You said the trapeze act was wonderful but never meant to last

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S but just a normal day here. I'm leaving in 10 minutes to go play with my boys, then I have group in the afternoon. Tonight Isai is going to help me work on my GOTH--oh yeah!
I made some changes and have been more conscious of my blessings since I heard Elder Bednar's talk about prayer (even though I am still terrified of him). When I start a prayer listing all the things I am grateful for, I feel my appreciation for my Padre Celestial deepen and the rest of what I say is more careful and focused. I feel a stronger connection. I've struggled sometimes because I feel like my prayers have been rushed--"so sorry, so selfish, but please just send help!" but there will always be more blessings than burdens and it is good for us to be conscious of that. It's also hard to be demanding or sorry for yourself after painting a picture of the goodness of your life.

Today I'm grateful for a family who understands and appreciates what I am doing here, parents who have taught me by compassionate example our responsibility to the "wretched of the earth." I'm grateful for my mother's enthusiasm for the gospel and her seemingly endless energy for good works. I'm thankful for my Father who explains his life with Paul Simon songs and passages from A Christmas Carol, for the strengthened friendship I have with him. I'm grateful to have a family I can laugh with and where I am always welcome to be home. I'm thankful for younger sisters who are my best friends, and so wonderfully kind and loving to me even though they are vastly better people. I'm grateful for my brother Toot on a mission and that he had glad tidings for us in his last letter. I'm thankful for that for the most part we have been better friends as we've grown up. I'm grateful I got to see my brother and sister be married in the temple (not um, to each other) and that they both have amazing companeros. I'm grateful for summers in Mexico, for memories of the Old House, for Walmart Tag and nonsense scrabble and a "veritable cornucopia" of inside jokes. I'm grateful my family forgives me for being generally defective and obnoxious in many ways. I'm grateful for being healthy and for the things I have been able to understand about life and people. I'm grateful for diamond minds of friends, professors, leaders and authors who have polished my mind. I'm VERY thankful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and for a Savior who is the captain of the poor and who knows and loves everyone so fully and dearly. I'm grateful for the love and beauty I feel from Him. I'm grateful for the scriptures that bring lights to my path and peace to my frenetic heart, that seem to change with me as I get a little sadder or a little darker or a little stronger. I'm thankful to have served a mission, which was a wish of my heart always, and for having souls to rejoice with in the glorious kingdom. I'm thankful for my fellow-soldiers and my mission President and for being able to speak Spanish. I'm thankful for priesthood blessings and the white light they provide for me when I'm humble enough to ask for them. I'm grateful for the hymns of Zion and for people who have been willing to endure hard and heartbreaking things to build up the kingdom of God. I'm grateful for all my friends who are so loving and patient with me and whose company is so wonderful. I'm thankful for probably a thousand children who I have loved very dearly and whose "walls are continually before me," if that doesn't sound apostate. I'm grateful for Lewis Elementary, Jaycee Park, ABC Daycare, Westridge Academy, Provo School District, the Section II orphanage and the hospital in Iasi Romania, the Center for Women and Children in Crisis, for giving me a chance in spite of my incompetence and letting me get to know those sweet kids. I'm grateful to be living and working hard in Mexico. I'm thankful for Christmas music and the Pace family and the gift of being able to change. I'm grateful for anyone who can put words together beautifully to create emotion or a conjure a memory. There is more but that's enough. Y doy fin a mis palabras.

On another note, I love LOVE love Iron and Wine (hierro y vino?). My blog is named after one of their songs and I'm going to try really hard to ignore the fact that Sam Beam sold out to the Twilight soundtrack and as a result one of the best groups in the world will be ruined by a million revolting teenyboppers claiming fanhood, but it's okay. I have been thinking and listening so much to this song but I can't write about why--so I thought I would just post the lyrics.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Trapeze Swinger--Iron and Wine

Please, remember me, happily,
by the rosebush laughing
with bruises on my chin, the time when
we counted every black car passing
your house beneath the hill, and up until
someone caught us in the kitchen
with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
a vision too removed to mention

