The 5 People You'll Meet on the Freeway

1. The Man in the Minivan
The entire car smells like some hellish combination of Cheerios and McDonald's. "Let It Go" is blasting from the radio. Kids are screaming. Boogers are flying. Diapers are stinking. Needless to say, my manhood has been insulted. Watch out 'cause I'm driving with a vengeance and something to prove. Not to mention we're late for soccer practice.

2. The Young Prissy Woman
I am perfectly justified in my right to blast music that objectifies me and smack my gum and coat my eyelashes and text on my iPhone and fix my hair and check myself out in my rearview mirror and drink my coffee and take a selfie at the stoplight and change the song 10,695 times and slam on my gas and slam on my brakes and drive like FREAKING CRUELLA DEVILLE!

3. The Car That's Had Its Blinker on for 5 Solid Minutes
I'm not really sure what's going on or where I'm going or what my name is, but I'll bet you $50 that I'll realize it's time to exit the freeway the moment you drive into my blind spot.

4. The Semi-Truck Driver
Everything about me is large and in charge and if you're in my way, well, I'm sorry, but frankly my dear, I don't even care.

5. The Expensive and Glitzy Sports Car/Unnaturally Jacked Up Truck
I sold my soul to drive in a car that looks this good so let's just say I'm not about to let you pass me unless you look about as good as I do, which is impossible, so don't even try or even think about trying.

Spiritual Stitches

Last weekend, two things happened: First, it was the weekend of General Conference, a semi-annual event for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints where, over the span of two days, our leaders give us spiritually instructive messages broken down into four, two-hour sessions. Second, I got ten stitches in my knee and it turned out to be an experience that was unconventionally special.

This was my first time getting stitches ever in my whole life. I have also never broke a bone, but I pray that is a record I will never break. (Haha. Get it? Break?) Anyway, how it happened is I was running along an asphalt trail, when suddenly I tripped on who knows what and slammed down into a broken chunk of the trail. My whole body started shaking as I stood up and lifted up my pants to survey the damage. What I saw almost made me puke: There was a gaping hole in my knee, so deep that I could see the fat. Long rivers of blood coursed down my leg. I had no phone with me and I was a mile and a half away from home, so I was forced to focus all of my mental faculties on staying calm and walking back one step at a time. 

About two hours later, I was lying on an emergency room bed with a PA bent over my knee, weaving his silver contraption in and out of my shredded flesh. Thankfully, my mom was with me, sitting next to the bed. We decided to turn the television on to watch conference, since my hospital visit had extended into the Saturday Afternoon Session. 

There was a certain degree of hilarity to the whole situation. There I was, unbathed and sweaty, lying in an emergency room because I had tripped on practically nothing. One nurse had dumped copious amounts of salt water into my wound, another nurse had pulled down my pants to give me a tetanus shot. I hadn't shaved my legs in a while, yet everyone in the hospital was examining them, up close and personal, hairs and all. Zero dignity. Zero. And, through it all, General Conference continued to play on, showing speakers dressed in their Sunday best and delivering profoundly articulate and composed messages that contrasted sharply against my slightly pathetic circumstances, circumstances under which I never would have imagined I could feel close to God. 

Yet somehow I did. Maybe it was because ripping open my knee had humbled me enough to finally open my eyes to the fact that I was becoming blinded with worldly aspirations. Maybe it was because getting stitches was a startling awakening to my own human frailty. Maybe it was because I finally let myself be vulnerable, forced to surrender myself into the hands of those who knew so much more than I. 

Whatever it was, listening to the conference messages in that room made me feel I was not only being stitched up physically, but also spiritually. The messages touched my soul in places I had not realized were wounded until I felt the pang of healing flowing into them. It was like drinking a glass of cool water after spending hours in the sun. The words were literally healing me from the inside out.

Of course, this healing process is not over and complete with the conclusion of General Conference. Just like with my stitches, I must continue to care for my spiritual wounds and make sure they heal properly. I must keep trying to be better than I was yesterday. Everyday I must cleanse my soul and rub the ointment of faith and devotion on my wounds to avoid infection. It takes work, a lot of it, but it is the most worthwhile thing I will ever do.

