following the light of the sun, we left the old world

I tend to throw about the phrase "best friend" a lot; I think we all do. My sisters are my best friends. My parents are my best friends. Oh, she's my best friend. He's my best friend. No way! We're best friends! etc, etc. More often than not, I actually think the label's accurate. I have a lot of wonderful people in my life, and for each of their own reasons, they fit the phrase.

But for the sake of the story, my best friend left this morning. Boarded his plane a mere fifteen minutes ago. Within the day he'll arrive in São Paolo and then onto Belém where he'll spend the next two years serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And he's going to be brilliant. But boy, I'm going to miss him.

It's funny, when I think about it. He'll only be gone as long as we've known each other. But Marcus is the sort that I feel I've known all my life, and we've packed our share of adventure into these past years. We connected over Jeeves & Wooster, Gill Sans, and Steve Jobs. We steal books off each other's shelves, swap emails with subjects like "In Event of Moon Disaster" or "RIP, Türkmenbaşy" on a daily basis. We plan Walk Trips when gas prices get too high and throw Geography Parties when there's studying to be done. At one point we spent an entire week corresponding only in Cricket terms. This weekend, he took me out for Thai and kept me laughing with his NPR impressions, nearly falling out of my chair at his spot-on Arianna Huffington (hey, I never said we were cool).

Marcus, you won't read this. Or at least not for a long, long time. But if our telepathy powers prove strong enough, you'll know what I'm trying to say: a strange combination of the embarrassing Aw shux boi uz'll b missed, a cheery Pip-pip!, and, of course, I love you. I'll see you . . . in the future! (The one with the rocket-cars.)

I'm made of atoms, and you're made of atoms, and we're all in this together

After a full day of reunions and farewells, answering week two's "what's powerful to you?" was easy. Connections. Roots. Shared History. Friends. I've been thinking about the words I read a few weeks ago---"Life sometimes adopts a theme for a while, doesn't it? Where for a few weeks, everything you hear, see, and feel seems to be focused on the same thing"---and can't get you guys out of my head.

{this will be a sentimental post.}

Kit's off to Singapore. David's writing a book. Hannah's shooting weddings across the country, Jenny's just back from Paris and heading into the summer theatre season. Anna's in love and Marcus leaves for Brazil all too soon. But today we filled up church pews and a summer afternoon; just us, all us. Gathering for goodbyes in the face of so many wild, new hellos.

And I loved that we have kept close despite all these different directions, that we pick up conversations where they left off and start new ones to finish the next time. I love that we're all doing what we love and so happy for each other's choices. I love the peace and the calm that I feel just to be in the same space with you. You are the very souls that make me so often want to sing, "humanity!", and you, my friends, are powerful.

So here's to the Nerd Herd, the B.E.A., and the Heartbeat. And the So Much More yet to come.

(ooo, baby, baby) it's a wild world

Sometimes, late at night, with the open windows and the crickets and the sprinklers and the pool laughter, I wonder why I'm still in school. But look at all I'm learning!


1::: FORGET THE TOASTER.

Our sad little excuse for an appliance called it quits yesterday, leaving me with a slice of wheat about two seconds warm and not all that appetizing. I'd just finished buttering it when I remembered the oven, hit the broil button, and tried my luck.

End result? I am never going back. The oven method not only toasts your bread to your individual ideas of toasting perfection, but the pre-buttering adds a to-die-for carmelized crunch.

2::: YOU JUST NEVER KNOW (UNTIL YOU ASK)

You can live with a person a full eight weeks and not know much more than their music taste or their cereal choice (if that). Last night, I came back from a late run to find our top floor in complete disarray and enough glitter and metal to outfit a backstage tour. Turns out Mandy only recently became the prim law student in organic neutrals and sensible footwear. In her other life, she was a rock star.

