For Lumina and Ansley

Every child has known God
Every child has known God, Not the God of names, Not the God of don’ts, Not the God who ever does Anything weird, But the God who knows only 4 words. And keeps repeating them, saying: “Come Dance with Me , come dance with me.”
-- Hafiz

We've Been Busy

It's been a little snowy round here. We've been shoveling people out of the streets. And then I got tired of carrying my shovel...nice boys carry two shovels.

This is me contemplating the snow fort I just don't have the energy to build.

You might wonder why it has taken me so long to post these pictures of Snowmageddon? Well, it should be obvious as you look at the way I shovel. It has taken me a week to finish. Mostly, this picture was supposed to prove my shovelling superiority to one SB. But it doesn't seem to have done the trick. (SB, you are probably right and I will most likely concede at some point.)

These are all my girls shaking out the trees to make sure we didn't down a power line. I stayed safely (warmly) in the house during the shaking. I only like shaking if it involves a baptist preacher or babies (just kidding!) (sort of).

This is actually from the first snow-in but I never posted it...SB has an internal thermostat that is always set at like 200 degrees. This was no big whoop.

And, thus we see that bananas are the first thing to go during a vicious snow storm. SB and I went to the store Monday night before Tuesday's reprise and the vegetables were slim pickins. I guess we really do get so used to having whatever we want when we want it here in this country of ours...this was a wake up call. (Why didn't anyone want a snowday coconut????)

In the next post I will talk about real things. I have some real things to talk about.

Moment of Enlightment #458

I've been feeling crappy about myself since Toad the Wet Sprocket. I think it's time to do life a different way. Well, at least I should change my hair. That was NOT a good look.

Should I try "the rachel"?

Just so you don't get lost...

my computer died again. Even though I backed it up, I may have lost more. And more. You can back up until your face falls off, but it doesn't mean you won't lose something. I'm trying everything a new way - computers, self, love and sometimes it feels like you will lose. So this is just a reminder:

I'm not losing this.

Great Expectations

I'm interested in collecting stories of people for whom love/life has come in unexpected forms. I think sometimes we have an idea of what/who we will end up with and how it will all play out. That idea can create destructive (oxymoronic?) energy if we cling to it too fervently.

I was reminded of the story of Alma and Ammonihah recently from ye olde book of the mormons...Alma the missionary got tired and counted the city of Ammonihah as a loss (with good reason! Those jerks were pelting him with sticks and stones and words that hurt him) and headed out...on his way home an angel came and told him to go back (WHAT???!!!) so he did, BUT HE WENT THE BACK WAY. And at the back gate of the city he found his BFF Amulek who was prepared by a dream to take him in and minister to him. As Elder Holland reminds us in one of my favorite talks of all time "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence"

"That is the second lesson of the spirit of revelation. After you have gotten the message, after you have paid the price to feel his love and hear the word of the Lord, "go forward." Don't fear, don't vacillate, don't quibble, don't whine. You may, like Alma going to Ammonihah, have to find a route that leads an unusual way, but that is exactly what the Lord was doing here for the children of Israel. Nobody had ever crossed the Red Sea this way, but so what? There's always a first time. With the spirit of revelation, dismiss your fears and wade in with both feet. " Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU address, 1999

So what has the back door looked like for you in matters of love and pursuing authentic adventures of self?

Spinning Ninny

I did a spinning class this Saturday. No, not the kind where you learn how to turn some sort of grass into yarn, or the kind where you twirl like a dervish. The kind where they put you on a bike, strap you into said bike and then proceed to turn the lights off and yell at you to "get out of the saddle and CRANK IT UP!" while you spin your way to glorious nowhere.

I've been afraid of the spinning class because the only people I ever see going INTO that room of bikes are people with no fat on their bodies (great genetics/workethic) and special butt padded pants (great confidence). I, therefore, lacking two of the two qualifications for spinning class, concluded that I would never be able to do it. But I did! I did! And though they never said it would be easy, it was worth it.

