A detour or two.

I'm writing from the comfort of a bed that is not my own but is at least in my house in the room I inhabited from age seven probably to age fifteen. It seems so much smaller now.

This blog thing has turned into the monster I was afraid it would: a distraction from real writing and a glorified egocentric journal because merely writing assumes that people want to read. It just seems presumptuous. But this has also become a form of therapy, this half-bred offspring of journal meets moleskin. In fact, I have so gotten in the habit of writing that I have started to carry a notebook. I make notes. I am more aware of the simple things in life like weather patterns or the bathroom stall in the Colorado Springs airport that I have used now 4 times. Yes 4. The exact same stall. It's starting to evoke a sense of nostalgia. Though I guess I'm losing the point here, which is that this monster of a blog is maybe profiting me nevertheless. In summary, I have a love/hate relationship with it. Love/hate; now isn't that a new trend for me?

So I am home. Not for good. And I wonder if that makes me love it all the more. Sometimes I think I just like leaving home so I can fly back over the mountains, through the clouds and over the great salt lake and feel my breath catch in my chest as everything I love most becomes physically accessible again. I wrote more about this in my infamous notebook so I'll spare you. I actually want to rewind a few days to write about Wednesday night.

So Monday during Alex's guitar lessons Emma and I took a stroll and passed by this quaint little shop, Black Cat Books.

I wanted to go in but Emma needed to find a bathroom. If there is one thing I have learned about kids it is that they lose bladder control at the very moment it becomes most inconvenient. Luckily walking past I saw an announcement for a workshop on Wednesday, "Publish Your Book". Now, I don't have a book to publish. I just explained that. Or maybe I didn't. Anyway, this blog I hold partly responsible for the absence of a book. But that is just me passing the buck to a nonentity. All the same, I thought you know it couldn't hurt to see the end from the beginning. So I planned to check out said workshop.


I made the 25 minute drive which became 40 minutes because of traffic. And I started late. And hungry. So needless to say I was stressed and to stave off the stress I summoned excitement. So by the time I arrive I'm super pumped up. It started to rain when I got there so I ran down the streets so as to avoid getting too wet. What with the wind and the running my hat went flying off. Which got a good laugh from café goers as well as from me. I enter the bookshop only to find that the author giving the workshop left because no one showed up on time. So I had gotten ready, put off my phone call to Peru as well as my run and not to mention my dinner, for nothing. I couldn't just turn around so I wondered to the downstairs of the bookstore. It was totally empty and I wandered in revelry though perhaps wander is not totally accurate. More like shuffled; the place was small. I even sat down for 15 minutes and jotted down some things in my notebook. Feeling better, I find a stack of Brian Andreas goodness in the form of Storypeople.

I first discovered Storypeople during my 2006 graduation present to me trip to Seattle. I had actually been thinking about them a few weeks back while trying to think of things that made me happy. I had copied and pasted so many of the quotes and Word somehow annihilate d the document. It was just one of those days that I kept striking out. Seriously. But these funky pictures, scuptures and quotes make me smile. And if I am going to take up gigabites I should be using it to spread goodness. So here are some of my favorite "Stories". They make me feel like being a kid and hope and laugh and maybe sigh. And honestly, I think Brian Andreas must have been spying on me because I swear there are things here I've said word for nearly-almost word. It's a funny feeling, the suspicion that the story of your life was written by someone else. But a comforting one. Because it means that you're not as alone as you once suspected.

So thank you Brian Andreas. Thank you thingsnotworkingoutasplanned. After all.
Enjoy. Enjoy. En joie. Oui, c'est ca.



When I grow UP, I want to remember that I always wanted to be about a thousand different things & one lifetime didn't seem nearly enough. When I grow up, I hope it's at the very end when it doesn't matter anymore anyway.

I can imagine it working out perfectly, I said. I can't, she said & I said no wonder you're so stressed.

They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.

We had gone far enough together to listen easily in the quiet spaces.

It took me a long time, she said, to stop confusing safety with love.

I mainly want someone to tell me I'm right & then pay me, he said. Is that too much to ask? & I said as long as you're living in a dream world, you might as well make it work for you.

I only do this until I get dizzy & then I lay down on my back & watch the clouds, she said. It sounds simple but you won't believe how many people forget the second part.

This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most & then it won't weigh a thing anymore.