Or, at least that's what it felt like. For the next two hours we sorted through her closet, organizing the evidence into thrift shop, costume closet, and just-for-the-record piles while Mandy filled me in on her former life. With the last garbage bag tied down just past one a.m., she yawned with a sheepish smile. "Yeah, you caught me at kind of an interesting turning point," she admitted.

3::: MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS

Take advantage of location. If you live ten steps from a Duck Pond, go. Especially in the Spring. When their are three (3!) different fowl families to choose from, palm-sized packages of outlandish entertainment.

Just make sure to set aside some time---this week, only meaning to stop for a second's look, I ended up staying a full half hour, completely enthralled. My favorite little guy couldn't quite make it up out of the water and continually toppled backwards off the bank in a series of ridiculous maneuvers.

3 1/2 ::: I'M EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS THREE MONTHS AND A DAY!

This gets the .5 because it's something I only wish I knew---how exactly old am I? Because I'd really rather love to be able to begin each day like Dylan Thomas's Mary Ann Sailors.

*edit: I'm twenty years two months and twenty-three days! (I guess this is something I could've figured out before the necessary edit, but I don't usually do numbers. At all.)


So much to do, to see, to learn! And with only two weeks to go, it's not all bad.

it's all in the cards

A lot of my life seems to be a blank slate at the moment; this final month is complete limbo, just in-between my old life and the new. July will find me jetlagged and tongue-tied, On My Own in the crazy crush of the UK. These past few weeks of packing lists have got me thinking about the bigger Things To Do, the scribbled life goals I keep folded away without a check in the box. Some deserve the neglect, FUTURE stamped loud and clear across their due dates, but most are a pathetic MEA CULPA. This is one of them.

I've long, long, long admired the world of Emily Falconbridge, especially her mini art journal challenge. Brilliant, I'd say, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to do. After which, inexcusably, I wouldn't. Well, that time is past. Today marks Week One.


For the next year I'll be art-journaling poker style, one card-sized collage per week. With a few months of traveling ahead, I figured this would be the perfect time to both set aside specific time for creating and keep it pocket-sized. Last night I gessoed a deck of Bicycle Playing Cards and stitched a little pouch to hold it all together, and today I pulled out the seven of spades to answer this week's prompt: something you are proud of.

Yep, I'm proud of the future. Which is rather forward, but true all the same. I'm not used to such a big jump without my friends and family close by, so this is all new and (to be honest) totally terrifying. And that's where the deep breath and the blind leap comes in. Huzzah!

go for walks, read the news, let yourself be amused by little things

I am (reverently, I hope) cursing the early church fathers. Every last one of them. Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, take your pick. They've been fascinating company for the past few weeks, but as summer slips into all her barefoot glory I'd so much rather leave all this school and study behind. I have half a mind to throw Chrysostom against the wall and call it quits---but then I remember yesterday.

Yesterday came in one happy hour after another: the rush of exam adrenaline, lunch beside the newest frantic additions to the Duck Pond, an evening bike ride and a homemade dinner with all my windows open wide. I made pita chips that tasted like New Zealand, dolloped curried rice onto sauteed zucchini, sliced a lemon into my usual ice water. I walked to Center Street and back while the sun set and then marked up more of The Great Divorce before slipping into bed. The entire experience was at once spontaneous and completely planned; I finished everything that needed finishing and still had room for adventuring. Yesterday, everything seemed so remarkably simple.

In fact, I woke up this morning thinking that was ridiculous. Then: You know, today could be that good, too.

Yes, Dad, you are right. My sisters and I might roll our eyes, frustrated, every time you remind us that "you choose your attitude," but this weekend has been Exhibit A in your gallery of Life Lessons. Thursday, I chose tears in the face of a flat tire and midterm exams (and Dad, you laughed---to which I say, whole-heartedly, thank you.). Friday, I chose to memorise the properties of word formation with a song and while away my work hours in non-stop project mode. The effect was immediate and almost embarrassingly apparent; not only did my exams and workday pass quickly, but I was more social, more awake, more alive. I talked more and to more people than I probably have the entire week combined, chatting to random classmates, a young mother at the Duck Pond, the freckled boy at the Post Office. All day I fed off the energy of a single decision. "We are born for infinite happiness," C.S. Lewis reminded me as I headed to bed. "You can step out into it at any moment."