I sweated my way through a full hour of intense uphill biking while staying comfortably in one place. It was more fun than running and by the end, I was asking around about those butt padded spandex. (PS...I was sore in my nether regions for a good 3 days, but now I'm all better and ready to hit the spin again...)

All this is precursor to a very special NormalGirls announcement:

I bought and wear a pair of size 12 jeans. THE END.

A conversation that I had with myself

Self: What did you do at work today NB?
NB: Oh you mean besides the normal coordinating things that one does when one coordinates for a national scientific society? Let's see... hmm...nothing out of the ordinary...oh, um, except maybe for the part where I spent TWO hours blindfolded being spoon fed baby food while wearing a garbage bag and holding a bottle in my coworkers mouth.

(awkward pause)

Self: You work in non-profit, right?
NB: Yeah.
Self: Thought so.

Whatever the mess you are, you're mine, ok?

There's this boy. He's really smart. I'm completely in love with him. Completely. More than I've ever been in love with any boy in my entire crush-heavy life. It's slow and frictiony, slightly exhausting and it grows a little bit deeper every single day. And guess what? He's in love with me too. When he holds my hand, I feel connected to everything and free from it all at the same time. Sometimes I watch him while he's asleep (which is all the time) and I think, now my life has exploded into a real existence.

The most perfect love story ever? Nope. Not by a long shot if you're tallying up perfection by hollywood standards. In fact, if I was sitting across from Dr. Phil, he might listen to our complications and advise me to cut and run. The most important part of all this love is that I've come to a few conclusions that have changed me in a million little and big ways. And then there's this part:

Today he said, "we bring out the best in each other in so many ways." I'm my best self with him even in the parts that are frictiony- that friction borne of honesty seems somehow to meet my roughest parts and create a humility that leads me closer to God. That's pretty F-ing amazing stuff, people. A gift, really. From one soul mate to another.

And what of the end? Still unknown. Neither of us can confidently exclaim that we will be eternally connected though there is so much so much so much hope. Ain't that a kick in the gut? And somehow, it doesn't even matter. Would I do it again? Yes, yes, a million times, yes. Will I do it again should the outcome come out in sadness this time? Yes, yes, a million times, yes. I'm built for love. No regrets.

There was this time when SB and I lay meditating in the morning. Eyes closed, our breath coming in and out. in. out. warm air swirling in and out like slick sea lions. I was breathing in love and breathing out peace. Gently barking a command to every pore and synapse. love and peace. And he was beside me, breathing his own command in sync with mine. Different but the same. I don't know what he was asking his breath to teach him. It wasn't mine to know. Breathing each other's air, pups coasting in and out, pumping warmth into frigid veins full of old sorrow. Eyes closed. Hopeful.

Sometimes Rilke Says It All

Overflowing heavens of squandered stars
flame brilliantly above your troubles. Instead
of into your pillows, weep up toward them.
There, at the already weeping, at the ending visage,
slowly thinning out, ravishing
worldspace begins. Who will interrupt,
once you force your way there,
the current? No one. You may panic,
and fight that overwhelming course of stars
that streams toward you. Breathe.
Breathe the darkness of the earth and again
look up! Again. Lightly and facelessly
depths lean toward you from above. The serene
countenance dissolved in night makes room for you.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, Paris, April 1913, from _Uncollected poems_ selected and translated by Edward Snow New York : North Point Press, 1996


You the belovedlost in advance,
you the never-arrived,
I don’t know what songs you like most.
No longer, when the future crests toward the present,
do I try to discern you. All the great
images in me – the landscape experienced far off,
cities and towers and bridges and un-
suspected turns in the path
and the forcefulness of those lands
once intertwined with gods:
all mount up in me to signify
you, who forever eludes.

Ah, you are the gardens!
With such hope I
watched them! An open window
in the country house –, and you almost
stepped out pensively to meet me. I found streets,—
you had just walked down them,
and sometimes in the merchants’ shops the mirrors
were still reeling from you and gave back with a start
my too-sudden image.—Who knows if the same
bird did not ring through both of us
yesterday, alone, at evening?