I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat.

the real problem with details is there's so many of them

If you're right & I'm not, I'm going to be hell to live with, she said. So, you better think about that next time you want to be right.

When I first met him, I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there'd be room for him to stay.

What are the rules? I said & she said, Do exactly what I want whenever I want, make no demands of me whatsoever & love me forever, no questions asked & I said, how do you win? & she said, you don't understand. I'm the only one who wins & then she laughed & clapped her hands. Isn't it a great game? she said.

Tied together by stuff too difficult to explain to someone new

If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.

I saw them standing there pretending to be just friends, when all the time in the world could not pry them apart.

I try & walk a line between terror & ecstasy, she said & then she shook her head. You'd be amazed at the people who avoid me for no good reason, other than that.

I think my life would be easier, she said, if I could just get my selves to agree on something.

When I was younger I used to keep all the stuff I had in my pockets. There were a lot of rocks & little shiny things. As I got older it got to be too much to carry & I couldn't remember why I kept it anyway so I finally got rid of it. Now, I make lists

this is a picture of the future & you'll notice that there's a lot of blank space because people haven't made up their minds about it & the future doesn't have a lot of time for that kind of indecisiveness

It's taken me a long time to get here, he said, so I don't really care if it's wrong.

Why is the world so confusing? he said & I said it's only confusing if you believe it has to make sense & he looked at me & shook his head. I can't believe they let just anyone have children, he said.

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. & there is nothing more to it than that.

Lie # 4

You said never pick sides; never choose between two.

But I just...




Con·tra
(kntr)

prep.

In contrast or opposition to; against.

adv.

In opposition to something stated or expected; to the contrary.

condontcallmeacontratillyouvetriedtra

The History of Love. By Nicole Krauss

Because I read it:

I'm just going to copy and paste was Amazon has to say about the plot of the book. Not that I didn't care about the plot, but this, for me, was not a plot driven book. It was driven by prose, by voice. Honestly, the writing is so evocative and poignant that if you have half a poetry-inclined soul you will get chills. Unless you are me in which case your chills will be accompanied by sobs. (Yes, even if you are sardine packed in the family van and on the way to Cirque de Soleil and reading by the light of your phone.)

So I give you the summary. But I think that you don't have to have read the book or even know what it's about to get something from the passages/quotes below:

The History of Love spans of period of over 60 years and takes readers from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach. At the center of each main character's psyche is the issue of loneliness, and the need to fill a void left empty by lost love. Leo Gursky is a retired locksmith who immigrates to New York after escaping SS officers in his native Poland, only to spend the last stage of his life terrified that no one will notice when he dies. ("I try to make a point of being seen. Sometimes when I'm out, I'll buy a juice even though I'm not thirsty.") Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer vacillates between wanting to memorialize her dead father and finding a way to lift her mother's veil of depression. At the same time, she's trying to save her brother Bird, who is convinced he may be the Messiah, from becoming a 10-year-old social pariah. As the connection between Leo and Alma is slowly unmasked, the desperation, along with the potential for salvation, of this unique pair is also revealed.

************************

"He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God."

"When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely."

"...larger than life...I've never understood that expression. What's larger than life?"

"ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP
Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life."

"Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. ... When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff , almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. ... Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees. ... To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all."

"When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?"

"And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it."

"The truth is the thing I invented so I could live."

"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact."


And, to culminate Leo's unofficial obituary, written by himself years before he was actually old: "He fell in love. It was his life."

And those the rainy days they ain't so bad when you're the King (or queen)

Today was stellar. I learned a lot from Carine about patience. And about selflessness. I think most mothers could teach me this but I'm glad I get to learn it here first-hand. Plus she's a real trooper and lets me talk to her in French and then doesn't scold me when I get lazy and revert to English.

So today's highlight was my run. I thought for sure today was going to be MY day. It was drizzling as I was getting my shoes (Vibram's) on and when I took out Polski the dog beforehand. I was so stoked to get soaking wet and run with raindrops dripping down my nose.

As luck would have it, the rain let up the duration of my run and then picked back up once I was home. But the good news is that I put in another 3 miles even though my legs/muscles were not happy with me the last mile or so. I'm pretty sure I didn't do any irreparable damage and I still had tons of energy at the end of the run that had I wanted to risk it, I definitely could have kept going. I should add that it's been a LONG time (pre IT band problems/barefoot adventures) since I've felt that way at the end of 3 miles.

