Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The World is Such a Wonderful Place. La Dee Da.

The snow is gone, so I took Brittany's car west on Main, toward the sunset.

I stopped and started past Broulim's and fenced houses and trees so bare that, from far away, they look fuzzed on top--like my knitted hat after so many wears. I finally found a long, vertical spread of road to follow at 65mph.

The sky ahead was orange and pink and dirty grey, and I could see the circle of the sun when I focused on the flat clouds surrounding it. My arms were cold, and I flicked the heat switch to Hi. I tried to see the colors of sage brush lining the road, but saw bright blue residue instead, where the sun had burned my eyes. The dots followed everywhere I looked and collected on themselves.

I took a deep breath to see if it would make things--the essays, the people who don't listen or care, the money, and the plans after graduation--leave me or make me feel different. It didn't, and headlights approached in the left lane, reminding me of everything I drove to escape.

I checked the gas gage: a quarter and a half tank left. I thought of the 16 dollars in my bank account and what the drive would cost me. I could freaking care less; I need this, I thought. And I passed a "Watch for Stock" sign.

I stopped at Beaver Dick Park, to see the sun dip lower into the mountains from a set of monkey bars. It was too cold to think, and the metal was hard, but the sun turned a golden orange. I climbed down, ate a tropical Trio bar, and continued my drive toward the colors.

I'll turn around at the next flap of road, I thought. I drove slowly, so the gas wouldn't burn faster than the decending sun. I drove on the left side of the road, I held down the horn, I screamed, and I thought of Darl from As I Lay Dying. I am as human as he is, I thought. I stopped at the flap of road and got out. I saw three snake holes and wouldn't walk any farther into the brush because of them, so I picked some weeds that grew on the outskirts of the road and continued to drive west with a chewing straw in my teeth.

I turned the music down and watched the flowing landscape--as much as I could watch without veering left or right. I heard the wheels on the road loudly shhhh me through the belly of the car. The hills on the sides of me were small and crowded with tiny blue sage bushes. The sky was big. I saw no headlights, no people, no glass bottles or wrappers, no powerlines, no houses, no beeping lights. I am small and alone. I drove on.

I reversed and turned around in the middle of the highway when I came to the first curve. I rolled the two front windows down, opened the sunroof, and blasted the heat to tame my goosebumps. My hair whipped around my eyelashes and into my mouth. I stretched my entire arm out of the window to feel the wind. I imagined God's hand grabbing mine through the air and picking me up and out of this life, toward Heaven, and setting me down again, because Frost says, "Earth's the right place for love." I suppose.

I rolled the windows up, closed the sunroof, turned up Mumford & Sons until my ears pricked, and drove toward darkness, watching the pink glow in the west from my rearview mirror.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Necklaces

When Ivor comes over, he asks for Brittany. When Skyler and Hugh come over, they ask for Victoria. The people who come over and ask for me are generally those I ask to come, or my visiting teachers, who come because they have to report back to coordinators.

I’m sitting on my bed, beneath the brown quilt my mother and I tied two summers ago. I’m on my computer, checking Facebook for a new wall post or a new message, and I leave the internet window open as I write this, just in case someone wants to send an instant message. After I wash my face or run downstairs to change a load of laundry, I check my phone for a new text message or missed call.

Yesterday I had two missed calls and three text messages after class—it was my mother.

There’s something about this semester that feels utterly alone. I come home from early classes to make my bed and re-do my hair, then sit for a while and stare at the light brown knobs on my white dresser. Or I pick up my guitar and play the same song I’ve been playing for the past two months. Or I glaze over the necklaces I've collected through recent years and the ones my mother bought from Anthropologie last Christmas--one made with creme-colored ribbon and tiny glass balls, another with thick, navy-blue stones. They hang in long strands from the hooks I bought with my employee discount at Pier1. At least I have beautiful things, I think.