-Paris, winter 1913-14

I'm desperate to find the Ed Snow translation of an uncollected Rilke poem that starts "Again and Again even though we know love's landscape and the reticent gorge in which the others end." There are many imposters on the internet, but only Snow's translation will do. I have it in a book (Uncollected Rilke by Snow) which I love more than any other poetry book (and I have many) but it is trapped in a storage unit in Utah. I pay the $53 a month ransom to keep it alive, but its release is dependent upon acceptance to a certain graduate program. This is a poem that deserves liberty. Once I find it in cyberspace, I will send it out to you to change your lives as it has mine. I guess I have to try the library. Sigh.

(this post is dedicated to KA whom I miss and who sends me poetry and stamps from far off lands reminding me of who I was once upon a time)

The Death of Creativity in Korea

Remember this guy? And this one?

Remember how I broke my back to help build something really amazing that made me proud and excited to go to work every day? I just got word that Creativity School will close at the end of January. The University board was taken over by the publishing company that held a few of its seats and Creativity School was deemed unnecessary.

And so all I can do is spend a few minutes in gratitude for the time that I had there...strangely enough, all the people that were 'mine', Krisanne, Geoffrey, Lumina, Jill...would all have been gone by this February anyway. It almost feels a little like it existed just to be a vehicle for our growth and experience. BUT there is still something tragic about many people I love (my korean friends) losing their jobs and the fruits of their countless sleepless nights in the pursuit of excellence.

So here's to Hong Shilkjongnim. Elina. Erica. Sunny. Debby. Kitchen Teacher. Bus Teacher (haha). Library Teacher. Here's to all the people who stay and for whom the school closing does not just mean an early flight back to their real lives. Thanks for the years of paper bag costumes, concerts, beach sets, puppet shows and children's cd's, Changwehakkyo. Thanks for the little people that I loved and the countless lessons in humility and process. Thanks for teaching me how to teach and letting me explore things that other schools never would have allowed. Thanks for being forward thinking. It's so strange to be so removed and still have to let go.

NinnyBeth Takes A Rickshaw Ride

When in Colorado, one must ride in a bicycle rickshaw and while one is in the rickshaw, one must think about the sheer power and strength of the little man pulling one and one's boss and their normal girl bodies through the streets of denver. It was the MOST fun.

Mormons On Parade

Today I will tell you a story that I should probably save for some girls camp testimony meeting or general conference talk that I will never actually be asked to give:

One christmas, my boss, who is not mormon but has many mormon friends and lives right next to the LDS temple in DC, bounded into my office with unbridled enthusiasm and said to me, "I have an idea! Let's get everyone in our office together to eat dinner at my house and then go to the LDS visitors center to see the festival of lights!" Since I AM mormon and generally like to share what is most important in my life with those around me (you'll recall the many posts about bathrooms, vegetables, Smart Boy, diet coke, Smart Boy, God, Thrift Stores, diet cherry coke, oh, and SB) you might think that I would be as excited as Boss, right? WRONG. I smiled woodenly as I listened to her plan for a weeknight sometime in the next two weeks thinking to myself that I would rather poke a hot iron into my eyeball than hang out with work after work. Not because I don't love my work friends and my job, but I have things to do and people to see and presents to make and buy.

But then I started to think about it. Really. How often does your non-mormon boss want to plan your missionary opportunities for you? And how often do you get the chance to really talk about the things that are most important in the world in meaningful ways with people who you spend all day with? And frankly, what kind of disciple of Christ am I if I can't do what I said I would do and share the most important message of the restoration of the fullness of Christ's gospel (even if it is in an informative, un-preachy, professional sort of way)? So, I popped into Boss' office the next day and with renewed enthusiasm, I said, "Hey! let's do it next Thursday!"

And we did it. It was really really wonderful to share the things that I love the most with these good friends. At one point in the evening, I think I sounded a little like Ms. Teen South Carolina when I bumblingly tried to explain the "Temple In Terms We Can All Understand". "like, we don't totally do like ancestor worship, but such and we like, there is baptism, but not like people baptism, but like and such and yeah." So, false doctrine aside, I did get to talk about moroni and the book of mormon and The Savior was everywhere.

