O Jerusalem

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning."

17 days.

An Addendum

I also love not pumping gas. And the sound of rain on the windows.

home -- locative

Things I love about Oregon:

• Rain.
• Green: trees, trees, trees.
• The coast (not the beach).
• Rhododendron bushes.
• Powell's Independent Books.
• Trendythird.
• Cultural and linguistic and culinary diversity.
  
• Driving on the back roads with the windows down and the music blasting.
• Picnics on the baseball field.
• Saturday Market.
• The waterfront at night.
• The Rose Festival and Starlight Parade.
• Starbucks on every corner.
  
• Excellent music choices.
• Berries galore.
• Tillamook cheese.
• The MAX.
• The Meier and Frank windows at Christmas.
• Liberalism and Democrats.
• Boating on the Willamette River.
• Continual overcast-ness, October to mid-May.
• Pedestrian-friendly drivers.
• Bikes.
• No umbrellas.
• Crazy tree-hugging hippies.
• The lumberjack on the capitol building.
• The old carousel in Salem.
• Silver Creek Falls.
• The brick echo wall.
• Watching Bewitched and The Cosby Show with my family.
• Old Gilmore Girls tapes.
• Eating half the french bread at the grocery store with Mom.
• Talking on the corner for hours.
• Room 155.
• Running into people at Fred Meyer.
• Mashita.
• Mini golfing at Bullwinkle's.
• Zoolights.
• Champoeg Park.
• The general store in Butteville.
• The outlet mall.
• Extreme weather graduation weekend.
• Burgerville.
• The OHSU tram.
  
• Trader Joe's.
• Small cars: Honda Accords and Toyota Corollas.
  
• Sweet concerts.
• The Portland Art Museum.
• PSU.
• Perfect summer weather.

I'm on my way home!

Suits of Charcoal Grey

When we were young it was oft dreamed
A distant land, a language strange
But first there was so much to change:
Good friends, right choices, mistakes and pain;
All a part of growing.
When grown enough the call would come,
And off you'd go.
Sent into the world to serve
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

Illusive, frightening, across the sea
You go
And know not to look back.
There's nothing here for you right now,
Your life is for the Lord.
You'll find more than you left behind,
More than you could dream
As you learn and teach and work and live
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

Trials, hardships, tears will come:
Do not regret a one.
The pain will balance out the joy,
That is the Way of the Lord.
Faith, repentance, endure to the end --
You did not understand before
These best two years.
Perspective will not be the same
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

Give yourself away in the work of the Lord
For you were called to serve.
A calling magnified by a humble heart
Is better than numbers;
Calculated success means nothing.
Success is not good, not better, but best:
Your best, now.
You're better than you've ever been
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

So long, yet short those two years are
In which you make sweet memories
Of wonderful people, a beautiful land --
Home.
You will learn much, you will be reborn
When you return again.
So much potential will be reached, but more foreseen
As you serve with love
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

That is the reason, isn't it?
Love.
Don't ever lose that love you feel;
It will pull you through.
Contention and loneliness, pain and fear --
Those do not come from the Lord.
But love! He will pour it in, and you will give it back
Dressed in suits of charcoal grey.

BYUSA

My roommate is very active in the BYUSA elections. She's helping with a campaign, she's getting involved, and she's actively encouraging everyone to vote. She tells us why it's important and what they can do for us; she is very supportive.

I'm glad that she is so excited about all of this and wants to get involved... but I really want to say, "Hey. Take a step back. You think I'm a crazy person to get so interested in the primaries; you laugh at my caucus parties, you groan when I spend all night watching CNN, you are baffled by my constant checking of polls and numbers and editorials. But why am I crazy to care so much about the election of the next president of the United States? Why don't you care? Why can't you have as much involvement in our country's future -- vote in your state primaries! -- as you have in BYU?"

