Definition.

Right now I am sitting in front of a mirror. I look in mirrors a lot; they provide a pretty good reality check. A ceiling fan spins around--its light glowing dullish, and its fixtures clearly 80s style--just above my head. It's harder for me to notice my "flab" when the light around me is warm-toned and soft. The tendrils of hair that always fall around my face whenever I wear a ponytail--some straight, some curly--quiver a little under the wind of the ceiling fan. I feel the air whisk over my shoulders, and it makes me feel calm.

I keep my earrings in a jar next to the mirror. I pride myself on my earring collection. A vintage turquoise one in a diamond shape faces me through the glass. The round silver ones I wore today lay upside down beside the jar. "You are wearing a different pair of earrings every time I see you I think," a friend told me once. After that comment, I made a conscious effort that I did indeed wear a different pair every time I knew I was going to see him. "And they're all unique," he had said. Yes, they were.

I'm about to pick up where I left off in Anne of Avonlea, the movie. I'm scared to, though, because the scene where Anne and Gilbert meet in the gazebo on that misty day in Kingsport--the one where Gilbert whispers to Anne not to forget him and then leaves her there, holding his note to her signed "your old chum"--made me cry this time. I pressed my eyes into the pillow tucked under my arm and wiped them in one quick, messy movement, almost angry that they were there. I pride myself on my ability to stay tearless during movies.

At this moment, I'm glad to be alone. If someone were here with me, I'd probably be too conscious about the pudge on my stomach to really listen to the fan or to feel or notice whatever this unfamiliar room has to offer. But even the ceiling fan's low, pleasant drone cannot make me forget that I'm not completely happy. I don't want to be defined by an earring collection or by my ability to stay unaffected during movies or by this darned pudge on my stomach.

"A scar means, I survived."

The comment that Sis. Morgan made on Jami's post below reminded me of this from a book called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. (I am not recommending this book because I had to stop reading it for personal reasons, but some of the writing really was breath-stopping beautiful.) I thought I'd share it with all of you:

"On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."
— Chris Cleave (Little Bee)

Facebook. . .Finally!

Woah, love the new look on the WC blog. Looks so professional.

Since I have been in the Dark Ages without Facebook and everyone neglects this blog because of Facebook, I've decided to break down and create an account.

Yes, this means that I now have another digital addiction that I will simply have to combat. But it also means that I will know a lot more about your lives and what you're doing. Yay!

So, I don't know how this works at all. . . do you magically appear as my friend? Do I have to hunt for you? We'll find out. Uh, come and be my friend?? (Awkward) If you want. . .okay, bye.

--Jami Wilson Nichols
(some know the maiden name, some the married, so hence the formal name here :)

To Sis. M. (and anyone else interested)

We're making our way up to Rexburg for a quick trip this Friday and would love to see you! Lance will be getting the crown on his root canal fixed (he had the root canal done in Rexburg, and they guarantee it for 5 years...), so it'll be just me and the kiddos. We can visit the WC around 2:30ish. Hope you're there! That goes for anyone else still in town who would want to see me and meet my sweet babies. =D So many of y'all have left like I have.

--Leanna

We're goin' on a picnic

Saturday, August 7 at 2pm
Nunns Park in Provo Canyon

Everyone is invited :-)

My Call

My call was sent to our Grey Gables house in Rexburg, April 8, 2010. My roommate Victoria and I were in-between classes, talking in our room. I saw the mail truck parked outside of the house next door, and I must've stopped mid-sentence--or stopped Victoria mid-sentence--to walk to the window and watch. In what seemed like slow-motion, the mailman turned from the neighbor's mailbox toward our house. Beneath coupons and junk mail, I saw a big, white envelope in his right hand.

Immediately, I jumped down our twisted staircase, pushing myself off of the walls as I bounced between them on the way down. I ran past a group of people on the couch and almost tripped in front of the mail slot by the door. The mailman tucked the envelope through the slot, and it landed on the floor. In heavy breaths, I picked it up and read the address label: Sister Alyssa Nicole Fort.

"It's here!" I screamed. Victoria paid more caution to the stairs but wasn't far behind.

We yelled and jumped together. My heart beat fast and hard. What was in that envelope determined what the next 18 months of my life would be like--where I would live, what I would eat, who I would come to know and teach and love. Would I go foreign? Would I learn a language?

