What are men to rocks and mountains?

This week I climbed rocks,

and this week I climbed mountains.

And I cried both times.

For the past two years or more,

I've had an irrational fear

of rock climbing--

even though

back at Girls' Camp,

I was way into it.

I took harness selfies

before selfies were a thing.

(Because wearing a harness

is obvs the best part.)

But I went to the climbing gym this week,

and I did it.

I grabbed the grips

that looked like baby heads

and made it to the top.

And when I got down,

I teared up,

because there's nothing greater

than doing something you're scared of

and realizing that you actually like it.

Then I went on a hike,

and I adventured up

past where I normally would

to where I could see this.

I cried lots of tears

because I had never imagined

ever seeing anything that beautiful

in my life,

and there I was in it.

Genevieve and I sang hymns of nature,

because views that beautiful deserve

poems

and prayers

and songs

and tears

to describe them.

Levels 40 & 41 achieved.

My Favorite Game.

Today was Claire's birthday.

She's a beautiful person,

so of course

we had a tea party in her front yard.

When we all naturally gathered

in a circle,

I started a round of my favorite game:

What's your favorite thing about

the birthday girl?

It's not really a game.

It's just people saying

nice things about you

on your birthday.

I love to hear

everyone's different answers.

The result is a mosaic

of what that person

means to everyone in her life.

The space you have in your heart

to love that person

gets crammed with

everyone else's love,

and so it gets a little bigger.

And with the sun

starting to think about setting,

the perfect temperature,

pleasant people

in the chairs next to me,

the crown of flowers

on Claire's head,

and a Louis Armstrong album

playing faintly from a record player

on the porch,

I can't picture a single moment nicer.

photo cred: Emma Vidmar

Marianne.

Once I wrote a blog post

about whether I was

Lizzie or Jane,

and determined that I was Emma.

But really I'm Marianne.

As in,

one of my pet peeves

is people who read out loud

in a monotone.

"Edward is very amiable.

But there is something wanting.

He's too sedate.

His reading last night..."

The earth is really actually round.

Today, we slacklined

between two trees

at the edge of a big field

next to a church.

I'm sure you won't blame me

when I tell you

that I took off across the field,

running

and skipping

and jumping

and flailing my arms

and kicking the white things

off of dandelions.

Then I spun and spun,

watching the sunset

kaleidoscope around me,

in blues and purples and pinks,

dappled with clouds,

until finally 

I threw myself down on the ground

and laughed at the sky

that still seemed to be moving

back and forth

like the eyes

of someone speed reading.

When it stilled,

I noticed that the edges of the horizon

in every direction

curved around me--

a great circle

with my little body

at its center,

no matter where

in that green grass

I should choose to lie.

And I thought,

"The earth is really actually round.

I believed it before,

I guess,

but now I really, really know."

"Finest lace there is."

Today, when I came home from work,

I had the strong urge

to run through my neighbor's sprinklers.

Instead,

I made

the first smoothie of the year.

Even though I put in too much spinach,

it tasted like every gorgeous morning

of the past two summers.

I listened to my roommate talk,

and I considered how inherently interesting

people's lives are.

Then we went to a sandwich shop,

where I asked for a half order 

of garlic bread sticks,

and got an entire take-home box of manna.

We sat for ages

after we were done eating,

and told interesting things about ourselves

as children.

When we got home,

I decided I couldn't live another day

without rereading Dandelion Wine.

So I walked to my friends' house

to borrow it from them.

We had the most pleasant chat

and I considered how nice it is

to inherently like people.

I ended up on the wrong street

and got a glimpse of little naked two-year-old boy

as he was shutting his front door,

and that made me laugh.

When I got back,

I sat on my front porch reading,

but I felt like I could have been

in a nave or a temple.

No one would have been able to convince me

that his weaving of images over words

or of words into images

(I wasn't sure which)

was anything less than

worshiping the great Creator.

When I went to scripture study,

I could still felt pings of electricity

flying around my chest

like a bombardment of alpha particles.

Afterward,

I talked to someone

that I inherently enjoy being around.

And even now,

the sound of my roommate

picking up a leaf of paper

and putting it down again

is enough to almost bring

tears to my eyes.

Talking to Strangers.

Guys, something's been troubling me.

Talking to strangers:

how?

Seriously, how does it work?