One of the messages that really stuck with me was Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk. I can still hear the conviction in his voice spilling over the hospital speaker as he spoke the following words in his talk, "Are We Not All Beggars?":

"For one thing we can, as King Benjamin taught, cease withholding our means because we see the poor as having brought their misery upon themselves. Perhaps some have created their own difficulties, but don’t the rest of us do exactly the same thing? Isn’t that why this compassionate ruler asks, “Are we not all beggars?” Don’t we all cry out for help and hope and answers to prayers? Don’t we all beg for forgiveness for mistakes we have made and troubles we have caused? Don’t we all implore that grace will compensate for our weaknesses, that mercy will triumph over justice at least in our case? Little wonder that King Benjamin says we obtain a remission of our sins by pleading to God, who compassionately responds, but we retain a remission of our sins by compassionately responding to the poor who plead to us. 
. . .
In that regard, I pay a personal tribute to President Thomas Spencer Monson. I have been blessed by an association with this man for 47 years now, and the image of him I will cherish until I die is of him flying home from then–economically devastated East Germany in his house slippers because he had given away not only his second suit and his extra shirts but the very shoes from off his feet. “How beautiful upon the mountains [and shuffling through an airline terminal] are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.” More than any man I know, President Monson has “done all he could” for the widow and the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed."

—Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

We must work to stitch up each other. We must work to stitch up ourselves. We must be humble and obedient enough to allow the love of God and Jesus Christ to stitch up our souls—they know so much more than we do.

We need to spend less time condemning each other, and more time lifting each other. 

After all, are we not all beggars before God? 

The Joy of Spam

Sometimes you have got to wonder what is going through the mind of the poor souls that write spam emails. Take this one for example:

Subject: Married AND dating! Life is short, have an affair!

I mean, really. Let's just abandon all notions of dignity and morality and advocate the basest actions of human nature. Do they honestly think that anyone is going to fall for this stuff? I guess the fact that they continue to do it is an indication that some people do fall for it, which is a very sad and frustrating thing, and also slightly inconceivable that such an offer could merit any degree of legitimate attention.

However, this email did make me laugh for a good five minutes, so I guess it's not all bad.

Learning to Listen

This is from one of my favorite books, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. The book is told from the perspective of the family's dog, so keep that in mind while reading this quote:

"Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. 

For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words "soccer" and "neighbor" in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. 

So my initial conversational gambit—that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog— would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories."

The Car Diaries: Part 2

Well, it's official now. The deed is done. I signed all of the papers and this little car is officially my child.

Joy. 

I can't even tell you how drastically the level of my anxiety has risen since I brought this little baby home and parked it in my driveway. But everyone I tell that to thinks I'm crazy, like buying a car should be some kind of joyous experience or something. And I guess it is, in some ways. And I guess I should let myself be happier about it. But this is a whole lot of responsibility! And I don't think I'm ready for this level of commitment!

But it doesn't matter because I signed the papers. And there is also the small matter of needing a car to drive to work everyday, because the beloved minivan (mentioned in this post) experienced major mechanical difficulties and was no longer able to complete the task.

I am so afraid I made the wrong decision! What if I bought myself a piece of crap car and now I will have to spend the rest of my life slaving to pay the debts of its medical bills? Ack! I can feel my heart beating irregularly already. (That's what my heart does when I am experiencing abnormally high levels of anxiety.)

Last night as I was driving home and imagining all of the things that could go wrong, and all of the upkeep I probably should start doing this very instant, and the tires I will need to buy (so much money for hunks of rubber!), and the new brakes and the oil changes, and yada yada yada, I had a thought occur to me. The thought was that I made a commitment to this car, and that commitment means that I will do what it takes to take care of it. Simple as that. I will bear the load. Willingly. I will drag it to mechanic shops. I will fill it with gas. I will wash the bird poop off of it with love and gratitude in my heart.