I didn't always know I would go on a mission, and actually, I never really wanted to. As a teenager, when people in church would ask me about it, I'd say, "maybe?" with an awkward smile, knowing for sure that I would get married at 18 to a tall, dark, handsome man who would take care of me and our beautiful children forever. Needless to say, I've had to revise my life plans a few times.

During the Fall 2009 semester, I planned to graduate from BYU-Idaho Winter 2010, then sell pest control in Arkansas with Victoria for the summer. Or work at the downtown Austin Anthropologie until my room was purely saturated in merchandise. Or maybe find a great job at a publishing house in a big city--Seattle, New York, or London would work. But I leaned more toward practicality and pest control.

I watched the 179th Annual General Conference broadcast in the comfort of my own spandex pants and school hoodie, on the sofa at our Snowed Inn house. During the Saturday morning session, there was a talk that impressed me greatly. I've since tried to look it up but haven't been able to find it. I'm not sure if the speaker said it or if I was just impressed personally by the Spirit, but I heard something along the lines of: just the fact that you have the gospel, means you have something wonderful to offer. The strong thought came to me: "Maybe I should serve a mission." I shared my impression with my mother and a few close friends. But still, I decided for myself that I would sell pest control first.

The next semester, I was sitting at the break desk in the back of the Writing Center, eating my dry turkey sandwich from Cafe McKay. Sister Morgan was having a conversation with Matt, about his post-graduate plans. I listened intermittently, turning the pages of Huckleberry Finn, trying to read but much too distracted to. I thought about my plans and wished that I knew someone I could talk to who had been through this particular decision-making process--graduating that semester, not knowing where to go from there. My plans made sense, but something didn't feel right. Their conversation ended, and they left. I tried to read, but my eyes watered over, and words got blurry. I said a silent prayer for comfort and direction and wiped my face. About a minute later, Sister Morgan came back to the break area.

"What are your plans, Aly?" She asked me.
I looked up from my book. "I don't know..."

I told her about my pest control idea. Her response was: first, that gurgle thing she does in the back of her throat when she's disgusted by something :) , then, "They make a lot of money. But God is in control of everything in this world--even money. If you serve Him, He'll take care of you. Have you thought about serving a mission?" I nodded and studied the Andrew Wyeth Helga painting in front of me. "Why would you sell something full-time that you don't believe in, when you could be preaching something full-time that you know?" I nodded and began to cry silently. "It's such a high calling," I remember her saying a few times. I knew this moment had been designed by Heavenly Father, specifically for me.

That Sunday, I went to my bishop and told him that I was pretty sure I should serve a mission. He told me I needed to be sure, sure and recommended I go to the temple with the question of a mission. I went, and the next Sunday I began filling out my papers.

When I got my call, I waited to open it, so my family could be on the phone to hear. Victoria called her RM friend and asked him about postage for foreign mission envelopes vs. stateside mission envelopes. She giggled and smiled to her friend on the phone, and I said, "don't tell me a thing." I waited until about 7:00pm.

Finally, with friends gathered in our Grey Gables living room and with family on the phone, I read:

"Dear Sister Fort:
You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Philippines Cauayan Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.
You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, August 4, 2010. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Tagalog language..."

There have been times when I've questioned my call, my ability to learn such a crazy language, whether or not I can live without Bvulgari perfume and Pier1 soy candles, or if I can survive on the opposite side of the world without iTunes. But there have been so many times when I've received perfect answers from God that I should go on this mission, and that he will protect me, guide me, provide for me, and be there when I pray to Him. I am grateful for this opportunity to serve Heavenly Father with my complete energy, time, and heart for the next year and a half.

I work for idiots.

I often read over memos and notes written by my immediate supervisor. Today I came across the phrase "I all so incourage him to see a dr." It took me a little while to figure out she meant "I also encouraged him to see a doctor."

Other mistakes she makes frequently: sense instead of since and tell instead of till or until.

Do you think I could get fired for making a running list of her errors? I hope not, since I've already dedicated a post-it pad inside my desk to just such a list.

If I had known my post would inspire insect and reptile horror stories, I would have kept my mouth shut. Just reading about bees and snakes makes me squirm at every tickle on my skin. Rather than continue the theme by telling one of my two really scary giant cockroch stories, I will gradually change the subject by telling a silly amphibian one.

