with them we praise & curse

Remember that part in Hamlet where Hamlet is reading a book, and some dude (I don't remember who it was) asks him what he's reading? Hamlet replies, "Words, words, words." He's such a smarty pants. Or, I guess, back then it would've been smarty tights. Smarty leggings?

When I was in youth group, my youth pastor, Josh, told us all to stop being so sarcastic and negative to one another, and instead to tell each other what we appreciated about one another. Of course, obviously, we then made fun of him. I distinctly remember turning to my friend Erin and saying with an overly-genuine lilt in my voice, "You're a bright young woman, Erin. I appreciate you."

Once on a retreat, Josh had us all sit in a circle. Then he gave one of us a ball, and told us to, without saying a name, describe what we appreciated about another person in the room. When we were done, we threw the ball to that person, often surprising them that the kind words that were just spoken were directed at them.

I've been pondering the power of words. A young lady I worked with in the food pantry in Salt Lake City a couple of summers ago was volunteering there to fulfill court-appointed hours. She had a daughter and lived with her mom. Sometimes she just made poor decisions.

One day I told her how much I enjoyed her company; how genuine and thoughtful she was; how much I liked her. A few weeks later I'd forgotten I'd even said anything to her. To me, I was just speaking my opinion. (I do this a lot.) But she came in to work and told me she'd been having a horrible day the day before, but she remembered my words to her, and they changed her entire day.

WORDS have POWER.

And not just the words we speak to others. I've also been thinking about the words I think about others.

During my spring break trip to Atlanta last spring, our group of twelve college students sat in a circle in a small attic room that we couldn't even stand upright in. One group member sat in the middle, and sporadically people spoke words of encouragement to that person. Good things we saw in that person. What impact that person has had on our week/team/lives. We were supposed to be in there for an hour and a half; we finally emerged three hours later. And after sitting in a room where nothing but encouragement, good, and positive was spoken, my entire thought processes were changed as to what I thought about my teammates. We were all different, and some of us had more in common than others. But either way, when we focused on the good, we saw more good.

WORDS can be LIFE.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. - Ephesians 4:29

This is a challenge to me. Let it be a challenge to you, too!

*** ALERT *** ALERT ***

Sometimes on the news they'll flash "ALERT ALERT" on the bottom of the screen, in this odd red graphic that sort of throbs like a dying heart, and I'll think that something life-changing is about to be announced. Like WWIII, or that Skynet has become self-aware, or that Gerald Ford was eaten by wolves. Then they end up telling us that Maxwell House is raising its prices for the THIRD time this year. Good Lord, because we all know that "rising coffee prices" are a sign mentioned in Revelation that the apocalypse is just around the corner.

"ALERT ALERT (throb throb), BREAKING NEWS: Jesus seen descending from clouds with cup of coffee, proclaiming, 'Beans, beans, to those far and near,' while the silver trumpets blasted, 'The best part of being raptured up is Folgers in your cup.'"

Alert THIS, Fox News: I finished a book.

CHEERS, BALLOONS, CUPCAKES!

I finished Louisa May Alcott's biography, and it was like a defibrillator to my reader's (and writer's) heart. I feel like I've gotten to know so much better the author of my favorite novel. Sometimes while reading, I forgot I was reading about a famous literary figure. I was reading about just a woman, who had aspirations and ambition and talent and so much character. So I would think, "Wow! She was friends with Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and Longfellow!" And then I would remember that she is, in fact, Louisa May Alcott.

Did you know she didn't even want to write Little Women, but did it because her publisher wanted a "girl's book," and Louisa needed the money? Even after Little Women made Louisa rich and adored, she kept writing with the intent of producing "one good book."

Hello. You just wrote one of the most beautiful books in literary history, that will live on for hundreds of years through movies and on Broadway and through eyes and hearts soaking in your words time and time again on book's pages. Ms. Alcott, your one good book has been written.

So now the question is, what do I read next? Any suggestions? My brain is alive with juices like wine, and I'm hungry like the wolf.

stay where you're at & I'll come where you're to

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a super hero named Captian Question Mark? He could spell his name like this:

Captain?

You pronounce the question mark.