When you think about it, buying a car is a lot like marriage. It's a giant leap of faith. Some relationships have more problems than others. Some relationships break up before they can ever really get started. There's lots of maintenance required, and sometimes you wonder what you've gotten yourself into. But in the end, you made a commitment. You have a responsibility to each other. And that's enough to keep you going.

And, just like in marriage, it's important for me remember all of the good reasons that led me to make this decision. Because there are lots of them, but they can be easy to forget. It's all about remembering.

Remembering how cute we are together doesn't hurt either. ;)

*Disclaimer: I am not married.

The Car Diaries: Part 1

Recently I made a decision that has caused me great anxiety ever since I did it. I don't know if this means it was a bad decision, or just the type of decision I never thought I would make. It's the kind of decision that can't really be undone, which makes me even more nervous. Now before you go thinking I did something scandalous, let me just say what it was: I bought a car. That's what I did. And let's just say it is not as happy of a feeling as I imagined it would be.

I'm the type of person that really thinks things out before I decide to do anything. I guess I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to making decisions, which is pretty much the stupidest thing when you think about it. Because what decision will ever be perfect? The answer is no decision. There will always, always, ALWAYS be pros and cons. This fact does not please me. Somehow I still think sometimes that if I just think enough/pray enough/research enough/consult enough, then I will magically become exempt from this fact of life and experience the honor of making the perfect decision.

False. All of it. Even though I hate to admit it.

But, sometimes, I rebel against myself. The crazy man inside my brain decides to revolt against the careful man who has been working so deliberately to do things just so and suddenly I just start doing things that the careful man thinks are absolutely insane. Let's explore some examples:

Exhibit A: Jumping off of a 40-foot cliff into a river. A RIVER. I didn't even know how deep it was. Getting a cantaloupe sized bruise on my thigh as my reward.

Exhibit B: Going off the trail and up a cliff while hiking, almost slipping, watching my life flash before my eyes, and then realizing that I just knocked a whole bunch of rocks down on a group of people and made some lady's leg bleed. I could have killed her!

Exhibit C: Whacking my brother on the head with a paddle while rafting with the family. Let's just say I was very upset.

It's oddly liberating in the beginning when you first start disregarding everything that the careful man is saying to you, but it never really lasts. There needs to be a balance. However, having said this, it's probably still a little bit good for me. Sometimes it's good to be overwhelmed with what it feels like to have made an undeniably stupid and ignorant mistake. It reminds you why you like making good decisions. Sometimes it feels refreshing to just do things and not think about it, to just make choices and not spend so much of life idling between options and never truly going anywhere.

Because even if the decision turns out to be a bad one, at least I did something. At least I took the shot.

Life isn't meant to be lived perfectly. For one, it's impossible, and for two, it would be intolerably boring because you wouldn't learn a thing. Sometimes you can murder life and all that's magic in it by dissecting it too thoroughly, by splitting it up into parts and judging some parts to be of greater value than others. But life is sacred, even in all its confusion. There is something beautiful in partaking of the madness as a whole.

And I'm trying not to forget that.

Magical tree I saw in England. If you hammer a coin in to its trunk, your wish will come true.

Whoa.

I graduated from college. I got a real job. Whoa. When did this all happen? How did I grow up so fast?

Lovely flowers and an Asian woman. Enjoy.

The heavens delivered. Literally.

This past Tuesday, I decided that enough was enough and it was time to finally bite the bullet and fork out the money to get my car washed. I haven't washed it in probably . . . um . . . 3 months. Ew. But before you judge me, you have to understand two things:

1. My car is 19 years old. It's an old lady. It has a dent dents. It is shaped like an oversized Easter egg. The paint is slightly oxidizing on the top, which creates the pleasant appearance of balding. It has a few age spots (rust spots). Do you get the idea? Washing doesn't make much of a difference because the car is not exactly a beauty queen to begin with. 
2. My car leaks. Really leaks. It leaks through the windshield. It leaks through the air conditioner vents on the ceiling. (Also, the air conditioner is broken, which is ever so lovely, especially in the summer. If you love the feeling of your flesh slowly melting off of your skeletal structure, come take a drive with me.) And when I say leak, I don't just mean a slight drizzle. I mean full on waterfall, Niagara Falls status, coming in the car. To make matters even more fantastic, the leak in the windshield is positioned precisely over the steering wheel, which makes for very interesting driving experiences. Let's just say it gets a little slippery.

