That is My Thing

For this exercise I chose to imitate Becca Wilhite’s “Writing and Life.” I was immediately drawn to the format and structure of it. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a poem, it might be, but I just really liked the format. I like the short phrases and the idea of conveying your thoughts like that because it’s very straightforward and right to the point and truth. Obviously mine will be about a completely different topic with a few alterations and of course, my own voice.

School is not my thing.

It is an unspoken expectation—a part of life I dislike and cry and lose sleep over.

But the Quest for Wisdom, that’s my thing.

Searching and discovering and asking and answering

and reading and writing and praying and listening and sharing and

learning

and understanding

and judging and discerning

and “ah-ha!”-ing

and doubting

and even admitting I was wrong (sometimes)

and seeking truth

and finding virtue and beauty in everyone and everything around me.

 And putting thoughts onto paper.

Lots of thoughts.

Sometimes questioning if it even matters.

Is it just all nonsense?

Just some silly woman’s advice?

Just some unimportant realizations and truths?

But then again, questioning is my thing.

 And so even that becomes a good thing,

not a hinder to my Quest.

All that list,

all of it,

that is my thing.

And I love every piece of it.

My own Quest for Wisdom.

That is my thing.  

 

*I am so sorry it took me forever. I just couldn't get it on here correctly for some reason*

Fill me with loneliness; Drink it as love

 

I was really frustrated by Becca Wilhite's essay "One Thing I Do Well" because it seemed to be so honest and raw, but then she just accepted guilt as reality, passed it on to her children. That's that guys, this is how it feels and now everyone can have some! Oh gee, thanks . . . is how I felt. So I decided to try and imitate her format, but I was going to try and tweek the outcome to not only reflect who I am, but to show something greater than lackadaisical acceptance.



It fills every silent corner and rolls across each room like the booming ticks of a small mantle clock. Frightening, pervasive, indelible, and ever-stalking the peace of solitude. How is it possible that nobody else notices it? It must be just me. If I'd taken more time when I had time, I wouldn't feel it either.

It highlights the pictures of family members I haven't seen in months. I feeds off of white noise making me state more obvious. It dredges up memories that I wish weren't so distant. It paints brilliant hypotheticals that I can only imagine I'm missing.

It's loneliness, and I am really good at it.

Where does it come from? I'll tell you where it comes from. Everywhere. From the fact that I just got off a phone call with words that couldn't be spoken in person. From empty evenings pregnant with homework instead of siblings orchestra concerts, soccer games, first words, and story time—I tell myself that it's okay, I'll make up lost time, I'll won't be so busy and isolated for much longer. It comes from having responsibilities that I can't ignore till I'm abandoned by any company because I first abandoned them. It comes from sitting silently wishing someone would knock on the door, going to sleep along, waking alone, walking alone, thinking alone.

It comes when I realize that my siblings are growing up and I'm not there. When "Hey it's Natalie!" becomes a frequent reference to a calling device instead of my face. When me coming home is an occasion and not the everyday. It comes when I remember that my five-year-old brother cried in a corner outside the temple because he though my wedding meant he'd never see me again. I held him and whispered promises; I prayed because I felt the gaps of time chasing me down. It comes when another brother tries not to cry when I leave, or a sister clutching me saying, "call me, we'll figure out what to talk about." When I say I'll teach her to crochet someday, or I'll read him Harry Potter, that I'll teach her French, we'll analyze Lord of the Rings, talk about boys, play frisbee, go on walks, go shopping, go to a movie, go on a double date, practice yoga, learn to draw, stargaze from the roof, roast s'mores, or sit and do nothing. 

Oh wait, I don't have time to do nothing, no matter how important, I'm too busy being laboriously lonely. 

Sometimes I am a well of loneliness. I can dig into my soul like deep earth and etch out the regrets of all that I'm missing. But, though I'm good at loneliness, the impression in my being, while a void to me, houses love for others. I fill up my cavity with water to share. Each voice mail, each letter, each picture might fill me with loneliness but I drink it as love. Some younger siblings may tell you that they were always alone or that their older siblings didn't care. Not my siblings. Phone calls and letters. Skype and short visits. And how do you think I feel about that?

Give you one guess.    

Disney Princess Hunger Games

My favorite essayist to read by far was DeNae Handy—she’s just hilarious. I decided to try imitating some aspects of her essay entitled, “I Do, Already.” My essay isn’t about love or marriage or plucking chin hairs, but it’s about my friend group that serves as my BYU family. I tried to base the story mostly on dialogue and to fill it with personality and humor like DeNae did. And to do something different than my last couple posts. Hopefully y’all will enjoy.  :)

(Names have been changed, pictures are mine.)

“It’s gotta be Mulan.”

“Why not Merida? She’s got some sweet archery skills.”