But please remember me, fondly,
i heard from someone you're still pretty
and then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates
have such eloquent graffiti
like: “we'll meet again” and “f*** the Man”
and “tell my mother not to worry”
and angels with their great handshakes
but always done in such a hurry

and please remember me, at Halloween
making fools of all the neighbors
our faces painted white, by midnight
we'd forgotten one another
and when the morning came I was ashamed
only now it seems so silly
that season left the world and then returned
and now you're lit up by the city

so please remember me, mistakenly
in the window of the tallest tower
call, then pass us by, but much too high
to see the empty road at happy hour
gleam and resonate just like the gates
around the Holy Kingdom
with words like: “lost and found” and “don't look down”
and “someone save temptation”

and please remember me, as in the dream
we had as rug-burned babies
among the fallen trees and fast asleep
beside the lions and the ladies
that called you what you like and even might
give a gift for your behavior:
a fleeting chance to see a trapeze-
swinger high as any savior

but please remember me, my misery
and how it lost me all i wanted
those dogs that love the rain, and chasin' trains
the colored birds above there runnin'
in circles round the well, and where it spells
on the wall behind St. Peter
so bright on cinder gray in spray paint:
“who the hell can see forever?”

and please remember me, seldomly
in the car behind the carnival
my hand between your knees, you turn from me
and said the trapeze act was wonderful
but never meant to last, the clowns that passed
saw me just come up with anger
when it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
had an element of danger

so please remember me, finally
and all my uphill clawing
my dear, but if i make the Pearly Gates
i’ll do my best to make a drawing
of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
an angel kissin’ on a sinner
a monkey and a man, a marching band
all around the frightened trapeze-swinger

I still see the way the moon plays this tune, though our lights died

C-Mar and I had our first date in over 2 months on Saturday night--we set up a video call on MSN and played chess and checkers online. He didn't mind me slaughtering him at checkers (it's the only thing in the world I'm 100% excellent at) and then he put me in check in about 5 moves. We talked about memories.

Today I was remembering Sunday afternoon last summer in San Carlos, Mexico. We had comp study in the room C-Mar was sharing with my brother and finished up by singing about 15 jubilant Spanish hymns. We might have gotten a little loud in our enthusiasm. When we went into the kitchen we found that my parents had been spying on us, listening and laughing. Also while in Mexico, we challenged Dit and Aya to a Called to Serve dual, with us singing in Spanish and them singing in Japanese. We finished the song about 2 verses ahead of them, as they had to fit in a lot of extra syllables. ;) The Spanish hymn singing was more successful than my attempts to get C-Mar to participate in my movie script ideas with me on the beach. I would think of a story, describe the plot to him and then try to get him to act it out with me. My best one was where I was a native islander who had to rescue a sailor washed up from a shipwreck (cliche I know) who had gone temporarily blind from "being exposed to all the exposure." I remember the sailor's nickname was Fin because he was such a good swimmer...which is why he had managed to swim to shore. Other scenarios involved mermaids and lots of what Cow and Toot like to call snogging. HaHA!

I love my life here in Mexico and I know (beyond a shadow of a doubt with every fiber of my heart with no doubt in my mind and all the other Phrases of Deep Knowing) that I needed to be here for a million splintering reasons, for light and dark, for trouble and peace, for learning and loving the loveless. But I do miss my dear friends. And I miss having fun with C-Mar.

It was so good to see his face, even if it was just in a little square on my laptop screen. Distance and patience have wrought some tiny miracles for us and relighted our candle of hope that I spent the spring and summer blowing out. I have a tentative prayer floating up to heaven, for peace and a warm December.

Two years ago on November 22, I was transferred to Louetta to whitewash with Giles. Elder Marousek was the one who showed us our apartment on Jones road. He kindly told us he was sorry about the roaches. Part of the story had already been written then, but I didn't know it until after. I'm excited to see what happens next. :)

Sons can be birds, taken broken up to the mountain

Another volunteer told me this week that Casa Juconi is the most difficult "site" for her because she's still learning Spanish and can't quite keep up with the boys yet. That made me think...one of the reasons Romania was so dreamlike and holy for me was that I really understood so little of what was going on around me. With our little band of "Americancas" we set out own rules for interpreting our environment and the context of our experiences--we LOVED! so purely! It still feels so sweet to think about it--holding angel infants in the hospital of savages, gyring and gimbaling in the playroom. I couldn't ask about the families or thoughts of the other orphanage workers, I had to depend on the broken-down English of others to make friends in the hospital and on Mihai my intrepid interpreter when we went gypsy-hunting.