The neighbor was over here yesterday talking to Carine about training for a half in October. Apparently the key is to do two 3 mile runs in the week and then use the weekend for a long run, adding a half mile every week. Honestly, I haven't done the math and until I can break a six mile long run in my vibrams I won't look at races or dates, but that's my new plan. I think it's more effective than trying to run longer every day. Plus on my off days I can take it to the bike and have a hard core yoga session. Next week the plan is 3 miles Monday, Wednesday and a 4 miler Saturday. It's really not an intense schedule from an outsider's perspective but it will push me and it's a schedule. Yay for planning!

So I'm running to an especially awesome mix today. I just downloaded Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine who I should have known about earlier but am only now discovering. It's probably all I need to be happy right now. It's like the new and improved story of my life. Somehow. Anyway, I used that song to create a genius mix on my itouch. Let it be known Apple did NOT fail me today.

Well at the end of my run to give me that extra push as I sprint my little heart out I go back to Dog Days. And then the next song comes on, and it's this one. And if I thought life couldn't get any better I was wrong. It was my cool down song and it was nearly dark. So I pulled a Marseille and started busting out skipping/dancing/walking moves on the sidewalk. I got to the park and wanted to ran around/play in the grass but decided Mom would never forgive me if I got struck by lightning there in the middle of a huge open field. Even if I am only 5 foot 4 and would hardly consider myself a target. I can't be out in the rain without hearing her voice telling me to come in. And I got to thinking, that of all the ways to go, lightning would be okay by me; so long as it was quick. And it would be ironic to boot. I mean, my name is a weather pattern; my first word was rain. (I had mentioned this to Alex in passing and yesterday when the neighbor was over he introduced me and elaborated with "Her first word was rain". Kids, they never cease to amaze and amuse). It would only be appropriate you know. Not like I'm gonna tempt fate or anything. Don't worry, Mom, I sometimes still listen to your voice in my head. Though maybe not as often as I should. You can blame Kings of Leon.

***************Abrupt Transition*******************

So, I'm starting my book summaries. I don't necessarily expect anyone to be interested. But when I was in Highschool I would type up all the favorite quotes/passages of the books I read. I probably have over a hundred pages word document. I think if you're going to write, it's important to identify good writers, what makes them good, and what you like about them. However, I think that the main motivation I have for taking back that old habit is that if I am going to spend the time reading something I should spend the time letting it go through me. And that's not an entirely passive process. I have a lot of books I want to read; I won't always have time to go back and reread books if I want to read new ones. So I have to make them count.

Here goes with that effort. In the meantime, some words of inspiration from Nicole Krauss. Who may or may not be some kind of soul mate. Anyway, I love this. And I hate it; because I wish I had written it. But you can't hate truth; it's what sets you free. So I love. Mostly.

"Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about."

Amen, girl. A-freaking-men.

Because the right 4 chords can make me...

I remember my friend talking about a song once and he said, quoting his friend, "This is the kind of song that changes your life." The song happened to be DevotchKa's "How it Ends". It is indeed such a song, and one that has been on my mind lately.

But in order for a song to change you, you have to hear it at just the right time. Timing is, after all, everything.

So.

I left the house this evening thinking about gratitude and thinking about friends and family. I should have seen this coming, really. I mean, you go a couple of days without talking to people and living in a city that's not quite home and it's inevitable, isn't it, to appreciate more than normal the people in your life?

Well this song came on. Moving and Shaking, by Great Lake Swimmers.

And while it played, I was in the middle of trying to figure out how I got so lucky to have people that care about me when I'm so lousy when it comes to reciprocity.

It was a combination of: The right 4 chords. Gratitude. And the gap between the overwhelming need to show it yet finding myself inadequate for the task. You guessed it. Tears.

Let me say that this is far from the first time this has happened to me. But that doesn't change the fact that I sometimes still can't get over the goodness. Looks like today was one of those days. Most of the people who made that possible will never even read this. But I'd like to thank them all the same.

As well as Facebook. Who introduced me to Great Lake Swimmers. Who in turn wrote a song. And for that song, for making me feel.

