My Apartment Smells Like Fish

So I came home from Thanksgiving with my parents in Colorado last night and when I walked into my apartment, it smelled disgustingly of fish. Now, we do have a fish (named Chula) in the apartment, but she's never smelled up the place like that before!! I figured it must be whatever food my roommates gave her before they left so that she wouldn't die, but I couldn't imagine it would smell that bad! So I busted out the Fabreeze and sprayed the whole place, which sort of helped, but not really. Long story short, it's better today, but it was an interesting night haha. (Oh, and we figured out it wasn't our little Chula, it was the fish my roommate cooked a few days ago that she put down the sink and I guess whatever cleaning she did didn't quite cover it.)

For those of you who have noticed that my blog is different, I got my inspiration from the movie The Fountain. If you haven't seen it, you need to do so as soon as possible. It's pretty abstract and takes a few viewings to really understand it, but it is one of my all time favorites and continues to inspire me every time I see it or even think about it. It's sort of centered on a search for the Tree of Life, which looks a little bit like the picture at the top as it's depicted in the movie. Oh man, I can't even express how much I love that movie---it's chock-full of food for thought and really makes you think about reality, which of course is what my blog is all about!!

Well, I wish everyone a very happy post-Thanksgiving Sunday and a wonderful start to the week!

People Watching

I enjoy catching little glimpses of people's lives as they pass by:
I love seeing old people hold hands :) I always want to cheer for the love story that's lasted so long, especially in a world where so many people are unwilling to get through the yuck to grow old and into love with each other.
I love watching little kids run around and say the funny things they do.
My favorite thing about walking around campus is seeing dads with their little babies while their wives are in class. There is something so tender about a father with his baby...I don't even know how to describe what it is, but it just warms me very deeply every time I see it.
I love seeing people rock out in their cars when they think no one is watching them. I admire that kind of confidence, to just jam to the music and not care who sees you.
It's so sweet to see people run into each other's arms in airports. It's like the whole world is contained in that longed-for embrace...which it is.
I love it when I make eye contact with an attractive guy, both of us look away, then look back again a few seconds later at the same time :) For those few seconds, I've made a connection.
When I'm driving down the freeway, or really any road, it's interesting to try to imagine the lives of the people in the cars around me. Everyone has a story, they're not just bodies running around, which I think is how we think of strangers sometimes--at least I know I've been guilty of that kind of thinking.
I guess that's the point of people watching: to try to understand the parade of humanity passing by...

Sunday Thoughts

I am constantly amazed by the power of music. It can lift you up out of the deepest heartache, move you to tears...make things stir inside you in places you didn't know existed in your own body. Music is creation to me. I love the scene in The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis when Aslan creates Narnia by singing. The children, watching, can hear the different things he's creating in the notes he sings: deep, resonating notes for the trees, light, cascading notes for the waterfalls and streams and flowers. That's how I always imagined God creating the world: with music. The scriptures talk about angels singing when they rejoice--that the sound of rejoicing is music, not just shouting as loudly as possible.

I've mentioned before that I almost constantly have music playing. Currently, I'm listening to Black Balloon by the Goo Goo Dolls...truly one of my very favorite songs. There's something about it that almost always fits whatever mood I'm in. It's gray and blue and rain and soul all mixed into one song. I love the Goo Goo Dolls, especially lately.

Tonight, I get to sing in a choir for the first time since the spring. We're singing at a church fireside, with all of this incredible Thanksgiving themed music. That's the best kind in my opinion, because it's all about praising the Lord and all of the beautiful, plentiful blessings he has given us and being thankful for the bounteous Earth we live on. I'm so excited to be back in a choir, even if just for one night, I have missed singing so much.

I'm so thankful for the beautiful music that fills my life, whether it's actual music or the music of people's hearts and souls that vibrate in the air. Everyone has a melody, all they have to do is reach deep and let it out.

A Bit of Poetry

This is a poem I wrote quite some time ago and kind of re-vamped this summer. I found the picture on the Tumblr of this really incredible photographer, Lara Jade. Check out her photography site: www.larajade.com

I wear a mask of diamond light

It’s a world of colors, happy and bright.

I display the angel they want to see; 

It’s a masquerade to hide the real me. 

I wear a mask of diamond light,

To keep it on takes all my might.

I want to tear off this terrible lie,

But to do so would be to surely die. 

I wear a mask of diamond light.

It’s filtered illusions of wrong and right.

Voices are muted, the past forgotten.

An unseen pit of charades gone rotten.

I wear a mask of diamond light

My wings are clipped, no hope for flight.

This whirl of splendor yields an iron cage

All the world is a colorful stage. 

I wear a mask of diamond light

It molds to my face, it fits on tight.

My soul is corseted, my breath is caught

All attempts to get free come but to naught. 

I wear a mask of diamond light

It’s a world of colors, happy and bright.

I display the angel they want to see; 

It’s a masquerade to hide the real me. 

Weddings!

Ok, I admit it: I LOVE weddings. I love everything about them, from the flowers, to the dress, to the food, to the venue, to the people, to the romantic story behind the blissful coming together of two completely separate lives that will now become one. Ahhhh, it's all so lovely!
Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I know every single detail of what I want for my wedding, whenever it happens, but I do have some ideas (which are subject to change, of course).

