Filosofia

(Drawn awhile ago, but found recently)

"We all start with preconceived notions of what we want from life.  These include the basic needs programmed by our genes to ensure survival - the need for food, comfort, sex, dominance over other beings.  They also include the desires that our specific culture has inculcated to us - to be slim, rich, educated, and well liked.  If we embrace these goals and are lucky, we may replicate the ideal physical and social image for our historical time and place.  But is this the best sure of our psychic energy?  And what if we cannot realize these ends?

We will never become aware of other possibilities unless, like the painter who watches with care what is happening on the canvas, we pay attention to what is happening around us, and evaluate events on the basis of their direct impact on how we feel, rather than evaluating them exclusively in terms of preconceived notions.  If we do so we may discover that, contrary to what we were led to believe, it is more satisfying to help another person than to beat him down, or that it is more enjoyable to talk with one's two-year-old than to play golf with the company president."

- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Back to School and My 32 New Best Friends

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--

And why the sea is boiling hot--

And whether pigs have wings."

- Lewis Carroll

I regret not holding my lunch box picture-side-out.

"So are you excited yet???!!!" one of the Chi Omega sorority girls asked me, bouncing down the stairs from moving some of her boxes up there.  

There was a small pause, as I wanted to respond with as much energy but knew my personality would only be able to muster a snail paced, "Yeah!.... Sure." 

I probably shouldn't have added the "sure", but there it was.  

I am excited, in my own way, and I know that my 25 year old brother has called this new job, "A dream come true."  I'm the new Housemother, as they say, though I find Housing Director to sound a little more professional - in the same way that "rabbit" sounds more respectable than "bunny".  I'm more of a rabbit, though I wonder if I come off as more of a bunny?  

So far, my most exciting moment has been finding food in the kitchen, that I can eat, which I didn't have to go out and buy myself.  In the early AM yesterday I was heading out to the ropes course, already having resigned myself to just having my coffee and Kefir, as I hadn't bought anything in the way of breakfast food (bummer) when lo and behold - the cereal containers had already been filled up by the cook - and granola!  Could it be?  Food that I can eat that is not mine and not my roommate's but completely available for the taking??

Not only that, but I came home to homemade chocolate chip cookies that had magically appeared in the cookie jar while I had been facilitating.  The availability of them could actually turn into a danger if I don't limit myself daily.  What is more, the cook can even SAVE meals for me by wrapping them up in the fridge for days when I'm at class during dinner.  My mom didn't even have chocolate chip cookies waiting for me when I came home from school.  I am thrilled.  

As for the girls, I kind of want to facilitate some games from the ropes course with them, curious to see who they are and how they play.  I have a few expectations: friendly, peppy, pretty, long-haired, excitable, energetic, and loud.  I imagine lots of hair drying and stomping around upstairs.  Hopefully they'll afford me funny stories to tell along with some kumbaya bonding moments, even though I'm not allowed to attend their secret ceremonies in the basement.  There's a usable fireplace and a piano in this large house with sophisticated couches and chairs.  I anticipate warming fires in the winter time and wish I played the piano.  Maybe someone else does, or maybe now is the time to finally take those lessons.

As for school, I'm glad to be stepping out of the workforce for a bit.  See ya!  I'm hoping I can learn how to reed and rite again.  Teaching English began to erode and break my own.  Being out of academics has caused my brain to be watered down by alcohol and mere soundbites of information without spending time studying anything in depth.  

"Is she here?"

"I don't think so..."

I overheard this along with footsteps headed for the door to my little apartment, followed by four girls popping their heads in my door, bright eyed and bubbling, "Hi!!!" - all saying their names and introducing themselves.  Their energy reminds me of my 16 year old self with my camp friends, explosively laughing and giggling over inside jokes all through the summer that only we were apart of.  The good things is, I think that energy is a little contagious. 

Time to meet my 32 new best friends. 

Proverbs

As I was packing up some things in boxes and heading back to school again, I came across a pile of index cards with bible verses written on them.  I had written these years ago to serve as encouragement in a peculiar and chaotic world.  Here was wisdom that I used to chew on throughout my middle school years and on into college, until I graduated and began to favor experience as a greater teacher.  After spending a few years traveling around, living in different settings and meeting people from near and far - drifting away from some of those established roots - I now find myself not only returning to academics but also to a setting similar to where I grew up (where the sun and moon are large and the air reeks of farmland) and doting over some of these old verses and beliefs I used to treasure so much.  Here they are, along with a story written by a friend in a letter I found to do with the curious power of prayer...

