I believe

that bananas become ripe solely so I can make banana muffins with them.

yum.

"Like I say, you stick around and don't let nothing happen."
"You can depend on me," said Tom.
"It's not you I worry about," said Douglas. "It's the way God runs the world."
Tom thought about this for a moment.
"He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries."

Dandelion Wine, p112

break in

 

I found this picture today on my camera dated from earlier in the school year. Apparently it was a busy time, or maybe someone was looking for something...

love it

I love that I find myself writing thank you notes on the day the world is supposed to end.

Guess I'm just trying to tie up any loose ends.

M

heart

I struggle sometimes to know what words I want to fill these pages. I've composed hundreds of posts in my head that I've never posted. I don't always know what I want this space to be. My thoughts yes, but on what? I never know if what I write is worth reading. Is it too personal or not personal enough? What's my motive? What image of myself and my life and my thoughts am I trying to convey? Who, dear readers, am I?

Several times I've thought about deleting mjots. I just never post on it as much as I want. I look at these design blogs or blogs of people who have hundreds of followers and I just don't see myself putting my life out there like that. So often a false sense of reality and life is portrayed or what is posted seems superficial and meaningless. But every time I seriously think about getting rid the suki diaries, I can't. I want this space to become something that is worth reading. Me, being true and real.

What follows is personal. Probably the most personal thing I have ever and will ever post on mjots.

Today I was supposed to do one of the biggest and scariest things I probably would have ever done. Today my life was supposed to have taken a defined and monumental course. I was supposed to feel excitement, anxiety, fear, relief, gratitude.

Today I was supposed to take the MCAT.

Rewind five months and you could not have imagined my excitement as I poured over the MSAR, looking at potential medical schools. Everything seemed to be coming together. I had the whole thing planned. And it was actually happening.

The few months after that seemingly golden time were (are) probably the hardest period of time I've had to go through. Details aside, plans changed. I took on too much and I couldn't handle it all. I knew in February that I wouldn't be taking the MCAT today. Yet, I held onto my spot for months afterward. I wasn't ready to let go.

All week I've been thinking about my alternate reality: what I'd be doing if I had really taken the MCAT today. Oh how different my life would be.

I wish I could say that it's all behind me. That I'm on a new course and I can see why I was derailed so jarringly. But the wound is still fresh, the infection acute.

In life we often face disappointments. Some are big and some are small. But guess what? Life goes on. We breathe in and out and one day it doesn't hurt so bad.

I'm getting there.

bradbury had it right

Everyone has a method to their writing. When I read this passage from the forward of the lovely book Dandelion Wine, I felt my feelings on the process were captured most perfectly with Bradbury's profound words:

[...] like every beginner, I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turn on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies. It was with great relief, then, that in my early twenties I floundered into a word-association process in which I simply got out of bed each morning walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head. I would then take arms against the word, or for it, and bring on an assortment of characters to weigh the word and show me its meaning in my own life. An hour or two hours later, to my amazement, a new story would be finished and done. The surprise was total and lovely. I soon found that I would have to work this way for the rest of my life.

home country

As I’ve grown up in the world, home has become less of a place and more of the people that I love and am surrounded by. While I grew up in the same house all my life, since moving away for college, it doesn’t feel like my real home anymore. In it's place, I’ve created many homes over the years in various places, falling in love with different landscapes, picturesque views, and most of all people that I love more than anything in this world.

Several days ago I was flying, soaring above the world, observing human life as if from a dream. I couldn’t help but spend hours looking out the window, amazed at this alternate world of brilliant blue and white. Just as we began our descent into Salt Lake, we turned north, the clouds parted, and we flew over Utah Lake. What met my eyes were lush rolling green hills guarded by snow-tipped blue mountains--both a result of our wet and late spring. My lips parted in amazement, my hand pressed up against the window--willing the plane to push west so I could get a better view, my heart filled with more light than it has in months, and my mind felt at ease. This is my home country.

As many places as I will travel, as many people I will come to love and hold dear, as many replacement homes I will create like nests around my heart, this little place will always be where my feet feel most comfortable taking step after step, where my eyes love to rest. As much as I admire the limestone of Jerusalem or the trees of the East,  I will always call the mountains and valleys of dear Utah my home country.