On a whim I submitted a variation of this post to Segullah and they'd like to put it up in the next few weeks(!). I'll let you know when. Thanks for all of your sweet, wise comments.
again - i *love* your posts about sam. they are so beautiful. i wish i knew him better! you're amazing dej. and so is sam. i'm sure you're a powerful couple and will only become more so.
I just read an article in the BYU alumni magazine about teaching our kids tolerance that was right up this alley. I looked for the link and couldn't find it. Maybe it was only in print. I think there is always going to be some fear and apprehension in this area ---maybe people are extra defensive when they're a little unsure of things themselves? Anyway you are "laying the foundation of a great work". We love both of you and are behind you 100%
I've been thinking about this post a lot. I really appreciate it, Deja. I know this sounds weird, but the level of vulnerability you describe terrifies me. And so I'm impressed. And inspired.
I'm sorry to be so unposty lately. I hope to be back to my usual self before too long. In the meantime, I have a couple of requests. This thing with my job has taken an interesting turn, one that is calling for my being a bit more careful. I hope you can help. Request 1: If you have a link to my blog on your blog (or anywhere), will you make sure that it doesn't list my last name? I'm particularly worried about my married name, as this is what I go by at work. If you could just keep me as Deja, that would be excellent. Request 2: I hate to do it, because it makes me kind of sad when other people do it, but I need to go private for awhile. Please, PLEASE, leave me a comment if you'd like to still read. Sometimes when people go private I'm too sheepish to ask to be added. Please don't be sheepish. Leave your email address here or shoot me an email as soon as you can. I want to get this privatized in the next few days. Thanks for your help. Maybe when I'm priv...
BYU graduation, with niece. I've been looking through old pictures, trying to find something in particular for another post (which I can't find; grrr), and I keep finding these pictures that I remember feeling terrible about when they were taken, but now, looking at them years later, I wish I could step into them and tell that younger self to chill out, to relax, and furthermore, that she is lovely. Tennyson Downs, 2003. This happens to you, right? That you get a picture developed (remember developing pictures?!) and you don't look at the lovely place you were, or think about the people you were with, because you're focused 100% on your thighs or your hair or your eyebrows or your [insert-insecurity-here]. And when the picture resurfaces years later, you stare and stare at it, remembering feeling bad, but not being able to re-conjure why on earth you felt that way. I can't tell you how many rolls of film I've looked through, my eyes zeroing in on ever...
The ultrasound last Friday was lovely--one of the loveliest. We saw her hands and arms, her profile, her cute nose, her brain, and the beating chambers of her heart. And the ultrasound tech showed us how confident she was that that the baby was a girl. A girl. A girl! I felt pretty and motherly, wearing a polka dot blouse and vintage skirt. And then everything got very dramatic. The tech told me to wait there, that she needed to show something to the radiologist, that after that the midwife would probably want to speak with me. She asked if I'd had any cramping, and I remembered the evening we had spent at the MFA the night before, how I had clutched my stomach as we walked down corridors and through large, beautiful rooms, and I told her, "Yes, actually." I waited, we waited, wondering what it could be, but not concerned yet, not really. And she came back, and invited me into an office where people were entering information into computers, talking about what they...
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love you!
Yeah Eboo! One of my all-time heroes.
This was a beautiful post.
-Kira
Thank you.