Anyway, after making the fatal mistake once of somehow momentarily FORGETTING that my car suffers from leaky syndrome, and then proceeding to drive it into an automatic car wash, and then REMEMBERING my car's syndrome moments too late as car wash water came flooding into my car at an uncontrollable rate, I have avoided washing my car. In that moment, when all I could do was just sit there and allow the water to seep into my clothing because the stupid red light was on and I was trapped, I vowed I would never subject myself to this torture ever again.

So you could say I've had traumatic experiences.

But, after totaling the number of bird poops on my car and finding it to be an embarrassing amount, and after my cousin's hand became covered in black grime after closing my trunk, I decided it was time for an intervention.

I went to bed Monday night fully intending to wash my car the next evening.

And then . . . 

. . . it rained! REALLY rained. It rained so much that the sun-baked bird poop fell from my car like crumbs from a cookie. It was a beautiful thing. Even though it meant I had to drive home from work with a steady stream of water pouring all over my jeans and the steering wheel, and even though it meant I had to frantically use my small little red rag to try to dry the steering wheel while stopped at red lights, I endured it all with a happy heart, because every precious raindrop that landed on my car was the sound of dollars staying in my pocket and of avoiding an experience I find to be quite unpleasant and quite unnecessary.

So when I finally pulled into the safety of my driveway, I gave my car a once-over, wiped off one remaining stubborn fleck of bird poop (with a baby wipe, not my hand), and deemed her appearance acceptable.

No car wash today, ladies.

Thank you, clouds. 

I think I'm in love.

That magical moment when you stumble across this song on Spotify . . .

. . . and then you google the artist so you can see the face of the heavenly voice that is like silk on your eardrums, and this is what you're met with . . .

Hello, my good sir.

Also, did I mention he's from Australia? Well, he is. Which means he talks like an angel. And he's from the land that pops out adorable creatures like this one:

So much beauty in one man.

Moments from lately.

• During a work meeting, my boss passed around a video she took on her iPhone of me "surfing" on the indoor Flowrider. It was from our company party that was held at Provo Beach Resort. At first I was embarrassed. Then I got the guts to watch the movie and realized I looked pretty awesome. And then I watched myself fall face first and get water blasted into every crevice of myself. Not so awesome.
• Moongazing. And stargazing. On a rooftop. Listing every single verb we can think of that starts with the letter "p." And then, out of the darkness, two giant water balloons. Hurtling down from the sky. Smacking on the roof. 3 feet away from our bodies. Horrifying. Images of water balloon murderers flashing through my mind. What if the water is poison? What if the balloons are only a preliminary attack? What if they have guns? Afraid to stay on the roof. Afraid to get off the roof. Sitting on the roof and thinking that this must be how it feels to live in a war zone. Discovering who did it. Feeling stupid for being afraid. Realizing my imagination makes my life 1,000 times more dramatic than it actually is. Writing the last line of this paragraph and feeling like the whole thing reads a lot like a MasterCard commercial? Priceless.
• Running through the neighborhood, pausing only to pet the cats and to watch the clouds become liquid gold as the sun sets over Utah Lake. Admiring the gardens and the elderly people who work in them, hunched over and then looking up, smiling wrinkly smiles that feel like melty ice cream.
• My mom telling me she had a surprise for me and it turning out to be the most cozy and beautiful cardigan, complete with pockets.
• A customer at work ordered dozens of lemon cakes from La Jolla Grove to be sent as a gift to the corporate office, which just so happens to be where I work. They were perfect, yellow mounds of sweetness, with bright raspberries and cool mint leaves placed delicately on their tops. They were divine.
• 99 cent bowling games topped off with half-price mini Coconut Cream Pie shakes from Sonic, sipped under the sky of a clear summer night.
• Experiencing the consequences of parking under a telephone wire. Counting the number of bird poops on my car. Total: 9.
• Going camping up in American Fork Canyon with wonderful people. Cuddling up with two of my closest friends in a 5-man tent. Losing the shape of myself to the mounds of sleeping bags, pillows, old blankets from hotel rooms, and a quilt stitched together from pieces of my old blue jeans. Falling asleep in the middle of the conversation, cheeks still swollen from smiling.
• Wearing my new tiger face t-shirt with jean shorts, sprawled on my friend's couch, watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for the second time and thinking about how the lessons it teaches correlate with the Parable of the Talents. Wearing the same shirt the next day because I like it so much.
• Celebrating Father's Day. Watching my dad open his card from the family with tickets to see Bill Cosby. Giving him a Turtle Pecan cupcake from this place, which he promptly scarfed down, before eating his dinner, claiming the right to eat dessert first in the name of Father's Day.
• Thinking about how excited I am to go to Nebraska for the wedding of one of my best friends in a few weeks. Imagining how much fun we're going to have at the Omaha Zoo the day before, how stressed she's going to be the morning of, and how beautiful she's going to look dressed in white when the moment finally comes.