Being HERE I am so much more aware of complexities, contradictions, and conflicts because I am able to speak the language. I can appreciate the excellent work the social workers and educadores do. I can't spin as many snowflake-beautiful tragedies to fill in the gaps because there is a normalcy about this that I didn't have hedged around me in the otherworldliness of Iasi. There was a sacredness about being there among so much innocence. I love Mexico and the blithe humor and affection, the humility and there's sort of an endearing griminess about the whole thing, swinging free, that is so appealing. I love the Spanish marching on like a victory to the horizon! On days I am with the boys, every one in awhile I realize with a jolt that I've been jabbering in Spanish for hours without having to think about it. It's an amazing feeling! Little Morena despairing in the MTC would be happy to see me now.

I love working at the Casa Juconi. I want to describe the Boys and the dynamics there so you can love them too, pero me faltan las palabras aptas. Sometimes they're like a merry band of brothers, other times they are vicious with each other. They are volatile and more experienced with dark shadows than children should have to be. One minute they will be playing with trucks and making car sound affects and then at lunch they'll talk about whether it's easier to snort cocaine through a straw or straight. They know how to fight and when they do fight it's really ugly. They are all incredibly cuddly with the staff and with each other. They are old and young for their age at the same time. They talk about stealing and drinking with their friends, but even the 14 and 15 year olds will curl up next to you to read a story.

One of the boys (Jose Manuel) is schizophrenic and painfully delayed in his social skills. He is 15, one of the older boys, but all of them are scornful of him; he is universally disliked. It's awful to watch him be kicked down over and over again. Whenever he makes a comment, another boy scowls or tells him to shut up. Of course everyone reprimands the other boys for being horrible, but stilling the insults doesn't create friends. I see this boy shriveling for want of kindness. I play games with him and he struggles to remember the rules; invariably another boy will come and shove him out of the way. He is just now learning to read; his mother was mentally ill also and his father abused him horrifically. I asked this boy once what he wanted to be when he was older and he told me "a singer, like Don Omar. It's not necessary to study." I asked him if he knew how to sing, and he shrugged. "I just need to find some people to write songs for me." In the afternoons I let him listen to my ipod. He's still confused on how to work it, so whenever he wants a new song he comes to me and I change it. He writes down his favorites in a notebook "for when I have my own ipod." On the list are several EFY songs. A week ago he ran away to his uncle's house for the night. Everyone was so worried and then he showed up the next morning back at the Casa Juconi. One of the educators told him, "We were very concerned," and he said, "The guys weren't. They'd be happy if I left." When I look at him I see a struggling little animal caught in a trap. Sometimes the weight of all the lonely people is crushing. But I rejoice in the moments I have to be a friend to this boy.

One afternoon earlier this week we were working on a project that involved looking up the boys' names and talking about the meanings, pictures of famous people with the same name, websites that talk about characteristics. When it was Manuel's turn, I read him the definition of his name--it's a variation of Emmanuel, which means "God with us." I got a little choked up because I love that name for the Savior. I told Manuel his name is really special and it should always remind him that God would be with him. Instead of looking up pictures of politicians and singers with the name Manuel, like I'd done with the other boys, I showed him pictures of Christ with children. All the little guys crowded around and they loved it. I wanted him to have hope. I don't know if he understood everything I wanted to communicate to him, but one of the other boys commented, "There are a lot of feelings in this room right now."

I love the line in the Blake poem promising a little chimney sweep that if he were good, "He'd have God for his Father and never want joy." I wish these boys could feel that they have a loving Father. In occasional moments of stillness sometimes I daydream about being home with my family for Christmas and then I remember where I am and feel a little ashamed, and deeply grateful. It's important to remember the kids who don't get to go home for Christmas. I am being as good to them as I can, I wish I could take them back with me. :)

If I find my way, how much will I find?