And I'm awfully glad my finger's resting gently on the masterfade

So I forgot to mention how Saturday we almost got into a really bad accident. The whole family was driving to Castlerock to do some outlet shopping when this car nearly barrels into us from the left side. The girl driving it overcorrected too far to the left then overcorrected too far to the right and barely missed us as she went through our lane, past it, and then into the grass/ditch off the side of the road which she kept moving through and then into another side road where luckily there was no traffic. It all happened so fast and I'm not exactly sure what John did or what all she did but no one was hurt. But it made me think. It's crazy how fast life can change. But also how, in the same amount of time, everything can stay the same. And boy am I glad for that.

Well I woke up today and the first thing I was aware of was a sharp pain in my calf. I ran my two miles all the same without much pain while the kids were swimming but as soon as I started walking the pain was back with a vengeance. I looked up on Runner's World and they say that the solution is a "thicker heal" and to "avoid walking barefoot". Yeah, well both of those solutions are not happening for this barefoot runner. I guess I still haven't built up the calf strength I need after all; I haven't been doing any long runs really but I'm running almost everyday whereas before I was alternating. Tomorrow may be a day for the bike. Which is fine. Because we just installed the entertainment system into the sports room. Boom bam.

Today I undertook thing one on my newly created "things I have never done alone" list. That would be eating at a restaurant solo. Now this is honestly something I'm almost positive I have never done. If I have I don't remember it so I don't count it. I don't count June 29, 2004 as I ordered from the McDo's on the Champs-Ellysée and realized that I understood every word the people in line behind me were saying. I have eaten alone many times in my life but that time, eating on a bench on that infamous promenade and taking in the last of the city, made a deep impression on me. But a bona fide sit down-and-wait-for-a-waiter-to-bring-you-your-food restaurant, now that is a horse of a different color.

So I throw on a jumper over jeans, put on a hat to cover my unwashed hair and put said hair into pigtails, taking off 5 years in less than 5 minutes; No way was I going out on the town without looking the part. I went to the nearest Indian restaurant I could find. It had good reviews but that was all I knew about it. I get there and the joint is pretty class, alright. Not five star or anything but wine glasses on tables kinda place.

The owner raised his eyebrow when I told him "Table for one, please". He then said he'd be happy to get me the beverage menu if I was old enough. It was a terrific start to the evening. I'm telling you, pigtails. They always do the trick. I honestly couldn't wipe the grin off my face the whole time. The best was when I was sitting there waiting for my food after having ordered. I had left my books and my itouch in my bag. At home when I eat all by myself I always am doing something else-reading, doing sudoku or googling. I was totally at a loss with what to do. So of course I resorted to playing with my hair and was at it when the waiter brought me my food and startled me.

I tried to sit there and bask in the present moment and all that pep-talk stuff but it was really hard living in the moment when I couldn't stop thinking about going home and writing/telling people about it. That wouldn't be the first time I've dealt with that conundrum and it surely won't be the last. Throughout the soirée I kept getting this goofy smile on my face and then I would imagine that the staff was wondering about the creeper in the corner who wouldn't stop smiling and it just made me smile more. Almost laugh, in fact. At the register I chatted with the owner. That's the nice thing about dining solo; you can take the time to stop and talk to people. "Come again," he said as I nodded my goodbye. And maybe I will the next time I decide to indulge in a $2o dinner for the sake of checking off my to-do list. It was delicious though. I probably should have mentioned that earlier.


I've been thinking a lot lately about my decision to come here. I mean, I totally don't regret it but I sometimes can't help but think of the "exotic" experiences I might have had had I gone somewhere more foreign. And it occurred to me that I am spending two and a 1/2 months of my life here and that I am done treating my time here like a countdown; like a bus stop and not like a destination. I mean, a new city is a new city and novelty can offer just as much as the foreign. So I decided to go out in the city I've been living in and finally make it a part of me.

Now I have a theory about claiming cities: a city isn't yours until you've walked it. Until you've gotten out of the car and heard its sounds, its conversations and felt the sidewalk under your feet. And then once you've walked it, it helps to write it; because so much of knowing is about not forgetting the small things. As a side note, I think that's why I love Europe, because you walk everywhere. I fell in love with Salt Lake when I came home from France in 2004 and made the effort to walk around downtown. And I'm grateful in a huge way that earlier this spring the van broke down in Moab and we were forced to walk around. Because it changed the town for me.