One night in Florida, Hermana Nipper, my mission companion, woke me up screaming, "There's a frog on my face!" It was pitch black in our room, and my first thought was to wonder how she decided it was a frog without being able to see it. It was 3 a.m.. I gathered all the sympathy I could, turned on the light, and looked around. No frog. I gave her a groggy hug, patting her back and telling her it would be okay and to go back to sleep. That's when a little dark smudge near the ceiling moved. I squinted. It was a frog. I still have no idea how she knew what it was. My first thoughts would have been spider or lizard. Sis. Nipper grabbed a giant cup from the kitchen and we caught the miscreant responsible for waking me up. The cup was one of those big clear Coke cups with a switch that turned on colorful flashing lights, and I remember giving that poor frog a disco party in the cup before we took it outside. The next weird thing that night was just as we were taking it to the front door, I saw a lizard hanging on the blinds of the front window. Seriously? Two amphibians determined to keep us up all night? He took a little longer to catch, but we eventually got them both out the door and went back to bed. What a night.

"I'm Alive and Well" or Reptiles, Bats, and the Atonement

Aha ha. I had a similar experience when I creamed a small snake with spider spray, then whisked him out the door with a broom. He had the nerve to slide sideways into my house when I opened the door one night, and, hey, I'm paying the mortgage here—not him.

However, after I realized I had NOT had a heart attack, but had calmly (OK, “calmly” may not be the right word) walked to the kitchen to get any deadly poison I could find, I, like you, Matt, started to feel sorry for this snake. Though it was a fleeting tinge of a feeling,  I even stopped spraying him as I watched him squirm frantically away, but, then, he turned and slithered sideways toward me—probably because he was blinded by toxic chemicals—and I saw it as a direct attack. That ends story of one very dead snake.

Since then I've decided to choose my fear--or rather not to choose it because it’s such a waste of time and energy. I remember I did this when I went sky diving for the first time. I refused to let the fear rise up. It was an amazing thing (did I just use the word "thing"?) to realize I had that much control. Though my rabid fear of snakes has seemed out of my control, somehow I've finally perceived that snakes are usually crawling AWAY from me (though I still reserve all rights to smash any who turn to slither my way). I've decided to save my fear for bigger things--like tarantulas or bats.

Seriously, though, I love your thesis about how uncomfortable giving up even false beliefs and fears can be and how just contemplating the idea can seem like too much risk to one's personal mental health. (This is why I have not had much hope for Obama from the beginning. Our nation is still too infantile. Yes, my patriotism was fanned into fire as I watched us elect him. Geez, after what I saw in the late 50's, 60's, 70's, I was ecstatic to see such a miracle. But, I knew he'd be hit with hand grenades from all sides. He looks like a deer in headlights. However, I’ll reserve judgment until we know more.)

 But, on a personal level, I fear going numb—like one of Pavlov’s rats that gets shocked so many times she stops moving out of the way? What is that? What is going numb? It’s not letting any little feeling surface because if one tiny feeling gets though the concrete, others may come until there’s a whole wash of them, a flood that may drown us because the painful ones may be more agonizing than any we’ve yet known, and the sorrow we’ve already known was almost unbearable. I’m afraid of fear and how it can turn us inward to live in such a small suffocating world. So, sometimes, to choose faith instead of fear means reframing my day from the very beginning—not just once a week or yearly, but every single day, sometimes every hour. And without the Atonement to oil this process, to soothe this rocky struggle, I wouldn’t last 30 seconds. I would turn my back on the future and stop moving. Like the Wife of Lot, I’d turn into salt because I looked backward instead of having faith in the Lord to shape a good future. He does have that kind of power. He does want our happiness. He does have a stake in our lives turning out well. And He IS very powerful and kind. 

Today, I'm "alive and well. And that's good enough for me."

Did you know that Tarantulas can spin silk with their feet?

Ha. I just heard a country song lyric that says “Heaven help the fool who gets it wrong.”

Bumblebee homicide.

A few days ago, my roommate left the bathroom window open to air out the steam—our bathroom doesn’t have a fan and this is the best we have. Sometime after he left for work or whatever, I got in the shower. A few seconds after the water started running, an inch-and-a-half long bumblebee flew up towards my face. I jumped out of the shower, dripping and not sure what to do. After a few moments of standing naked and wet in my bathroom, I realized I should dry off and get dressed.

The bumblebee must have come in through the open window. I remembered the first apartment I lived in as a missionary, when the hornets that would come in through our bathroom window, and I remembered how my companion and I took care of them when we found them in our bathroom. I looked around to see if we had any pump hairspray or flammable aerosol liquid for a makeshift flamethrower. I checked the house next door to see if any of the girls had some (they weren’t home), then went back to my house. I looked underneath the sink and pulled out every bottle I found. I took my lighter and tested the Febreeze; it only put out the lighter, and the liquid didn’t catch on fire. A disinfectant spray flared up when sprayed over the lighter’s flame.

