I was thinking about wrinkles...

Why does youth get all the beauty?

In a class of mine today, yes I’m still in college, we were preparing for our sonnet presentations for next week. As practice we were studying a sonnet by William Shakespeare.

SONNET 65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? 

O, none, unless this miracle have might,
   That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 

Now… you are probably wondering, “What the heck does that poem mean and what does it have to do with this first line of this blog?”

Well, it was this sonnet that got me started on my train of thoughts that lead me to ask, “Why does youth get all the beauty?”

This sonnet is William Shakespeare posing a question is if all the strong and sturdy things in the world can’t last for forever then how can the sweet and beautiful things in life such as flowers or the sweet scents of summer last? This sonnet then closes, in the last two lines, with the idea that pretty much says, in modern English, “Can I provide a miracle and preserve beauty in what I write?”

The sonnet has really nice sentiments, I enjoyed it. It was the discussion afterwards that got me started on this idea.

After the class understood the poem the teacher asked us, “Where is beauty in our lives?”

Most of us responded with, “In our youth,” or “When we’re young.”

 Well, like always one person had a different response. What she said was pretty much the same idea, just phrased differently. “Right now,” was the girl’s response.

Of course the teacher, he being a quick-witted kind of person, said this to her, and kind of to all of us young college students, “For you, wait a few more years when everything drops,” gesturing to his wrinkles and thinning, white hair, “and opens wide,” gesturing to his round stomach.

He went on using himself as an example of good looks fading due to the aging process.

The thought I had with this topic of beauty or good looks fade with time was I really didn't agree with that idea. Who decided that beauty fades with age, why isn't it that it just changes? Does the world say the youth gets to hog the category of “Beautiful”?

I want to know why can’t there be beauty in a wrinkle, in a hundred wrinkles? Why can’t grey or white hair be more than just distinguished?

There seems to only be very few good attributes with age. Being wise, distinguished and experienced is about all that really comes to mind. For the rest the negatives run thick; helpless, weak, grumpy, achy, old fashion, and so the list goes on and on.

In my life I have had the opportunity to meet and know 3 grandmothers, and 3 great-grandmothers, an adoptive grandmother, a grandfather, a great grandfather and several great aunts and uncles. All, who have seen their share of years, hardships, good times and experiences of all shapes and sizes; with all those years were visible on their faces. And you know what, I would put them under the category of beautiful for the ladies and handsome for the men. I love their wrinkles and look forward to have some of my own. For when I do, I know I would've led a full and long life.

In the world we like to tuck away wrinkles and cover our “flaws”. I am guilty of this too; it seems that we cover our scars, wrinkles, acne, etc. and only let ourselves “endure” the sight of seeing our so called ugliness.

Men are guilty of such acts as well. I've been around my brothers, uncles and guy friends to know they too have their own self-consciousness about aging and losing their good looks. One time I teased an uncle who is proud of his good looks and told him he had a receding hairline. He refused to believe it but before he departed he pulled me aside and asked me seriously, “I don’t have a receding hairline do I?” I reassured him that he didn't  but the point still stands, that guys still worry that passage of time will take away the good looks of their youth.

Will we think we get uglier and uglier the older we get and we over-look the things that get more beautiful and desired with the passage of time.

What am I talking about? Ever heard of antiques?

My mom liked to hunt for older memorabilia, taking me with her to countless antique stores. Really, I have lost count. I have learned that people pay big bucks for the old and aging items of the past; calling them amazing, beautiful, and unique. We don’t we say the same kind of things when we get old. How come we don’t call the older people, amazing, beautiful, unique, and priceless? Instead they are stuck with being simply; distinguished, wise and experienced.

So, who decided that old age comes with ugliness? Why can’t thinning hair, wrinkles, bags under the eyes, graying hair be the thing we look forward to getting because like antiques we get more beautiful with age.

I want to look at what time gives me on my face as a gift because of my long and full life. Each line will be a marker of the many times I have laughed at a good joke shared with friends or proof that survived hard times. My grey hairs will beautiful because there will be so much behind me to share with my children, grandchildren, and whoever will listen to my long stories that will begin with, “When I was young,” or “When I was your age.” (Please feel free to imagine me saying that in an old woman’s voice.)

To end my thoughts on this topic I have a request. I want you to watch or read “Five People you Meet in Heaven”. This book changed the way I look at life. But the point I want you to look for is the moment when Eddie meets up with his wife in heaven. There is a moment in there (at least in the movie, not sure if it’s in the book) where he asks his wife to change to the older age she was at before she died. At that moment Eddie says that she is beautiful.

