On Grief

"The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television." - Andy Warhol

Last night, I cried myself to sleep. I shuddered and sobbed myself a headache to wake up to in the morning. I haven't cried like that for a long time. But I was alone in my brother's house and there was no one around to gloss over my grief for.

The winter of my fifth grade year, my grandfather Art died. He used to call on the telephone all the time, and then suddenly his voice was gone. My dad got on a plane to LA to go pack up Art's stuff and clean out his old apartment. We skipped Christmas that year. I didn't talk to anyone about what had happened.

A couple weeks later, my classmate Geoff’s grandpa died. He got a call during the middle of the school day. The whole class sat in a circle on the floor while Geoff cried. We listened to him, and comforted him. And I felt a stinging in my eyes and hardness in my throat because Geoff could talk about his loss when I couldn't talk about mine. I never did place what the difference between us was.

Last year my brother was diagnosed with cancer. At first we thought it was pancreatic cancer, he called in November to tell me he thought he had "lived a good life." There was a chance it was a different type of cancer that had simply migrated into his pancreas. We'd find out in a few weeks. My thumbs were kept busy then  scrolling through forums of pancreatic cancer survivors the way some people scroll through Instagram - Whipple surgery. Six months chemotherapy. Five years remission. Life prolonged. Cancer free. I had accepted the worst, but still wanted to find hope in that situation.

 As you can imagine we all breathed a heavy sigh of relief when it turned out to be metastasized testicular cancer instead - a few months of chemotherapy to get through, but the survival rates for testicular cancer are extraordinary. I didn't think we were facing death anymore - just bleomyscin injections that caused spiked fevers and platinum running through his veins. A few months of treatment and he'd have his beard back.

I cried sometimes during those months too. I cried for James' narrowing frame, jaundiced skin and hairless head. I cried on my way home from a family gathering because James had yelled at me, and he had sounded like my father did while we were growing up. I didn't stop crying until he called to say he was so so sorry and explained that the treatments made him irritable. When I cried during those months I felt weak and unjustified - he was going to be okay. In my mind people were only allowed to cry if they were suffering more.

Even now, despite the persistence of his tumor with fingers wrapped around an artery in his liver, the chances of him surviving are in our favor. A portion of James' tumor was unaffected by the cycles of chemotherapy in Utah, and he has since relocated to a specialized cancer treatment facility in Houston, Texas. At MD Anderson, James receives stem cell transfusions to bolster the strength of his immune system. It's a Captain America kind of medicine - he can now endure doses of chemotherapy so high that they would otherwise kill him. Cancer is such a bizarre ailment to treat - as one is supposedly recovering they only show signs of growing more ill. It's a matter of one poison winning over the other.

James called me while I was in Germany on a study abroad to ask if I would be able to come out with him to Texas for the few weeks before his family could join him there. I, standing on a sidewalk in Berlin a few feet away from a Donner stand, agreed. Between James' cancer and my sister's manic-depressive disorder wreaking havoc this year, I feel like I'm playing a bit part in a Mexican Telanova. In June I acted as caregiver and companion. I cleaned up bodily fluids, adjusted pillows, kept track of medications, watched too much Netflix, drove to the ER at four in the morning and spent days and days sitting in hospital rooms listening to a symphony of beeping machines.

I'm back in Utah now, and James' wife, kids and our mother are out in Texas. We swapped roles and I returned to stay at the Goldberg's house to take care of it while they're gone. It's in American Fork, three towns over from my home in Provo where I work, go to school and all my friends live. The distance and loneliness didn't hit until last night. The week before had been a flurry of overtime work hours, graveyard shifts and my father and brother Stephen briefly sweeping through town on a cross country move.

There were a lot of little things that built up to last night's tears, very little of it had to do with James at all. I felt emotionally exhausted after having my father here, who failed to meet my expectations of a parent's visitation. I felt physically exhausted too after a busy week at work in which I had mostly one am to noon shifts. And it felt surreal to be stepping back into my familiar life in Utah after two months of traveling.