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.  Proverbs 14:10

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.  Proverbs 15:30

What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider's web.  He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it but it does not hold.  Job 7:14-15

A man's steps are directed by the LORD.  How then can anyone understand his own way.  Proverbs 20:24

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.  Proverbs 15:13

Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.  Proverbs 20:15

A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.  Proverbs 29:23

A man's riches ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat.  Proverbs 13:8

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter to til the full light of day.  Proverbs 4:18

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself.  Philippians 2:3

Jackie: Part 1 (because there are many)

Jackie is a senior.  He is very concerned with his body image, and not a day goes by that he does not announce to me that he is "too fat".  The greatest shame in all this, Jackie tells me, is that he is unable to fit into Prada - his favorite clothing brand.  Since discovering that I talk to God on a regular basis, I am hardly able to pass Jackie without him asking that I pray for him to lose a couple pounds.

Yesterday, he ran up to me excitedly asking if I had prayed for him the night before.  I had, though not exactly about weight loss. "Yes," I told him, "last night."

"It worked! I went to the bathroom three times. I already feel thinner," he spoke very quickly - as he almost always seems to.  "Uh, I don't know if it works that way..." I sort of stammered.  But Jackie would hear nothing of it.  He grabbed the wolf's tooth that hung on a chord around his neck and with a far off look declared, "I'm a very religious person."

The End (until tomorrow)

- written by a very dear friend

All I Wanna Do

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Soul. 

Choosing Sheryl Crow was a good idea as we drove through the burning lilac and golden green landscape of Utah.  That electric wahhnnng wahhnngg and the boombadaboom of the bongos definitely soaked up the sun (song reference pun intended!).  Singing out those lyrics that have been tattooed on my mind since I listened to her premier album in fourth grade resurrected the past just a little bit.  When that past plus this present all crash together, I'm reminded that life is constantly moving and reinventing itself, which makes the future feel a little brighter, a little enlightened.  Now fourth grade is a million miles away from this part of route 80 West that we're on (which just so happens to be the same highway taken to the mall where that Sheryl Crow album was purchased) in this Buick born during those ancient days.  

But the West!  It is WIDE and WILD if you haven't met it yet.  Idaho is more than a dust pan and lamas; it is filled with beautiful stretches of green and yellow farmland that lie under this gigantic bright blue sky that inches up just enough at the bottom edge for some mountain peaks.  This is where the deer and the antelope, the elk and the bear all play (or kill).  In fact, Yellowstone warns travelers of the WILDlife by including a bright yellow piece of paper, accompanying a map of Yellowstone, showing a cartoon of a tourist being flung by a bison with the caption, "Many tourists are gored by wild animals each year."  They also had a similar horrific sketch of a little boy being splashed with acid from the ground as he stepped off the boardwalk and onto the geyser's surrounding toxic land.  As we walked through the woods one night, looking for hot springs, we were greeted by a poster asking, "Are you ready for an attack?" and highlighting what to bring or do in the case of an encounter with a bear.

Bear spray?  We were supposed to bring bear spray?

National Parks can feel a bit like a theme park, so it's good to be reminded that these are wild places and somewhat dangerous.  One of the hikes we did was ANGEL'S LANDING which I can picture on the letters of some worn out boardwalk roller coaster.  The Zion NARROWS gave me the same vibe.  I wish I knew what it felt like to see these places as a settler for the first time, after trekking across the desert for so long without knowing if there was anything but dust ahead.  The Southern canyons of Utah is God's kiln, hosting pots and sand castles that are mostly works in progress.  The geysers of Yellowstone are another planet, as smoke and ash are spurting up from the land around you or welling up in rainbow colored paint pots smoldering with chemicals.  And you don't even need a passport or rocket ship to go to these places. 