He could have his own television show, called The Grammatical Conundrums of Captain?. If that doesn't draw the younger demographic, I don't know what will. And he could have a theme song. Like this:

Captain?,
is that a comma splice? Hark!
Dangling participles make him cry;
Split Infinitive's a bad guy;
using poor grammar only reveals that
ending a sentence with a preposition proves your low intelligence...at.

Try humming your little tyke to sleep with that one.

In each episode, Captain? can show how urgently one should understand proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

For example, in one episode, Captain?'s arch nemesis Split Infinitive (notorious for misusing the English language and leading a gang of rebellious high school drop-outs, who named themselves "Slang," in removing the apostrophe from the Handbook of Vital Punctuation, and also for using run-on sentences), has been locked in a bunker full of explosives, and in a shocking state of humility (and possibly desperation), texts Captain? for help. Captain?, of course, being good-spirited, compassionate, and an overall very nice super hero, agrees to help. Let's take a peek at the rest of the conversation:

SI: Thx cpt? your gr8
C?: My great what?
SI: no. . .your great
C?: My great...grandmother? My great sense of style? My great ideas on exploding cigarettes, so that when people toss them from their car windows it results in immediate consequences? "Your great" is not a complete sentence.
SI: Look I foot have time 2 argue about grammar rite now
C?: I understand. In which case, the most important thing to remember so you don't die is.
SI: Is what???
C?: What?
SI: u didnt text me a complete sentence
C?: Well neither did you, so I suppose we're even.

Kids will learn several things from this episode:
1.) T9 is not reliable, so always proofread your texts.
2.) Compassion only goes as far as a willingness to speak and write properly.
3.) Proper punctuation and spelling are worth the extra effort, because otherwise you might blow up. (Also, I would stay away from throwing your cigarettes out the car window, just in case that idea actually came to fruition.)

Maybe Captain? can have a girlfriend, too. She can be a princess named Pun. She writes songs using word play and has a lot of folksy emotional baggage. Or is that Jason Mraz?

You see, every epic tale is only one worth telling if it is grammatically correct. Would Frodo have destroyed the Ring if Elrond had said, "It must be thrown into the fiery chasm from whence it came from"? No way would Frodo have accepted a mission from a guy who used two of the same prepositions in his sentence. Keep that in mind for the future, and remember: The future is only ours as long as the apostrophe still makes things possessive.

(That's how Captain? ends his shows, after he addresses the audience about how only you can prevent punctuation mutilation.)

prudent microscopes

I came across my writing notebooks from sophomore and junior years. Reading through them made me miss my writing classes, and the things they made me squeeze out of my imagination like paste that doesn't look appealing, but ends up adding a bounty of flavor to the main dish.

I don't know what the prompt was for this poem, but I don't remember writing it a'tall, and it makes me giggle:

(written April 2008)

Back on Uranus,
we eat squirrel.
On earth, they're cute and furry.
I saw a girl
run over a squirrel
with her car
while using my laser vision
to toast my albino squirrel
(the white meat is healthier).
From within closed windows
I heard her scream
and saw the tires
absorb the shock
of the little lifeless body.
She kept driving,
I assume she cried,
and I retrieved
the dead squirrel for dessert.

I usually write much more serious poetry, on my own. But for writing classes I always wrote goofy things, because I was too afraid of criticism. Once I wrote a poem I absolutely loved, and was told I had to change everything about it because of "pathetic fallacy" and "archaic language." Why must there be rules to poetry?

This is the most original version of the poem I could find, having edited it to death to please the masses (aka my writing professor). I wish I still had the original, as it was my favorite. But this one will have to do:

On A February Walk (written February, 2008)

A tree branch creaks a sad, sullen moan,
a lone, tired voice in the midst of a roar.
Blustered and blown, the clouds, thick above
are sick with a gray that drifts down in small pellets
of snow that won't stick to a ground, soggy brown,
so they circle around, in careless, cold dances.

The branches are bare, with not even a coat
of ice that would care, in its unfeeling way,
to lend beauty in bleakness to a sad, creaking tree
that, in its meekness, creaks not to be heard,
but to let out the pain of its old, wooden joints
that burns with cold fire and subsides to rekindle.

Oh, winter, with winds that brutally blow,
lend me some snow in what compassion you own
to coat all that's ugly in a blanket of white
and mute my trite groans, lonely and bitter.
For somehow, to tread upon glistening flakes
makes the walk less despondent to take.