I have siblings—four of them. The last time I heard from Michelle was last week—she wrote on my Facebook wall and said, xoxoxoxox.... Miss you much!!! My news feed showed that she wrote the same thing on all of my siblings’ walls. “You should really give your sister a call to let her know what’s going on with your life,” my mom says. Yeah, I think, but if she really wanted to know what was going on with my life, she’d call instead of use the internet to send me virtual hugs and kisses. The last time I talked to Nathan, I called him for decision-making advice about my mission. The last time we talked on the phone before that, was a year ago. Jared never calls. And two weeks ago, Justin asked my mom if I would babysit Josh--while he goes to Florence on a complimentary business trip this April--instead of going on the British Literary Tour. "You know, Aly," my mom continues, "these relationships are two-way." But for some reason, I feel like, because I'm younger and unmarried and far away, they should be a little more concerned.

When my mom complains about ticket pricing for flying me to and from school, Justin says, “I didn’t tell her to go to that freaking school. I told her to go to UTSA,” which is an hour and a half away from home. It's not like I'm competent enough to choose my own school. When my sister’s husband trash-talked BYU-I as we drove down an Arizona highway one Thanksgiving break, she turned to me from the front seat, smiled through her lipstick, and said, “Oh, Gordon, she’s just having fun up there, huh.” Yeah, I thought, and my chest thumped hard, I don’t write 10 page single-spaced analyses on Germany’s economic and cultural progression, or stay up all night to paint acrylic color charts for Color and Design, or research Tess of the d’Ubervilles’ feminist criticism on JSTOR for six hours at a time. I just twiddle my thumbs with my mouth open and drool on myself all day. I've done that for the past four years. Sometimes I feel like my siblings understand absolutely nothing about me, yet I am sealed to them forever.

There have been times when they’ve tried. Like the times Michelle bought me pink Hello Kitty pencils and strawberry lip-gloss from the Orange County Main Place Mall, when I was six or seven. Or the times when Jared picked me up from Cedar Valley Middle School every day in his black Nissan truck, booming Eminem through his subwoofer. Or when Justin bought me a silver dolphin necklace in fifth grade that I’ve worn twice, which now lays tarnished in a ceramic cup on a book shelf back home.

Nathan tried during my Senior year of high school. With the money I made scooping ice cream, I bought two tickets to see The Shins play downtown at Stubbs. My mother suggested Nathan take me, and he did. It took us two hours to drive the usual-thirty-minute drive because of rush hour traffic and a rainstorm. We made it to Stubbs ten minutes after six, and because of the rain, the show was cancelled. Nathan looked at me with black-brown eyes and a one-sided frown.

“What should we do now, Aly?” I remember he wore a grey Old Navy shirt, which was darkly spotted with rain, and a white visor that dripped.

“Run through those puddles?” I turned my head to look across the street at an empty parking lot, bordered by vine-covered canals, and I pointed. Nathan smiled with his speckled, white teeth, and I remembered the gap in them before his braces. I nodded my head. “I really want to.”

That night, we ran through rain puddles and gulped long breaths of humid, summer air. We ate at The Spaghetti Factory, took pictures beneath the Frost bank tower, and delivered two Big Macs to a homeless man. The Early November played beneath the squeak-swish of the windshield wipers the entire way home, and Nathan let me rewind that one great guitar riff each time it would end.

I used to let myself ugly-cry in front of Nathan, but he’s married now, and I guess that means no more rained out concerts or long road trips through Arizona. I used to try on Michelle’s earrings and shoes, but she lives in another state, closer to her husband’s family. Justin used to ask me questions about volleyball and violin and art, but now questions the value of my education. Jared used to tease me when we'd play a jungle-themed memory game, but now he has two daughters and a son—all under five—to tease.

When I check my e-mail, my Facebook, my phone, I wonder where my siblings are. I wonder if they’re busy at all or always. I wonder if they’re missing anything. I wonder if they know they have a little sister somewhere in the world who feels alone. At least I have beautiful things, like necklaces.

