Aprilist

Yeah, yeah, the month is half over, but this is my Aprilist.

1. Open my mission call.
2. Start recording Green Things.
3. Watch my favorite movie with Chris.
4. Go to Niels's mission farewell.
5. Give 10 things to charity.
6. Sing in church with Mom and Madelyn.
7. Write Maddison a letter.
8. Hang out with London friends.
9. Make dinner two times.
10. Keep my room clean.

Eighth

When I was fourteen I ran away from home,

because my mom and I had an argument in the living room,

in front of the rest of my family.

When I ran out the front door and slammed it behind me,

Hurrying from the porch I used to sweep in first grade,

Running down the driveway where I learned to ride a bike,

Traipsing on the street I wandered day and night,

Taking distorted pictures of street lamps on school nights,

I turned the corners I sometimes rode my bike around on the way to the library,

Stopping to stand in the grass on the corner, next to the stop sign,

Crying, shouting, barefoot and mad,

Dragging my heels through the leaves and grass,

My fingers grazing the ivy of the wall.

I turned the corner again onto the highway,

and coming down the road on the sidewalk,

a police car pulled over, red lights blaring,

and I pretended not to notice,

but the policeman talked to me,

asked me where I was going and where I lived,

and I answered, terrified, until he stopped.

I continued on the sidewalk, cut grass, deciduous trees, 

bougainvillea running along the high wall

of the oldest country club in the Coachella Valley.

When it happens I am surrounded by trees, and the ground is dark.

I see the sidewalk in my memory, pockmarked and pale,

and lying there is the four of diamonds,

one scale from some lost deck of cards.

I look down at the card,

its sharp parallelograms and mirrored 4s dark in the night,

and having recently come home from China,

remember that the number means death there.

It's silly, but at fourteen, that was why I turned around.

At home, Dad had said, "Should we go after her?"

And my only little brother, a lump in his throat, wailed,

"Well, do you want her?"

By the time I turned around,

they were cruising slowly through our neighborhood,

our huge white Suburban moving like a mythical whale in the dark.

After some college boys harassed me about the police harassing me,

After I was walking back, playing card in hand,

My dad rolled the window down and said something funny,

something about coming home.

Six years later, I went for a walk here in London,

maybe just to feel the comfort of being warm when it's cold,

of wearing a coat and breathing out clouds.

I intended to walk down just one street, and at the end of it, to turn around.

I intended to stop when the line of trees stopped, and then to follow them home again.

But I continued into Kensington, and past Hyde Park, and through Hyde Park, and on,

And you're not going to believe me,

But after I passed a bus stop I looked down at the pavement,

Lit by yellow street lamps and crowded by trees and high buildings,

and I saw one card, an eight of clubs, lying alone on the sidewalk,

and again, I don't care what that card means to technical numerology or to the occult, 

but eight is my favorite number, 

and 8 is an infinity symbol turned on its side,

and eight is the number of steps to Nirvana,

and eight is a perfect cube,

and eight is a perfect octave.

I didn't stop and gape at the card on the ground; I picked it up and kept walking,

Carrying the omen with me,

Realizing that my life was, and had been, metaphors and foreshadowing,

building off of each other,

And that I need to start believing the whispers I hear in my mind,

things like "This will be finite, so end it,"

and "you'll be friends with this person,"

and the worst, after days of a strange fever:

"if you get close to him,

he has the power to remove you from what you love."

And because this needs a denouement, my dad is coming to England,

to carry me home, on a silver plane, like a bright fish in the sky,

And home isn't an escape, but a destination.

Home is a refuge and a celebration,

home is a place to hug three sisters and two brothers,

parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.

Home is a place to make fresh orange juice on Christmas,

a place to play ping-pong with my sister

in the backyard in rolled jeans and sunglasses.

Home isn't a living room or a dark street.

Home isn't someone's sternum and clavicle,

or the touch of his hair on my forehead.

Home is my mom trying to say "I love you," more,

Home is my dad driving me back from the airport in our white suburban,

through the thousand windmills at the base of the San Jacinto mountains.

Home is arriving to the fourteen arms

of the seven people who love me most,

and it is knowing that my brother will always want me back

to be the fifteenth and the sixteenth, 

and the eighth.