“But does she also have hand-to-hand combat, swordsmanship, and the brains to wipe out an entire army with a single cannon and some snow? I don’t think so.”

It’s our second round of Disney Princess Hunger Games in as many days, and the Gamemakers of Apartment 9¾ are hard at work. We’ve got two whiteboards out: one with a map of the New Orleans arena (drawn by Wes, a native of the NOLA area) and the other with a list of characters and events. 

I’m not sure whose baby this idea was, but we’re the village raising it.

Yeah, we’re pretty weird. But it’s a good weird . . . I think.

Courtney, our Head Gamemaker, sits Gandhi-style (as opposed to Gangnam Style, although she does have talents for dancing) atop an end table, marker in hand. “The map is done, yes?” she asks Wes, who nods and holds up his work.

“‘Waterlogged ghetto’?” Daniel asks, peering at said region of the map.

“The Lower 9^th Ward and Chalmette,” I tell him. “My turf. But it was dry long before my mission even started, Wes.”

“It is pretty ghetto, though,” he says, dodging the elbow I shove at him. “Except for the Brad Pitt houses.”

Leann wrinkles her nose. “Multiple summer homes in one city? Typical Brad Pitt.”

“They’re not his houses,” I clarify. “After Hurricane Katrina, he paid to have all these apartment-style houses built in the spot that had been hit the hardest—gave them away. Nice of him. They were supposed to be ‘trendy’, but mostly they’re just ridiculous.”

“Right?” Wes says. “Their bright colors are pukeworthy.”

Stephanie creeps into the room—probably trying to hide her dressy shirt and curled hair—but gives herself away when she steps on the now-empty bag of Leann’s homemade popcorn. We finished it long ago—I don’t think Leann ate more than a couple handfuls.

“Look who’s all ready for her date!” Courtney squeals.

“You look great!” Gretchen tells Stephanie. “If he compliments your hair, you can thank me. Are you leaving right now?”

“Almost. I’ve just gotta put on my legs.” She rolls up her jeans and straps on her braces.

“Aw—you’ll miss Mulan winning the New Orleans edition,” I tell her.

Jake winces for me. “Actually, Mulan is dead.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since we lit the city on fire.”

“I thought we’d decided on a swarm of nutria rats.”

“That’s not ‘til later.”

A knock at the door fails to interrupt us. “Come in!” we all shout without looking up. In walks Tanner—one of the cutest guys in the complex. Someone who, in my brain’s idealistic fantasy world, actually thinks I’m borderline cool. I remember what we’re doing and wince.

“What are you guys up to?” he asks before spotting the whiteboards. “Oh my gosh—Disney Princess Hunger Games? Are you guys serious?” Before we have time to answer, he rushes on: “Rapunzel is going to win, right? She’s got crazy arm strength from hauling her stepmother into her tower all the time.”

Yeah, we’re a good weird. 

Considering the other Gender

In Tell Me Who I Am Ken Craig writes about miscarriage, and states "For how common they are, rarely are they discussed." And he's right. Of course, Ken Craig points out that that's because of how personal the experience is, and I respect that. I know my mom had three miscarriages and four of my sisters had at least one, but it's not something we discuss too much. I only know a little about what my mom and sisters experienced. What I've never considered though, is how my father and my brother-in-laws felt about the miscarriages.

Ken Craig tells a his side of what we usually think of as a "woman's experience." Of course, there's no cutting the women out of the experience of miscarriage, but surely we should consider the men that are involved and heartbroken along with their wives.

With Ken Graig's inspiration, I decided to write my husband's side of juggling student and parent life. (And since, I'm not actually him, I'm pretending. Humor me.)

I come home from work and the house is worse than when I left, and I feel a pang of guilt because I left it BAD. I hear an irritating snap as I step on one of Lydia's crayons. The exhaustion from a six o'clock and a ten hour day of work flames into annoyance. Will she ever learn to pick these up? But I'm distracted immediately by, "DAAAAAAAADY! Daddy home. Work all done!" Oh that grin. It melts the annoyance right out of my heart. Her face is covered with jam, her fairy wings are on upside, and she's wearing ten necklaces. I scoop her up in my arms, and we start to wrestle. She screams and laughs and jumps on me. Valerie comes out the bedroom where she's been putting Lincoln down. She give me a hello kiss in between the zurberts I'm giving Lydia, but it's a distracted kiss, and her "Hello, welcome home," is distracted too. She turns right to her textbook. I feel a bite of dissapointment, and I untangle myself from Lydia. My exhaustion is coming back. Valerie closes her book. She says she had to finish that page while Lydia was busy.

Falcon

In reading for this week’s class, I was interested in the form DeNae Handy uses in her essay, “An Epistle to the Roamin’(s).” In it, she performs her own imitations of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, conforming an anecdote about her children into New Testament standards of diction, tone, and verse division. Handy’s essay is only loosely related to the Book of Romans, but I wanted to adhere more strictly to a particular scripture in writing mine. Thus, my imitation only imitates Handy in that it imitates something else: in this case, Alma 29. My essay, unlike Handy's, is not a narrative, nor does it include, I hope, any amount of shtick.