I came home to an empty house last night and even though I had a phone full of contacts, there was no one that I felt like I could call. Just as often as my dad has fallen short, James has been there to pick up the slack. During my time at BYU whenever I have been overwhelming stressed out, I've called James. He'd drive down to Provo and pick me up. I'd stay up late perched on the end of his and Nicole's bed and they'd give me practical and grounding advice. I'd spend the night in their guest room, and wake up to my nephews jumping on me the next morning. I'd go back to Provo with Nicole on her way to work. I remember one night after I went down to the guest room to sleep, James came down dressed up in the giraffe costume he'd worn at Halloween and started dancing. He's done that kind of thing since I was a kid. I would get upset and storm off to my room, and he would come in and be a goof. I'd laugh so much I'd forget to be mad.

That's when I really started crying. I cried because I was alone in the Goldberg's house and I couldn't even call James. It's my turn to be goofy and reassuring. I cried myself asleep because I felt an immediate kind of grief, not in losing someone forever but in things being different and disorienting right now. 

Woodshop

I smelled popcorn on Thursday while I was in the engineering building - all heat and air and too much salt. It triggered flashbacks to the woodshop class I took last semester. I realized that more than the aroma of wood shavings or the acrid scent of Wilcox oil finish, popcorn is the scent of woodworking to me.

My professor, Dr. C (who knew you could get a PhD in tech ed), would make popcorn on our workdays and during open labs. As the symphony of whirring blades and droning machinery commenced, Dr. C would go back to the storage area to pull out a cast iron skillet, seasoning and a big metal bowl to put the popcorn in when it was done. He even had these neat little bags on his desk with “Hot and Delicious Popcorn” printed on them in a cheery red font. The bags reminded me of the kind you get at a carnivals or the state fair – cheap thin paper that the oil soaks through in spots. They also remind me of barf bags on an airline, tucked in the mesh pocket in front of you, ready for when you start feeling sick. I don’t think I’ve ever been more stressed out by a class.

***

I have this memory of laying on the grass with my friend Jared on a lazy August evening right after I moved out to Utah and right before the start of my freshman year. I was picking at the grass compulsively while he was on his back next to me with an arm flung behind his head. I recall our conversation going like this:

“I’d be terrible at computer science,” I said (which was his major), “I don’t understand computers at all.” I tend to be like that about a lot of things – convinced I will be terrible at something because I’ve never done it before, because I don’t already know how. I could have said the same thing about wood working before the class.

Jared was quiet for a minute then he propped himself up on his elbows, looking at me, “How good are you at flying helicopters?”

“I dunno, I’ve never flown a helicopter before.”

“Hm…” he said, falling back onto the grass, “and have you coded before?” He had caught me in my own logical fallacy. 

***

It turns out there is whole body of work published about the assumption that you’ll be bad at something you’ve never tried. Psychologist Carol Dweck refers to it as having a ‘fixed mindset’. I read a lot of her research when I took a psychology class in high school. And since I’m trying to figure out why the smell of popcorn has my cortisol levels running so high, I quickly looked up a few of her articles and skimmed through them again. 

In a fixed mindset students believe that their basic abilities – intelligence, talent, athleticism – are all immutable. They have a certain amount and that’s that, so their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look stupid.

In woodshop there is no appearance of competency. It’s a skills class, not an academic class where I can sit back and be a warm body. I remember when I was taking calculus in high school I would avoid asking questions because I felt I would be perceived as stupid. Everyone around me was sitting silently too, a clear indicator to me that they understood what I was missing. Meeting up with classmates in the evenings to study at together at Caribou coffee, it became evident that all of us had been playing the same game. We were all high-achieving, disciplined kids who had been praised for our ‘intelligence’ our whole lives. We all sat confused and lost and silent in class together because we couldn’t bear the appearance of ignorance. I guess it comes down to the interpretation of a question – is asking questions seizing an opportunity for growth or a sad revelation of your inferiority?

There was no way to hide my ignorance when I was learning to use a table saw under the amused observation of my peers. Peers which consisted mostly of male TechEd majors who wear Carharrt, the brand of the blue collar working man, like it’s a lifestyle. The first time I ran a board through a table saw I went so slowly that the blade burned the edge of the wood, leaving deep red marks. Everyone could smell the smoke. The process of experiential, tactile learning made it painfully obvious that the mere appearance of knowledge is worthless. You either know what you’re doing or you don’t. There’s no bullshit, no fluffing out papers to make them reach the page requirement or anything else sly like that. In woodworking you have to make precise cuts, and sand down boards to exact thicknesses. Any error in craftsmanship is evident in the final object.

