Jehovah's Witnesses.

Every few weeks,

there are Jehovah's Witnesses 
who set up a table

in the hall at UVU.

Those are my favorite days.

There's always a white board set up

that asks you a good question,

like

Do we need God?

And the older gentleman

who always wears a bow tie

sits on the couch behind the table,

swiping away on his i-device,

waiting for someone to approach him.

I love his patience,
and the devotion he shows
to be there all day.

It's a rare treat for me,

and a greater treat for him, I'm sure,

when someone actually stops to talk to him.

I smiled at him today.

Maybe some time I'll say hi.

Worth Saying.

I just read a nice blog post and thought,

"I want to say something worth saying."

So I thought about what that might be.

This is what I have:

Jesus is nice.

He can be your best friend,

and you can do things with Him all the time.

Those can be your best times.

And you can still be a normal person.

I hope I am.

It doesn't matter how much technology we create,

how intricate life becomes;

we'll never outgrow Him.

Salvador Dali

Malcolm.

I made a new friend recently.

His name is Malcolm.

Before I saw 

Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X

on a shelf at the UVU library,

I really didn't know anything about him.

Ask me about him, and I would have said,

"He was a black civil rights leader

who got assassinated.

He was a little crazy.

And he wore those glasses.

You know--

Malcolm X glasses."

I'm pretty sure

that I thought he was a Black Panther.

Not true.

He was Muslim.

And he wasn't just an advocate for civil rights,

but for human rights--

which the American government was,

for hundreds of years,

unfit or unwilling to secure for its black citizens.

He believed that his people

needed education and self-respect,

and to do whatever was necessary

to secure better lives.

What he believed in,

he believed in strong and true

and without apology.

And he gave his life to it.

The person I met in that book

was so dear.

And I miss him,

now that it's over.

Kati Dear.

This is Katilynn.

Not Kaitlyn.

She wears soccer bruises as a badge of honor.

She wears high heels like it's nobody's business.

The color of her hair is always changing

and it's always beautiful.

She was there the first time I gave blood.

I recognize her handwriting no sweat,

because she's written me about 200 nice notes in her life.

Before I even knew we were friends,

she was always telling me

that she loved me

and was happy to see me.

She's always doing that

to someone or other.

This Bitter Earth.

I have loved a lot of things lately.

The sesquicentennial of the Gettysburg Address.

Learning the origin of "The Princess Pat."

Reading a memoir of Malcolm X.

But one important thing hasn't made that list:

people.

It seems that the list of people

whose lives inherently interest me

has decreased dramatically in size.

If that sounds horrible,

it is.

I used to be shy

because I didn't know

that I had it in me

to be otherwise.

Then, I learned how to make friends,

and I had so much love in me

that I'd hold anyone's hand

that was near enough to grab.

And now,

I don't talk to others

not because I can't,

but because I don't want to.

But as it turns out,

not wanting to for a long time

makes you feel like you can't.

And if my life is like the dust

that hides the glow of a rose,

what good am I?

What good am I?

Heaven only knows.

...

This story doesn't have a moral

or an adage

or a word of advice at the end.

I don't know how to fix this.

But I still have faith

that somewhere between all these poles,

there's a happy nook to live in.

Humanism.

Today in church,
I looked at the hand

of the person sitting next to me.

And it was incredible!
It was as beautiful as this:

Zombie.

Before zombies were cool,

the Cranberries were cool.

Chats with Pops.

I just talked to my dad on the phone

for an hour and a half.

He stayed up until 11:30 his time

(and this man goes to bed early)

to tell me about

my great-great-great grandfather,

Christian Olsen.

I asked him about when he proposed to my mom,

because I never get tired of hearing

that he was so in love with her

he just had to call her on the phone

on a Monday morning,

and ask her to marry him.

He told me about military police

patrolling the streets in Uruguay

when he was a missionary there in the 1970s.

He told me about how he missed America's bicentennial

because he was in South America.

I wanted to cry.

His dad died when he was 29

and his dad was 66.

In seven years,

I'll be 29,

and my dad will be 65.