You know that scene from Ridley Scott’s Alien where Ridley finds the alien nest on the under part of the ship and splays her dying crewman with a flamethrower, delivering a coup-de-grace? That’s what I did with the bee. Its wet wings prevented it from flying, and it cowered behind two shampoo bottles in the corner while it buzzed in vain. There’s a sick satisfaction that comes from killing an insect with a flamethrower, especially one that can sting you. When I was finished, I saw that one of the shampoo bottles had partially melted during the frenzy. I didn’t stop spraying until the bee was a charred, black distortion of its former self. I left its body there for someone else to clean up.

I felt bad afterwards. That bee didn’t know that the only creatures I’m afraid of are flying, stinging insects. It didn’t know about the bee that stung my cheek when I was in third grade—how I cried my way to the nurse’s office, and how the nurse said, “Wait, hot water?” when she called my mom to see what she should do but find out that she’d used the wrong water temperature for my wound. That bumblebee in the shower didn’t mean be so big and fly towards my face when I was naked, relaxed, and most vulnerable. It didn’t know that I’m particularly afraid of insects that can sting multiple times—wasps, especially, because they look the meanest—because it might, what, hurt if I get stung more than once?

My fear of bees and wasps and yellow jackets and other stinging insects is completely irrational. I don’t know what it’s really like to be stung. I’ve never really thought about why I jump off ladders when I see hornets or bumblebees and run for the “Wasp & Hornet Killer—Fast Knockdown!” spray, holding onto the can like it’s some amulet of protection. When people ask, I explain that I don’t know if I’m allergic and that I might die if stung, but I’ve never imagined what a sting would be like. Would it itch or hurt? How long? Would it just be annoying? I don’t know because I don’t really remember what it’s like to be stung, and when I try to imagine it, it doesn’t seem so bad. Yet I’m irrationally afraid of it.

But I’m not willing to find out what it’s like to be stung. I don’t even want to take thirty seconds to do a Google search because I’m afraid of what I might find. It might not be as bad as I think, what I imagine as some abstract worst-pain-ever that I sometimes pretend results in paralysis, but I’m sure to find horror stories which would support my ignorant ideas and irrational fears. I mean, if I’m right, then everyone should run in fear when they see a wasp less than twenty feet away. But if I’m wrong, it means that whatever I’ve believed in the past must be abandoned and that I have to act in ways that are consistent with my new beliefs, even if those actions are uncomfortable. This would mean that when I’m standing on a ladder while I trim hedges and a bee quietly hums nearby, I would have to continue working as usual instead of what I do now: freeze until the bee goes away, and then run to the nearest can of that insect death spray. One time I tried being brave while a yellow jacket flew near me, and found myself still shrinking away from it until it flew away. So I willfully stay ignorant, irrational, because I don’t want act brave.

Maybe’s it’s the fear of acting differently that drives me to stay wrapped tightly in my blanket of ignorance, fear that I’d have to change my ideas and worldview to something else, fear that I’d have to wander in the dark for an unspecified period of time until I found what was actually true, fear that I’d be uncomfortable until I got used to my new way of living. Maybe that’s what propels those people who continue to say that our black president will destroy our country when to me, it looks like things are going pretty well, or at least about the same.

A few days after the shower experience, I imagined the bumblebee’s family wondering why Dad didn’t come home from work on Thursday. Mrs. Bumblebee goes to the insect police station, infant in her arms and towing a toddler behind her, to file a missing person report. I imagined the rose bush where Mr. John Bumblebee used to gather pollen and the questions his co-workers would ask each other. “You heard anything about John?” the honeybee would ask the butterfly while they pollinated.

“Nah, I ain’t heard nothing,” the monarch would reply. “But a yellow jacket says John’s drinking got the best of ‘im and that he’s probably in a ditch somewhere.”

“One of the other worker drones says that she heard he went off with a young bumblebee to Mexico,” the honeybee would say. Throughout the day, they trade stories and theories with other insects. Some say it was the drinking, some trade stories about a secret lover, some suspect foul play, and one guy suggests it could be that John Bumblebee just couldn’t handle the pressures of life.

