Per Request

I realize that I have an addictive personality... Sometimes, I see where this could become a problem, I do, I really do, but when Ashley "Japan" Stinocher asks you to keep blogging, you keep on blogging!! Hence the poised fingers, looming over the keyboard, and drawn eyebrows, evidence of the search for something profound to report on... 

Alas, I have nothing of any great significance to say. I would, however, like to take a moment to relate a couple points of gratitude: 

1. People you can't help smiling at - whether they be strangers or your best friend of 15 years, seeing that light in another's eyes is one of the most heart-warming things I've ever experienced. 

2. That initial bonding moment, sometimes over matching socks, sometimes over a failing test score, and sometimes because you both love Bento boxes. I love when humanity pulls together in the weirdest of tangents... 

3. A warm, sunny day succeeding a week of gray clouds and alligator tears/raindrops. 

4. Knowing that there is at least one person in the world who loves you with every particle of their being... even if it's your mom. :) 

5. Sincerity! I love that feeling sincere people plant inside of you... or that a piece of art expressing the truest sense of emotions... or a soft kiss when words can't say "I love you" quite the same. Amazing, amazing. 

6. The opportunity to watch two birds build their nest together, knowing that in a few short weeks, their family will have multiplied and perhaps a stray string from your t-shirt, the other day, contributed to their comfort.

7. Family. I just got off the phone with my parents who, I was just informed, decided to surprise me, tonight, by coming to Provo and taking me to dinner! Also, I talked with my sister, yesterday, and asked if I could go with her to her ward, next time I came home for the weekend... The pure excitement her voice held was more than I could have asked for! How can you deny that she loves you after she gets so pumped about not having to go to Relief Society alone, next week? 

8. I've said this aloud, a couple of times, before, but I feel like shouting it from the mountain tops, right now - I LOVE BEN! He has been, by and far, one of the greatest things to have happened in my life. He's shown me what true beauty looks like, how it feels to be loved unconditionally, and that sometimes, every once in a while, you can get pretty darn close to a fairytale ending, imperfections and all. 

9. LOVE!! I love love! Every sort of it - friend love, the way you love your dog, the love you feel when hugging your mom, the love you can't contain after watching your niece's dance recital, the way you love your companion, but especially the love we can all feel from God. All of it, every scrap, is so precious and beautiful, it's hard not to be grateful when contemplating it. 

10. This might sound odd, but the last thing I'm especially grateful for, today, is the opportunity to serve. It's hard to think of a time when I have ever felt better about the world than when I'm doing something for a fellow being, whether human or not. 

I love all of you! Hopefully you're enjoying this beautiful spring weather and are now contemplating all that you have to be grateful for, as well. :) 

Floorplan of my head and heart

So unoriginal, I realize that, but when words escape my lips and emotion weighs my heart, sometimes music is the only medium to convey the feelings. Such is the case, today. 

* * *

As I sped down I-15, on my way to Ben's homecoming, I passed a seemingly average bumper sticker on a pretty normal car, an inconspicuous driver at its wheel. It simply said, "Question Authority". I quietly laugh and shake my head as I switch lanes and exit, not really thinking on it any further... Maybe it got a "oh indie kids... aren't you cute? Look at you getting your liberal face on!" but nothing more. Not then, at least.

Sitting in sacrament meeting, doing my best to tune into the spirit of the meeting, the phrase comes back to my mind... "Question... Authority..." Usually I'd leave the anarchist statement as a sentiment of youthful, ignorant rebellion, but when it alighted in my left temporal lobe, this time the residual connotation was a more positive one -- the power in honestly, sincerely questioning the authority and world around us and eventually finding those pure sources in which you can trust infallibly. I think, for the first time, I saw how great of a gift we've been given, as humans, to decide for ourselves who and what to trust and when. The fact that we can cognitively process emotions and fleeting thoughts is amazing, especially in comparison to the rest of the world's breathing population. We've been given a gift, but who sees it? 

* * *

Like Tegan and Sara put it, "I built a wall of books between us in our bed". I do this so often, I get so close to completely letting someone in --  and cave, always a miniscule detail stepping in the way. I get so tired of shutting off, only to completely exhaust myself in trying to reverse the toxin. I think if it weren't for my patriarchal blessing, I might consider giving up the idea of marriage completely; I'm pretty sure any sort of stability doesn't have a place in my near future.

