Weighty Realizations.

On Friday, I had two weighty realizations within a few minutes of each other.

I am now someone who regularly spends Friday nights in the library.

&

Kids who are now freshmen in college were only finishing seventh grade when I graduated from high school.

These thoughts crossed my mind as I was walking from my car to the library for another evening. (Now that I'm in grad school, at least, I always drive to the library. I never walk.)

When I left the library a few hours later, I ended up walking out behind middle-aged parents and their young adult son. From what I gathered from listening to their conversation, they had gone to one of those old movies that they play in the basement on some Friday nights.

They were talking loud, saying,

"How do you think they got that shot? With all the horses?"

and

"Yeah, can you believe that they could do that? Back in the '30s!"

A fact about me is that I get impatient when I walk behind people. So I sped up and zagged through them, dodging another family that was walking just ahead.

As I accelerated past, their voices rose into a clamor of laughter and exclamation and questioning and wonderment. They were all talking at once, steeped in their shared experience and the thrill it brought them.

I had passed them by then, and I kept walking quickly. But I looked up and grinned at the night sky--a grin for no one to see, just one that came out of me like a hiccup.

I was having the third weighty realization of the night.

A still from "Kentucky," the film that evening

Ermer Verdmer.

This is Emma.

Check her out.

She's all over the interwebz.

It's actually not her birthday because she was born on Leap Day. So whatever. #hipster

But. She's worth celebrating every year, not just every four years. So.

Here's a list of things she's taught me since I randomly, blessedly, luckily met her last year.

1. Middle parts aren't just for fashion-oblivious seventh graders.

2. Embrace your curls.

3. Tinder is actually the last name of every boy you meet on Tinder, e.g. Joey Tinder, Marcus Tinder.

4. Feminism is not a four-letter word. You actually probably already are a feminist.

5. It's possible to be a blogger and not be the worst.

6. It's cool to be best friends with your mom.

7. It's not necessary to shower every day.

8. Snapchat is actually the greatest form of communication there is.

9. Post whatever you want on the internet.

10. It's okay to like Miley Cyrus.

11. Life is to short to always check for typos.

12. There is beauty in your daily life when you look at the ordinary through new eyes.

13. Have dreams and go for them.

14. Be vulnerable and don't be ashamed of who you are. Being imperfect is what makes you beautiful.

15. Saying cheesy things is okay if you really mean them (see numbers 12-14).

Lurve yer.

Reek.

Yesterday, I left my house and it was surprisingly warm. I passively took in the clouds that were hanging low over Mount Timpanogos as I got in my car and drove to work.

Here's the thing. It started snowing. How come I couldn't see the signs? They were all there--the temperature, the clouds. But there I was, not in boots, but in flats, not having even thought twice about it.

I went up to school, where I walked across a campus of sidewalks all covered in a centimeter of water. My shoes soaked through, dried in class, and then soaked through again on the way back to the train.

The truth, and the reason I'm writing this, is that when I got home and took off my shoes, they reeked. So much so that I couldn't leave them by my bed, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sleep.

I tossed them to the far side of my bedroom, and there I think they will stay for quite a long time.

A Fire Hose Straight at My Chest.

Today, there was traffic, so I walked into class a few minutes late.

A guest speaker was talking. We were talking about religions as nonprofits that day, and I remembered from the syllabus that she was a Christian Scientist.

I sat down and started listening, but I felt totally lost. She was talking about healing and "Take Me to Church" by Hozier and surfing as a religious experience and her husband's recent conversion. She was not talking, as I would have thought she would be, about how her church is organized or raises money.

I felt uncomfortable. Part of it was that I could tell the people next to me were uncomfortable--checking their email, checking facebook. I felt like they were doing anything to keep from looking at her.

But then there was a moment when I said to myself,

What if I didn't have to feel uncomfortable with what she's saying just because it's different from what I'm used to? What she's saying is beautiful and meaningful to her. Let her say it.

My elbows were on the table, my hands clasped in front of my face. I put them in my lap, physically opening up a path to my heart.

And I listened again, with a different heart. I still felt uncomfortable. It felt like a fire hose straight at my chest, but I let it.

Epilogue:

She left some pamphlets when she left, and I took some. I read them all the train ride home--I couldn't stop. They were touching. I shed tears.

It's All There Is.

What can you do when your friend is kind enough to make you lunch and send it home with you in a tupperware for the next day?

What can you do when you don't have social media to immediately tell the world how angelic she is?

Luckily, blogging is a loophole to the no-social-media-for-Lent rule.

I was feeling sick today, but somebody had already made me lunch. There's no way to describe how that made me feel, because it's so kind that it's painful to think about. I can't do anything but feel so grateful. 

And feeling grateful doesn't seem like it's enough, but it's all there is.

Stimulus Tuesday.

Today was Stimulus Tuesday at the movie theater, so we went to see "McFarland, USA."

This is a bold thing to say, but in terms of inspirational race-related sports films, it's maybe one of the best.

I think it's because Emily has been really into her Latin American Humanities class lately. She tells me about it and sometimes has me read short stories by Sandra Cisneros. And then on Friday nights, we watch "From Prada to Nada," which is a retelling of Sense & Sensibility about Latina girls in Los Angeles.

I've never wanted to be another ethnicity. But, like Emily says, their culture is so intoxicating. 

It's full of color--colors that burst out of the land when the earth was formed that they've been passing down from mother to son and father to daughter since the beginning of time.

It's full of dancing that twists and turns in a sweet singsong like the sound of their words.

It's full of faith, where God is ever-present, and worshiping Him is as natural as crossing a room or breaking into a smile, so that the sacred and the secular mingle intimately from moment to moment.

It's full of love, like a big room of people you know you're related to, but aren't sure how.

Everyone is just as worthwhile as everyone else. When you realize that, sometimes you give away a kidney. Sometimes you want to end poverty in other countries and end discrimination against people whose culture is so intoxicating.

But instead, sometimes all you do is win cross-country meets. Instead, sometimes all you do is ignore everything and go to the movies for Stimulus Tuesday.

The Most Horrible Time of the Year?

I just wrote an entire post about how elections week at UVU is the worst week of the year. I said I hate it even more than boys' basketball tournament week each summer, when the halls are overrun with junior high boys on razor scooters.

I complained about how many posters litter the school, about how it seems like the richest team can just buy the presidency with flashy marketing, about how no one even knows what they do.

I called it a dirty sham.

I had written it all, read through it several times, made sure that it had line breaks where I wanted them and no typographical errors.

But then.

I went digging through news articles on the UVU Review website. I read about their platforms. You know what? I think they actually do do things! They actually do care about what they're doing. They actually do love UVU, just the way I do.

So this is what I'm saying instead: I hate your posters, and I'd still like to know whether you're governed by any campaign finance rules, but it's okay.

The marketing that got Team Rise elected last year.