the busy heart

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...

I've been in a bit of a slump this week. A funk. Sloggy and a little sad for no particular reason. I've spent a lot of time on my couch, wondering which of the following might make me feel better: a nap, making a healthy and delicious dinner, vacuuming the stairs, taking a walk, playing with baby, writing. And since exactly none of them seem like they'll make me feel that much better, I stumble upstairs, opting to try the nap, since it requires the least effort. Yesterday was a weird day, particularly in the morning, and in the afternoon Sam and I went out to run some errands. On the way home we listened to NPR coverage of the presentation of the new pope to the world. Sam was driving, occasionally shouting at the reporters for pinheadedness, and I sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window, feeling sloggy and still not sure why. I had wanted to tell Sam all sorts of stuff about this and that, but I was quiet so he could listen. It was good for me to be quiet...

I plowed through my undergraduate degree in three years, my Master's in two, and I finished my PhD by the time I was 26. This didn't feel odd or particularly ambitious. I just did the next thing that made sense, sometimes kicking and screaming along the way for various reasons, but keeping on anyway. While I was in school, I wondered on and off if I was doing the right thing. School was expensive; Mississippi was lonely; I felt like I should already be having babies, like my friends. Sometimes all that got me through were quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley  (president of the Mormon Church at the time) saying that women should get all of the education they could get. I was doing that. I was getting all the education I could. I had these quotes taped all over my house. I didn't know how it would work exactly to have a family and a career, but I had this vision of myself, sitting in my office on an academic campus, rocking a sleeping baby in a car seat while I discussed poetry...

I've been thinking about a day over a year ago, when I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I'd later lose that pregnancy thirteen weeks in, but mostly when I found out, I was terrified. I mean, I was excited at first, but on the heels of that excitement came the holy-wow-what-on-earth-am-i-doing feeling. They say when you have a baby your life is changed the instant you give birth, and that's true of course, but in a way my life changed then, the first time I found out. I almost instantly felt eclipsed, like I was disappearing, like I'd never be "me" again. I worried about the baby, about the things he or she would have to go through, about all of the sadness and struggle involved in a normal human life. I worried I wouldn't know how to help, or that the sadness of his/her sadness would overwhelm me beyond my capacity to function. This wasn't an unreasonable fear: incapacitating sadness is something I'm familiar with, and there have been...

Emily Dickinson House and Museum Last fall Sam and I drove to Western Mass to visit Emily Dickinson's house . I'm slightly (okay, really) obsessed with her. We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast in Petersham, drove to Amherst, paid for the full tour (an hour and a half of Emily magic!) and I basically cried through the entire thing. My reaction sort of surprised me. I held it together okay, but if I would have been alone, I would have really been wailing. I think a lot about that day with Sam. I was pregnant then, which is probably why it's stuck with me. It seemed like the only time we were out and about with that news, wholely happy and clear about it. Even then there were some signs we would lose the pregnancy, but it felt, to me, like we were both clinging to it, grateful to even be where we were as briefly as we would be there.  And I don't know how to explain my tears other than that. I was emotional anyway, an...

Remember how, a year ago, I was posting from Paris/London/Italy.  Yeahhhhh, I'm not this year.  But I've thinking of it, missing it, so I thought I'd repost a wee post.  Happy Friday, etc. On a brisk walk this morning, in one last attempt to find something special before we trained away from Paris, I saw a little old lady walking her dog. And her dog was holding an umbrella in its mouth. It was scheduled to rain today, so this brilliant lady must have trained her dog to hold her essentials. I wished for a dog like that as we waddled through the streets with all our stuff, heading for the metro. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I found myself thinking what I always think when I have to carry my own junk: what IS all this junk? I begin to regret packing specific items, like my stack of ten (!?) books, a skirt I haven't had occasion to wear yet, my pair of black shoes, etc. But we got here, to London, sigh of contentment. The train was speedy and it ...