"I Have Felt."

So I don't profess to have much of a passion for poetry (despite my being a literature major...) but when I was nineteen, I read this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson and it had a very significant impact on my life. VERY significant. It was one of those moments when you come to yourself and realize who you really are and what it really means. Since then, I have read anything of Tennyson's that I could find. The man is a genius. Tennyson's best friend and closest confidant died suddenly and in his grief he began writing (and continued for seventeen years) a series of poems in a work he titled "In Memoriam." In times of fear, doubt, loneliness and confusion, I return to these lines as a reminder.

If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep,
I heard a voice ‘believe no more’
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason’s colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’

No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamour made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;

And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands;
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson- "In Memoriam"

Thought I'd share.

I'm feeling uber motivated, people.

This is why I don't bake....

Because I can't. Clearly. 

Last week's attempts. On the far right is attempt one- they were spongy and tasted like bubble wrap. In the middle is attempt two- they were soggy and tasted like soap. So I put it all into a pan to try to make attempt three- it was hard as a rock.

And here is today's attempt.

So NO. I cannot bake. Thanks for asking. 

(my) Sister Kathy Jones

It came. She opened it. (Look closely at the envelope to see what my dad wrote on the front. It was his final guess as to where she was going. Cove Fort- Visitors Center- Sr. Couple's cook. He was a little off. ) 

Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk mission, Russian speaking.

If you can pronounce that correctly, I'll give you one hundred dollars. I wish you could have heard how SHE pronounced it when she read it. It's too bad we Jones girls have such calm reactions to things. 

Never been the type to get really excited about anything. And she wasn't that surprised. I think she totally saw that one coming. Nope, not shocked at all. 

This one is my favorite. 

So she leaves June 3rd and will be at the Provo MTC for 3 months, which is great news for me because I can go and hang out with her while I'm working there full time. 

But seriously... the Ukraine?!?

We hoped they'd call her on a mission...

This little booger is going on a mission. 

In 19 hours and 14 minutes we'll know where she is going to spend a year and a half of her life. 

It helps to have a job at the MTC where we can check to see if calls have been issued even before they're sent out. Don't worry, like a good sister I didn't look where she was going, even though it was really tempting. I want that call to go from the Quorum of the Twelve right to her hands. She deserves to see it first. But she has a call, it is on the way, and she is really doing it. Updates tomorrow!! 

(My final guess: Cape Verde- a group of islands off the coast of Western Africa where they speak Portuguese. Let's see how far off I am!)

Time to come clean...

So if you didn't know this yet, a "game" has been taking over the facebook world. (Note: Facebook is getting old in general. It's starting to really bug me, as opposed to the slight annoyance I felt towards it initially.) The "rules" are that you have to write 25 random facts about yourself and then tag 25 friends and they then have to repeat the process tagging 25 of their own friends. I got slammed with request after request that I repeatedly ignored but I think it is time that I satiate the genral public who are screaming for 25 random facts about me. Please pay close attention because this will only happen once.

It's time to come clean, folks...

1- I am a remarkable human being, often seen leaping from rooftop to rooftop while making Spanish spinach soufflé.

2- I have been known to crochet circus tents out of banana leaves on my lunch breaks and then sell them on ebay for a small fortune.

3- On Tuesdays I volunteer as a translator for Somalian pirates.

4- I worked closely with Steven Spielberg on seven of his biggest films.

5- I haven't walked on the moon. I have, however, fenced, waltzed, run a half marathon, and army crawled on the moon.

6- I once reached the speed of 289 MPH on a toboggan in the great plains region of the United States without the help of any motor or animal.

7- I can watch the TV show 60 minutes in 8.3 minutes.

8- I am an expert in glass blowing, a successful matchmaker, and I know which came first between the chicken and the egg.

9- Using only a bobby pin and two strands of dental floss, I defeated 8 armed hijackers on a flight to Chicago and then, due to the fact that the pilot had passed out, landed the plane in an open field.

10- I was asked to dance the part of Clara in the Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet but turned it down because I had tickets to a jazz game.

11- I discovered a dark plot involving thirty thousand Furbies and their intention to take over the world. I was able to thwart said dark plot by going undercover and sneakily putting them all to sleep then taking out their batteries.

12- I had lunch with Santa Claus last week.

13- I am a world renown opera singer, architect, and fashion designer. I performed Mozart's Magic Flute Aria #14 in the Sydney Opera House (which I designed) wearing this dress (which I made by hand).

14- On weekends, I fly to Senegal to read to orphans.

15- I completely understand cold fusion.