An Epistle Unto Mine Roommates Concerning General Cleanliness

After reading Tell Me Who I Am, the essay that stuck with me the most was "An Epistle to the Roamin'(s)." The clever use of Biblical language to talk about a frustrating event with Handy's children was very comical. I chose to do the same with my imitation, but talking about my roommates and our inability to follow simple house rules. 

Brethren, blessed be thy names for the patience which thou hast shown unto me, the least of these, thy roommates.

And on this day, in spite of all of these, our many differences and afflictions, let us be renewed in our dedication to follow but a few simple rules of thine home, which is mine home as well.

For it is the evil one that enticeth thee to leave out thy utensils in half eaten bowls of Strawberry Special K, that girlest of cereals.

It is that evil one who tempteth thee to leave thy lights on as thou steppest out into the world, rendering thy bill of electricity twain.

It is that evil one who telleth thee, “Behold, this milk stinketh not, and thou shalt use it to my own bidding, regardless of previous ownership.”

Yea, it is that same evil one that beckoneth thee to take thy roommates girlfriend of old on excursions of romantic nature to Fat Cats with the intent to drag her into thy grasp eternally, in spite of the tender feelings of he who thou didst share a bunk with.

Behold, my brethren, I say unto thee, have we not established norms to the contrary? Have we drifted so far from that which doth entice us to live in harmony one with another?

Oh, how my heart longeth to return to a state of contentment, flourishing in times of abundant laughter at videos of the YouTube and hugs of the order of the bro.

Yea, it is not so at this time, and the evil one laughs at our messes and follies;

Therefore, awake! Awake my brethren of the order of 780E 620N! No longer neglect the rules of this abode, which sit as they always have on the corner of thy fridge, collecting dust as does your Strength of Youth Pamphlet of old.

Yea, moreover, I perceive that you have forgotten these laws which were meant to govern thee to prosperity and oneness. These, I will unfold unto you again, having obtained the content thereof from behind the hoard of engagement reminders that do haunt thy conscience on the daily, telling thee what thou hast neglected in favor of games of the video nature and frequent travels to Betos, that land of filth that enticeth thee even now.

Him that hath ears, may he listen! Him that hath homework, may he neglect it further! Him that continueth to play thy drums, cease such, for these words do cry from the dust.

The ten read as followeth:

1.     Ye have heard it hath been said by them of old that thou shalt not clean thy dishes; but I say unto thee that whosoever is found guilty of such is a friend of deceit and wickedness and in danger of hellfire.

2.     Agree with thine roommate on the channel which thou shalt watch, for they are not all those whom enjoy a Will Smith TNT special in the early afternoon, yea, they are few.

3.     Behold, it is written by them of old time that thou shalt not let thy snooze runneth more than once. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh away from his snooze in thought hath already committed sin in his head.

4.     It hath been written that whosoever shall leave thy front door unlocked shall be put under condemnation. But verily, I say unto you, that whosoever doeth the same with the side door, are these not all paths into our home? Yea, they are, and must be locked, lest strangers be turned towards thy Frosted Flakes.

5.     Do unto your roommates ex as ye would have him do unto thine own. If ye are found to be in agreement over such, this is good, but it availeth a man nothing to swoop on his bro, lest he be cast down for his evil doings.  

6.     Again, it is written that whosoever shall participate in weekly cleanings shall be blessed and have his joys multiplied accordingly, while he who pretendeth to sleep on to avoid his shift shall be damned.

7.     By way of reminder, thou shalt not leave the heat on.

8.     Thou shalt not take thy roommates iPhone charger.

9.     Thou shalt not look on a roommates condiments in lust, but shall rather by them of his own accord, using his own coupons.

1

And in closing, be ye perfect, even as thou thinkest thy self to be perfect, and all will be well.

Abide by these laws, my brethren, that we may live in peace.

For knoweth not the man the dishes he hath not cleaned? How loveth a man the home he hath not vacuumed?

Go, my sons, and sin no more, that all may be well in the kingdom, and that we might tolerate the presence of one another until the close of April.

The Helping Hand

After reading the "Tell Me Who I Am" books of essays, I find myself remembering the first essay. In her essay "All We, Like Sheep", Denae Handy writes a hilarious essay about her experience administering medicine to sheep in the Peruvian Andes. She writes funny and detailed description of her experience with seemingly no larger point. However, in the last page Handy takes a simple story and relates a personal lesson she learned. The majority of her essay was not building up to any moral and just made for a great story and I liked how she waited until the end add a more spiritual touch. She began with humor and ended with a moral. In my essay, I imitate that style.