I don't know if having a fixed mindset is really as much about believing your skills are unchanging as it is about being haunted by fear that people will discover you as a fraud. In my mind, I imagined this nightmarish situation in which Dr. C turned to me and would say, "you're not good at this. Why are you here?"

I guess maybe it all comes back to something that my friend Molly recently brought up in a phone call during finals week - entertaining the notion that we may not be at college to be perfect, but rather, to learn. 

Love, Home and Forward Motion

When I say “I have never fallen in love” I mean that I’ve never met a boy and fallen in love with him. I grew up with love for my three brothers, a fierce familial love which aches sometimes but is always there. A love that doubles you over in pain when that boy is on the phone after surgery, telling you it’s worse than they thought. And as you watch his skeletal frame entering yet another CT scan you want to take his sickness for him. I have a love that lights my brothers up as they’re talking about that book they just read so all I can see is their brilliance. My love is rooted somewhere in a rest stop in Northern Nebraska, where there was a flash hail storm and Stephen pulled me behind him as he ran to the car, shielding me from the icy pellets. It’s rooted in our home in Columbus, where James read The Dark is Rising out loud to me and Mattathias and I shared a room. A love that does dishes even when it’s their turn and tells them ‘I love you,’ in the same breath as, ‘you’re so out of line.’ 

I wonder if girl-meets-boy love will feel the same, like it’s the strongest pull on you, but just as mundane and taken for granted as the fact that there is gravity on this earth. 

******

When I say “I don’t go home,” what I mean is home is far and I am poor. I mean that my dad and I get along best when there are at least five states between us. I mean that I think that I liked myself better at 18 than I do at 20, and I’d like the people in my life there to remember me as I was and not as I am. I don't know how to acknowledge the ways I've changed. 

 Besides all that, I mean that Utah is my home. I have fallen in love with the landscapes here. I love the red rock of Southern Utah, the way it feels alien to me, like I’m exploring a different planet. I love the forests and lakes in the high Uintas, hiking up streams instead of trails to get from lake to lake. The nights there were so much colder than I’d imagined or prepared for. I love that Rock Canyon is ten minutes from my front door and there are over 400 different climbing routes there. How many of my Saturday mornings have I spent with fingertips on rock. I am still in awe of the salt flats, which seem to be God’s punctuation to this mountainous landscape, like he hit a hard return there and left so much nothingness that it’s justified as a destination. I mean that I don’t go home, I just stay there. 

**********

When I say “process and decay are implicit,” I am usually whispering it to myself. I am thinking of the British artist and naturalist Andy Goldsworthy. I am imagining him waking up early on a freezing morning in Cumbria and hiking out to cow pasture. He’s building an arch there out of sheets of ice. He knows this structure he’s labored over will melt shortly in the afternoon sun (or maybe be knocked over by a cow or a disgruntled farmer).

           When I say, “process and decay are implicit,” I say it to ease the tight fisted way I grasp at sameness, consistency, and the myth of permanent things. 

Everything is a work and there is “an intensity about a work at its peak.” It’s easy to mark and measure myself by the past. To use those moments of triumph that are sticky and oversized in memory, and a yardstick for a current self that is always measuring up short. I will always remember first the cross country race that I ran personal best in. I will remember heavy limbs, sweat on my body and looking at the 20:07 on the clock at the finish.  I have to mindful to remember the early morning runs and two-a-day workouts which built up to that race. The awful way I starved myself skinny, and anxiety plagued me. I may never run that fast again, or have the inclination to try.

It had its time. The cycles of our lives will spin themselves out, wide and rushed and varied. It’s okay to labor on the ice arch in front of me. Process, peak and then inevitably, decay. 

On Flattery

When you say 'you're beautiful,' I don't believe you. When you say 'you're amazing,' I try and swallow my doubt. I return a placid smile and blank eyes.

And it's not because I don't know these things are true (because sometimes I do).

And it's not because I'm incredibly insecure (although sometimes I am).

I know you haven't been around long enough to have learned the bones and guts and blood of it. It is just an idea of me that you want to hold. It is just the possibility.

I return a placid smile, because I know how dangerous your sweetness could be. I know how easy it could be to slip into relying on your words and validation. And what a fleeting and intangible thing that is to rely on.

