A few choice things.

So, it turns out that one of my roommates, along with being the head student honcho in the marine biology department at BYU-H and an expert in jellyfish, is an amateur acupuncturist.

Being an amateur acupuncturist is like being a first year airline pilot: no one in the plane wants to know this is your first time.   However, in a moment of charity, she offered to 'open the gates' of my other roommate who was having back problems.  Gates were opened, needles were stuck, no serious blood was drawn, and I was educated about the basic theories of acupuncture.   All of us went to bed considering the night a success.

Earlier in the evening, while talking on the phone, I happened to stumble across some neighbors engaged in what appeared to be a typical family activity.  Because I was on the phone, I didn't have my camera handy, but I'll post a video that looks similar to what I saw.  The children performing stood on the street and the grass separating the street from the sidewalk.  No one holding the flaming torch of death appeared to be over twelve years old.  Watch just a minute or two and you'll get the idea.

So, like this guy, just a deacon / beehive. The thing where they hold the fire in their hand to light the other end of the torch is real.  I have NO idea how it works, but it essentially took over my entire phone conversation.  "FREAK!  He's spinning it behind his head!  Ohmygosh, now between his legs and...and...what the heck!  He just picked up the fire and put it on the other end of the stick!" etc.   Meanwhile, while I'm frantically whispering the ESPN play-by-play into the phone, the rest of the extended family is standing casually by, having conversation, looking fairly non-plussed.  Imagine a gathering of people sitting on the porch watching the children play hopscotch.  If hopscotch involved an enormous, spinning, kerosene-doused torch, that is.

This place never fails to astonish and amaze.  Even sleepy La'ie, with it's five restaurants, one elementary school, two hair salons and a dusty Ace hardware, is prone to surprising moments of beauty and strangeness.  A gulp of exotic air, reminding me of where I am.

In other news, the stars were perfect tonight, I read Matthew 18 at the beach this morning and considered the debt I owed to God and therefore the forgiveness and patience I needed to show to other people, and Ben is flying out to visit tomorrow.  Should be a smashing weekend.

love and aloha.

Sweatiness, Repentance, and the Defamiliarization of Art

I am writing this from the top bunk in my tiled, white room in La'ie, Hawaii.  It is sweltering, probably 90 degrees with a press of humidity that would moisten even the Southernmost belle.  My roommate and I are both lying very still on our beds, positioning ourselves strategically under the ceiling fan and trying to type without our wrists sweating on the keyboards.

Lest you get the wrong impression about Hawaii, though, let me tell you.  Hawaii is a place where even the bad is good.  For instance, it's hot inside, but two blocks away a tree bends over the sidewalk with the weight of enormous grey- scaled fruit with white fleshy insides.  The fruit drop onto the concrete and rot there; I step over them on my way to the library.  I have no idea what kind of fruit it is, but I am thoroughly convinced that if it takes 90 percent humidity to create a climate in which basketball-sized fruit spontaneously grow and fall, then I'll take sweating any day.  It is a stinkin' rainforest out there, writhing with life and growth and rotting.  

I could write all night about the ocean, the beaches, the palm trees, the volcanic rock, the mountains, but let's not waste your time.  Instead, just type "Hawaii" into Google Image search and spend five minutes scrolling through the pictures.  While you do, let me tell you the secret, folks: 

It's all true.

Everything you're looking at is real.  Even the big guys in the lava-lavas and the ukeleles on the beach and the bright orange sunsets that looked photoshopped. 

 Every good thing you've heard about Hawaii is true.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, here's five minutes of lifethought.

On Friday I woke up earlyish and went for a run.  It was rainy and cool and I ran along a small paved path next to the Kamehameha Highway, which runs (mostly) around the perimeter of Oahu.  La'ie is very remote, so within minutes I was in farmland, looking out to some impressive windmills on the horizon looking like a gently revolving beacon from a Mihizaki film.  I ran until I found a state park and jogged in (another magical thing about Hawaii, state parks and beaches are ALL FREE) to the beautiful woods-meets-shrubs-meets-sand area that is common on this part of the island.  I ditched shoes, phone, keys and shirt and went for a quick swim in the blue surf before jogging back home along the beach.

As I ran home, dripping with sweat, tropical rain, and saltwater, I thought:

This could be the happiest day of my life.

 30 minutes later, I felt the same way.  I went home to eat a bowl of oatmeal with raisins, honey and banana and read my scriptures.  When I ate, I tasted the sweat on my lips because I had rubbed them with the back of one arm while running.  The small toe on my left foot had a blister because I had put my sandy feet barefoot into my shoes to run home, and the grit worked up a small hotspot on my toe.  I was puzzled that this was all it took to send me careening into euphoria: a good run,  sweat, tasty breakfast, a moment with God, a small blister.  