During the summer before my sophomore year of high school I learned that a two mile hike does not prepare you for a 22 mile hike, especially if you didn't even attend the preparatory 2 miler. Let's just say I was not in the best of shape that summer and hiking to prepare for hiking was not at the top of my summer fun list.

The young men of our ward always went on intense High Adventures: 50 mile hikes, 80 mile kayaking trips and submitting Mt. Everest (not really the last one but you would think they had with all their bragging). My Young Women's president, who was an outdoor junkie, decided that the young women would embark on our own "high adventure". The first attempt was a two mile canoe trip. My canoe partner and I had to be towed to shore. After that "high adventure", we secretly began calling our outdoor experiences "low adventures". However, our next hike would make us bite our tongues. Like really hard.

The trail was called the Pacific Crest Trail. Our destination was a small town near Lake Chelan, Washington. We began the hike on a rather flat part of the trail. With 40lbs packs and 85 degree weather, exhaustion was soon to show it ugly face but the start-of-the-trail optimism overshadowed the impending doom for a while. Our leaders told us the total distance was 11 miles, we would walk five the first day and six the second. HA! That was a joke. At mile five we had all run out of water but I mean its not like water is essential or anything.

Don't Leave the Bubbles Unsupervised and Other Important Advise

I really enjoyed Chris Clark's essay, Un-Coaching. I found his tone humorous and liked how he spent the essay giving advice on what not to do, which goes against the typical essay which is usually about what one should do. I'm going to attempt to do something similar in terms of what not to do when working with young children, ages zero to two.

Over the summer I had the opportunity to work as a counselor at a family camp. My job was to supervise and entertain (essentially babysit) children ages zero to two twice a day for a total of about five hours. Previous to this job I thought I knew how to care for children and what it took to keep them entertained. I was wrong. The following is a list of some lessons I learned over the course of the summer.

• Don't expect the one year olds (and a fair amount of the two year olds) to be interested in crafts. Typically they'll be more interested in playing with toys, going outside, or crying because their parents just left as opposed to caring about what you're doing with glue, paper, and crayons.
• Don't take any children for walks who aren't firmly strapped into a stroller. Even if they promise to hold your hand chances are they'll see something/someone they want to go play with and they will run away from you. Unless you want to spend time chasing a child in an non-enclosed area with the chance of their parents seeing you almost lose their child, I would suggest leaving the child that is not in the stroller back in the fenced off yard with the other children and counselors.
• Don't leave the bubbles unsupervised. Even if you think the lid is screwed on tight enough, chances are it's not and that someone will get a hold of it and spill most, if not all of its contents. Also, don't let the kids hold the bubble wands if they are under the age of two. If you do they will likely not know how to actually blow a bubble and will just get really sticky.
• Don't leave dropped snacks on the grass for the squirrels to find and eat later. Often times it's not the squirrels who end up eating those discarded Fruit Loops and Gold Fish crackers.
• Don't attempt to put down certain children in cribs after they have fallen asleep in your arms. Often times they will wake up and if you thought it was hard getting them to sleep the first time, it's going to be even harder the second time.
• Don't push the kids too high in the swings. Some of them love it and if they ask for that, great, give it to them. But if they don't ask to go high, don't assume they want to go high.
• Don't discount the power of a good Disney movie when trying to put the kids down for a nap. Even if they "aren't tired," they will likely still lay down to watch it and chances are they will still fall asleep.
• Finally, don't forget to have fun. Because as hard as it can be sometimes to watch 16 two-year-olds with only one other person to help you, it can also be a lot of fun and an opportunity to make some good memories.

Picture from Pixabay.com

april 17th, 2009.

I am going to (try and) imitate Debbie Frampton’s essay Letting Daddy Die as I continue to build upon my experience in getting mono in high school. I am going to focus on imitating the reflection she has during the event of her essay (looking back at memories while also explaining the situation at hand). I don’t usually do this, but I think it would add a little bit more to this story of mine. However, her essay ends feeling very unresolved, but I don’t think that would be possible when referencing scripture since the point of the scripture is to bring a sort of peace or resolution to the problem. I may or may not include the scripture. We shall see what happens as I write it:

My eyes fluttered open and closed as my mother sped down the freeway to the ER. Lying back in the front seat of my dad’s Honda, I saw small, blurred stars against the navy blanket of sky, a rare clarity for April in Seattle. I saw the worry on my mom’s face as she frequently glanced at my sweat sheened forehead. When we got to the hospital, I was helped into a wheelchair and pushed into a room, then shuffled into a bed to lie down again. My head bobbed around as I was asleep more than I was awake in that visit. When spoken to, I looked at my mom for reassurance, but I only saw worry and fear. I tried my best to answer their questions, but my words slurred, half of them being lost in what I thought was a dream and the rest not even said because I actually was dreaming.