And this is the kind of thinking that resulted in my remaining evening destination being Manitou Springs. The kids have their guitar lessons here every week, it's like a little bit of Europe right here in Colorado. The with-it girl who cut my hair a month ago told me about this Maté café there where people hang out all night. She said there were a lot of hipsters and readers of books. So I thought I'd pack my laptop and books and hang out there all night and maybe even make it a weekly ritual for the weeks I have left. The place is open a happy 24 hours a day.

Well it's funny how we carry our perspectives with our expectations. Coming from a college town, I imagined tables and couches for studying and reading. What I found was a small, almost closet-like corner café with a few tables and a few tiny booths: a tourist joint. I knew I couldn't just sit down without ordering so I got myself a maté, burnt my tongue (what else) and looked around the entirety of the shop and realized that monopolizing the only remaining table would be unfair, plain and simple. Most of the clients of the café were sprawled out in the surrounding plaza and sitting on the walls of the garden beds or on the sidewalks. Me pulling out my laptop and writing about the books I've read was just not happening.

Maté in hand, I headed back to my car to lighten my load. As I turn past the café this kid holds up a sign. At first I thought it was one of those hitchhiker signs or bum signs of cardboard and sharpie marker and that he was asking for money. This is what the sign read: It's my birthday! Please gimme some lovin or at least some kisses. I smiled. I mean, I couldn't help it, could you? The kid started to look hopeful but I didn't slow down even though a part of me wanted to stop and chat. What can I say, it's that darn Jack Kerouac. But I gotta hand it to the kid. I mean, 'A' for effort and for utter lack of shame. Pretty much made my night.

I walked up and down the streets for about 20 minutes. It was dusk, my favorite time of day. I'd already walked these streets and taken pictures some 3 weeks back but then I was a tourist. And well, something was different this time around. For one there were guys playing guitars on the sidewalks every hundred yards or so. A lot of people with dreads. Barefoot and playing hacky sac. Smell of pot. Kids on the street and on the playground looking out of place but right at home.A little like the metros in Paris. And my apartment building in Rennes. Manitou Springs, in the summer, lives on its sidewalks and the threshold of shops.

I ended up at this bench:

where I sprawled out on my stomach propped up on my elbows for nearly 2 hours intermittently writing just for fun and then reading all while being serenaded by a guitar some 20 feet away. And since I am now reading Antoine St. Exupéry's "Vol de nuit", I am also intermittently looking up vocabulary words and writing them in my notebook. That's another thing on my to-do list: read a book in French this summer. I don't have much choice though, almost all my books in English have been read. Happy day.


Driving home to an awesome cd mix, the moon had this crazy golden to it. It looked like some huge ancient coin caught in the tree tops that you could hold in your hands if you stood on a chimney. Low, like a sun that is setting, it reminded me of Hawaii where I saw the moon stretch out over the ocean and its own reflection for the first time. And it was everything I hoped it would be. As I made my way up Cheyenne Mountain homeward bound, the moon seemed to rise with me. And by the time I reach the top it's hanging in the sky. I didn't know that the moon rose, like the sun. Or maybe it doesn't and it's just a trick of light, distance, and perception.

Either way, it's a nice end to a nice day. It was harder at first today, the whole no phone thing. And I almost caved and got onto facebook. But it got easier and in truth it's made me want to do something even more hard core. I'm really regretting not having been more diligent last year in France with my writing and blogging. My facebooking and late nite phone conversations were probably just as bad there as they are here. Sad.

My plans for this weekend are still up in the air. I have an entire Saturday to fill and I'm still not sure how. Also on my list of "things to-do by-my-self" is to go see a movie solo. I'm honestly considering going to see Eclipse. For the sheer sake of irony. Beautiful irony.

I will eventually get to those book quotes. In the meantime: Broadmoor Valley Park, you are mine. Manitou Spring, you too.

Ah, life. Welcome back. I've missed you.

This is me proving Zack wrong: a favorite pastime.

Today's run could merit a post all on its own. I set goals for myself last night as far as running and working out and it's doing wonders already. Case in point: I woke up feeling sick to my stomach and weak. I can't decide it this is actually a result of my running. My Dr. says that "running is hard on the female body" and that always makes me want to say, with some indignity "NOT fair". Anyway, I can't decide if it's the running that's doing a number on my "female body" or if it's just doing a number on my hypoglycemia. I wake up most mornings with a stomachache. I teeter-totter all day between being starving and force feeding myself because I have no appetite. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not eating enough to compensate for the calories I burn. And if the heat is just too hot. Fancy that.