Man, I love summer. I love the long days and the dewy mornings. I love the breezes, the shaved ice shacks, and the ease that seems to nestle itself into everybody's heart. Don't leave, summer. You're too much fun.

Oops.

I accidentally bought toilet paper with roses on it. Oops. Sometimes it makes me feel really classy, but mostly it just makes me feel like an old lady.

7 Reasons

I had a particularly refreshing weekend. Thankfully, it's not over yet (I have about 4 hours left), but what has happened so far has been wonderful.

It was especially wonderful in contrast to the rather dull and slightly melancholic week that preceded it. 

Here's why:

1. I went to see "As You Like It" performed by the Grassroots Shakespeare Company. It was so good! First of all, the setting was beautiful. They set up this small stage in Rock Canyon park, so we brought our blankets and laid them out on the green grass and watched the play as the fluffy white clouds floated across the background and the soft breeze sifted through the trees. It was positively lovely. One of my friends brought scotcheroos, so we passed those around as we laughed until our sides hurt at the love quandaries of Rosalind and Orlando.

2. After the play, we all came back to my house and sat around on my magnificent couches and talked about things that had happened and things that might happen and threw pillows haphazardly at each other. After most everyone had left, two of my friends and I ended up going into a deep spiritual discussion that went until 2 in the morning. I have so many questions. And they usually have answers, even if their answer is nothing more than "I don't know. Good question."

3. I hiked to Stewart Falls and discussed the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith with some of my study abroad peeps. It was the first of what will hopefully be many book club rendezvous. It was so fun to get back together with them and recreate a small part of what we spent three months in the UK doing together. Here is one of many beautiful passages from the book:

      "Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for."

       "The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed."

        "That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."

        "If that is so," commented Katie bitterly, "then we Rommelys are rich."

   Read it. I definitely recommend it.

4. I got my hair cut. I don't look like a fledgling polygamist anymore and my hair is 1,000 times more touchable.

5. My friend was house sitting a beautiful and very expensive home for a few days. She had the privilege of inviting some of us over to swim in the lovely pool and to hang out on the patio and make s'mores with Symphony chocolate bars on the fire pit while the sun set. It was fun to feel like I was rich and lived in luxury, even though it was only for a night and I had to return to my less-than-luxurious home and squeaky bed afterward. 

6. Sunday. Going to church and walking through the sunshine with the breeze lifting my hair off of my neck. Eating fruit salsa with cinnamon and sugar chips, and washing it all down with mint lemonade. Listening to this song on repeat. Taking three hour naps and waking up to the sound of leaves brushing across my window. Feeling both exquisitely exhausted and exquisitely refreshed at the same time.

7. Thinking about this quote from the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty":

        “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

And dreaming about all of the things I want to experience in life, like volunteering at an orphanage in Ecuador, buying my own car, traveling to Santorini, Greece, and going on hikes with my family and my dog (once I get a family and a dog of course).

There you have it. 

Weekends refresh the soul.