Two of my favorite people and life mentors, named Eve and Lori, view life this way.  They see joy in tiny, tiny things: plants pushing up through the snow in the spring.  A beautiful Hopkins poem.  A pink sash on a cream-colored dress.  Someone else's talent.  Because they look for it, they experience more and more catalysts for joy.  It's like God gives them their life back, every day.  And every day, it's new and surprising and beautiful.

In his oddly brilliant essay "Art as Technique," Viktor Schklovsky discusses how art gives us this chance to experience the ordinary over and over again, with new wonder and perspective.  Without art (and I argue nature, especially nature that is unfamiliar) everything quickly becomes routine, or "habitualized."  There is no need for us to listen and really EXPERIENCE when we seek only for economy.

And this is where art, and, I argue, faith, comes in.  Of this Schklovsky writes:

"Habitualization devours work, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. "If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been." And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important..."

Faith, like art, allows us to have fresh experiences with the same world. Under the entry "Repentance' in the LDS Bible Dictionary, one reads, "The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world." Repentance acts as art does by allowing us to recognize our own growth, and therefore, our change in understanding of the world. This became real to me this week as a friend forgave me for something I had done to hurt him, and as a result, my resolve to be a better friend increased and I gained new insight into my current friendships. The old friendships sharpened and gained clearer focus. In this way, faith and repentance (and, ultimately, the Atonement of Jesus Christ) allows us to re-experience the past and look to the future in a fresh way. We become "new creatures in Christ" and the world tastes differently.

I believe that change is possible.  I believe that we can "defamiliarize" our spiritual and physical selves.  This week, stretch.  Prolonge.  Struggle.  Feel the roughness of it.  Notice your own change.  Be grateful. Allow yourself to be an active participant in life, whether it is good or bad.  I'm lucky enough to be naturally defamiliarized by a new surrounding, but that too can become frighteningly habitual. (For instance, I now text on the bus around the island instead of shamelessly gawking out the window like the tourist I am.)  Let the day be new today.  God will give it back to us.

Love, Aloha, and until next time,

Jess

Resurrection

In my faith, we believe that after we die, our bodies will be taken up again, perfected, reclaimed, and reunited with our spirits.  Every scar and blemish will be gone, every chipped tooth replaced.  We’ll even be the perfect age, whatever that means.  (I think I reached my optimum body type at age 9.)  Our bodies will be restored, glorious and bright.


I’d like to think that this is a resurrection of the Monster Nocturnes, but I’m afraid it’s more like a séance or an exhuming: I’ve dug the body up and I’m slapping some rouge on its cheeks to fool the next guy who walks by.  But ta-DA!  Here it is, at the request of a few encouraging friends, three years after its burial.


 The Monster Nocturnes: Episode Hawaii.


A friend of mine recently accused me of pulling a Bilbo Baggins and disappearing on this next adventure without telling anyone, and lest he be entirely correct, here’s the skinny: I’m headed to the islands  for the next two and a half months to study the stories of the early female converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I’ll be living on the North Shore of Oahu, close to BYU’s Hawaii campus.  Along with the academic reasons, I’m also going in anticipation of healing and growing.  I’m going in order to be lonely for a while, and be okay with being lonely.  I’m definitely going for the mangos, and the ocean, and the surfing, and the good friends I have on the islands.  And I’ve committed to try and share at least a little with all you folks out there on the interwebs.


Get excited for the hibiscus, sand, rad pioneer stories and blurry ocean selfies to come!  Aloha!

Polaroids

So, needless to say, it's been wayyyyy too long and I'm quite sorry. My technology avaliability is difficult to describe while in Maine; it's wonderful to never worry about overusing the computer, but the ten minutes it takes to load my email every three days generally just isn't worth the wait, so I'm sortof off-grid now. In many ways, it's wonderful.

My life now is three photographs. I wish I could post them (again, technology and my own impatience) but I'll describe them for you.

#1. Sitting on a wire-frame red chair at an outdoor wire table with Nate; behind is a flowergarden growing out of a bathtub. On the table is a half-devoured plate of fried pickles (the waiter is out of the picture, probably still fetching the tempeh burritoes). I'm wearing a scarf, jacket, and green crocheted hand warmers; Nate is only in a t-shirt; and I'm barely avoiding being skunked in cribbage.

While I spend most of my time in the amazing Patagonia outlet with amazing people (think: beards, big llama eyes, easy laughs, plaid shirts) the most memorable part of work is the hour drive. Photograph #2 then is me in the mussy black interior of my car, an apologetic apple core in the cupholder along with three pairs of sunglasses and a Maine gazeteer; the two front windows are rolled down, as is the sunroof but I'm wearing the same scarf, jacket, and green crocheted hand warmers; Avett Brothers or Matisyahu blasting. (I guess you won't be able to see that in a photograph...oops.)