Who says we don’t stay beautiful when we age?

Here is the Trailer for the movie/book I mentioned:

L is for the Way You Look at Me...

I haven’t been keeping up this blog as well as I had originally planned I would when I first created it. I just get so busy with life and experiences that I tend to forget to record what I have been learning and experiencing. Also many of the things that I have been learning have been rather personal and not meant to be posted for the world to see. These lessons are better left in my heart and my memory and kept between the select few that have been the main characters in my life right now.
However, something that I have been pondering upon, I do want to share, it’s about love. The past few months I have been learning a lot about love, all sorts of love. I found this definition on Wikipedia that I rather like:
“Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. Love is also a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection; and ‘the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another’. Love may also be described as actions towards others or oneself based on compassion, or as actions towards others based on affection.”
Love isn’t always that romantic kind people tend to think Valentine’s Day is all about. It just tends to be the first kind of love that comes to people’s thoughts when the idea is mentioned. It’s not about the hugs, kissing, finding the right person. I love the definition above because it deals with the love you feel for family, friends, for people around us every day, and everyone else I left out in this list.
My Dad’s cousin Phillip Carlson wrote a thought-provoking book called You Were Made to Love and talking in a broad scope on this book it’s about how, as humans, we are made to love and be loved, not hate others, ourselves and that God loves us always and forever.
Yes, from day one we have this ability to love, we are not born with hate and other negative feelings and emotions, those are taught, taught through people acting that way towards us and seeing others being treated in a negative way.
Just in the recent months I have come to understand love a bit more. And to better express what I have been learning I want to share an analogy that has come to mind.
When we are young our understanding and ability to love is like a sapling or a new sprout of a tree. That sapling or spout has great potential and grows fast and strong in your youth as we love everyone around us, parents, siblings, friends, etc. Yet, our ability to understand love and its complexities is not yet in our reach. Our understanding of love and our abilities don’t quite go as deep as it can in our youth. Though in the time when we start getting romantic feelings in our early teen years we feel that love is deep, though that is just from our perspective, limited perspective. Yes, that understanding of love and our ability is deeper than as a young child, but there is still more learning to do in the years to come. As we grow and our understanding stretches out and deepens so does our ability, just as a tree grows and the roots deepen and strengthen. The more we learn about the world around us and ourselves, who we really are despite what the world tries, to tell us, our ability to love more deeply than we ever imagine, will happen.
When you meet that someone special that you can give your heart to and you let yourself been seen and honesty live freely in your relationship both of you will experience a deeper kind of love past the physical, but an understanding of each other where the lasting kind of love is and will continue to grow.
In any relationship; friends, family, romantic, classmate, teacher-student, neighbor, the list goes on and on, when honesty is applied (with tact) love can be there openly and grow and a better understanding will always be there.
I thought I knew what love was before but these past few months of this year, yet I have learned so much of how little I knew and understood. I learned how much more my ability to love needed and could grow and I am glad I had this opportunity to better understand such a great and important virtue that everyone needs in their lives and I look forward to learning more and more as the years go by. For I am never done learning.

New Start Each Day!

I once gave an advice to someone who was worried about some things in their life, "You know the thing about our pasts is that is not who we are now."
With this new year upon us now I am thinking a lot about the future and some on the past, what I didn't' in the past year, and years previous. I wasn't who I was when 2011 start and hopefully when 2012 ends I won't be that same person.
During my Junior year in high school I had read this very interest book, Siddhartha. The book goes through choices one man makes with his life. Well, while reading this book for my English class the discussion came up about how choices change us, making us different people each day. When we wake up in the morning we weren't the same person yesterday because we have new experiences, made more choices, have more memories.
Well, with New Year, I and everyone else, we have the oppurtunity to become even different than last year, even more better. The thing is when we enter into the desire to better ourselves we have let go of the past and move forward.
Quoting Rafiki from the Lion King, "Yes the past can hurt, but the way I see you can run from it or learn from it!"
Often when we try to change the past likes to sneak up on us and grab us by the ankles, for whatever reason. It's different for all of us. But this morning I watched a video that explains my thoughts in a unique way. This video got me thinking about this subject. It was a good way to start out the day!

What is Christmas all about?