Is there a difference between volatile and abusive? Or can one not exist without the other? Can that deepest sense of darkly romantic love survive without their presence? Or is it considered settling, like Gigi from He's Just Not That Into You, when she goes on the date with the guy, Bill, at the very end and has nothing more than a mediocre time, but is more than willing to be with him because a relationship with him would be so even keeled? She doesn't stay with him, she goes back to the guy who rejected her as she "hurled her body onto his", and at the end, they're head-over-heels for one another... Is this Hollywood or reality? Which is healthier, a relationship, if drawn on an emotional graph, that resembles the jagged, flippant Rocky Mountains or the slow-rolling Adirondacks? 

More than anything, I think what I'd like to know is if anyone but God himself has answers. I don't trust science, it does nothing for me. Art, although it makes sense in my mind, makes a completely different statement to the person standing next to me. Who is to say what is what? 

* * *

Isn't it ironic that equations that, more than likely, took hundreds of years for great scholars to put together, a third grader learns in the matter of a week? How frustrated they must be, watching from Heaven, as the future generation of tomorrow learns, in a lone week of frustration, the capabilities and functions of a sigma or polynomial that took them years to perfect and understand.  

Walking on a Dream

I'm assuming the anticipation is killing all of you and you're more than likely in desperate need of an update. Well, I'm about to give you one. Brace yourselves.

So my little friend that I pass every Monday and Wednesday on the upper road that leads to Institute parking has been pretty consistent, although I haven't. Classes and things have been getting pretty crazy and my schedule pretty demented, thus I miss our weekly pass-by.

Maybe I'm just indulging my imagination on this one, but I'm pretty sure that at about the same time that I stopped walking to my car at the same time as she headed to class, she's seemed a bit more schlumpy than usual, her gait a bit less... jovial. Naturally, I feel quite terrible. Clearly her lack of enthusiasm is a direct result of my actions. (What was the definition of egocentric, again?)

As I leave class today and head up the steps leading to the roadside, I see her coming and think fast - today... I'll... be... extra outgoing! That'll show her I still want to be friends! :D Okay, plan set. Let's do this. She approaches my line of sight... She's not looking up... No one is around to feel embarrassed about... Here she comes... I can hear the gravel scratching with each of her steps... Moment's approaching! Anxiety killing me... I start with the biggest smile I can muster!! ... Aaaand... she's still not looking at me... Oh, wait! there she is! Looking! Okay, I'm just going to do it: "HI!"

Oh no... From the deer-in-the-headlights look she's giving me, I realize that I'm smiling the way a gorilla does right before it tears the flesh off your bones. My outburst of friendship probably didn't help things, either. Sigh. Until Wednesday... Maybe if I'm extra gentle in my approach, she'll reconsider admitting me to the state mental hospital.

Once and for all!

I swore that if I had to tell this story one more time, I would strangle myself. So, I'm putting it on here for the general public and my sanity. :)

About a year and a half ago:

In a letter that I received in the mail, Ben informed me that he'd be returning about a week short of the full two years, coming home on April 14th compared to the April 23rd he left on. From that day forward, I had banked on him arriving in the Salt Lake valley on Wednesday, April 14, 2010.

Six months ago:

Ben finds out that his final transfer will last 5 weeks instead of 6. At this point in time, he tells everyone of the updated schedule - except for me. It's at about this time that they all go in cahoots with one another on how to pull off surprising me.

One month ago:

Our (Ben and my) best friend, Katie, asks for a "one last girl's night" before Ben gets home and she marries Braedon in May. Naturally I agree to dinner and the date is set for April 8. We also agreed that, since at this time of the year with finals and such, we never get ready past showering and brushing our teeth, we'd actually get all the way ready - makeup, hair done, even cute dresses.

April 8, 2010:

Okay, here's where the real story begins!

I wake up fairly early that morning, finish some last-minute assignments and run to class. This entire week my kids at work have had Spring Break so, naturally, I'm off of work, as well. When class is finished, I take care of some things around campus, come home, and hit the books again (or laptop, shall we say, since I was, after all, writing papers for the majority of the time I was home). I get completely carried away in the paper that I'm writing and forget about getting ready for my date with Katie. I don't shower. Instead, I braid my hair into two pigtails, throw on jeans and a t-shirt, and call it good!

I get to the class that Katie and I share, later that night, and pure disappointment washes over her face - can you blame her? I looked like a scrounge! She immediately begins insisting that before we go to dinner, we go back to my apartment and I change so that she doesn't feel as silly being the only one in a dress.

