just a perfect day

Wednesday this week was one of those good days that happen only when the stars are aligned and meteors are showering down around us. I wonder if the meteors had something to do with it. On Tuesday night a group of us went down to Mona to the ponds to watch the meteor shower. We got there before the moon came up so it was pitch black, and we made our way into the water which was surprisingly warm (in spots). I floated on my back in the middle of the pond and saw nothing but stars. It was a little early so we only saw a few meteors while in the water, but it was pretty magical. After we got out of the water we all laid on the ground, freezing cold and huddled together, and watched for more meteors. Then the moon came up and ruined everything.

So Wednesday morning I got an email saying that my department needed more TAs for the fall and asked if I would help out. I had just talked to my mom about moving all my stuff to her house, so it was kind of a big change of plans if I accepted. I would need to get enough hours and a cheap place to live to make it worth it for me. Also, I didn't want to TA for a part-time faculty since I've decided to start "collecting professors", as my friend Kristina calls it. I want to be involved in the department with full time faculty so that I can add to my arsenal of references. So I went up to campus to talk to the department secretary. She gave me a class with a full time professor for 15 hours a week and said she might be able to get my 5 more hours for an evening class. I said, ok.

Then Kristina and I got pizza at one of my favorite pizza places. We came back, ate pizza and then went and talked to some professors. Dr. Sederholm read my first chapter of my thesis and told me that he liked it. And then he spent 15 minutes convincing me that saying he liked it meant a lot, that he doesn't pass of crap. He made me feel like all the work I did this summer was worth something and encouraged me to look for publication opportunities. I needed that reassurance, more than I realized.

When I got home my roommate and I decided to go to the community garden. It was my first time there and I was really upset with myself for not going at all during the summer. Pulling weeds, pruning, harvesting, watering, just being in the garden in the middle of the valley with the big blue sky and the mountains in the distance: it was heaven. I strongly believe that being out in that type of environment and working with your whole body makes people happy, because its healthy. Our souls, our bodies and our spirits, need this type of experience on a regular basis. After being out there for a couple of hours and helping load all the produce up to bring back to people to eat, I felt better about everything, about life, about myself, about my future.

While I was out there an acquaintance of mine mentioned that there were a couple of openings in her house. Since that morning I needed a place to live in Provo, so I was very pleased to learn that the spot was only $225 a month. A steal. I pay $385 now. Later that night I looked at the place and realized it was perfect. It's cheap, it's in a cute house in a nice ward, it's only a block from where I live now and thus still near some of my favorite places and people, and it has loads of off street parking.

After the garden we came back to Alicia's house where seven women all pitched in to help make a leek soup and a peach and blackberry cobbler, with ingredients we had just brought back from the garden. I found it very interesting how so many people could be in such a small kitchen and everyone helping and the whole thing running so smoothly. It also struck me how amazing the people were that I was with. Seven women, all coming from different places and backgrounds and all successful and strong. And all of us were working together with food we had helped create. I felt proud to be in such good company. And then the food was delicious.

I was supposed to go to California this week with my family, and while I'm sure I would have had fun I'm glad that I listened to whatever it was telling me I should stay and sort my life out. My life has the tendency of sorting itself out at times, if I just let it go a little and trust that things will fall into place. They almost always do. I realized when i was going to bed that night just how wonderful the day had been, how I had received so much sustenance from so many different venues, from good people, good places, good food.

I signed the contract today for that house and I feel really good about it. Last summer when I moved into the big empty house I'm living in now I needed so much to be away from people, to have space and time to think. I was living in a house that I loved but that was always open and fully of people almost all times of the day, and so escaping the noise was my number one goal. After living in a big empty house for a year I'm now ready to move in to a place where people are there, coming and going, living. I need to be in that environment again, to feel the pulse of life. I need people and I'm excited for the coming semester. I plan on strengthening the relationships I have now and building new ones. I plan on being more involved in the community and in my department. I plan on preparing myself for a PhD program, and finishing my thesis, and being the most professional and helpful TA that I can be. Apparently my time in Provo is not yet over, and I'm excited for another chance to end it well and feel satisfied with the run I had here.

oh my hell.

So, you know how I like animals and want to own a farm. Well, I just have to say that nothing, and I want to make myself absolutely clear, NOTHING makes me happier than this picture. Nothing. I mean, look at it. The puppy is sleeping, as happy as can be. The hen is as protective as ever. If you touch her puppy she will kill you. And the chick is so confused. It's all I ever wanted.

Animals

I love animals, simply for the sheer fact that I am astonished by life. I don't love animals because I wish I could live like them, or because they are always cute, or even because they like me (they generally don't and never have, and I don't know why). I love them because they are alive, in spite of the fact that they are sometimes dumb, annoying, scary, ugly, boring, or what; in spite of the fact that I got chased by a goose today, that the ducks think they can chase me now, that a bird pooped on my head yesterday morning. I still love them. There is a force inside of them giving them life, and I am in awe of it. Today I was tempted to pick up the worms that had found their way onto the sidewalks and save their little tiny lives. I honestly feel guilty that I didn't. This strange affinity for animals that has grown so much in the last year or so is a big factor in me deciding to not eat meat as much. I don't think I'll ever be a vegetarian, but I am definitely more aware now of the life that was taken so that I could live, and I try to stay aware of that.