On the bus,

when a high school girl gets on

and starts chatting amiably

with the sixty-year-old driver.

At an intramural frisbee game,

when one of the players' roommates

starts joking raucously

with the fans for the other team.

In an airport,

when a grizzly biker

and a buttoned-up businessman

start shoptalking

about classic cars.

HOW?

How does it work?

In every one of those situations I mentioned,

I watched in awe, almost transfixed.

I literally don't know how

you start talking to the bus driver

or someone in an airport.

I can't imagine a situation in life

where I would really feel the need

to do that.

It seems to take a level head

and dose of social panache,

but also comes with

a level of vulnerability that,

surprisingly,

I'm not comfortable with.

You have to go into it

confident that the stranger

will want to hear what you're saying.

(Unless, of course,

you don't really care about whether they do.)

I can't say that I have that optimism.

I remember a conversation

my boss and I had

a few months ago

about how I'm not very friendly.

Don't get me wrong.

If you read this blog,

you know that I love people.

I really do.

And I love talking to other people.

But when it comes to talking to strangers,

I ask, "Why would I?"

when a lot of other people

just ask themselves, "Why not?"

I'd just rather talk to the internet, I guess.

She's not Polynesian; she's Finnish.

Yesterday was my one year friendship anniversary

with Erin.

This here is Erin.

Besides talking to birds,

she is always making things beautiful.

Her fingernails, for instance.

And it's because of an exquisite meal

she made for dinner group last year

that I  now like brussels sprouts.

She listens to me talk

all the time.

For so long.

She tells me when I'm being dumb

and should be kinder to myself.

And she'll do anything with me

that I think sounds fun.

I remember when I was newly obsessed with

The National Parks

and I took her to a show with me.

Even though I remember her

not liking it that much,

I saw the ticket stub

on the wall of her bedroom

half a year later.

I can't count how many times

I've heard her offer

to accompany someone to the doctor

or to take their car to get fixed.

Just so they don't have to do it alone.

She wants to be a good friend to people,

she wants to be a contributing member

of any group of people she's a part of,

and she wants to be a better version

of herself.

And she's all those things.

May 9.

May 9 was the six-year anniversary

of my taking the AP US History exam.

I'll never forget that date

for as long as I live.

It also happened to be

my one year anniversary

of working at UVU.

I have loved every minute of it,

minus student government elections week

when there were

literally

hundreds

of

the

same

posters

around

school.

I love that it used to be a vocational school,

that the architecture is hideous,

that all the buildings are connected

so you can get anywhere without going outside.

That when you do go outside,

the view of the mountains

and the lake

is incredible.

I love that the new UVUSA meeting room

looks like the Jedi Council chamber.

That it's sometimes impossible

to distinguish between

the professors and the students.

That the university president

stood in the hall

on the first day of school

and said hi to everyone.

That there's a stuffed wolverine

by the entrance.

That once upon a time,

someone in the hall

handed me a wolverine temporary tattoo

for no reason.

I could go on and on.

It's a great place.

Traumatized.

There I was,

just a girl with a dream

of going to the Tulip Festival

at Thanksgiving Point.

And every spring

came and went

and it never seemed to work out.

.

.

Then Kaitlin said,

"I'm running a half marathon.

You run it too!"

And I said,

"Cool. Yeah.

It's at Thanksgiving Point.

I'll see the tulips.

It will be beautiful."

.

.

Two and a half months later,

the day came.

It was supposed to rain,

but I said,

"It doesn't really rain in Utah.

It'll drizzle

and then be fine."

So I wore shorts.

At the starting line,

I saw everyone in ponchos

and thought,

"What's with those people?

We're not going to get wet."

.

.

By mile three,

I was soaked.

"It's fine,"

I thought.

"This is great."

.

.

Then the course wove

through the gardens.

Tulip time!

I was expecting

But it was like

That's basically all the tulips there were.

.

.

The rest of the race

was bitter death.

No,

it didn't stop raining

the. entire. time.

Eventually,

I hobbled through the finish line.

I got a medal.

I took a selfie.

Congratulations,

you lived through hell.

.

.

A week later,

I was riding the train to Salt Lake.

When we stopped at Lehi Station,

I looked out the window at Thanksgiving Point

and felt

intense

and

almost

inexplicable

bitterness.

Apparently,

that was a lot more traumatic

than I realized.

I may never be able

to look at a tulip again.