ANYway, my retarded body aside, I forced myself to go running this evening. It was delicious. Had my itouch, a storm coming in at my back and to-do lists running through my head. At the start of my run I passed this guy in a park on a bench. He had a huge water bottle and was writing in a notebook. "He's a writer for sure," I told myself. Then "I wonder what he's writing."

I ended my run and did my stretches in that same park. I ended with some cartwheels and when I was done I noticed that the guy was still there, standing and facing me. It looked like he was sewing up his pants-they had holes everywhere. And as I was laying there on the grass raindrops started to fall and I wanted to go back to running again until I was soaked all the way through. Yet I knew that I would be overdoing it if I did. So I thought, well, I could just stay here and lay here and let it soak me. But the rain was slow in coming and there was this dad playing ball with his son eyeing me. And there was this guy, on the bench but not on the bench. Because he was standing. And I didn't want either of them to think I was sticking around because of them. But the truth of it is, I really wanted to walk over and sit on that bench. And talk to that guy because he looked like someone interesting. Totally out of the ordinary. And I just wanted to soak it all in. And maybe get soaked by the rain to boot.

But I didn't want him to think I was hitting on him. That's what I hate about life these days is that you can't just walk up to someone and be interested in them without them thinking you're hitting on them. It's bad enough with guys but it's way worse with girls. I mean, I always feel awkward around girls. Which is really too bad because there are a lot of interesting ones out there but I feel like I have to pretend not to be too interested or else they get weirded out. The games are totally sick. And the truth about people who aren't in the ordinary is that you never know with them. The other truth is that I sometimes go home and take notes about them because they have great paper-back potential. Which is totally normal, I mean Steinbeck did it and all, but I didn't quite have a clean conscious on the whole thing. So I got in my car and drove home.

And vowed that before going back to Utah I am getting soaked in a rainstorm and the next Jack Kerouac moment I have, I'm taking it.

************************************************************************

ON ANOTHER NOTE. A very long-winded one.

Today's to-do list gets several major checks. The first one being I finally emailed the grad advisor at BYU to figure out the best way to do the letter of recommendation thing. I haven't taken a class in 4 years (going on 5) and my French is at least 4 times better than when I graduated. I couldn't even use the subjunctive for crying out loud. ( Oh subjunctive. I thought you were the bane of my existence until subjunctive in Spanish came along to haunt so many of my Montreal dreams.)

So my options are to either get a recommendation from an old teacher on outdated ability or go back to school, paying $1000 and inconveniencing everyone at work because the class is midday to go back and retake a class I took junior year. Is it any wonder why every time I break out my GRE book to study that I lack motivation? Yeah, this things needs to become a reality and it needs to do that fast.

That is, IF I go into French. I've been at this decision since 2005 and it has yet to be made. So lame.

The reason being that I'm still torn about not pursuing an English degree. Especially after reading this most terrific and inspiring book "Mindset". My work bought it for us to read this summer and I finished it in a matter of days. I have to say really quick that when I went back into the school to pick it up before returning to Colorado after going to Yellowstone that I totally got emotional walking through those doors. How much better can life get when you have a job that not only continually cultivates your mind but also feels makes you feel so good that when you come back from being away it makes you want to cry? K, so maybe I should clarify that those are tears of joy. I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, that life doesn't get much better. Sometimes I don't know why I feel the need to leave.

I'll leave the sappiness and book-reporting for later because I have a couple of other books I want to cover as well. But I do want to say that the book brought me to one major realization about my writing aspirations: in the course of my college career in the English dept I came to believe that you either were a born writer, or that you weren't. And I never pursued English because I thought I was; I did it because I liked it and then had enough credits to graduate.

I was never the kid with a stack of different moleskin notebooks and fountain pens that flashed across pages so fast it could make you sick. I never had a satchel bag for my un-moleskin notebook and un-fountain pen. I wasn't "burdened" by the need to write-the 'sign' of a 'true artist', was well groomed and said "like" too much. I believed that writing came easier to me than other things, that I had a "knack" for poetry. But I never believed I was a "natural". And poetry doesn't even sell so that doesn't even count. Point here is, I wasn't very open to learning how to write. I accepted my limitations.