This has been my fourth Christmas without snow. Many people I am sure don't care. Many have never had a white Christmas or don't care about a white Christmas. It's just I've had almost 20 white Christmases, snow is almost a tradition for me.
It has been tradition to go to my mom's cousin's cookie party. Tradition to drive around and look at Christmas lights strung beautifully on houses and at the local zoo. There is pumpkin roll and sugar cookies and putting up the tree with all our Christmas ornaments given to us through the years. I loved listening to Kenny G after the tree was put up, the living room lights turned off and the Christmas tree is the only source of light. It's shining like the stars at night, reminding me of the star that led the Wise Men to the baby Christ. Christmas Eve spent at my grandparents eating food, telling the kids to stop being so crazy or fighting, and laughing till our sides are sore, then we go home and go to bed exhausted.
Christmas morning we open presents in our pajamas, eat cookies and milk for breakfast. The living room is a mess, toys everywhere. Snow is covering everything outside. It's cold, sometimes freezing some years, but we are warm inside the house. The spirit of Christmas could be felt from Thanksgiving until the new year when the tree comes down.
For the past few years Christmas hasn't been the same. Family move, people move on, I am in places without family and snow. I am the one making the pumpkin rolls, no cookie parties anymore.
Last year I was on my mission during Christmas. I was without family, but I still felt the Christmas spirit. I talked about my Savior, taught about him to people who did not know of him. That is all what my Christmas was about. It wasn't about presents, decorations, Christmas TV specials. It was about the original meaning of Christmas.
This year was away from home once again, but not away with family. Yet, it still didn't feel the same. There wasn't many Christmas traditions I got to do. I didn't decorate a tree, make cookies or even a pumpkin roll. We didn't drive around looking at lights. Christmas Eve was spent at a casino theatre watching a musical and a very expensive restaurant with the smell of smoke everywhere. We did find some snow earlier that day, but had to drive a good distance in the mountains to find it and we went sledding for a bit. But I still miss looking out the window of where I am staying and not seeing white, but rocks instead.
What brought some of the feeling of Christmas back some was a phone call and long conversation with some one not near in location but very dear to me. We talked about Christmas memories and our ideas of what Christmas is to us. Night of Christmas we began to read in the Book of Luke in the New Testament, THE Christmas Story. We didn't finish reading the story because we got lost in discussion about some of the wording in the verses.
Bringing me into the scriptures and talking about "The First Noel" brought back Christmas.

Yes, I can be a dork!

Last night, at the last Improv show of the semester (I am in an improv group called Academy of Comedy) I got called a freshman twice! I have passed my college freshman year of college years ago. The thing is I just happen to be friends with the freshman girls in the improv group. It also so happens that most of the girls in the group are freshman!

This is not the point I am trying to make.

Something I realized last night and some of this morning is I enjoy being silly and crazy at times.

In my family when you are being silly of goofy you are called a "Dork". To many outside of my family that may seem like an insult, something you don't call people you love. That is just how my family is. We love each other, we drive each other crazy like all other families, but we love being sarcastic and being silly at times! Dork has some how turned into a term of endearment almost (using endearment for lack of a better word).
Anywho! I was kind of hyper and crazy last night. I think my boyfriend can testify to that. I was a bit off the wall when I was talking to him on the phone after the improv show. But man, I was having fun!

My theory about all this comes from a quote I think you'll find amusing... I found a quote from Bugs Bunny that says, "Life is no laughing matter, but can you imagine life without it."Yes, there is a time and place to be crazy and silly. Yet there is a time and place to be serious. Just because I am in my-twenties doesn't mean I have to stop having fun, laughing till my sides hurt with my friends, dance to music in my living room (or in an improv show). Just because I am in college, an aunt, a role model to the little and younger ones in my family doesn't mean I have to be stiff and borning, dull as Ben Stein, plain as plank of wood. No!

I enjoy my moments of being a silly girl, of being a dork! It's part of living!

I know God has a sense of humor. If he didn't he wouldn't have put the ability in us to laugh and to have laughter bring such pure joy when you share a funny moment with friends and family. Yet, as a reminder silliness has it's place and time, I do have the ability to be serious and take life serious, classes serious. But if I was like that all the time, life would dull and I wouldn't be myself.

Simplified

I was having dinner with Cayla yesterday on campus and I voiced an observation about my life. The observation went something like this, "Almost everything in my life had not taken the simple path, nor the easiest."

Now let me explain what I mean, for I know there are few different ideas of easy and simple that float around in your modern English language.