First, the dress. Here are a couple pictures of some ideas that appeal to me:

I really am attracted to having a Spanish lace dress; I tried one on this summer and almost bought it on the spot. These pictures show well what I want: a fitted dress all made of lace, and kind of layered. My mom thinks that if I get a Spanish lace dress I should have a mantilla veil which looks like this: 

Second, the bouquet:

I love the cascade of the flowers, and I like the variety of white. I think white flowers are really elegant, but I'd never be able to choose just one kind, so the different kinds all white together are perfect. 

Third, the cake. I've decided that I want my wedding colors to be red and black, so I think this is something like what I want my cake to look like:

Well, that's about all that I have nailed down at the moment and this is turning into a very long post. I'm so excited to actually plan my wedding someday!

Dream Dress

I will someday wear a dress like this. End of story.

Letters

I have mentioned in a couple of my other posts that I love letters. I think they are the most beautiful, expressive form of communication ever conceived. There is something so personal about a letter; maybe it's the fact that it's written in a person's own handwriting, which no other communication is. It's as if a little of the essence of a person is captured in those few minutes they spend with their hand pressed against the paper, perhaps with the tip of their tongue poking out of the corner of their mouth or a slight smirk on their lips as they concentrate and enjoy the things they are writing. There's also a vulnerability in a letter....it's not necessarily permanent, like a typed document, it's not a traceable email or text message; it's a piece of paper, easily destroyed or kept hidden and safe. The paper or envelope may even carry the scent of the sender, which an email never could.

In short, letters are the most personal, wonderful way to communicate with another person.

One person with whom I communicate regularly in this way is my friend Robert. We've written letters to each other since 8th grade, and I hope the habit will continue for quite some time. Notes we passed to each other in the hallways or shoved in each other's lockers became letters in envelopes with stamps when he went to college a semester early so that he could live away from home for a while before serving a mission for our church. Now that he is on his mission we continue to write, and I am so grateful that we got in the practice of communicating in this way a couple of years before he left, because now I can read between the lines and see his face and know what he doesn't say in ink.

Every day that the mail comes and doesn't bring me one of his letters, the sun shines a little less brightly. It's all I can do to stop myself from running to the mail box on my way home from class every day. Even when I know it's too soon for a letter to come, I can't help getting excited! And then of course the days his letters do come....no amount of rain can bring me down from Cloud 9. I love hearing about his experiences on the mission and I love watching his character and testimony develop and grow under the trials of the work. And I LOVE getting to write back and tell him all of the amazing things I'm learning and the ways that I'm growing in college. It's so nice to write to someone who knows me so well and who I know will be honest with me because I know him just as well. Those missionary letters are extra special.

The reason this is particularly on my mind tonight is because I was going through all of our previous letters tonight, the ones from high school and his first semester of college when I was still at home, and now to his mission letters. It was so amazing to see how much our lives changed and how we became the people we are now through reading those letters from him. He's always been so eloquent and so sweet. He always makes a point to tell me something he likes about me or how thankful he is to have me as a friend, and he constantly notices the little things. One of my favorites is the hand-made Valentines card he gave me our junior year. It was an imperfectly cut white heart that wished me a happy Valentine's Day and explained his gift to me: a huge tube of Sweet Pea body wash from Bath and Body Works. He had heard me say, just in passing a few days before, that I'd run out of body wash and had meant to go to B&B Works to get some. AND HE REMEMBERED!! He remembered what store I'd said I was going to go to and went there and found the most feminine, soft thing he could that he thought I would like. It was kind of a strange gift, which he acknowledged, but it was one of the sweetest, most sensitive things anyone has ever done for me. Man, he's the best. :)

Sorry for the long swoony rant about how much I love Robert's letters, but I am currently in the waiting phase, so I'm getting anxious to get the letter I know is on its way, and it's definitely on my mind, plus the whole nostalgic kick I'm on from reading all those old letters. So now you know for sure: I'm a hopeless romantic :)

10 things I've learned in college

1. Contrary to my own beliefs, I am capable of living with other girls.
2. Eating is more complicated than it seemed at home.
3. Girls are better at communicating than boys, but that doesn't mean they're amazing at it.
4. Having family near is a must.
5. Being responsible for my own place is so much easier than I thought.
6. College isn't a whole lot different from high school: there are still catty girls and idiotic boys, fashion matters, people still judge you, you still need to kiss up to certain professors, everyone gossips---now everything's just on a much larger scale.
7. Despite the similarities to high school, college is INFINITELY better.
8. NO ONE cares when you come in at night.
9. The cell phone was the best invention ever.
10. Friends are not something to take for granted.

Return To Me

Return to me the time when things were simple. When there was him and no one else.
Return to me the time when his kisses fixed everything. When his hand in mine was enough.
Return to me the time when silence said so much. When our thoughts were all we needed.
Return to me the time when his music filled the house. When an hour under the piano was an eternity of bliss.
Return to me the time when there was no loneliness. When "you and me" were inseparable. 


Return to me.