it, go, go!

Peacemaker

I had two poems published in Touchstones journal this semester. They asked me to read one at their release night event, My Word!. 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.

beautiful cover by Frankie Mercado; digital medium

some wonderful publications this semester!

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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—

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—

and after leaving a melting tear in the earth, their stunned souls rise on a smoldering halo of smoke.

Dead end

How should you

feel when you see

the man you believed

was dead, who

tried to take your life? Filled

with burning

relief, still I lost

my appetite when

I saw him,

that secret gagged

and bound behind

his teeth, captivating

the woman hanging

on his arm, dazzling

expectations strangling

her left ring finger. He will take

her home, bury her

alive in his

parents’ basement.

Jack

Father 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 rose 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.

grandpa Jack and cousin Hannah, 2009

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

"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.



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.

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."

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.

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.

Tom picked up the phone and broke the illusory connection projecting through a cascade of tears. "Em, are ya done?"

"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.

I think it is possible to be in two places at once.

A Not-so-Super Power?

What shall I compare it to?

A bucket to a well is as I am to people's souls.

A match to a hard, dry surface is as I am to people's souls.

As a siren to a sailor, a muse to a musician, a pair of scissors to a puppet's strings.

I've recently realized I have this unspoken ability to charm demons, as it were. Perhaps you have been touched by this "awesome" power of mine. I can think of a few people already who exhibit symptoms of exposure. 

Here, I'll explain.

I'm an honest person. Not perfectly, sure, but I can't stand to house incongruities, unbalanced feelings, unattended weaknesses, disturbances of peace, or unrepentant acts or urges within me. When something's not right, I scour my insides to pinpoint the source and determine a solution. I'm a healer, a peacemaker, a life guard. For myself and, peripherally, for others.

See, I don't take crap from myself. I know when I'm coming up with excuses, justifications—all those limp impostors of security—and when that happens, I smack it away. I always try. Sometimes I'm around others when they start to take crap from themselves. We've all done it. We may or may not know what it looks like as we're doing it, but if you try to be self aware, you'll recognize the crap.

We want to coddle our unconfident emotions, we steam and pout to justify our sour moods and wallow in them longer, we attempt to protect our faltering temperaments by wrapping them in more faulty behaviors. Why do we do that? It's like we enjoy doing things wrong over and over in an attempt to ruin our esteem and potential so we don't have to work as hard to be good. Or maybe because we care so much about our tender centers that we want to keep them from pain—even if that pain refines, purifies, gives true strength and protection.

A prick of the needle to draw blood for the diagnosis is as I am to people's souls.

So when I see this happening in myself, I turn off my usual feelers of tender listening and give myself a "you're excruciatingly stupid if you actually want to put that crap in your mouth" look and vie for a better route to redirect my self-pitying sorrow, unforgiving reaction, unrighteous judgment, irrational fear, crippling self-doubt, etc., to a destination that will bring me back to the still, peaceful feelings of the spirit and restore an inner equilibrium. 

If I see this behavior brewing in others, I try to be their truest friend and smack it away. When they see the "what the heck, don't eat that crap" look on my face, they are often in an emotional state that doesn't handle a lack of tenderness very well. I admit that I'll seem uncaring and unhelpful, but seriously, don't make up crap and take it from yourself. I'm on your side.

But there are other times when I don't realize I'm drawing people to face their demons, when I'm catalyst, impetus to self-inspection, and then I find out later. 

Examples:

1) Mission companion number five. We struggled a lot. Living together and more importantly working and teaching together without unity was very straining, draining. Eventually I learned my unsettledness was due to my own stingy judging that she was doing things wrong where I was doing them right, and instead of focusing on the who, I focused on the what. What was right? Love and service. So I served her, and that made me love her, and the consequences of that were unity and harmony. And she later told me that because of my being a complete prickle bush stickler for obeying rules (she said to me "at first it felt like I was living with the mission president. That was really hard." ha!) and always pestering for peace, her own testimony (in seemingly unrelated topics) was strengthened. I didn't ever know she juggled those elements of her knowledge of God and the restoration of the gospel, but my own testimony and the way my way of living made her uncomfortable apparently helped her face the unsettled things within herself that she was trying to protect, and she realized she could heal them instead of hide them.

2) A male who wasn't a boyfriend and who got more outta me than a not-boyfriend should. We struggled to meet anywhere close to a middle to decide if we should officially date...lots of back and forth crap. One day, at the pitiful end-part of our non-relationship, he said something like "you've helped me realize I don't want to live the gospel anymore." He explained some things that put ache into my soul. This was a time I wasn't happy for my super power. Sure it wasn't because of me that he had those desires, but I can't help but wonder if our less-than-ideal interaction wasn't impetus for his realization. If it was what he truly desired to do, sooner or later it would have manifested itself in his life. Probably. Perhaps he could have kept going through the motions long enough to realize the benefit in christlike living, but instead I interfered and made things happen faster in his life than they should have. Who knows. I apologized for anything I could claim responsibility for and left him not a bit better than I found him. Maybe.

3) A male who wasn't a boyfriend but who perhaps would have like to have been. He is a quiet sort and he went out of his comfort zone to get to know me and ask me out. I agreed to see if I could be interested as I got to know him better, but ultimately I didn't feel like a good match for him/him for me. And he didn't go away without aches of his own, but he later told me I was impetus in showing him what things within himself needed attention. He would say I did leave him better than I found him. Not that I've "left" him—he's still my friend; I just don't want to think up a different way of saying "leave it better than you found it." 

It's just my general Mary Poppinsy desire to help people get to the honest roots within themselves. I know personally honesty with myself is what has set me free. Maybe this power is what makes me a good editor, too. I try not to use my editing powers on people (people are too complex for there to be "grammatically correct" way to live), but when I see the lies, I don't indulge them. Sorry if you ever encounter this power at a time when all you'd rather want is a hug. I really do need to attach hug powers to the end of my "don't take no crap" powers.

Truth sets free by nature. So I look at myself with a truthoscope and pluck out the lies; apparently I help others do the same. Not always, but quite often, if they get close enough. I've decided overall it's a good thing, if not always immediately, then ultimately. Because the truth will always taste better than crap.

The bucket dipped in an impure well will only offer impure water. Fire will destroy whatever cannot endure it, or will refine what is stronger than it. A diagnosis offers impetus to find a cure. Without the truth we will crumple in weakness. Don't take that untrue crap from yourself or anyone else. Draw from true super powers, wherever they're found, and become your best and true self.