I told him not to die,

and he said okay.

Christmas in the Kitchen.

Usually, I get into Christmas music

pretty early.

Like, mid-October.

But this year,

it doesn't feel right yet.

So I'm dipping my toe in slowly.

 But no matter what mood I'm in,

it always feels right

to listen to Christmas music

when I'm cooking.

Especially when I'm making

butternut squash pie

or apple chutney and pork.

(As you can see from this photo,
the apply chutney was kind of
a culinary misstep.
As was the pie.
So don't be too impressed.)

It's nice to be reminded of the good in the world.

Lately, I've been noticing something

about my facebook news feed.

It's just people posting inspirational story

after inspirational story.

Interesting photograph after interesting photograph.

Disturbing statistic after disturbing statistic.

It made me think.

I feel like we go to the internet

to search out

and experience

whatever emotion we want to feel 

at the moment.

Just go to Upworthy

or Huffington Post,

and you can have it.

Read about this obscure artist from Croatia,

or this teenager's good deed,

or this study's finding about happiness,

and you will be more _________ of a person.

(Insert whichever adjective you are lacking today.

The internet's got your back.)

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.

On Monday,

I realized my dream

of performing a karaoke version of

"Stand by Your Man"

by Tammy Wynette.

Level 39 achieved.

Apple Peel Matchmaking.

So a few days ago,

I learned that girls

used to do different rituals on Halloween

to determine who they would marry.

They did that at midsummer as well.

(I guess it doesn't matter what century you're in--

women will always be matchmaking.)

Genevieve and I think these sorts of things

are great fun.

So to celebrate Halloween last night,

we threw apple peels over our shoulders

in the hope that they would land

in the shape of

our future husbands' initials.

And they did.

Sarah was walking by and joined us.

She got a lowercase Y.

Hopefully someone named Yelnats.

I got an A,

and Genevieve, that lucky duck,

got 3 whole letters!

T, V, & C.

So if you know a Vincent Carl Tennyson

or a Christopher Tecumseh Vial,

let me know.

Shopgirl.

Sometimes,

when I'm running one or two minutes late

to catch the bus in the morning,

I find myself running a few yards,

walking a few yards,

running,

walking.

And I feel like shopgirl

going to meet ny152

at the end of You've Got Mail--

which, thankfully,
brings a small glimmer of dignity
to this embarrassing habit.

(But don't watch the whole clip.
I don't support chick flicks.)

All Hallow's Eve

Dear Halloween,

You've changed.

It's like all you care about anymore is

over-the-top party decorations

and food that looks like

it's not food anymore.

And wait,

what are we celebrating, again?

Oh, you don't have a good answer?

That's what I thought.

Call me back

when celebrating you means

burning old crops,

wearing animal heads and skins,

telling each others' fortunes,

and trying to divine the name of my future husband.

Until then,

I'm just here for the candy.

Love,

Rachel

Personality Portrait.

Last week,

my friend Michele

asked if she could take

a personality portrait of me

for an assignment.

I said yes,

of course,

but it made me feel existential.

If I were to try to capture

my entire personality

in one picture,

what would I be doing in it?

Listening to Stevie Wonder?

Looking out the UVU library's big picture window

at the lake

and the mountains?

Playing the piano at my house

with my family in the room?

Hanging out at the Lincoln Memorial

with my best pal Abe?

I don't even know.

I'm not a princess.

I live with two sisters from North Carolina,

and they love that South, they do.

Today, one of them said,

"If you fall in love with a Southerner,

you'll be very lucky.

He'll treat you like a princess."

And my immediate reaction was,

"Ick.

I don't want to be 

anybody's princess."

She asked me why not,

and I wasn't sure.

So I've been thinking about it ever since.

I realized it's a metaphor problem.

Prince and princess is just not the metaphor

that I would use to describe love.

When I think of princesses,

I think of entitlement.

I think of being the object of the prince's affection,

but not his equal partner.

And that's not it.

When you're in love,

you deeply respect him,

and he you.