If you want, you can visit the place this poem was written. Just take a jaunt to Wilmore (some of you may already be there) and hop on my favorite college campus. The tree's the big one right in front of the steps of Morrison and, when the leaves aren't there to rustle when the wind blows, you can hear the branches creaking so sadly that the tree deserves a poem written about him. (Yes, poet scholars, I referred to the tree as he.) I listened to it on my way to class and sat on a bench with cold fingers gripping the pencil as I jotted down lines to remember later, when I was warmer and could write more.

I miss being a writer.

"Would you like an adventure now,

 or would you like to have your tea first?" - Peter Pan

August always seems to take forever to end. It's probably because I'm always waiting for something in August. I'm never sad to see it go. This August was no exception.

With one difference: This time I was ending something without beginning something else. I've been fighting "being okay" with this for many months now. Hence all the posts on adventure, by trying to sooth my desire for stability and assurance with prospects of adventure. I realized my desire had not been assuaged* when I watched the series finale of Gilmore Girls today and cried. For one, Gilmore Girls has been over for over three years. Secondly, I didn't even cry the first time I watched the series finale. I can't help that I'm emotional, but even more so** I can't help that I hate goodbyes and endings. Who knows how many arks I could float with my tears the next time I watch The Return of the King. And, like Wendy, John, and Michael, I'm tempted to have my tea first. The truth is, I'm quaking in my boots at the same time I'm praying for adventure.

The woman whose 9-month-old little boy I watch gave me a zucchini today. I can't wait to hack it up and bake it in something. Muffins? Brownies? Bread? The possibilities are endless and my fingers are twitching with glee.

"Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily: it was two against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way would have been to wait until the pirates had gone, but he was never one to choose the easy way."

* Assuaged, along with ardent and sanguine, are some of my favorite words.
** WHY isn't "more so" one word but "nevertheless" is?

there once was love

I've rediscovered some loves. Not of Double Stuf Oreos, which I have consumed 8 of while sitting here at my computer. Not of a clean bathroom, which I daydream about every time I shower in my flipflops and try to roll up my pant legs when I put them on so they don't dip in the puddles of sand on the bathroom floor. Not even of those days when sweat isn't dripping off my face and making my thighs stick together when I walk. I never lost or forgot those loves, so I don't need to rediscover them. Here are some loves I have rediscovered, though, and it's like seeing my husband return from a long trip, having forgotten how handsome he was and how much I missed his smell:

+ Creation. Not true: I have never forgotten how much I love God's creation. But I had forgotten how much I love being completely engulfed and consumed by it morning through night. Last week was Backcountry Camp, and amidst the rivers, woods, rainy nights, and campfires, I found myself being filled with beauty like an empty balloon filled with helium, until all it can do is soar into the sky and pop for lack of a better release. Sometimes I forget not only how much God's love is revealed through His creation, but also that I am His created one, as well. It's so easy to look at a perfectly pure river and not wonder why God delights in His creation, but He delights in us as His creation, too, and our voices give Him even more pleasure than the voices of the perfectly pure river.

+ Writing. To save myself from soaring into the sky and popping, I've rediscovered why I write. After years of creative writing classes and assignments, I was pretty sure I'd lost whatever desire to write I'd had when I entered into college. Both my journal pages and my mind grew blank of creativity. But I realized as I sat on a damp rock beneath a waterfall why I write. I don't write because I should or because I'm required to. I write because I want to capture, I want to preserve, I want to remember. I write because I have to, or else my mind and heart will become so full that I either pop, or I spring several leaks and everything seeps out without any record of it. I'd forgotten what it was like to need writing, like needing food or sleep. Writing is a reaction to me. What would the trees do if they couldn't rustle when the wind blew?

+ Reading. Four literature classes and two history classes last semester had me convinced that I was done reading, unless menus at PF Chang and Olive Garden counted. But all summer I've played ball, I've gone swimming, I've hiked, I've climbed, I've jet-skied and tubed and paint-balled...but I haven't gotten completely lost in a lecture or a chapter so that minutes pass and I forget to stop thinking. I miss this. Thanks to miss Laura's blog, I'm now reading A Separate Peace. I love words, and I'd forgotten this until I was surrounded by a lack of them.

me and Bali in the middle of the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.