For an example my choice in what religion I choose believe in, Mormon. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be the true church, but it's not the kind of church you can join and then sit back relax and merely go to church on Sunday. There are calllings/jobs in the church, scripture study, daily prayer, the everyday effort of trying to better yourself. Being part of this church I have seen countless blessings, and blessings come by obedience. Obedience requires action, and not a passive behavior.

Another example is coming to BYU-I. It would have been easier to stay at the community college I attended for two years before I came here. The classes weren't as hard, it cost my family less. However, I was guided elsewhere. Now I need to pay for rent, my own food, travel home, etc. I have to find ways to get to school and deal with more demanding classes! Coming here has complicated my life a bit.

Yet coming here I made many amazing friends, experianced things I needed to experiance. Expanded my knowledge that community college could ever have!

Now how about my career choice? Theatre director and playwright, along with an author. These three things are not the easiest to be successful in today's time. Yet again I am drawn to these occupations. My current major is Theatre and Speech Education. My back-up plan in life is to teach theatre and communication classes in high school, if mentioned career choices don't work out, or work out as soon as I would like.

Even the choosing of my minor was a long deciding process and once again I was drawn towards something that would not be an easy road to travel, Spanish Education.

I would have loved to have photography as my minor, but the set up here in this university is if your major is in education your minor has to be as well. Which complicates things. Yet I go with a subject I haven't practiced since I about 16 or 17 and wasn't even that good at then.

I debated changing my minor this week, for varies different reasons, back to English education. English and Literature are something I do well in and I can teach (But I am not a big fan of teaching English/Grammar to students). While Spanish, I know, will be a struggle all the way to the end. And back when I returned to school this past September with this idea of having Spanish be my minor I learned it would add another YEAR to my schooling. Not what I was hoping to hear! Yet I know this is the right thing for me to go into.

Also what added to me not graduating at an age when most people do would be my mission. When I had a yer and half left in school I went on a mission for a year and half. It wasn't the easiest thing to do in my life; in fact, it was one of the hardest. It didn't simplify my life, but blessings came to me and my family. Blessings that would not have come if I had simply trudged on with my life at school.

I guess what I am trying to say with all of this is that we all have this idea of how our life ought to be or we hope it would be. Then God throws in curve balls at us and our life changes. One of those curve balls was my Mom dieing. It made things harder on my family, but when we pulled together and were there for each other love made us stronger. I even connected with an uncle I only met twice in my life when i was young child. Yet when this happen I got to know a man, my mom's youngest brother, who is now always there for me.

Then there are the hard choices. Sometimes it's the lesser of two evils/weevils. Other's it a hard choice between two or many good things. Then there are the choices that simply add complexity to our lives, but add beauty.

This reminds me of my favorite story in the New Testament, of the Bible. It's back in the Book of Matthew when Jesus walks out on the sea to his Apostles who were struggling in their boat to cross the waters. The Apostle see Christ off in the distance and think he is a spirit and are scared. Yet Jesus, knowing they are afraid call out to them to not be afraid, for it is him. When Peter sees Jesus is walking on water and knowing all things are possible with his Christ the apostle is compelled to go meet his Savior in the water. He asks Jesus if he can walk out to him. Of course Jesus wouldn't deny the growth and test of Peter. So Peter climbs out of the boat and begins to walk on the water himself. Yet fear over comes this young apostle and he begins to sink. He calls out for Jesus to save him. Jesus does save him, for he loves this man, but he chides him, lovingly, for not having enough faith and the two walk back to the boat together.

I bring this story up because the difficult choices in life reminds me of this story. Like Peter we are often compelled to leave our bubble, our comfort zone, for Peter that was his boat and the company of his fellow Apostles. Like Peter we too are often called to walk the choppy waters. We won't always be successful at stay above the water at all time, like Peter. Yet when we get over-whelmed and when begin to sink we need to call out to our Savior and he will find way for us to be pulled back to our feet and he will walk the rest with us. We may get a bit of chiding when we fall from our own mistakes, when we knew better. But That doesn't stop God's and Jesus's love for us.

I have learned life is not met to be like we were playing Candyland. We wish it would be, but what would we learn from that? Spanish won't be near easy, but if I quit and go with something easier and something I wasn't compelled to study, I won't be made better. I would be the old me who would bail out when things got difficult.

Quoting a fellow sister-missionary I had the good fortune to meet and work with at the end of my mission, she quoted her aunt who told her in a difficult time of both of their lives, "I can do hard things!"

My life isn't simple but I love it. I am happy with it. It's my job to make it that way. Outside forces may change what happens at times, but I choose my reactions.