He's precious to you,

and you're precious to him.

But not because you're a princess.

Because you're a human.

Because you're you.

I don't think we need a princess metaphor

to understand what love is.

My Favorite Expletives.

Things I say when I'm frustrated:

"Pooh sticks!"

Instead of saying poo, 
you're talking about a cute game
you play on a bridge.

"Crud monkeys!"

I'm not sure what crud monkeys are,
but I'm sure they're adorable.

"Crumb diddle-dum-diddle-do!"

There's no picture for this.
Mary thought crumb would make a good swear word,
and it's spiraled out of hand.

Inside the Book.

There's something special

about reading your friends' favorite books--

just because they're their favorites.

When you're reading,

you're not alone:

They're there inside the book with you.

It's like comparing apples and peaches.

It's Fall, guys.

I'd done my ritual,

and I'd officially accepted it.

Coat, socks, rain.

Everything.

But last night at Sprouts,

there was a big ugly empty spot

where the yellow peaches

were supposed to be.

Genevieve asked them to check.

And the handsome clerk came back and said,

"I'm sorry.

That was the last of them."

It felt like a sentence of death.

I got tears in my eyes.

I don't know what my deal is.

This is the twenty-third time

that this earth has shed summer

and put on autumn

since I got here.

But this time I'm taking it hard.

There's beauty to it, of course.

I feel like I can see God

in the snow on the mountaintops,

in the inexorable change of the seasons.

And even though they didn't have peaches,

Sprouts had pallets and pallets

of honeycrisp apples.

On sale.

When I got home,

I hugged my bag of apples

and smelled them

and cried again.

The Last Rose of Summer.

Today is the equinox,

the first day of autumn.

From now on,

there will be no more fresh peaches,

no more sandal tan lines

on the tops of my feet,

no more mosquito bites

on the back of my legs

from lingering in the warm dusk.

For a few weeks it's been coming,

but I couldn't let summer

"go gentle into that good night."

Now, though, the alignment of the planets

has forced me to accept it.

So last night,

Genevieve and I created our own ritual

to bid farewell to summer.

I can accept these things better

when there's a formal

changing of the guard.

We put on long floral dresses

and walked the stream path at night,

gathering flowers and plants,

and weaving them into wreaths.

Holly,

chrysanthemum,

Russian olive,

lavender,

apples,

and the last roses of summer.

We sang hymns about nature,

and quoted poems and scriptures:

Nature's first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leafs a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

Today,

I woke up and it was autumn.

I was glad to see that it was raining.

I put on boots

and listened to the appropriate movement

of Vivaldi's Four Seasons

and ate oatmeal for breakfast.

Farewell, summer.

Until next year.

I'd like to spend an hour or two with you.

(I know I'm idealistic,

but bear with me.)

This is how I view dates:

A boy calls you up

and says,

"Hi.

I'd like to spend an hour or two with you--

just us.

I've been wanting some dedicated time

to appreciate everything about you

worth appreciating."

And you say,

"Yes! I'd love that.

I'd love the chance

to appreciate everything about you

worth appreciating."

A date isn't necessarily about being in love,

but it is about love.

The real kind.

I don't have a good experience

if I spend the whole time asking myself

Am I having fun?

Does he think I'm funny?

Am I proud to be seen with him?

But if I notice

his laugh next to me in the movie theater,

his hand gestures while he drives,

the reverent way he says my name,

the glimmer when he talks about the things he loves,

I have a better time.

I like when

an hour or two of

doing some activity or another

becomes a holy experience,

because I get to bask in the grandeur

of another human being.

Sometimes,

you get a call out of the blue

from a boy who is very easy to appreciate.

And then the smile on your face

when you tell him yes

is real and unsuppressible,

because you know that an evening appreciating him

is going to be a delight.

And that is the best.

There's a certain slant of light.

My favorite time of day

is when the sun is about to set,

and the slant of light

lands just so on the mountains.

And then they are lit up golden brown

and reddish,

and every crack

and crevice

and corner

draws its own long shadows

on the glowing rock face.