Friday, February 12, 2010

What I Think of When I Close My Eyes

I want to breathe in cold mountain air.
I want to see a hummingbird.
I want to run across a plain of dry grass grown up to my waste.
I want to feel the wind blow my hair from the back of my neck.
I want to stand on rocky cliffs that overlook crashing white waves and close my eyes.
I want to ride in a hot air balloon over evergreen covered mountains.
I want to drive through warm countryside with the windows down, without smelling exhaust or oil or sulfur, just trees.
I want to lie down in the snow without getting my pants wet or shivering.
I want to stand on a beach in white flannel pants and large sunglasses, smelling the sandy wind and feeling my skin scrunch in the heat of the sun.
I want to finger paint, sitting crisscrossed on the floor with a scarf tied in my hair.
I want to meditate to cello music.
I want to ride my blue cruiser bike down a long hill.
I want to scrape my knees on choral.
I want to taste a honeysuckle flower.
I want to smell the Redwoods.
I want to climb outside of the second story window to sit on the snow that’s collected on the roof.
I want to ride a horse across some part of the desert, like they do in Westerns.
I want to watch the shadows of the earth change on a road trip.
I want to dance in circles on dusty dirt, in my bare feet.
I want to hear shells rolling on the ocean floor.
I want more moments where I don’t think about my 10 page research paper on The Picture of Dorian Gray or my depleted bank account.
I want more moments where I feel God.

Friday, February 5, 2010

A Reminder

Saturday night, while planning a Relief Society lesson for the next morning, my body aches intensified to the point of distraction. I was coming down with something and decided to take a break for some ibuprofen.

I felt the chill from the lower part of the house with each step I took down the stairs and coughed to relieve the tickles from my chest. I reached the living room with old green couches and heard voices from the kitchen. As I approached, I expected the ordinary—one or more of my eleven roommates with maybe a few of their friends visiting.

When I looked towards the back of the kitchen, I recognized him immediately sitting in one of our black-backed wooden chairs at the kitchen table. I felt something beneath my ribs, something like my heart rolling over or kicking. He hadn’t seen me yet, and I continued walking to the glassed-cupboard to my left, the old carpeted kitchen floor thumping each time I stepped with my heels. My fingers tingled from what felt like an electric shock that came with the sight of him. He was so familiar; I knew where the creases of his face lay better than the girl he was visiting did. My right hand shook uncontrollably when I grabbed for my purple botanical mug. And when I went to the sink for tap water, I studied the increasing water level in my cup.

Rounding the refrigerator to get to the pantry, I had to face him, and our eyes met.“Oh, hey,” I said with a half-smile. And I got some satisfaction from knowing that he knew what my real smiles looked like. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, Aly,” he said. I wished he would leave.

When we first started dating a year ago, the girls across the hall, the ones he was such good friends with, told me in secret how he was “really into it this time” and “so happy.” I remember the first time he came over to watch Amelie with me and sat so far away on our tan couch. I remember the green, pocketed coat that he wore the night he told me he liked me and wanted to date. We stood outside my apartment door on the third floor, and all I could do was quickly nod my head and offer a closed-lip smile.

I remember the night he invited me over to an apartment to watch The Breakfast Club, and when I sat close to him, he grabbed my legs and draped them sideways over his.

I remember how every time he’d tell me he thought I was beautiful or that he was happy, his blue eyes would blink slowly, and I’d feel his truth.

I remember the blue robot shirt he wore as we stood on the chip isle at Broulim’s, when he told me he loved me and immediately called it a Freudian slip. I remember hoping he meant it.

I remember when he danced with me in the kitchen over conference weekend and dipped me after I bit into a hot dog. I choked, and we laughed. I remember when he dipped his tortilla chips in sour cream.

I remember when we laid close on his plaid couch, and the sun streamed through the blinds hitting the wall in stripes, and he told me he loved me. His arm was under my neck; I looked at him like I didn’t believe him; “Not with a big L yet, a little l,” he said. I knew I loved him back, and I was so safe.

He'd carry me when I asked him to.

I remember when the Rexburg fields were tan and dead from winter, and everything looked gold. The sun was out, and his friend Miranda took pictures of us walking down the railroad tracks, standing on the SEED building, and kissing in front of the railroad crossing sign. I remember Miranda saying to him, “Man, your kids are going to be gorgeous.” And for a minute, I let myself imagine. I never got to see those photos.

I remember when he let me touch the stubble under his chin and above his top lip. I remember when I’d grab his sides and he’d cringe and laugh. I remember when he used my acrylic paints to color a cartoon picture of me that he drew. I remember when we saw Bedtime Stories at the cheap theater, and he repeated Adam Sandler’s “For free?” line days after. I remember that my hand felt small in his. I remember seeing him parked in the Hart parking lot at the end of the walkway, waiting for me in the snow. He’d get out to hug me, before I got in. I remember walking in the cold, trying to jam both of our hands into his green jacket pocket.