Class ends and we head back to Raintree. During the drive, Braedon (Katie's fiance) keeps texting her... Getting embarrassed, she turns to me and says, "Sorry! Obviously Braedon's especially needy, today!" I'm still not expecting anything, not a thread of suspicion running through my mind.

Once at the apartment, I change into a dress and begin pulling the braids out. Almost in concern, Katie says, "Do you want to wait and straighten your hair before we leave?" "Nahhhhhh!!" "Okay... Well... do you maybe want to put on some make up, then? You can, we have time!" Again, my response is "Nahhhhh!!!" For the third time, she asks if I'd like to shave my legs, saying that she had shaved hers for the momentous occasion. You'd think I'd have caught on, by now, but nooooo! I answer, again, with a resounding "no". 

Finally, we get to the restaurant, Guru's, on Center St. in Provo. Katie and I walk in, order our food, find a table, and start talking wedding plans - a pretty serious topic of discussion, these days! When I sat down, I just happened to sit facing the door, not really thinking anything of it, expecting Katie to sit across from me like most normal people do. But she doesn't. She slides in on the bench, next to me. Odd? Conversation picks up like normal, and as I'm describing a pair of Converse that I found, I happen to glance towards the door, looking for that inspiration of color to match the coveted shoes with. As I did so, I saw a guy walk in who looked an awful lot like Ben! I turn to Katie to tell her I found a doppelganger, before I open my mouth, I whip back around for a double-take, realization settling in. This was no look-alike, this was the real deal. It was at this point that I passed out. (Okay, not really, but I sure felt like it! I can't, however, remember what happened for the next five or so minutes, so the following is actually Ben's rendition of the story.) 

Ben walks in, Braedon trailing close behind, camera in hand, recording the whole thing, Katie dies laughing at the table, and I... sit there speechless. Literally. My jaw hung open for a good couple of minutes before I regained enough muscle control to close it, again. Evidently the only thing I could manage at first was "Whaaa? Whaaa?? I... I don't understand! Wh... Whe... Where did you come from?!" to which I got a very innocent, "Brazil!" He even had to pull me up from the table for a  hug, I was so dumb-founded. It took a while but I eventually regained consciousness, just in time for the waitress to politely interrupt, asking what was going on. All I could get out was, "This... is my missionary. He comes home, next week! Or... so I thought." 

When I stopped shaking enough that I could hold a phone without dropping it, they had me call my mom. The conversation went something like this: 

"Mom?"

"I'm in a meeting, I can't talk!"

"Mom! It's important. I have to tell you who I'm with."

"What? Who? Make it fast, I'm in a meeting!"

"Mom... I'm here with Ben..."

"Who?"

"Ben!"

"Ben who??"

"Ben Stanfield!" 

"WHAT?! What is he doing HOME??"

Things started settling down just in time for them  to expose one more hidden plan: everyone was dressed up because we were all actually headed to a wedding, and I was Ben's date. We all went out to the cars, and as I was pulling my stuff out of Katie's car to transfer to Ben's, I turn around to him holding a beautiful, beautiful bouquet of flowers, loaded down with calla lillies, my all-time favorites. 

I didn't want to drive all the way into SLC with the vase between my legs so we drop them off at my apartment. We awarded my roommate Jessica with the reaction of the evening - after begging her to come out of her room, and upon first sight of Ben, (she had no idea who was waiting in the front room) yelled at the top of her lungs "OH! MY! GOSH!!!" She couldn't stop shaking, either. (The rest of my roommates found out moments later, each one of them taking their turns between screaming, crying, laughing, and screaming again. They're such good girls, I couldn't ask for a better support network! Lol)

So, we go to the reception, his parents are the first people we see, his mom running up to us with arms already open in anticipation of hugs.  After a while we head back to his parents' house and watch the first post-mission movie - "Over the Hedge". (His choice!) At the end of the night, he drives me back to my apartment in Provo, he meets the rest of my roommates, and we say goodnight, face-to-face, for the first time in two years. 

I haven't gotten the pictures from Katie and Braedon, yet, but when I do, I'll post them with the rest of the story. As for now, though, I think I'm going to go enjoy the time I have with my boy, again. :)

Sweet Reverie

time, distance closing in...
finger prints melding,
eyes sweeping
a momentary flutter and
a feather brushing across lips
looking in, falling through time
eternity never seemed so close
riveting eye to eye
this churning, 
Could it be love?