Foriegner

"Aren't your feet cold?" He asks the first day he sees me. For the first time this week someone is speaking to me in English and instead of Dutch.

I look down at my bare toes, and realize I haven't seen anyone else in this whole town who's wearing sandals. Apparently that's not the thing to do in the Netherlands in the Fall.

"No, not really" I say, smiling and shrugging at him.

His eyebrows knit together in look of disbelief, but he doesn't say anything else - just hands the frites I ordered over the counter of his food truck. It's parked right by the hall our exhibition is in, so I find myself ducking out there almost every day the rest of the trip. 
 
The next day he greets me, "Oh, the girl with the cold feet!"

This time I just smile, feeling the warmth of being known when everything around me is foriegn, "Yes,that's me" I say, smiling, "Can I have some frites? With mayonnaise, please?"

Salt Flats

The Bonneville Salt Flats are punctuation to Utah's mountainous landscape. God hit a hard return here, leaving nothing but blank space between paragraphs. It has so much nowhere and has such a vastness of empty, that the negative space itself begins to hold substance. It's justified as a destination.

We drove out there last weekend, to watch the sunset, see the stars and have what Camilla deemed "a post-apocalyptic picnic." Because the apocalypse would surely leave a landscape as desolate and otherworldly as this one. 

The longer I've lived in Utah, the more I've fallen in love with it. The diversity of landscapes never ceases to astonish me. Within a 200 mile radius of my front door there is red rock, salt flats, the dense forests and lakes of the high Uintas, there are hot springs, and sand dunes and peaks still dusted in snow.

It took us about two hours to get this place, splitting gas costs $9 each. We got to feel the strange coarse texture of salt under bare feet, and star-gazed under of one of the widest skies I've ever seen. I begin thinking back on what I allocate my time to. Two hours of netflix happens easily, two hours through the course of the day on my phone, two hours spent deciding what to wear for a date, two hours procrastinating going on a run.... Days spent in reoccurring patterns, so that tomorrow and today are so much the same that they easily become indistinguishable as yesterdays.

I took a pause there on the flats, took some space of mind. As dark settled, my friend Kyle reminded us that all the planets in the solar system lined up radius to radius still wouldn't bridge the gap from the Earth to the Moon. I'm humbled by that, and humbled at how inconsequential the size of this  plain of salt is in comparison to that distance. I'm humbled by how lengthy a single day can seem, and at the same time humbled by the brevity of a life.

As Promised

Today I turned twenty, and the rain finally came.

It's been promising to for days. Clouds heavy with it, hanging over the valley. We've seen it in the mountains - enveloping them in an opaque mist. The sun pulling colors sharply out of such a soft covering.

On Sunday evening, I ran out barefoot on the sidewalk with my brother and his children to see this:

The splayed branches of the walnut tree out front blocked the view from the living room window, but just stepping a little beyond their yard, we could see it. My nephew Leif was held up in his father's arms, his small hand (still rounded by his baby fat) pointing towards the double rainbow.

Today I turned twenty and the rain finally came.

It's been promising to for days. It started like it was a secret, lightly falling as I was biking home at 11pm. Fat drops rolling over my jacket, giving it the same reflective sheen as the puddles pooling on the street. Water soaked through my socks and I could feel the cool touch of it on my thighs as I kept pedaling.

When I got home, I laughed to see our sprinkler system on. The noise of the spray and chik-a-chik-a as the nozzle turned drowned out the soothing patter of rainfall. This system designed to keep our lawns green and picturesquely suburban in defiance of the desert landscape. We get most of our water from snow that accumulates in the mountains. And even that's dry. Feet and feet of snow melt down to a few inches of water in the spring, rushing down waterfalls and stream beds into the valley.  

This rain, and the humidity that's been lingering in the air for days are unfamiliar here. I take a deep breath in, savoring the scent of petrichor. It reminds me where I grew up in Ohio. My father grumbled constantly about overcast skies. And thunderstorms came with the regularity of sun rise and sun set. I was lulled to sleep by the ring of rain rushing down the metal drain pipe outside. I'd wake up during sudden flashes of lightning and count the seconds until I heard the companion clap of thunder.

I turned twenty today and the rain finally came. Instead of going inside and to bed, I took off my shoes and left my helmet on the front stoop and walked out into it.