#3. Armed with a blowdrier, a bag of bricks, three pillows, six sets of playmobile guys, and a bin of blocks, I face my cluster of sqealy, wide-eyed primary kids. The girls are wearing any dress that sparkles or has flowers, the boys are generally to be found crawling under the table. I am terrified but determined. The scarf, jacket, and green crocheted hand warmers are nowhere in sight.

Anyways. I'm sorry again about the terrible pause (and the rusty writing...). I'm trying to repent with more phone calls and fewer facebook posts. I miss you all! xoxo

An Oldie

This one is from two, maybe three years ago? It's been through a few drafts, but it's always exciting to look back at old work, and pat yourself on the head from where you've come. Not that there's a ton of progress, but it's sortof nice to reread the oldies. K. Enough chatter.

Sketching in Periodicals

today, in the mellow gold of the library,

I scraped the lines of your arm,

tracked the ruffled arc of your hair

as it crept into curls around your ear.

The gentle curve of your fingers were childlike,

vulnerable-

your eyes so smooth,

gray swoops on my page

and I stared and stared at the way

the ridge of your nose slipped into your eyebrow.

It took time for me to get that right.

when I was done, you were there

dropped in the margins of my Economics notebook,

where I could shuffle back

and locate you easily;

quietly nestled between Positive Externalities

and the Law of Diminishing Returns.

I watched your face a minute longer

and suddenly

wanted to reach across the table

to rub your forehead, as if you were my little brother

sleeping on the couch on a Sunday

afternoon.

Island Dreams

Don't you wish you could go back to that time when you were 9, and summer began with you walking out of the asphalt, brick and chain-link cage and heading into the forest path--the Snake Trail was what it was called--and through the tall, spiky grass (remember the milkweed plants? And the caterpillars who clustered there?) with your backpack slapping against your back and chafing your shoulders, until you reached your white house with the peeling blue porch paint--

--and you dropped your bag, thunk, on the stoop---
--and opened the door ("hi Betsy, hi Betsy! Down, girl!")--and yelled:
I'M HOME! IT'S DONE!!!!
as loud as your little lungs could manage.

And then there were cookies from Mom, and a quick review of all the papers you had haphazardly shoved in your lime green backpack, and a reminder to call home--
and you were off to the woods again, up Centennial Ave and to the Whale Rocks or the My Side of the Mountain fort that you and Sophie had perfected last week or even, to check on the tadpole clusters that Echo had found in the concrete pond. It was sunny and not too hot, and you could wear a bandanna to keep the sweat out of your salty eyes anyways. And afterward, on special nights, you would find the soft, bleached log that had washed up to Centennial Beach, and Dad would bring the djembes, and you and Spencer would dance in the sand, kicking up the dunes and singing; the dark waves giving their measured, hissing applause while Mom bobbed her head in time, tapping the thick trunk.

Who says childhood is idealized? That's the truth, straight up. I lived a magical life, I think; I still wonder where I can bring my children to have their Island dreams.

On Human Sacrifices...or something.

K, new poem! This one needs a title and lots of constructive comments, though, so go to. We're still at the butcher knife stage of drafting, so don't be shy...

Poem. (<---title goes here. Ahem.)

We all place our best work at the feet of God.
Sure, there are different way of saying it.
Back in the day, when the fiery angel dropped to prick the earth with his voice
(to Adam, to Eve, how tinny a voice that must have been!),
Abel settled his sheep (the whitest, the fleeciest, the warmest)
securely on the alter, then turned away, afraid.
Later, when Abraham rocked his baby on the stony crib,
sweat and lullabies streaming onto his child’s face,
or when Moses offered his tongue, his sandals, his future
to the glory of that electrifying shrub,
we stop and gape, amazed,
and poke our neighbors in their wooden pews
and quiver to compare ourselves
with those ceramic brows.

But, what is the difference then,
between us and those great, glassy men;
enamored in our gazes?
You and I,
we litter His feet with our own, private bounties;
tedious gray hours kneeling at the side of His childrens' beds,
hands hung over keyboards for long, long minutes, waiting to drop the perfect hosanna
onto the paper’s generous spread,
fishermen pulling in their sodden lines and pushing off, away, away,
preferring to hear God’s voice in the pulse of wave after wave after wave;
(what contrite thankfulness for salt and flippering fin!)
Even with a boyish whistle in the face of stark winter morning,
we honor His great hands.
And what greater proof do we need, in scripture or in hymn,
that we travel through our lives, whispering our hushed benedicti into our
handkerchiefs and to the insides of our scarves,
and finally, in that great moment of emergence,
when faced by mountains,
those resonant purple thumbs of God,
we stand up, and rub our palms together,
and sing.