I don't think I could ever even kill a spider again. In fact, I think that's where this affinity all started. Like most people I was freaked out by spiders but I was always the one to kill the gross things, without hesitation. A friend of mine once picked up a spider and brought it outside. I asked why he didn't kill it and he said that he likes spider, that they are solitary and mind their own business, "Just like me", he said, and they didn't deserve to die. It hit me then that he was right. They don't deserve to die. I couldnt squelch that life force out of them and for little to no real reason. This was also the friend that helped me save a giant ugly dragon fly and a tiny baby bird when he certainly didn't have to. I had always loved animals before but he made me realize that I should love them whether they give anything to me in return or not. He taught me a valuable lesson, I should probably thank him.

And so I really cannot wait for the day when I can have all kinds of creatures under my care, which is one reason why I want to have a farm, so there can be lots of room for lots of different animals.

a few things

First, I was walking to campus today and the kid in front of me had some envelopes precariously tucked in to his back pocket just waiting to fall. "Great," I thought, "I have to keep up with him now in case they fall out so that I can get his attention without running to give them back to him." So I quickened my pace and stayed a good safe couple of feet away. The envelopes slipped more and more until only a small part of the corner of one remained in the pocket and the rest was flopping. Any second now, I thought. I was fixed on this envelope. Just before the fatal moment the guy reached back and grabbed them. "Oh thank God." I said. My visible relief probably would have been pretty funny if anyone happened to be watching me fixated on this guy's butt. It was a pretty intense moment.

Second, the power went out today in class. That's always funny.

Thirdly, I went to talk to a film professor who is usually pretty mean to me. She thinks my whole zombie thing is a joke and scoffs at me when I talk to her about it and about how I want to incorporate zombie films into my paper on cinematic transcendence. But today was different. Today she was extremely nice to me. She complimented me on my writing, on my knowledge of zombie films, on my teaching skills (since I gave a presentation in class last week that she apparently thought was wonderful) and when I left she said something about what a hoot I am and how she's happy she got to know me. It was a relief because i was in no mood this morning for derision.

Fourthly, Wendell Berry is coming to Salt Lake to speak and to do a reading!!! I've been thinking a lot about the book of his that I read, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, a book which pretty much changed my life, and meaning to look at it again. I am so excited. I hope I get to meet him. :D

Waterfowl and rural Utah.

Today we traveled south to watch some Snow Geese on their migratory pit stop north. We drove almost 2 hours to Delta, Utah for the Snow Goose Festival, took a couple pictures of some geese and drove home. It wasn't the most exciting 5 hours of my life, but I absolutely love driving through Utah, for some weird reason, and I like that I'm feeling part of something happening locally.

I made a goal last summer to see as much of Utah as I could before I move away. Adding this trip to Delta I've seen most of what I've wanted to. I like rural Utah for some reason. I love it. I'm fascinated with it. I'm fascinated with the old, slow talking residents who remind me of my grandparents. They are a dying breed, and as much as it bothers me, they and their little towns embody where I come from, where generations of my family lived. On my mother's side my grandpa's family lived in Vernal, Utah for a hundred years. I think he was one of the first to leave. And when I talk to those the rural Utahns whose families have lived in the same little towns since the Pioneers, I can't help but think of my family and my pioneer heritage. I admire those people almost as much as I am frustrated and confused by them.

I am also, of course, reminded of my own childhood growing up in a small town in Utah. It never seemed that small. The valley was my whole world; there were enough people there and enough things for me to do because I was a lucky one living on a ranch far from neighbors. I never liked the town. It made no sense to me when there was so much land why people would bunch together and have tiny little yards for their kids to play in when there were only 500 living the whole place to begin with. It was like they were pretending to be suburban or something. I was never bored because I had a twenty acre ranch to explore, 12 dogs to play with at a time, cats, chickens, rabbits, horses, horrible geese, ducks, peacocks, a canal to swim in, hills covered in sage brush, hills covered in alfalfa, hills covered in grass, a long windy dirt road to ride bikes down, or sled down in the winter, trees to hide in and build forts, sheds full of old junk to explore, everything a kid could ever want. And all those other kids had a little lawn to play on out in the middle of no where. No wonder they all went crazy.

It's funny. I never felt that I was like those people in the town at all. I always felt different. Even though I was probably the most rural of them all I've always had a cosmopolitan view of the world. I somehow avoided the Utahn accent (for the most part anyway, sometimes it sneaks through.) I always found my grandparents and other people I associated with to be racist, ignorant, sexist and overall infuriating. I never felt trapped in a small town because I never had to live in the town. Instead I lived in paradise and I knew it. I think the fact that my mom worked in Park City for most of my childhood had a lot to do with my urban view of the world. She knew what was going on. In Park City she had all kinds of jobs, would meet celebrities and make friends with rich people. She didn't have many friends in the valley, and I'm honestly really glad for that because she kept up with fashion, with music and did a good job of exposing us to the city, to art and most of all to shopping. I know we were, but I don't ever remember feeling poor or deprived.

Goodness, as screwed up as I am now, if I had not had the fortune to live and grow up where I did I have no idea where I would be. I think it has a lot to do with my seeminly contradictory pull toward a city like New York and also my dream of having a farm for raising chickens, rabbits and children. Give me the biggest city or the most rural ranch, nothing in between will do.

Farming

This is what I want to be when I grow up. That's right, a farmer. It's a dream of mine to own a small piece of land, have some chickens, ducks, rabbits, and a big garden where I grow food to feed my family and to sell at farmers' markets.

I've been watching TED talks