I feel like twenty is an incredible leap from nineteen. I've had two years of transitioning, while still being justified by that four letter suffix teen. But I turned twenty today and have been confronted with being an adult - whatever that means in a culture that draws out an infinite adolescence. I am an unemployed-college-student, owning neither my own set of cutlery nor my own car. I'd like to feel put-together, secure, confident and dry - but once you're drenched who gives a damn? The rain can keep on falling, it's already done its worst.

I am soaking wet and I let the rain strip away the persona of adulthood too. I leap into the water like I would when I was a kid - just to hear the sound of the splash. It's late and dark, and there's no one out here to see me. No one to see me crouch down to listen more intently to the water singing as it spills out to into a thick stream in the gutter. No one to wonder as I study droplets settling on top of upward facing leaves. There's no one to think I'm crazy as I touch my hand to the sidewalk and then to the street - comparing in my mind the texture of wet concrete and asphalt.

But as I hear a car approaching, it's headlights spilling light across the road, I feel myself tense up. I stand up quickly and pretend to be walking forward. Just as much as I want to feel the rain on my face, I want this stranger passing by to see me as being a twenty year old... as the adult I've been promising to become. 

With what little I bring

"Does the sun ask itself, 'Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?' No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself 'What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?' No it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself 'Am I as big as the other suns in other galaxies?' No, it burns, it shines."

 I am a practicing Latter-Day-Saint, but I grew up surrounded by Jewish tradition from my father's side of the family. The rituals and remembrances of holidays like Passover and Hannukah hold deep importance for me. This year though, as we lit the Hannukah candles and my brother retold the story of the re-dedication of the temple, I began to think of the story in a different light....

  

A long, long time ago, around the 2nd century BC, a group of Jews revolted against the Greeks who were ruling them in order to regain the ability to worship their God. The Jewish temple had been completely defiled by the Greeks - a statue of Zeus erected in it. When the Maccabees won the temple back, they had to re-dedicate it, which involved a process of lighting oil in the temple over a span of eight days. However, they could only find a single jar of oil which would only provide fuel for a single night. And this is where it gets interesting, because they decide to light that bit of oil anyway. The miracle is that it lasted for all eight days. That's what we celebrate. 

Hannukah isn't actually a high-holy day for Jews. I love celebrating it, but always thought of it as the Jewish holiday which was blown out of proportion because it landed close to Christmas. But this year, I take it as a reminder of trust, and moving forward with faith. 

There's a lot of situations in life, when we feel that we do not have enough to accomplish what we need to do. Or enough to accomplish what others may demand from us. That feeling can be paralyzing. Sometimes, we want to count ourselves out before trying. Hannukah is a reminder to us that what little we bring may be sufficient. A reminder to move forward, trusting and praying that the difference will be filled in. 

Next semester, I'm starting a highly competitive program in my University. There was already one application process to fill 40 spots in the pre-major classes. At the end of the semester I'll submit a portfolio of my work. This, in conjunction with my grades and a professionalism score, will dictate whether or not I get in to the Industrial Design program. 

If  you know me, I'm great at catastrophizing. I was hesitant to put in the first application - sure I wouldn't make the cut. I'm grateful for the encouragement of friends. It's funny to me, that after all these years of formal education in Math, Science and English - booky subjects that I've excelled in - I want to go into something which is a completely new kind of skill. This is a field where you have classes on creative thinking. A field where instead of taking tests you build things in a lab full of power tools. 

I feel like I only bring a little bit with me. I have outlandish, creative ideas, a good background in drawing and a diligence in pursuing my goals. Instead of thinking that this is cannot possibly be enough, and instead of focusing on everyone else's amazing talent, I'm just going to light my oil and see how brightly it burns. 

I Have Been to the Mountain Top

The walking was not always my favorite part of backpacking - especially in the first few days of acclimating to our new routine.

Looking down at my feet for so long became dizzying. The woods were just a vague periphery of blurring green as I focused on not tripping over rocks. I had no concept of distance or time - I couldn't have told you if I'd been out for three hours or one. Even more difficult was reckoning how far we may have (or may have not) traveled in a certain amount of time. The physical exertion of carrying a load - particularly up steeper ascents - robbed me of coherent thought and the ability to converse. Even if I was not gulping for air, all the energy from the single granola bar you'd eaten that morning (how long ago was that?), was channeled into movement rather than remembering that you know how to speak.