Maren, Holding On

I watched my sister take one step over Skype the other day.

I've been talking to my mother obsessively,

and she sits in front of the screen,

glowing in the bright Californian sun and holding the baby.

I'm somewhere in London, where it's dark at four and cloudy all day,

And I'm in my pajamas until something pulls me out of the house.

So I call her and sit alone in the hall, wearing boxers and a T-shirt,

and she asks me whether I've eaten yet that day.

My sister is ten months old, a smiling miracle.

No, really.

She sits in my mom's lap, mostly wriggling around,

and if I say her name in a high pitch and smile,

She remembers me, (maybe only as the girl in the computer)

And she hits the keys with that one arm she's always waving around,

And she smiles as big as I'm smiling,

Our Scandinavian eyes winking with joy.

She can't smile big enough, so she opens her mouth and laughs.

My mom sometimes walks around the room as she talks to me.

She's warming oatmeal and mixing in applesauce,

coaxing my sister into every biteful of solid food.

She was sitting in a chair a few meters away when my sister took a step.

I think my dad was talking with me at the time,

and he cranked the camera toward my sister.

"She took a step!" said my mom, and I looked at her again.

She was holding my sister under her tiny arms,

where she had just fallen into my mothers' hands and knees.

Maren is afraid of falling.

When my mom walks her around,

(her fists wrapped around my mother's index fingers)

she's started carrying herself on her own,

but when my mom lets go of her, she stops, afraid of falling.

She doesn't know she can do it alone.

She doesn't realize that walking is an act of continuous falling,

That each step is a forward fall being caught by the next foot, and the next,

alternating fall after fall, catch after catch.

What she doesn't realize is that life is a great fall,

a great fall, and a catch,

And every moment after she learns to walk will be about falling and hitting the ground,

hopefully always on her feet.

And this poem wasn't actually going to be about me specifically,

but I fell on my face the other day,

After this boy I was in love with proved he wasn't what I thought he was,

and broke me,

Me who was finally, really in love, for the first time,

Finally there, my face pressed to the concrete, dry heaving on the ground,

Finally realizing why it is that some people are so wary of falling in love,

because falling in love,

is, 

most certainly,

falling.

And having hit, 

like Maren topples on the kitchen tile sometimes,

I'm terrified and shocked.

I don't want to get up again.

Wouldn't I rather reach, wailing and tearful,

For my mother's arms, safe from everything and anyone?

Wouldn't I rather stay here in bed, down, asleep,

Rocked slowly by the temporal turning of the world?

But what Maren doesn't realize is that life is a fall and a catch,

and what I hadn't realized is that much of what I catch, I eventually get over.

And what my mother knew is that the trick is to let us fall first,

until we learn to stop before head-over-heels hitting ground,

until we learn to catch ourselves with our feet.

Some things I am thankful for:

1. Good people and bicycle thieves, and learning from both.
2. A new sketchbook (which I have only drawn typography in so far).
3. Lemon tea and craisins.
4. Roommates who love Harry Potter as much as I do.

5. The gorgeous sunset over Provo tonight.
6. Speaking, hearing, reading, and writing poems. (Also, BKDG.)
7. Phone conversations with my mom about recipes, boys, and life.
8. Picking out a Christmas tree for the TMA office today with Elizabeth (my boss and good friend).
9. Letters and emails from my missionary friends:

Sam and his doodles of us.
Molalla, Washington

Mike (nice tie.)
London, UK

10. The healing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The rest of Tuesday!

Okay... then we walked for a while on our way to the Houses of Parliament and then we got in lines and went through security to get in. First we went to the House of Commons part of parliament and watched this debate going on about polyclinics, which are clinics that have multiple services for their patients. It was basically about whether or not they were good for England or not; I thought they sounded like a good idea.
After that we went to the House of Lords and they were debating something that sounded less important; I didn't really understand. I guess I was mesmerized by the gilded, elaborate area where the Queen would sit if she were there and all the interesting stuff around. We left pretty fast.
After that, we took the Subway to Swiss Cottage and then Mom and Dad decided to go to this computer place with internet to print our boarding passes and everything. I was getting bored, so I asked if us kids could walk back home by ourselves and they said that was fine, but Spencer didn't want to go with us. We walked to the hotel, but when we got to our room door, the key would not work. We tried it about fifty times. It really sucked. Later we went down to the lobby to wait for them. They also went grocery shopping.
Once they returned, we went up together to the room and Mom and Dad told us we should have gone to the front desk and everything. Then we ate a bunch of food and some ice cream and watched TV for a little because we thought the British programs were so funny.
After dinner, Dad said he would take anyone who wanted to go on a walk through this fancy neighborhood nearby and then to Regent's Park, as a sort of a last hurrah in England (this was our last night). Madelyn, Spencer, Melissa, and I all decided to go. The houses were really nice and probably too expensive to think about. When we got to Regent's Park, the other kids ran around for a while, but I was really cold and so I stayed with Dad and then we walked back home
We got home and eventually Mom and Dad left the kids room and we stayed up pretty late, almost till midnight, joking and stuff. We figured out a formula for how to make Spencer laugh(which was eventually disproved). It went like this:
bathroom humor+body part+lunch meat= spencer laughs
Eventually we fell asleep. And that's Tuesday.

London, Tuesday

On Tuesday we woke up reluctantly and ate rolls and brie and stuff for breakfast. Then we took the Metro to London Tower, where we decided to tour. First we decided to see the Crown Jewels, which were gorgeous and glittery. One of the scepters had this huge diamond in it called the Star of Africa. In one display case, there were all these interesting gold things called "salts." I have no idea what that means. Collin thought maybe they held salt. I don't know. Everything was encrusted with gold; there was even a royal punch bowl. :)
Then we explored the armory, which was pretty cool, but self-explanatory. Suits of armor and spears and swords. After that we went and looked at all the different towers and learn about all the tortured, captured British people like Anne Boleyn and a couple kings and these two princes who were probably killed when they were only nine and twelve. :( There were lots of towers; one was about methods of torture; real jolly.
Anyway, we stayed there for a while and then we walked for a while because we wanted to go to the National Gallery of Art. We walked for a really long time and then we decided to go get lunch; we stopped at this cool restaraunt called "EAT." It was really modern and good for you and they had all these weird, interesting sandwiches. I had tuna and red onion and Mom got hummus and carrot. We took our sandwiches to a very little park that this woman told us about and ate them in the shade. It was a pretty spot. After that, we decided to go check out St. Paul's Cathedral for a little, but it cost something ridiculous to get in, so we just went a little inside and took a couple pictures outside because it's such a cool building.
Then we walked some more until we came to the National Gallery, which was really cool, but we had to rush through it because we didn't have a lot of time; it was our last day in London. We saw some DaVincis and Monets and Vermeers, which were very cool, and a couple Reniors and Manets, the works. It was really really pretty, but we had to go very fast, so someday I'll go back and move through it as slow as I want.
After the museum, we walked around Trafalgar Square and took some pictures by this big monument and then we walked to Buckingham Palace (Mom wanted to take a picture with those guards with the furry hats). It was nice to be able to see the walkway we'd taken before on the walking tour more slowly. It was really pretty. Sadly, when we finally got to the palace, the guards we wanted weren't on duty, so we took a couple pictures and then walked through this big, gorgeous green park on the way home. I can't remember what it's called, but it has all these random lawn chairs in one area. It's like Regent's Park, sort of. I can't remember what happened next, so I'll have to go look at pictures so I can remember. More later...

More London...

Okay, so this is taking me a really long time to blog...and argh! we're on Gotland now! So I'll get this through with today, since we'll be moving pretty slowly while we're in Sweden. Thanks for your comments, Grandma Shirley and Leslie! I love you! :)