So today, instead of giving into the pressures of a midterm paper and an extra shift in the labs, I am trying for happiness again. I'm giving myself another hour with my apostolic mentors and then taking a break with paintbrush and a little robin's egg blue. My roommates have promised a thrifting trip tonight, and Kat's making her crazy-healthy chocolate chip cookies. Life is good.

What's your brand of happy?


{post title credit to kate nash ("a is for asthma"), + the beautiful ellesapelle who has changed my week, if not my life, for introducing me to her. good music is all kinds of heart-happy}

tilly-hoo! a crusade!

It has come to me; I have found my calling. To get The Tall Book of Make-Believe back in print. That such a collection, so wonderfully nursery-innocent and lovingly wrought, runs past a hundred dollars on eBay simply because you can't find it anywhere else is absolutely devastating.

But till Bad Mousie can make his way back to the press, I'm going to kickstart this crusade with my favorite pages from the book, a poem by Elizabeth Godley titled "The Little House."

And, as always: thanks, mum!


In a great big wood
in a great big tree
There's the nicest little house
that could possibly be.

There's a tiny little knocker
on the tiny little door;
And a tiny little carpet
on the tiny little floor;

There's a tiny little table,
and a tiny little bed,
And a tiny little pillow
for a tiny weeny head;

A tiny little blanket,
and a tiny little sheet,
And a tiny water bottle (hot)
for tiny little feet;

A tiny little eiderdown;
a tiny little chair;
And a tiny little kettle
for the owner (when he's there)

In a tiny little larder
there's a tiny thermos bottle
For a tiny little greedy man
who knows the Woods of Pottle.

There's a tiny little peg
for a tiny little hat,
And a tiny little dog
and a tiny, tiny cat.

If you've got a little house,
And you keep it spick and span,
Perhaps there'll come to live in it
A tiny little man.
You may not ever see him:
(He is extremely shy):
But if you find a crumpled sheet,
Or pins upon the window seat,
Or see the marks of tiny feet,
You'll know the reason why.

well, maybe there's some hope for this planet, after all

the host
stephenie meyer
. . . . . . . . . .
If you absolutely must read Stephenie Meyer's latest, a few tips:

1. Don't buy The Host from your University Bookstore. You will undoubtedly run into Writing Fellow friends of yours who will now take every opportunity to mock you for the rest of your life.

and

2. Once your flushed face is back to its normal shade, don't settle into read on the sloping west corner of the Arts Building. It may be delightfully sunny and wonderfully warm, but running into your Tall, Dark, & Handsome crush while fending off bodysnatchers isn't all that great for your library cred. You might have connected over Tolstoy, but that bridge is going to need a little reinforcement after such an encounter.

That being said (and hopefully done---don't say I didn't warn you), enjoy it. Because The Host is the same sort of crazy ride the Twilight series offer, plus a little bit more.

Without giving you any sort of outline, plotline, or endline, I will say this: The Host makes you think. Sure, Twilight's fun, and intriguing, but intellectual discussion ends somewhere around "Doesn't Edward just *dazzle* you?" and "I run with the wolves. Back off." Meyer's sci-fi, however, confronts you with a world where humans could be the bad guys, and the tipping point has you questioning some of the very basics of human nature. You may have to talk friends past the alien-invasion, two-souls-in-one-body thing, but in the end, you're going to have something to talk about, something to learn about.

Talking to a reporter this afternoon, we laughed at our shared first reaction---"Wait, Stephenie Meyer can write!"---and then had to admit it: the book deserves its place on library shelves. It's a compelling read, a mind-stretching adventure, and a well told tale. While certainly no Natasha and Pierre, Meyer's Jared and Melanie are worth the read, and even (it's true!) the blush.