In those first few days, the views from the peaks of the mountains were our little victories. They justified the climb, because any landscape looks more stunning when you can feel the height in your legs. The tightness in my calves screamed, 'I've earned this.'

On our third day out, we stopped to rest, looking over a view of rural New York farm land. We spent a long time pouring over the scene, pointing things out to each other. Molly waxed poetic about the rustic red barn that was nestled under deep green foliage. There was a pale blue farmhouse nearby with white railings around its porch. A flag pole stood behind it, which looked to be about the size of a toothpick.

We laughed at the scale of it all, and  grappled to wrap our minds around it. Conceptually we knew that if we were standing next to that flagpole, it would tower over us. The stars and stripes would be billowing far above our heads. Similarly, we understood conceptually that we could fit our whole bodies in the moving pinpricks which were actually cars on a country road. But at the same time, the notion seemed laughable.

I spotted a solitary white speck, moving along the treeline by the farmhouse. We postulated that maybe it was another hiker. We were ecstatic at the possibility that in the next couple of days we could become a part of this landscape.

Only a few hours later, I was shouting, "Look, look! The blue farm house!" We gaped at it in awe and turned around to look at the mountains behind us, guessing at which ledge we'd been sitting on before. We jumped up and down giddily filled with that crazy kind of excitement that demands to burst out of you. I knew exactly what I looked like from an aerial view! I was that tiny speck. The woods next to me were not as deep as they looked, but rather a strip separating this field to the next. To my right at a distance there was a small town with old cozy houses and ahead of us were the roads where those car pinpricks had sped along.

For days we'd been following the white blaze trail markers as if they were our glorified bread crumb trail. It was eerie to know so certainly where we were and what the context of that place was. I had never known before what came next.

How to Fend off a Black Bear Attack

If you happen to see a bear, but it does not see you, quickly and calmly leave the area, or make a wide detour around it.

If you happen to have a close encounter....

1) Talk calmly and firmly to the bear, remain calm. Bears can smell fear.
2) Back away while still facing the bear - do not, however, make eye contact. Similar to hippogriffs, black bears may interpret it as a sign of aggression. Give the bear plenty of room to escape.
3)  Whatever you do - don't run. Running is likely to cause the bear to give chase. You may have run track in high school, but bears can hit 30 mph. The bear will win. The same goes for climbing trees, and despite what the lego model at the Ohio State Fair may lead you to believe, bears are excellent climbers.

Seen at the State Fair - demonstrates poor survival strategy

I'm not entirely proud to report that during my first encounter with a black bear, I only managed to follow one piece of this survival advice - by which I mean I managed to avoid ending up in a tree.

Molly and I were finishing out a longer day on the trail, when my Achilles tendon began to ache. I became slower and slower, practically hobbling by the last mile as the sun was getting closer to setting. To make matters worse, we were expecting some heavy storms that night as the cold front came in.

"We're within a mile of camp, go ahead" I told Molly, knowing storms make her anxious and we'd already figured out setting our tent up after dark was a poor choice. "Set up the tent, get stuff ready, I'll see you at camp."

"Are you sure?" she asked, looking at my ankle dubiously and clearly hesitant to leave.

"Yeah, do it." I said, and after taking a moment to consider, she quickened her pace and rapidly moved out of sight.

Having been a runner before I was a hiker, I think of miles as short little things. Miles are knocked out in six or seven minutes. Backpacking is an entirely different beast though. Each mile is more like an impossibly long eternity and you try to cram up to 15 of them all in one day.

Hiking alone wasn't too bad. The woods were eerily quietly at first without Molly there - no conversation, not even the sound of her footsteps crashing over rocks and through the layer of past year's fallen leaves. But the eery turned to a peaceful stillness and I thought, I could really do this, I could hike solo. 

And then the crashing returned. I heard a the snapping of sticks and the sounds of something approaching. I wasn't even concerned, the AT intersected with another trail, Pine Knob Loop at that point. It was probably just another hiker. Or maybe it was even Molly; had she turned down the wrong trail or thought this was the off trail for our campsite?