Each day of life is a gift.

“Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” 
― Robert Brault

Arriving at our hostel on the coast of Tintagel, England. I miss this beautiful episode of my life so much it hurts. I can't believe it's been a year already!

I made this.

This was my final creative project for my senior capstone English class. I wrote my final paper for the class on the redemptive power of memoirs in relation to the human pursuit of awe-inducing experience, so this video was made with the intention of supplementing my paper. Enjoy. Or hate. Whatever suits your fancy.

Do you trust me?

"We could get out of the palace, see the world?"

"Is it safe?"

"Sure. Do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yeeessss?"

This scene keeps popping into my head every time I think about my future and what an utterly blank slate it is. Except I imagine God being the one asking  "Do you trust me?" and then instead of saying "Yeeessss?" I say "Heck no!" and run back into my fancy balcony bedroom so I can cuddle with my pet tiger Rajah and my ten thousand blankets.

You could say I have trust issues.

I'm working on it.

Feel all the feels.

“You can not protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

—Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I don't know these people, but I love this picture. It's from here.

From the lovely world of my phone.

Texting Adventure #1

Ryan: Are you coming tonight?

Cara: Yeah, I'm planning on it. Unless I'm ambushed by squirrels on my way home tonight.

Ryan: So we will hope to see you, but won't be surprised if you don't make it.

Cara: Precisely. Proceed as normal and be sure to ask the squirrels for my body so you can hold a proper funeral.

Ryan: Ok.

One day later . . .

Ryan: Hey cupcakes, we have the library reserved this Friday at 8:30 for a movie party. We are watching either Skyfall or Les Miserables. What do you think?

Cara: I say Les Miserables, but I'm just a cupcake so what do I know.

Texting Adventure #2

Cara: Why you no answer my call?

Mother: [no response]

10 minutes later . . .

Cara: Is the family alive?

Father: [no response]

5 minutes later . . .

Cara: Is the family alive??

Sister: [no response]

Commence panic attack. 

This has nothing to do with texting or phones, but in honor of squirrels, I have provided this lovely photo of a British squirrel's unusually fluffy rear end. He lives in London, and enjoys spending his days rummaging through garbage and hiding nuts in places where he will never be able to find them again.

The end.

(See what I did there?)

Salad: The Key to Women's Happiness?

No. But if you relied solely upon the media's projection of salad, you may be tempted to believe such. Seriously. Try and find one picture of a woman alone with salad where she's not laughing. It's uncanny. I don't know about you, but I don't find myself exploding with laughter and joy every time I eat a salad. I mean, they're good, but not that good. I don't even laugh when I eat cookies, let alone salad. Anyway, scroll through Women Laughing Alone with Salad to see more pictures of women being unusually happy eating their precious salads.

The Human Body Is a Paradox

Yesterday morning around 7 A.M. the sound of sirens leaked into my window. At the intersection just up the street from my house, a woman had been killed. She was crossing the street on her way to work, and in the darkness was struck by a 49-year-old man driving a GMC truck. She was a single mom, and later, her three daughters, ages 12, 14, and 16, told police she was walking to work because the brakes in their car were broken.

When I first heard this story, I was in shock. I stared at that intersection, now busy with cars full of people rushing off to buy milk or to get home to their families after a long day at work, and could only think about how a woman had died there this morning. But the ground was not sacred. At least not to them. They drove over it again and again, completely ignorant of the life-shattering moment that had occurred there only hours earlier.

Imagining a truck striking a fragile human body fills me with pain. It's like imagining a sledge hammer coming down on a piece of ancient pottery, the brute and unrelenting force crushing the delicate structure. It's not a fair fight. I can almost feel the way the internal organs crush, unable to withstand the pressure of impact, and the way the skin tears and bruises, leaking out its red contents. The human body is so delicate. So very, very delicate.

I can't help remembering the bodies of babies I saw in the ICU, resting in incubators next to my brother's after he was born. They were so small and so utterly helpless, like baby birds confined to their nests. Or the time I went cliff jumping and landed wrong when I hit the water, earning myself a bruise the size of a cantaloupe. I stared incessantly at my raised purple and blue flesh, feeling my nerves scream when I brushed my fingertips ever so lightly across the surface. I apologized to my body. I'm sorry I did this to you, I said. I'm sorry.