I am feeling some intense joie de vivre lately.


These last few weeks I have been busy with the project "Mis Vida desde Mis Ojos." I get a half hour to an hour to accompany the kids as they take pictures of anything that strikes their interest. At first some of them were not too enthused, twisting the camera in their hands and mumbling, "What am I going to take pictures of?" Most of these families do not own a camera and it is intimidating for them. It's so fun to watch their creativity spark with the kindling of my encouragement. I get to teach them to capture pieces of their world. It's amazing to see how much kids respond to energy we give them--how as I get excited about what they are doing, their eyes glow brighter and become more innovative; dragging me to another street where there is graffiti they like, or with sudden confidence posing little brothers and neighbor kids like models, arranging them like dolls for the perfect shot. I have learned so much from this project because I do get to see "their life through their eyes"--their ideas for what to photograph are often so different from what I would choose. I also love the one on one time with them. There were two or three kids who were not very vocal and outgoing in the group setting and they have come alive with this project and I've been able to deepen my friendship with them. It is so wonderful to be here, so worthwhile and so golden. Before we leave I always review the shots with them and point out the really good ones, and they beam with pride. There's an intimacy about sharing creativity with someone like this and I love it. (And Lizzie, you would be so good at this, I wish you could be here!)

These are some of my favorite pictures the kids have taken so far:































And since I'm already sharing un choro de fotos, here are some from the Mexico City temple open house. The temple grounds were crawling with missionaries showing their investigators around and that made me trunky, but I held it together. It was a bright peaceful day at the Lamanite temple.














This is Manuel's sister Alnair and her boyfriend Samuel (el Lamanita).

Lights will guide you home...

And lastly, here are some pictures Lolis asked me to take of a tutoring session with a sweet family. These kids do not go to regular school so the social workers tutor them once a week. Carla (pictured below) was having a session with the mother in the house, so we went out to a sunny meadow and the kids worked while I played around with the camera. I will never be professional and definitely do not know what I'm doing, but I had fun!










I love this picture. I felt just like him when I was writing Seipel's paper.

Slow motion, see me let go...we'll remember these days

This is Caro! Isn't she darling? (This picture was taken by Caro's cousin Anahi, so it's not shady, no se preocupen.) Lolis and I visit her family first on Mondays. Because of some turbulent family problems of a "fuerte tema," I usually work with Caro while Lolis works with the parents. I love Caro so much, When I come into the room she screams and wiggles with happiness, much like Larisa of old. We draw pictures and work on her colors and shapes. She's 3 and can't sit still for long, and sometimes her parents' session gets intense and air gets dense with emotion and it's better for Caro not to be there, so usually we wander outside and look for colors there (so far everything is azul, but we are getting there!) or pick flowers for Caro's mother. When the neighbors are blasting music, we dance. I haven't been around a child for a long time who seemed to feel so much sheer joy in living. Por todo se entusiasma, por todo se regocia! Today we were playing in the campo by her house when a neighbor came by with a flock of sheep. Caro made a jubilant "Maaaaa" sound and several of the sheep responded (baa ram ewe). She was so excited she screamed. I love every minute I get to spend with her and I especially love how she boosts herself up on the low concrete wall of her yard so she can wave at me until we drive away. It gives me heart. I don't think there is a better feeling than having a little kid love you.

O Come O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel

When I first came to JUCONI, Travis (the director) and I had a conversation about the difference between "inspiring poverty" and "depressing poverty." The inspiring kind is represented by the innocent victims of circumstance who present some kind of aesthetic or emotional appeal; some charm or sweetness that makes us yearn to help them. Those are the "worthy poor," the Fantines of the world whose tumble into tragedy is virtuous and poignant. The world feels good about giving to them, because they "deserve" it. The depressing kind of poverty is the kind that makes the darker angels of our nature secretly wrinkle their noses in disgust; it's the drug-addicted mother who is dropping her baby on the floor, the people who neither speak nor smell pleasantly, the ones who won't take good advice and who make poor choices over and over and over again. Does God differentiate like we do?

