Guster

This morning, the light filtered hopefully through tiny droplets of rain as I ran and listened to Guster.
That album ("Keep it Together") has done a lot for me.  I was remembering this time of year two years ago.  I was about to graduate from high school, and my grandpa was in the final weeks of dying of brain cancer.
Every Monday after school I'd drive to Berkeley for violin lessons and youth orchestra.  The trip took an hour.  I'd get in my car, talk to God out loud for a while, then listen to Guster.
Those songs still hold for me a kind of peace or catharsis.

Nice

My aunt Josie and her kids dropped by this afternoon.  They wished my luck on my final performance jury.We stood on the sunny front step and talked.  Olive climbed on the stair railing.  Gabe made us laugh.  We talked about the books we want to read.  Raya tossed Saul's hat onto the front lawn. 
The whole visit lasted probably no more than ten minutes, but it was easily the best ten minutes of my day. Isn't family the best?

alive

Sometimes I think that after we die, we will fully understand how exquisite it was to have a body.  This vehicle of bones and flesh that walks us around and smells our roses is no small miracle.  I'm sure I will miss the touch of a breeze on my arms, the texture of bread in my mouth, the warmth of another human's hand.  I will probably long for a sense of gravity, groundedness, mass.  Earth beneath my feet.  All the verbage:  running, dancing, shouting, singing, swimming, lunging, digging, rolling, walking, climbing, resting, playing.  I will wish to feel the fullness of a laugh in my belly, the excitement of attraction, and the wetness of tears on my face.

And I think I will miss the pain.  There is something so very real and mortal and exhilarating about suffering.  Sharpness, sting, ache, burn, soreness, bruise.  They are somehow important. 

The deep kind of sorrow that seems to tunnel holes through my soul - will I feel that when I'm just made of spirit?  Or the experience of hearing a mournful melody or seeing a breathtaking vista - something so beautiful that it actually hurts, as if a river of clear water is coursing through my heart.  Will I feel that?

I don't know.  But what I do know is that being alive is exquisite.  I want to feel every itch and sun ray, jump in more puddles, and weep through the heartbreaks ahead.  I want to get to the end of mortality and feel like I lived.

sentence about a phenomenon I love:

On the occasional bright winter morning, when there's no snow on the ground but the temperature is low enough for frost to stay crystallized, it looks like the grass has been scattered with diamonds.

among my favorite places

My bed.  I can't get over the fact that night after night, I get to crawl under the covers and snuggle up in the sheets, lost in blankety bliss.  My roommates think I'm crazy, ("You guys, we get to go to BED now!!!") but climbing in bed never ceases to delight me. 

The stair well.  We music majors spend hours practicing, usually in the practice rooms on the second floor of the Harris Fine Arts Building.  It's a level below the ground.  No windows.  (As an aside - if I ever become overwhelmingly rich, I'm going to build a practice-room structure with lots of windows for aspiring music students at BYU.)  Anyway, the lack of windows is ameliorated by my new favorite practice spot: the stairwell.  It's a level below even the practice rooms.  Concrete, high ceilings, and endlessly flattering acoustics.  Everything sounds good down there.

The backyard passage.  See, my brothers live on the street parallel to mine.  Walk out my back door, through thirty feet of unkempt wilderness, and I arrive at the back door of two of my top five favorite people ever.  But don't let me get going on them, it'll take at least a separate post.  Probably two.

the world is delightful

Winter pressed in like a hug
while I walked home in the dark
with a friend

Praise Him

Of late my thoughts have been turned to trust.  In the last couple weeks of the semester, there was, of course, a mile-long list of tasks to accomplish before the break.  On a clear, crisp Tuesday in the last week of classes, I was walking home from school, surprised at how calm I felt.  A peace washed over me, I looked out at the south mountains, and I felt something.  If I could put it into words: "Annie, don't worry.  You will have the time, energy, and ability you need to accomplish every needful thing."  I contemplated this.  If any human had spoken to me those words, I'd have shrugged off their assurance with a still-skeptical "I know, I know."  But when God speaks to your heart, you can trust Him.  Completely, unabashedly, wholly.  I felt a confidence and sureness that carried me through final projects and performances and papers and exams.
It brought to my mind the words of the Savior to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
He gives us peace that the world cannot give us.  With Him we can accomplish that which seems impossible.
I believe in Him and love Him and have felt His love inside me like a well of clear water.  I know His atonement is real, and I trust Him.
Merry Christmas!
Praise Him.