And there were Ukrainians.

Adorable little Ukranian children waving their hands and talking in stage voices that reminded me of "Waiting for Guffman". Hilarious and sweet.

7 Ways to Tell That You Should Stop Reading Dating Advice

1. You identify with EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE YOU EVER READ. "7 ways to know you are a desperate dater". "7 Ways To Know That You Are Not Desperate Enough" "7 Ways To Know If Your Partner Is Enough and Desperate" "7 Ways To Read This Article With Desperation"

2. You don't identify with ANY article you read.

3. You accidently refer to your friends as Relationship Experts.

4. You start to notice that every movie, every song, every television show is full of crap and doesn't apply to real life at all and it's all emotionally manipulative swill that teaches us to distort reality.

5. You find yourself curled up in a ball under your desk at work clutching your cell phone to your heart repeating the words, "I should call. I shouldn't call. I should call. I shouldn't call."

6. You start to think you've got it all figured out.

7. You realize you will never actually have it all figured out no matter how many boards of directors you employ or msn relationship articles you read and the truth is that this is between you and your "partner" and God and at some point, you do it your way and someone sees through it and somehow falls in love with what's rolled up in the crazy.

Bathroom Cookies/ Urinal Cakes

I left my camera in NYC a few weekends ago and have not had the wherewithall (I just wanted to say wherewithall) to get it back quite yet so this update is sans pictures. I'm a little boring to myself without pictures but so it is...

The bathrooms are back! After two months of painful, bladder exploding, stair running, pilgrammage jokes at work, we are able to walk down the hall to go to the bathroom again. I was so excited about the announcement that I made bathroom cookies to celebrate. They were affectionately dubbed "urinal cakes" by my office friends and I'm happy to report that they were snapped up immediately and filled the measure of their creation. (I laced them with fiber. I wasn't messing around.)

I spent thanksgiving with my grandparents and I made yeast rolls that turned out like my mommas except that they looked sadly phallic in a droopy kind of way. The good news is that they tasted just fine. fine indeed.

I took the GRE! I did it and I got high enough on the math portion that it doesn't look like I filled in bubbles randomly...it just looks like I'm mildly retarded which is much, much better. I would like to take the time now, in this forum to thank SB and my roommates and that guy who helped me with square roots when he could have been playing rock band. I whined for weeks and made myself an absolute bore. I cried openly about my lack of left brain will power and my slowly shrinking vocabulary to anyone who would listen and blamed genetics, the long haul to the bathroom at work and carb-loading for my failure to understand the whole point about prime numbers and equilateral triangles. Won't being with me through grad school be a pleasure???

I've been sick and it's been the best diet ever. I reached a milestone today that will bring me so much closer to my WW goal than I have ever been in my entire adult life. And the best part about it is that I did it slowly, tenatiously and healthily. I realized recently that this whole body image, weight thing has been one of the most important journeys of my life and has really shown me that change is not only possible but inevitable. The key is three things 1.) Every day is different and you really can start over 2.) spend time getting used to each plateau so that you know how you have to eat at each weight to maintain and then when you are ready ramp it up 3.) Choose to be honest. Step on a scale even in you're scared you've made mistakes. It is better to face each week in the know than to pretend you don't see what's happening. That's the only way to move forward.

The cool thing is that these three principles apply to just about everything that you are trying to accomplish. We get nothing out of dishonesty. We sometimes need to rest and let our bodies and our minds adjust to new situations. Nothing is ever a lost cause. All this is gospel stuff, but it's like I just discovered that it applies to life for ril.

Ok, now I am done being didactic (gre word).

Sometimes I Speak My Heart And My Heart Wins

Sometimes I tell you what I am really feeling, unafraid of the consequences because this is what love and trust are and I am nothing without those two things in my life.
Sometimes I let the chips fall as they will and believe that God makes everything work for the good of those who believe in Him.
Sometimes I have the courage to choose myself.
And sometimes, I am rewarded for my efforts - maybe not in the way the world understands reward, but in my way.
Integrity is your lesson to me. I will not forget it. I am changed.