There are so many people on this campus who care so much about the leadership here, but why, why can't they care about the country? People don't think it matters until the general election, and the general is important, very important. But the primaries are such a vital part of the general election, and no one ever pays nearly as much attention as they ought. I cannot understand. Tomorrow is potentially the biggest day of the year, even bigger than Super Tuesday. If Hillary loses she could be out -- and a general election between Barack Obama and John McCain could be one of the most interesting elections between any two candidates in the history of this country. But there are hundreds, thousands of people who don't understand or don't care.

Apathy, like agnosticism, is something I can't stand.

Six-Word Memoir

Thanks; I always ask good questions.

To You

I went to Todd and Allison's for dinner tonight. My uncle Mark was there too; he's in Salt Lake for business. Of all my uncles, I've never felt very close to Mark. Our personalities are quite different, and sometimes he made me uncomfortable with all of his outgoing craziness. But tonight was different. I felt like I could confide in him. I could tell him what I disliked about Utah: the weather, the bubble, the lack of diversity. He told me about work and we watched youtube. And when he drove me back to Provo it wasn't weird at all; no awkward pauses, no uncomfortable stares. We talked about church things as though he were still active. I would have told him about you if he'd asked. And he said he's writing a novel set in Utah.

As he explained his novel to me in the car, driving down Provo canyon in the dark and the snow, I realized he is a lot like me. He's gone through some really hard things, and it seems that he tries to work them out through the novel. I don't think he does it intentionally, and it isn't why he started writing. But some of the experiences in his life -- memorable experiences, hard experiences -- are placed in his book, and I don't think they're chosen at random. My family has so much potential but also has a lot of hurt. So many difficulties I never realized that don't seem fair. But maybe it's because they are so great. We are not given trials too much for us to bear. Maybe we are capable of bearing a lot. We have.

Maybe that's part of the reason I connect well with them. I was sitting on the couch next to Mark, totally comfortable just being there with these people I love. I love them because they are intelligent. I love them because they are funny. I love them because they are kind and genuine and they care about the world. But I must also love them because they suffer. I empathize with them. When they struggle, I do too. I can feel their pain. And no matter what they do, no matter how many mistakes they make, I will still love them. Because they are my family. And even though I feel like everyone has left me, all my friends and all the people I trust, I still have my family. I will always love them and they will always love me. I can talk to them about everything. School and work and church and friends. My loneliness. My pain. Everything. I am loved. I am not alone. I will always have my family.

independence

I wonder if we are ever totally satisfied with who we are and what we are doing.

I'm about to begin my fourth semester at Brigham Young University. I am sitting on my couch in the apartment; the heat is at 74 and Jamie is doing laundry (again). I've had mixed feelings about this semester. My roommate is off to Spain, so I'm living with someone I have never met. My work and school schedules don't quite fit as I'd like them to, and I have to give up some things that are important to me to make it work. I despise the cold weather. My family is far away, again, and that is always hard for me. And all of my boys have been leaving slowly for the past six months, the last of which will head out in 10 days. That has been rough, and sometimes I haven't handled it well. I did a lot of crying my last week at home, and told my dad I didn't want to come back. And yet, I am at peace here.

I like school. I like learning things, and I love my English Language classes. They help me accept my nerdiness, of which I have an abundance. I like being busy. Sometimes it's nice to just sit and relax, but if I had too much free time I would not be happy. Plus, I work better under pressure with too much to do. I like the people I have met. In my classes, my apartment, my neighbors, old friends, professors. They have all helped me in some small way to define my self. And as much as I miss my family, I like living by myself. I like choosing how I spend my time and organizing my own schedule and being accountable to me. Independence. Eventual self-reliance.

I realized on the flight out here that I have changed more than I imagined. People always talk about changing so much at college, but after 3.5 semesters, I didn't feel like I had. I felt the same to me. I think maybe I'm just becoming more of my self; I'm learning how to be comfortable with who I am and the way my life is going. I do what I have to do, and I get satisfaction from knowing that I have done my best. I know that some things are going to be really, really hard, and that sometimes I will have to be completely on my own -- a scary thought for me. But I think I can do it now. I never had enough confidence in myself before. I'm growing up, something I never wanted to do. But it's not so bad. I'm better at it than I ever thought I would be.

Things will work out.