Now before I end this.... Yesterday while talking to Cayla about this observation I have just written about I made the joke, "I guess I will know what the right decision is in my life when it's not the simple one!" ;)

I love my life! And I hope you do or soon will learn how to love your own life.

Kate and Me!

It has been a while since I've written in this blog. Life has been passing quickly and with not much excitement. It's been school as usually. It kind of feels like, on my end, that point in a movie as time passes and music is being played as a person goes on with normal days and you see the seasons change and nothing happens to the person in the film.
Winter can't decide if it wants to come or not. We had a good snow fall about a week ago and it looked as if it was going to stay, but it didn't. Afternoons are like spring while the evenings and mornings you need to bundle up or you'll freeze. Today is like that, perfectly sunny right now. I walked across campus without a jacket.
But this is not the point of this entry.
In my Shakespeare class we just finished reading "The Taming of the Shrew." I enjoyed it greatly!
However, this play isn't really that liked by many people in today's time, especially in my class.
For those who don't know the plot of this comedy, here it is:
In an Italian city, Padua, there is a wealthy widower named Baptista with two daughters of marrying age. The eldest is Katherina and the younger, Bianca. Bianca is known for her beauty and mild behavior. While Katherina is loud, temperamental and is called "the Shrew" throughout that part of Italy. Baptista says that Bianca cannot get married until Katherina gets married. Which as you guess would be a miracle.
Well, Bianca has two men who want to marry her, Gremio and Hortensio. Then in comes a new guy in town Lucentio and his servant Tranio. Lucentio sees Bianca and falls in love with her at first sight, as he says the famous lines "I pine, I burn, I perish!"
Meanwhile another new man comes into town, Petruchio and his servant Grumio. These two meet up with Petruchio's friend Hortensio (Bianca's suitor) and these friends come up with a plan. Petruchio has come to Padua to marry a wealthy woman and Hortensio tells him about Katherina. Petruchio agrees to go marry her to make Bianca free for him.
At this point Lucentio disguises him as a tutor named Cambio, a tutor for Bianca, and Hortensio disguises himself as a Litio, another tutor for Bianca. This is so they have time to be with Bianca. While Lucentio woos Biana his servant, Tranio, who pretends to be Lucentio makes a marriage arrangement for his master and Bianca.
Petruchio get permission to marry Katherina and they marry, in a highly humorous wedding scene. After the wedding Petruchio goes about to "tame" his new wife.
Now many who read this play think Petruchio is crushing Katherina's spirit and turns her into a submissive wife.
As for me and several in my class and the people who critic the play see it otherwise.
The play is under the comedy category and is farce in many moments of it.Though I won't deny Petruchio's method of "taming" Katherina (or as Petruchio calls her Kate) is highly unusual and a bit mad. Though you have to remember this is a comedy and people's ways are eccentric and crazy. Nor is Petruchio the average man and Kate the average woman.
Though this time around with The Taming of the Shrew I kind of saw the play in a different way than before. Before I thought Kate wasn't being crushed at all, but Petruchio helped her tame the fire in her and put it to better use. I saw that at the end of the play they were equals. For how can a comedy end in a crushed sole, how can a fiery woman be so easily crushed?
This time around I saw myself as Kate. Like Kate I had some traits that were less than desirable, that needed to be shaped and tamed.
There is a girl who phrased Kate's taming process something like this, "Petruchio put her fire in a mantle (AKA fireplace) instead of leaving it to burn down a forest."
I didn't have a temper, never have, I am at times insanely calm (so I have been told). But I had a few traits that were more harmful than helpful (as Kate's temper was).
Then there are things that happen to me, Like Kate, that were out of my control. I had my own "Petruchio" in my life. It wasn't one person, but many. It wasn't one situation but many that I learned from. These situations helped shape me and when I fought back and tried to demand to have things my way, only made the transition worse.
When Kate stopped fighting Petruchio and went along with his game they became equals and she became the better her. With me when I accepted this as my life and made the best of it as I could is when things went smoother and I saw a glimpse of someone great that I could be.
My life isn't what I ever imagine it would be or could ever be years ago. But the Man upstairs had bigger and better plans for me and I couldn't think how my life could be anything else. Like a rose bush I was cut back for a bit only to have fresh bits grown in with more beautiful roses.
We all have a bit of Kate in us, whether temper or not, we will have our own Petruchios to show us what we can become. It's when we stop fighting what we want and go with what we need, and make the best of it, is when we will see that person that we can become.