I remember the night before we both had to leave for the semester. He laid under the dashboard of his old Chevy sedan, while I laid on the front seat-bench, because we both couldn’t fit there, and we talked until 3:00 in the morning. When he dropped me off at my apartment, I watched him from my third floor window. He smiled up at me as he walked in the snow to his car and got in. I waved to him as he drove away. I was confident we’d last through the summer.

I swallowed my ibuprofen in the pantry and waited for my hands to stop shaking. I said nothing when I quickly rounded the refrigerator to get back to my room, where I played a song on guitar and choked at the chorus.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Weirdie

Sunday, I walked out of what they call the “Sunday school room” in the Clark building on campus—on weekdays this room is used for home economics and family management classes. My intention was to walk home as quickly as is possible in heels, to heat up the last of our leftover Cholent. My social apathy set in, and I shuffled my way past the crowd of recently released church-goers, to the large glass doors, avoiding any eye-contact.

He swooped in front of me. “Hey. What’s your name?” I stopped. My roommates broke past the crowd from behind me, and one stood at the door with her hands on the long metal push bar. She looked back at me.

“Aly,” I told him. I noticed I was taller than this guy in my grey heels.

“What semester is this for you?” Really? I’m hungry, dude, I thought. He had a huge bottom lip, his suit was brown, and he had straight, semi-white teeth. I looked to make sure my roommates hadn’t abandoned me altogether. They were still there.

“Oh, this is my last semester. Then I’ll be going on a mission,” which means I already don’t want to date you, so please stop trying.

His eyes widened, and he bounced on his toes. He dangled his arms in front of his body the way a thug would and said, “No way, that’s awesome. . .” I smiled and nodded. “That’s really awesome.” His eyes fell to the floor. K, can I go now? He wasn’t finished. “Well, cool. Um, well we should hang out sometime.” Based on what information? I asked myself. Unless I’m totally oblivious to your ability to read minds or to decipher really awesome people from others, how would you know we should hang out? I smiled without my eyes.

“Yeahhh. . .” He pulled out his phone, got my number, and texted me that same night.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

Monday, January 18, 2010

Surfacing

Today, I stuck leaves on the head of an already-built snowman and laughed at the tree bark mustache Jen put under its orange popsicle nose when Sister Morgan wasn't looking. I walked in foot-deep snow and pushed branches out of my way, sometimes forgetting someone was walking behind me. I crunched open a cattail and blew flurries onto Britt's Northface jacket. Some landed on my teeth when I smiled. I looked past naked trees to see the pastel sunset, and I inhaled. For lunch, I ate cookies with carobe chips, instead of chocolate, and agave nectar, instead of sugar. I didn't shower until 6:00PM. All of these things were beautiful.

But there's this feeling that I still have. It comes when a good friend no longer asks me what my favorite part of my day was anymore. It comes when people come to visit the collective Aly-Britt, instead of just Aly. It comes when my brothers don't call. It comes when a guy asks me if we should go to the group home evening together or watch a movie one-on-one, and my response is, 'you're the man, you decide,' because I've been hurt, and thats his job. It comes when I need to finish a novel by 8:00AM tomorrow, and I'm only halfway through; I'm left wondering how I will ever get through a literature-based graduate program. It comes when I'm pretty sure everything is telling me that I need to go on a mission, but all I want is to be married before age 25.

Maybe that feeling is there because, when I walked through the snow today, I watched my footsteps instead of the clouds and the trees. Maybe it's there because I thought about my close reading essay when Sister Morgan rolled the bottom sphere of our snowman instead of being there to start the second sphere. Maybe it's there because I didn't inhale enough cold air or touch enough snow. Or maybe it's there because I forget to remember that God is in control. And I was too busy to let that sink in.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

My So-Called Life

If I were to create my life from scratch, including every little detail I’ve ever fabricated, starting from now, this would be it.

I will graduate from BYU-Idaho with my Bachelor’s in English: Creative Writing in April 2010. My mother and grandmother, I am told, will come to my graduation for sure. They will stay at the Best Western or the Inn by Applebee’s for a few nights. My mother will jump up and down, grab my face, and kiss my cheek, saying how I am her only child to graduate. And I will introduce them both to some of the greatest people I know. We will eat at Café Rio or Macaroni Grille in Idaho Falls.