On Monday morning after I had got ready and everything Dad came in and asked if anyone wanted to go to the market with him to look for breakfast, so I did. I was wearing this silver belt over my shirt, which I ditched later because it didn't work. We bought a bunch of doughnuts or something; then we came back and ate breakfast together.
When everyone was ready, we went to the underground and bought tickets for transportation that day and took a train on the Jubilee line to Trafalgar square or somewhere close by. When we arrived, we went up and there was this cool fountain we took a couple pictures by. Then we walked to the actual Trafalgar square and found this tour company that Dad had bought tickets for a bus tour with. We went inside, and they were just starting a walking tour to go see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, so we decided to go watch that. We had to walk really fast to keep up with the guards and the tour guide; it was a big rush. We saw about three different changing-of-the-guards (if you can make that plural); Two at Buckingham, and two others at this really old palace and the current residence of some of the royal family or something.
We took pictures with some of the guards and then we walked to Pall Mall, where the tour guide told us about Margaret Thatcher being the first women to enter a Gentleman's Club, like they have in London. He said she had to sign a contract that said she was an honorary "man."
There was this guy there who was messing with a three seater bicycle. He was wearing this blue and red plaid shirt rolled up so his forearms showed and these blue pants. He had dark brown hair and a really pretty, straight toothed, white smile; I think he was probably the most beautiful guy I'll ever see in my life. WOW.
After the tour we walked back to the beginning and tried to figure out what we would do next. We wandered around for a little, trying to figure out where we could catch a bus to begin the bus tour. We found one close to Trafalgar square and hopped on and rode it for a really long time, while the tour guide told us all these interesting things about London, like that Mozart lived there as a kid and wrote his first symphony there and that one of the bridges over the Thames is called the Women's bridge because the women built it during some war and that this bridge has a cleaning agent, so it cleans itself every time it rains. There were a lot of other facts, and I actually remember most of them, but I don't want to type them all out, so next time you talk to me, just ask me for one.
I think we got off around the tower of London, because then we walked over some bridge and took some family pictures together. On the other side there was this guy playing the accordion in this tunnel; Madelyn and I wanted to take a picture with him, but Mom and Dad wouldn't let us. As we walked along the street or walkway or whatever, there were all these street performers.
For instance, we saw four guys with a boombox who were dancing or something, but I think they were more like a drama troupe because they acted like they were going to do audience participation or something. We were supposed to go on the Eye, though, so Dad was in a hurry and he walked ahead. Mom stayed and let us watch for a little, but she was still all antsy to leave. There was a gap in the circle around these four guys, and just before we left, the main guy looked over and me and Madelyn and said, "You- come closer to me, please," to fill in the gap, but then Mom made us leave, which we both agree sucked because we were dying to interact with any kind of British person.
After that, I was sort of grumpy, but we went and got our tickets and got on the Eye. The Eye is this great big ferris wheel they have in London that's for some kind of observation deck. It is about the 3rd biggest observation wheel thing or whatever in the world and it goes very high very slowly. It takes about half an hour to go around the whole thing, and when you get back, if you go at about six in the evening, there will be no more funny street performers.
Don't get me wrong; the Eye was definitely cool- we could see everything from very high, like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. It was pretty neat. Lots of pictures from that. Afterwards we walked across a different bridge to get to this river cruise we wanted to take and we rode that around from around the houses of Parliament to London tower, which was the end, where we had to get off. We walked into some souvenir shop and Mom found this Christmas ornament that she wanted (because we always buy one to remember our trips). Then we walked around some more and Dad wanted to go check out some boats, so I went but it wasn't very interesting and then we walked around on that other famous bridge that they show in all the pictures. All of our feet hurt really bad, so then we took the subway home.
When we arrived in Swiss Cottage, we went to our hotel and Dad got food or something; I can't really remember, but I DO remember that we turned on the T.V. and Collin turned the channel to something really boring and we were all laying on our beds, so I fell asleep pretty early. It was about eight at night.
Melissa and Spencer stayed up till eleven in Mom and Dad's room (we had a parents' room and a kids' room) so at eleven, they rang us twice to get us to open the door. Of course, we were all knocked out and our room was totally dark, but I picked up the phone and someone let them in.
And then I couldn't go to sleep. First, I got out of bed and drank some Emergen-C, which is this fizzy drink that's supposed to help with sickness and stuff. I forgot to say that I've had this nasty, obnoxious cold/cough thing since maybe Sunday or Saturday; I'm all stuffy and I have this hacking cough because there's all this phlegm in my throat or something. So I drank that or whatever and then I was reading Jane Eyre and eating muffins from dinner or breakfast before. I was just reading and drinking Emergen-C or whatever and eventually I woke Madelyn up, so I had to bother her, of course.
First we started talking. We talked about boys and how we wanted to come back to London and how slowly we would move if we were there on our own and what we wanted to do later. I guess that bothered Collin, because he kept telling us to shut up and stuff. (It's around midnight) But I still can't sleep, and Madelyn thinks I'm funny, so we turned it down to a whisper.
Then we started goofing off, kicking each other and pretending to hog the bed, spreading around and stuff. We pretended we were Pippi Longstocking (who lives on Gotland, by the way) and put our feet on the pillows and our heads at the foot of the bed. That didn't last long. We kept this goofing off up for a while and then Collin started throwing pillows. At first we took him seriously, and shut up, but then I started throwing the pillows back.
It was war.
We were chucking the pillows back and forth and I think even Collin thought it was fun by now. Melissa woke up when Collin accidentally hit her, and she thought it was a grand old time, and chucked a couple pillows herself before knocking out again. Eventually we all figured we were going to be dead tired in the morning (plus we were actually tired by now) and we fell asleep.
Well, that's Monday, and I have to go get the bags, so I'll maybe post up to current tonight. I hope.