Sheryl Crow wasn't the only person on our hits list.  In fact, Cat Stevens does a pretty good job of setting the tone, along with Simon and Garfunkal but not to mention Jimmy Eat World, Regina Spektor, Postal Service, and other mixes which provided prime sing-along time if the passengers are GAME.  Our travel wasn't limited to the ancient Buick either, as we probably would have ended up on the side of the highway instead of cruising down it.  No - we drove, we jammed, and that is how a little piece of the west was won.

Now here's a little bit of Sheryl for the closing photo montage.

Grand Teton National Park

Yellowstone Geysers

Yellowstone

On the streets of Ogden, UT

The Great Salt Lake

Up in the Uintas, UT

Uintas

Uintas

Uintas

Idaho

At the foot of the Grand Teton

Tetons

Antelope Island, UT

The Great Salt Lake

Down the Street

"As you say, I knew I wanted to make a change from the previous urban landscape work I'd been doing, and I was keen for a new kind of challenge. I'd been curious about forests for a variety of reasons: their importance as linchpins of biodiversity, the role that their destruction has played in species extinction, and the magnificent way that vast, lush, unpeopled stretches of wilderness can remind us that life extends beyond the world of human development and time, and that that is, in fact, the point from whence human life evolved.

Robert Adams once said that what photographers are often doing is trying to find a good example of something they already know. That is one of the essential tasks of photography: to recognize those salient facts which can become a vehicle for metaphor.

That's my ambition right now. To take what I've learned as a photographer and a human being, and see how much of that I can put in to pictures. It's a great challenge.

Richard Rothman Stanley, Ahorn Magazine

Salt Lake City. Dry, hot, hilly, and hot-pressed into the mountains like a panini. I could fry an egg on the sidewalk or pavement, but I haven't tried. The sun bakes my whole body when I move around the city, yet in the shade I can sport a sweater and pants. When my sweat mixes with my dry hair, it gives it that I-just-swam-in-the-ocean soft stiffness that crunches when I try to put my fingers through it. My eyes are dry and I drink five gallons of water a day plus a drink or two. A cool breeze is blowing just now and the air feels absolutely weightless.

The grass in front of me is green because a lawn sprinkler waters it for an hour each night. In the back it's all dried up and looks like Mexico. I am sitting on the porch of a house on a street with a 90 degree incline. Descending it on my bicycle was terrifying. There is a Vespa in the driveway that is still waiting for me to ride it, which I WILL do once I work up the courage.

I met two gold diggers from Nevada at the local brewery last night. That's right - Nevada, and yes - geologists who ACTUALLY search for gold, send it to refineries, and have it turned into whatever people want it to be. They had already had a bottle of Jim Beam before the bar and were headed to a concert. They insisted we go, but we were already headed to see The National, who played in the park for five freakin dollars. Sitting on my friend's husband's shoulders for the last song was thrilling. It was my third time seeing The National, not particularly intentionally - he just always seems to show up whenever I'm travelling. Once in Santiago, Chile, then in Providence, and now in Salt Lake City. He feels almost like my musical, troubled, alcoholic traveling companion.

Does America realize that Utah is hogging most of the country's beauty? There is no shortage of amazing natural wonders to see in this state. It's ridiculous. Just look up pictures of Staircase Escalante, Devil's Garden, Sunset Arch, Zion Narrows, Coral Pink Sand Dunes and you'll see what I mean if you don't know what I'm talking about already.

Being out in such an expansive wilderness always does tend to illuminate the reality that life extends farther than our eyes can see and our minds can comprehend. There's a huge intricately woven complex world, planet, solar system, galaxy, history, genealogy and evolution that we are all members of. There is nothing new under the sun, just different ways of molding and innovating what grows there. The projects, tasks and innovations that are sometimes clung to so tightly will never fulfill anyone in the way that things unseen can, yet it's a challenge to try and capture those salient factors, but that is the above photographer's take on his own work. I think it's mine too, whether that be in writing, pictures or photos, in order to do what Robert Doisneau, that awesome French photographer, stated:

"The most beautiful and simplest reflex of all is the spontaneous desire to preserve a moment of joy destined to disappear. The act of quickly trying to capture the fleeting moment is more calculated - an image to prove one's own world exists."

Power Line Outline

Blue on Yellow

The Ten Minute Crossing

Hello Brigham Young

View from a Bicycle