But his wife will never know what really happened, that John Bumblebee’s corpse is in my shower behind a partially melted bottle of shampoo. She’ll never know that he died because I’m unwilling to squelch my ignorance of stinging insects, to have the courage to possibly be wrong or right and learn what would really happen in a sting. And that’s why a bumblebee which used to fluffy with yellow marking is now all black and twisted sitting on that ledge. For all I know, there his body still sits, a horrible token of irrational fear, extreme violence, and consequent death. 

Amen. We Need to Share Our Writing More.

I know people may be tired of me saying, “Hey, I have a motorcycle,” but it was a big step in my life. Pretty much my whole life I have always wanted to do things; then, I research those things; then, I make plans to do those things; then, I tell everyone that I am going to do those things; then, I never do.

I was going to learn to play the piano. I was going to learn Tagalog. I was going to go skydiving. I was going to run a marathon. I was going to live in France. I was going to lose forty-five pounds.

I have always wanted a motorcycle.

On the first nice, semi-warm day of March, I walked past Porter Park to my French 101 class. I thought to myself that this weather would be perfect for riding a motorcycle. I decided right then that I was going to buy one. By the time that I walked past the stadium, I realized that I probably wouldn’t buy one because it is the constant theme of my life to think about doing something, and then not do it. When I walked out of the doors of the Snow and saw the Spori, I decided that I would buy one, but I wouldn’t tell anybody.Two weeks later I arranged the funds, called Don in Ogden, UT, and then arranged to pick-up the 1985 Honda Shadow. I only told two people that I was buying it. I borrowed Suzie’s Saturn Vue and rented a u-haul trailer to go pick it up.

It didn’t really occur to me that it was actually happening until I went to the Madison County DMV to take the driving test and motorcycle test. I forfeited my Maryland license to get my motorcycle learner’s permit.

When my co-worker, Dallin, was teaching me to ride, I fell off only once. I kept practicing, which is something that I rarely do. For the first two weeks of owing it, I laid in bed at night wishing I hadn’t purchased it. It wasn’t buyer’s remorse; I don’t think. I was afraid of following through with learning to ride it well enough to not look like a fool. I even made plans to sell it, but I didn’t tell anyone.

I still have it though, and I love it.

I agree with Meghan

Although I also have no room to talk. I've been trying to write something to post on here for at least a month, but I have too many thoughts--I want to post the best one. This past month I've written essays on my dad, my broken fingers, my grad school experience, my feelings on being unemployed, my confusion over past relationships, my thoughts on marriage and future family life, the pieces of myself I've discovered through the years, the guilt I feel over not keeping in touch with friends, the tears I've shed over my little brother, the dreams I've had lately, the hours I've spent at the Provo Library, and the books I browsed on Amazon today. Yep. At least my journal is full. But for quite some time I've simply missed all of you, no matter what my essays were about.

13 Posts?

Okay, 13 posts this year? Come on. I'm but not one to talk, since this is probably my third post ever, but what's happening? Last year there were 93. The year before that there were 208. Before that there were 67. So we're halfway through the year and we've got 13? Is something wrong? We're the Writing Center. Start writing! Either that or you must be dang busy at the Center this semester.

Where is everyone?

I was looking forward to getting on and reading everyone's new posts. So where are they?

It's me, Meghan. I hate having to try and piece together details from a post to figure out who wrote it. I've thought about the WC last night while reading a talk by Elder Bednar in this month's Ensign. It's called "Things as They Really Are." It's a warning about getting so involved in facebook, texting, computer games, and blogging (Is that why you all stopped writing on here?) that you miss out on reality. He says, "Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed...you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication." I thought of the Writing Center. He would like what he saw there.

The first parties each semester are some of my favorite memories because of the incredible spirit of friendship and trust I felt there. I remember crying with Shannon at her first "party" and how satisfying it was to get home that night and feel so connected. I'd never shared that feeling with anyone before after leaving Sis. Morgan's house. There is some wall between me and nearly every other person I know that limits us...masks we wear. Somehow, Sister Morgan made it okay to take them off for awhile. I envy those of you who married someone who worked at the Center. I often wish Jason could feel what I've felt there. It's hard for me to explain it to him, so I'm glad you've all felt it too and understand me. I think that's what it is. We understand each other. We went beyond chitchat and really talked to each other on those nights at Sister Morgan's house and during so many seminars. Man, I want more of that.

Hi, it's me, Chan.

I just wanted to take a moment real quick and tell you all how much I love you. No, it's not Valentine's day, I'm just feelin real lovey.