London... at last!

I know I haven't said anything about this on my blog... but if you read this, you probably know I'm vacationing in London now and Sweden and Finland later. So here's what I have to say about it...
Yesterday I left school after 3rd period, went home, packed around fifty pounds' worth of stuff into my bag, and then the family drove to LAX. We checked our bags, went through security, walked to the terminal... and it was six o'clock. Guess when our plane was supposed to leave?
NINE.
So... it was time to wait. I sat around in my chair and watched planes and people for a while. Then I laid on the ground and tried to fall asleep (since it was late in England). Then I gave up and sat in a chair. Then I played Madelyn's DS for a while (the sheer excitement of Nintendogs!) Then it was about eight and Dad bought the Wall Street and some peanuts. Then it was about eight fifteen and there were a lot of people showing up. Then it was about eight thirty and I was reading Jane Eyre for school. Then it was eight forty five. Then it was eight fifty. Then time was moving about as fast as a snail. Then it was eight fifty one. Then it was eight fifty two. Then people were lining up for no reason. Then it was nine. Then it was a little past nine. Then our plane was late.
And then- THEN- we boarded.
On the plane, we were on the very first row in our compartment, which was nice, because we had the most leg room of anyone. There were these screens that came up from under our seats which had unlimited movies, so that kept us occupied. Plus we were outrageously tired, so we tried to sleep once in a while. They served dinner sometime, and breakfast, which nobody could eat except some of the yogurt and orange juice. Eventually- and I can now fully understand the gravity of eventually- the plane began to descend.
The scenery looked kind of like Ohio, or the unpopulated regions of New York. It was gorgeously green. There were no mountains. There were also a lot of clouds in the way of our view. I told Dad about how when I was younger I used to think that the plane dipped from side to side so that the passengers on either side of the plane could get a good look at the ground. He thought that was pretty funny.
After we landed, we went through customs, where everyone looked at our huge family oddly, and then we took the subway, where I was embarrassed by my frumpiness after the flight, and by my gigantic rolling suitcase, which was a hassel to get off with. Once we were off the subway, a woman directed us to our hotel, where I was for the rest of the time. Dad went and got cookies and some food, and then he went on a real hunting and gathering excursion and brought us KFC and some other stuff. We ate that, and then we watched T.V. and did some other stuff for a while, struggling to stay awake. At about ten (British time) we fell asleep.

Today, I woke up at around 3 in the morning, and Madelyn woke up a while later, so by five, we were chatting like mad and driving our older brother crazy. Then we fell asleep again. Dad came in at nine and asked if anyone wanted to go to McDonalds with him (for wi-fi), so I went. We found out there that church began in an hour, so we rushed home, told everyone to get ready, and took a taxi to church, at 133 Coppetts Road, which, at first, none of the taxi drivers seemed to recognize. They have something in England called a Post Code, which they can't really get along without. It helps them figure out where things are or something. Like a zipcode but more important somehow.
It's about ten here, even though it's still light outside, like dusk, because this is so Northward on the globe. It'll be worse in Sweden...
Anyway, Mom wants me to go to sleep so we can stay on schedule and go ride the Eye (that one ferris wheel) tomorrow. I guess I'll talk about everything else then.
That's all, then! More soon...