16- I can take pictures without a camera and develop them using only a sink, some sugar, and a flashlight.

17- I know where Waldo is at all times.

18- My alter-ego is “anonymous”- I am responsible for all those quotes/ poems/ songs you’ve been reading all these years.

19- I once played both Romeo and Juliet in a production at the Globe Theater. Queen Elizabeth knighted me afterward.

20- As of yesterday, I have saved 302 small children from various burning buildings and have helped well over 230,000 old women cross streets.

21- I read “War and Peace” in 34 minutes and found 81 spelling errors.

22- Until recently I was battling with a young man named Ma’rib from Yemen for the “Most Accomplished Person in the World” title but have earned the honor and possess a plaque to prove it. They are also in the process of naming a country after me.

23- All of the Harry Potter spells work for me. Yes, ALL. (I didn’t say I use all of them…)

24- I am a superstar in most countries and have various action figures modeled after me, I was the one that voted Pluto out, I do not need to blink, I climbed Everest twice in one day, and in 2002 the Italians accidentally knocked over Michelangelo’s David (shattering the statue) so they flew me over to sculpt a replacement.

25- I have not yet, however, graduated from college.

(To read about someone else much like me and to see where I received my inspiration to become so amazing, go here: http://www.c4vct.com/kym/humor/collessy.html)

Hiking. Anyone? Anyone?

Now I've got to be honest about where my loyalties lie. I am strangely not the type to lament the arrival of colder weather. My California and Arizona friends marvel at my deep and true love for winter with it's shorter days and longer nights. I will always love the feeling of walking out into the crisp winter night and breathing deep, feeling that cold air fill every space in my lungs. I love the smell of frosty pine and I find snow absolutely enchanting the way it sparkles and spins as it falls in perfect white sheets, making everything look untouched as if I'm the first to see it. Things feel different in winter air. Winter looks, feels and smells like Christmas. Maybe it's because I'm a Christmas baby... I am fully converted to winter.

That being said, this morning while running I found myself getting excited for winter to end and summer to come. This may seem a little out of character for me to say, therefore allow me to explain myself. As the sun rose over snow-covered Y mountain, I remembered what it feels like to go hiking. I stopped my run and took a seat on the curb while gazing up at the rosy pinks, pale peaches and deep lavenders spread across the sky. No painting or photo can capture that kind of color- they exist only in the moment and then they're gone. Looking towards the mountains caused a flood of summer memories to come back. 

I spent many a morning in June exploring the woods up Provo canyon with roommates. My roommate Jessi and I would go hiking on Tuesdays because I had the day off work. I spent many an afternoon in mid-July floating down the freezing Provo river with friends.  We'd wave to the fishermen we passed and try to keep our inner tubes from catching on their hooks. I spent many August evenings sitting up in those mountains thinking about my life and what I wanted to do with it or reading a book about the life of someone else. This past summer was reminiscent of my glory days (age 8-12): building dams in rivers, climbing trees and rocks, and simply playing. Just as things feel different in winter air, everything is different up in mountain air. I think clearer, I breathe deeper, I see better, I feel easier. It sounds cheesy and like I'm quoting Backpacker Magazine or something but it's true. I was taught to love the mountains from the time I was a little girl and suddenly while sitting on the freezing cement curb, I remembered that. I remembered what the sun felt like on my back and how the air tasted like aspens. I remembered the great feeling of looking out over the valley and down to where a trailhead began and realizing that I conquered something. I remembered how much I love to hike. 

Four years ago I was a lot younger. At barely twenty, I hadn't yet had some important experiences that shape and define who I am today. I had just completed a class at BYU called Wilderness Writing in which we spent most of our time hiking, backpacking, and camping and then recording our experiences in personal essays. It was during a backpacking trip in southern utah with that class that I decided to go on a study abroad with the same professor. It was on that study abroad in the British Isles, backpacking several hundred miles across the Scottish and English countryside, that I decided to serve a mission. It was on a hike on P-Day in the Tuscan mountains while on my mission that I decided to become a teacher. And it was likely during  my first experience hiking that I decided that I liked it. I have made some of my best decisions in the mountains.

So this morning while watching the colors of the sunrise fade in to classic blues and the light begin to fill the valley, I'll admit that I began to wish winter away just a little. I've got some pretty big decisions to make in the next year and I need my mountains.

I want to go hiking. 

On another somewhat unrelated  note, this morning in my Race, Rhetoric and Identity Politics class we spent an hour discussing this question: Am I more an I or am I more a me? For the record, I am more of a me than an I. Sometimes I wish I had stuck with my initial psychology  major instead of switching to literature...