But the body is a funny thing. It's amazing that the same set of DNA, the same set of arms and legs and muscles and bones that can carry my little brother on my back all the way up to Timpanogas Cave can be completely wiped out by a microscopic virus. It's amazing how the same body that can climb to the top of the highest mountain in the entire world, surviving on minimal amounts of oxygen, can die from a blood clot the size of a nickel.

If given enough time, the body can adapt to almost anything. The muscles in our bodies rise to meet the challenges presented to them, tearing themselves apart and rebuilding over and over again until they are at last strong enough to resist what resists them. The body is a paradox. It is durable and delicate; sensitive and tough. It can adapt and it can demand.

It is an amazing piece of work.

Sometimes I think it's easy to criticize our bodies. We get so lost in the wrapping, in the way our hair falls around our shoulders, the shape of our nose, or the color of our eyes. It's easy to become angry at our bodies for not looking or acting the way we want them to. We forget so easily. We forget what a gift our bodies are. We forget how much they can do. Bodies are precious. They deserve our awe and they deserve our respect.

And most of all, a body deserves protection—even if it isn't our own.

Lightbulbs and Kidneys

This morning I woke up and the bathroom light was burnt out. Lightbulbs burning out is always an unfortunate occasion, but this was particularly unfortunate because there is not a single window connected to our bathroom. The result? Complete and utter darkness. And as much as I enjoy showering in the darkness, peeing in the darkness, and brushing my hair in the darkness, I do not in fact enjoy doing any of these activities in the darkness.

I tried putting on my makeup via cell phone light and I thought things were going well until I went downstairs and saw myself in the mirror in the living room, illuminated by blinding sunlight, and realized I had done a very shoddy job indeed. However, on the plus side, things like zits are much less visible in the darkness and, as long as you don't look in any other mirrors, enable you to shove the memory of their existence completely from your mind.

It's also very frightening to stare into mirrors in the darkness. The whole time I'm doing so I can't shake images from my mind of ghosts appearing next to my face in the glass and laughing maniacally. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

Anyway, after we got home from church I once again headed into the bathroom, deceived by the light from the hallway leaking in, and shut the door only to find myself once again in total darkness and remember that the lightbulb was still out. I was sick and tired of this nonsense, but the way I saw it, I had two options: 1) pee in darkness; or 2) pee with the door wide open. Both were equally unsavory and repulsive activities, so in a moment of sheer brilliance, I found my solution. I looked up at the light in the hall and noticed for the first time that there were not one but two lightbulbs in the light fixture. I promptly unscrewed one of the lightbulbs from the hall and brought it into the bathroom light fixture, screwed it in, and basked in the fluorescent glow that spilled forth. There is now light in the hallway and the bathroom! So the moral of the story is lightbulbs are like kidneys: You can take one out and transplant it, and everybody will still do just fine.

Reason #1,234 why I should refrain from googling health concerns . . .

I googled "My heart is beating really fast and it hurts" and this is what Sheryl of Yahoo Answers had to say about the matter:

    Hi there, I have also had these problems, but my palpitations don't go away, I've had 3 emergency scares to the hospital with chest pains, palpitations and feeling ill, the doctors have found nothing wrong and I have been diagnosed with panic disorder and I'm on a course of citalopram 10mg, I get this urge to cough every now and then and a feeling like my hearts going to stop.
    I worry about dying, but I can't see the point anymore, the hospital can't see nothing wrong, my parents and doctor think its a mental problem which it most probably is, so I might as well keep going and if I do drop dead I do and if I don't well that's a real plus.

Oh Sheryl. Bless you.

A cat by any other name would smell as sweet.

The following are nicknames I have for my cat:

• Katan
• my lumpy dumpling
• my tender urchin
• my lovely fatness
• my little fatso
• my precious

Her real name is Daisy, but I only call her that when strangers are around. 

Ours is a special bond.