I stopped. I stood. I considered. I peered into the woods. I was about to call out her name, to check, and just then, the bear emerged. My first thought was, 'wow, that's a lot smaller than I imagined' and my second reaction was a sudden swell of panic rose which rose up inside me. Here I was, alone and injured, on a mountain, miles away from civilization, five to ten feet away from a bear. There was no nice bulletproof glass between us like at the zoo, when you just get to stare at the bear and coo over how beautiful it is.

Holy. Crap. Why did I choose this? I brought this upon myself! Usually, the black bears here are skittish. If they hear you coming, they avoid you. I had snuck up on him.

All of the advice for dealing with bears that I'd read sped through my head in a flash. And then, I ignored it. All of it. I turned on my heel and walked rapidly away, which would almost be alright... if he hadn't seen me. In actuality, the bear and I practically made eye contact. I was not quiet by any means as I spoke-shouted a fervent prayer to the almighty.

Please God, Bless that I will make it to the campsite safely. 
Please God, Bless that I will make it to the campsite safely. 
Please God.... over and over again.

The bear wouldn't have needed to smell the fear on me, because it already manifest in the wavering of my voice. That mile was infinite. I had begun to worry too that I had somehow passed the campsite when I saw a figure running toward me brandishing something - Molly, it was Molly, rain jacket tied snugly around her waist brandishing her big Cutco knife (it was still in it's sheath).

I was so glad to see her! I burst into tears.

I stood there, in the middle of the trail, crying. The tough, wilderness-ready person that I thought I was, any image of that, crumbled away. I felt more like the cowardly lion than Bear Grylls. I was hyperventilating, probably the closest I've been to a panic attack in my entire life.

"Judith, Look into my eyes, deep breathes, look at me, are you okay?" The words tumbled out of Molly's mouth like one drawn out sentence. I could tell she was concerned, but also uncomfortable with the situation, "Is it your ankle? Is it that bad? We can go home early if you need to, it's okay. Are you okay?"

I gasped out an explanation about the bear and the onset of darkness and the bear and the bear again... and then let out a couple more chocked up sobs.

"You saw a bear?!" A grin spread across Molly's face, "I know now is probably not an appropriate time to say this, but I am so jealous!"

Of course. Of course she was. I could only laugh.

No homework happened tonight...only cakes

Brandy's cake (she's turning 21 whoot whoot!)

Nathaniel's cake

Matt's cake

Three birthdays, three cakes, all on one day. Baking these was the most delicious way to procrastinate studying for my midterms.

Vandal

Nestled in the folds of the mountains,

I walk through a place reclaimed.

I am taken in by the sweeping curves of crude oil tanks,

and dilapidated walls of industry before me -

Riveting and soul-swelling as the snowy peaks that rise up behind them.

Graffiti is scrawled on every surface.

There are layers of images,

Paint on top of paint -

Thick extrusions from a concrete surface.

I can imagine the pilgrimage to this place.

A procession of figures,

carrying aluminum cans like sacrifices at the altar.

The crisp clear air filled with the reek of aerosol.

This place has a sense of sacredness, an ache of reverence.

If the human mind was tangible,

A place that could be wandered through,

it would be like this.

Our hopes, concerns, and experiences

imprinted and overlaid on walls that are crumbling down.

The relentless mind-chatter of the quotidian,

scrawled over our greatest insights,

obscuring them from remembrance.

A cartoon bear with his mouth wide open,

exclaiming “Set out and konquer!”

First Snow

Em had never seen snow before, and so as we exited our Anthropology into a morning that was thick with the stuff, her eyes grew wide with a child-like amazement. I couldn't stop laughing. Raised in the Midwest, it's difficult for me to remember that harsh winters are not entirely part of the common human experience. I was reminded of the student who'd moved from Brazil in sixth grade and how he stood up in the middle of class and walked over to the window at first snow. He'd had that same look of awe on his face.

'You've never seen snow before?'

'Nope. Southern California isn't really the place for it' she replied, voice dripping in sarcasm.

'So, you've never gone sledding before?'

'Nope.'

'Or had a snowball fight?'

She shook her head

'And never built a snowman....' Now I was the one in shock...

The amazement in Em's eyes had been replaced with an expression that strongly communicated duh. But I was too caught up in how many activities we had to fit in this winter.

First Snowman! Built right then and there outside of Anthropology lecture.

Our attempt pales in comparison to this Michelangelic piece I saw in front of the Brittany apartments. 