And I've started to wonder what might happen if I tackled writing like I tackled French. Reading this mindset book has me realizing that just because we have a certain mindset-a closed or open one-toward one thing doesn't mean that we carry that through to other things. Even in the world of academia. The trick is to identify your mindset towards everything in life and tweak it. In English, I accepted any strengths and defeats as inevitable; in French I was convinced that if I worked hard enough, even if that meant studying abroad and reading 60 pages aloud every night, I would one day get it. The irony here is that people tell me all the time I must have a gift for learning languages. And I laugh and try to get them to understand just how unnatural languages used to come to me; that I had a strong desire to defy my ineptness and I worked hard and taught myself how to teach myself the tricks to learning a language. That anyone could do that.

I think a huge part of what I love about French it what learning it has taught me about me. French has brought me to cities wrought with memories of people and feelings and fears and discomfort that turned into delicious familiarity that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise. French brought me to my job that I love. It brought me here, to Colorado. It brought me faith in the power of boldness and of sacrificing.

It's only too appropriate now to quote from the Little Prince, another thing that French brought me and that changed me. For any of you who don't know it, it won't do just to quote from one part and you really should read it but until then I'll copy this section:

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"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince, "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said, "I am not tamed."

"Ah please excuse me," said the little prince. But after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think she has tamed me . . . "

"It is possible," said the fox. "On earth one sees all sorts of things."

"My life is very monotonous," [the fox] said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . . "

"What must I do, to tame you? asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . . "

The next day the little prince came back.

........

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . . "

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made a friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said. "Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.'

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose---" said the little prince so he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . . "

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

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Someone once told me that the root of the word "sacrifice" came from French. Faire: to make, and Sacré: sacred. To sacrifice for something makes that thing sacred to you.

I have sacrificed a lot for French. In a sense, it has tamed me. Now I am realizing that I, if I did the same thing for English, well who knows what might happen. The trouble of it all is that the price to pay is a high one. I would have to probably enroll as an undergrad again. Take some more classes and make a concentrated effort to get published more. Creative writing programs are super competitive. And the risk is that you come out a better writer but at the risk of losing your voice and sounding like every other MFA grad.

So I have some research to do and some commitment to make here soon. And I share all of this in detail because a) this is what happens when you (okay, I) deprive me (myself) of my telephone and facebook and b) because I finished reading The Alchemist today and it's all about the discovery of your "personal legend" and of not being afraid to follow it. And I think that I am not the only one trying to figure out what mine is and so the sharing of the details isn't too excessive. At least I hope.

Now,

I was giving advice to a friend who was trying to decide what to do the other day and I decided to take it into account. Like every other person out there, I give great advice; following it and applying it to myself is the real trick. The advice I gave her was to put out in her mind the things she wanted to do. And in order to figure out where her priority lies, to tell herself which of the things, if she ended up not having it or doing it, would hang over her as a regret the rest of her life. Now, I'm not about living in fear of regret. But I think that it helps to put things into perspective.

In prep for grad school I have also been playing with the idea of taking a year off to travel beforehand. A sort of Eat, Pray, Love thing. I love taking the summers off but experiences are different when you know something is short-term versus long term. And I keep telling myself that writers can only write what they know. And that the only way to learn the world is to live it.

I was giving my sister, Lis, some awesome advice that I have been reflecting on as well. She was talking about school and a mission and a job and traveling, etc. And I told her that school is something she will end up doing because the world will require that of her. And she will end up getting a job and then finding better jobs because the world will require that of her too. These are the things that just kind of happen to us in life for the most part: inevitabilities. But traveling is different. Traveling is not an inevitability.

I got an email today about internships in Brussels. I have been thinking a lot about next summer. About needing to leave the country. And I have to ask myself, "If life were to happen but it would mean your traveling days are over-or at least for the next couple of years-would you have any regrets?

And the truth is I don't know. But 'I-don't-know' is not 'no'. And if the answer is 'yes' then I have some figuring out to do.

I'll get around to typing up my book reports later. The mere habit speaks volumes on just how much I need to go back to school. Or join a book club. I have "A History of Love", "My Name is Asher Lev", "Screwtape Letters", "Mindset", and "The Alchemist" to cover in quotes. For you but mostly for me. But also for you because maybe you will be inspired to read them and if you don't have time well then I spared you the trouble and handed you the best parts on a silver platter, free of charge.

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Oh silly Zack. You though I was gonna cave by day two. You obviously underestimated my ability to converse with myself in equally exhaustive ramblings via this blog. I win.