I will stay with Brittany for three weeks—one in Utah, and two in Rexburg—while I prepare for the British Literary Tour. I go to France, Ireland, Great Britain, and Wales and fly home, to Austin, from Salt Lake City.

By this time, I will have a job lined up for me to come home to, hopefully using some of what I’ve learned in the past five years. I will work in downtown Austin at one of the high rise buildings. It will be a professional sort of job, and I will dress professionally every day—in Anthropologie. After a month or two, I will buy a car. And I will begrudgingly attend the Austin Institute of Religion.

Within a year or so of working at this place, I will take cake decorating courses, become a Daughter of the American Revolution, have a flat stomach, get my scuba diving license, learn how to rock climb and play the harmonica, join a band, read books on eastern religions, prepare for the GRE, and work towards Italian citizenship.

Then, I will go to Boston University and get my MFA in creative writing. While I’m at BU, I develop a great camaraderie with those in the same program. One of whom is a muscular man with thick, wavy, brownish-blonde hair and brown eyes; he wears plaid button-ups, scarves, braided-leather shoes, and pea coats. We will talk about Thoreau, Faulkner, and Plath, about Sting and the history of the Bee Gee’s, and about pop-culture of the 1980’s. We’ll listen to Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper, and Bob Dylan. We’ll make each other laugh. He won’t act like an emotional girl, or play any games with me, and he’ll actually like me. We like watching artistic and foreign films—edited, of course—and making/eating our own trail mix.

One day, we’ll take a walk in a snow-covered park. I’ll be in heels from Anthropologie, and my hair will be really long by now—I’m like 26 or 27. He’s like 28 or 29 and 6’3”. He’ll carry me over the icy parts and move my hair out of my face with his fingertips.

I decide to take a weekend trip to New York City. By this time we’re both graduated, and Dream Man is a professor at NYU. He buys me an affordable, Tiffany cushion-cut engagement ring and proposes on a bench in Central Park. We get married in the Manhattan temple and have our reception in his parents’ backyard in Rochester.

He’s making millions by now, and I decide to open up a cake café—people eat cake while reading from my favorite novels. We live in a small, downtown apartment, like the one Meg Ryan lives in, in You’ve Got Mail. I have it decorated with Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, and I refinish old furniture from Goodwill and the D.I. I accent with real white Dasies and Spray Roses.

We decide to start our family. I’m like 30 now. But we don’t want to raise our kids in the city, so we move to New Jersey or Connecticut or Upstate New York. We drive eco-friendly cars. We have a small house, like the cute little ones in Rexburg and downtown Salt Lake and downtown Austin, and about 4 acres. We own three horses, two chickens, a potty-trained pot belly pig that we let live indoors, two cows, and two caged doves. We have four kids—three boys and one girl. I have a small square foot garden and plant basil, parsley, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, squash, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, and lavender. We have an apple tree, a cherry tree, and an orange tree. I cook Vegan food, and bake purely organic cakes.

My husband plays guitar, and I play the harmonica, the violin, the cello, the piano, the six-string, and the harp. We sing songs like the Von Trap family. I play in the community orchestra. I teach my kids six weeks at a time, and the next six weeks they attend private school. We take road trips through the American and church history sites. Once a year, we visit my family in Austin. For major holidays, we do service projects as a family. At Christmas, all gifts are from Santa Claus, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. Each person maybe gets five gifts. The rest of our time and money goes toward helping needy families. We do Christmas Jars and make gingerbread houses. I read my children Truman Capote’s Christmas Memory. For Easter, I hot glue moss and fake feathered birds to baskets. We decorate a small Easter tree. My boys don’t watch televised sports or obnoxious cartoons. They shovel dirt and play soccer and listen to good music and ask girls on dates when they’re sixteen. They all get jobs. My daughter knows how to sew and bake and cook and quilt and paint and play instruments, and she has long legs and dances.

My children get married to people just as amazing as they are. My husband and I retire and read books. We’re both published writers and edit each others’ work. I paint and get my art into a gallery. My husband and I travel through Europe. We serve missions in Romania, Russia, Italy, Japan, French Canada, Brazil, and San Francisco.

I die in my sleep one day when I’m 88. My husband follows suit a week later.