Nächstenliebe

When I heard about his accident, my heart dropped. I was waking up groggily to what I thought was just-another-day, when my sister asked if I'd heard the news. I prayed in earnest: Dear God, if anyone deserves a miracle, it's that boy.

I thought of trampolines, soccer games and him catching grapes in his mouth as his mother tossed them from across the kitchen. I thought of his comfortable, crowded dining room table, and of each one of his sisters. I thought of sledding, and last winter when we laid down, limbs spread wide, like starfish on cool thin ice.

And then I imagined dark pavement and blood, the lifeline flight and his body in a coma at the hospital.

I felt sick. I felt paralyzed. And it was just-another day.

I want to tell him about that day. As I walked to class, I loved every person I saw with more love than I knew I had inside of me. My concern was magnified into empathy by a single, simple realization. Every one of the people on this earth has an intricate web of relationships. Every person has a mother, a father, and friends, and they are so important, if not to me, than to someone else. I could feel only gratitude that all these people around me were laughing, walking and whole. And if that wholeness was stripped from them at that moment, I knew that it would create as much heart wrench as this boy’s accident did for those who loved him.

I care fiercely for my friend’s life and the gift of his accident to me was that I felt that same fierce care for each and every life on that day. Regardless of anything else, a heartbeat, a breath and an awareness of the world seems enough to be happy for wherever it's found.

The overwhelming sense of that love has faded, but the memory of it is still there. It's a feeling that I can reach back to and pinpoint when I'm being mindful. And when I do, gratitude swells up in me again.

Bicycles & Wonder

I stood out on the drive way of my brother's house, watching his two kids. They had their little bikes out, spinning up and down that concrete strip.

My nephew just turned three. He doesn't really ride his bike, he just pushes with his feet along the ground while sitting on the seat. It's more of a shuffling approach.

A Younger Lijah

"Hey, Lijah, put your feet on the pedals bud." I told him.

Lifting his feet he put them on the pedals and pushed down hard on both at once - a look of fierce determination on his face. He didn't move.

I reached down and pushed on one foot, then told him to press down the other. He altered his pressure painfully slow from his left to his right, creeping forward. After about three minutes, he went back to happily shuffling again.

There are some things that we do so often that we don't even realize that they were once unknown and had to be learned. I was too young to remember my first steps and I don't recall learning to pedal clearly either. But I do remember my big sister teaching me to pump my legs, propelling myself back and forth on the swing set. I remember learning how to ride without training wheels. My first attempt was downhill at a park by our house. It ended disastrously as I veered off the path, headlong into a cherry tree. It took time.

One of the greatest joys of being an Aunt is re-experiencing a discovery of the world. I have a Ray Bradbury quote tacked up on a cork board at home - the first line reads "stuff your eyes with wonder." I can see that's what my little nephews and niece are doing when I watch them. The little breakthroughs are huge milestones of progression in their lives.

When I see Lijah bike, or my baby nephews start to take their first steps; I see in their smiles that they are saying 'Look at me, look at all that I am capable of!'

I hope they never lose that sense of wonder about themselves.

Bird-bones

I remember when I was all
Wire and feathers
Bird-boned and spry.

Hunger hollowed out my belly,
Sunk my in my cheeks,
Set deep brown eyes.

There was a grinding on my mind
From the time I woke up
Running hands down my
Horizontal frame
To the time I slipped back
Into the only sweet
Release I had,
Asleep.

Brittle hair
Swirling toward the drain.
so thin,
The wind could blow
Right through me,
Shivers.

Lifting up each spoonful
Leaden. Heavy.

Waiting on the Parade

Taken Fourth of July 2013

Candid

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art." Eleanor Roosevelt

My Uncle Paul took this photo of my Grandmother at a recent family wedding. It's one of my favorites.

My Grandmother is a very practical and sensible woman. She's strong, reliable, kind, optimistic and has an incredible testimony and faith.

My Grandfather and her are still so vigorous and full of love for the people around them -they haven't forgotten how to have a good time either.

That's what makes the picture so great, her smile and her laughter :)

We're all more than the faces we see in the mirror, or our bodies. So much personality is dynamic, caught in our mannerism, routines and words. It's beautiful when a photograph can contradict its stagnant nature by capturing our dynamism.

I think we call it 'candid'