I feel so troubled when I find biases within myself; it's like discovering a tumor. This is what felt so heavy for me today: I entered homes in conditions that sickened me; not because I thought ill of the people there, but because it burned me, distressed me that children would have to live like that, grow up like that. I have learned and tried very hard to be understanding, compassionate, and merciful about poverty--I have tried to understand the context, lack of education and resources, how it must feel to be constantly downtrodden, to have your face ground by those who believe themselves superior, to feel so deeply less-than that it crystallizes into apathy--all the time knowing that I don't really understand at all. I really don't know a thing about economics, capitalism, wealth distribution. I don't know which theories are valid. I need to read more, but when I read sometimes I'm not sure who to believe.

I was disturbed today because I couldn't think of any compassionate (i.e politically correct) synonyms for the words I have refused to use and those I have criticized others for using to describe human beings and their environment--filthy, dirty, trash, dump. But I can't deny that these words had a factual application in what I was seeing! I've written a little before about the pueblecitos, the dirt roads and broken-down buildings streaked with graffiti, but this was different. The house of Luis is half concrete blocks stacked together and half canvas tent stretching to the ground. The kitchen so overloaded with junk, dust, filth that there was barely a clear path to the table. The stench of rotting food. The children shoving blackened hands into a bowl of chips. Outside, a pot of leftover soup on top of the hens' cage. Toys stuck in the tin roof, no space to walk for the boxes, broken bicycles, wrappers and bottles, moldy tortillas. No place to wash your hands. My words are weak, but it is one thing to see a dirt floor and think, Oh, this family doesn't have money...and another to see little human beings living and playing in a home absolutely teeming with trash. It hurts to see that. The next house was almost worse because it was nestled on the mountainside and could have been peaceful and serene, but it looked like someone had cleared a small space for the one room house, shoved in the beds and the stove in the middle of a garbage dump. The house was drowning in moldering trash, when I asked one of the boys if the neighbors put it there, he cheerfully replied, "No, it's all ours!" I started to think maybe I was just having some kind of elitist cultural reaction, but the children, again, were incredibly filthy (I hate the way that sounds, but what other world would be better?), their hair was matted with dirt, their fingernails were black, their hands an even darker shade of brown up to their shirtsleeves. Mud on their clothes. The snottiest words kept coming to my mind, explanations for scenes that have never belonged to me. Maybe "these people" don't know much about hygiene? What do I know? The sight of this, the little home buried in garbage and the beautiful dark-eyed children who ran out to greet us, was overwhelming to me. It felt so wrong and so hopeless.

I was pierced by the irony of the little boy from this home who came with me to work on the camera project; he took picture after picture close-up of flowers. There is no beauty near his home, but he tugged my hand and said, "Maestra, my neighbor has a garden.." He took gorgeous pictures of the hearts of roses. I kept thinking, "I know our filthy hands can wash one another's/and not one speck will remain."

I thought of families I know who have a horror of anything below their sparkling towers. How would they explain these things? Am I just like them? I don't know how to make it fit. Manuel asked me once what it's like for the poor in my country and I wasn't sure what to say. I thought of the women's shelter, trailer parks in Houston, the much-maligned "below Harrison" world in Ogden, Jorge siphoning his neighbor's electricity, Hno. Rosales giving me and Steele half the tamales in the otherwise empty fridge, 3 kids who used to stuff themselves during lunch at the daycare I worked at because it was the only meal they had during the day. And all of them had "more" than what I saw today. What is really necessary to sustain life and how much is indulgence? How revolting must entitlement be to our Father in Heaven when things like this exist and we are so rotten and demanding about what we don't have? What does poverty have to do with dirt, and is the dirt really what is painful about all this? Why does the idea of children filthy in their own home disturb me so much? There are so many complexities tied up with this, I'm not smart enough to even ask the right questions, to piece together what I may already know, but I do want to be here with them and try to understand, try to help even though I know I will just be bringing in dandelions.

I think almost anyone could have thought this out and written it better than I, but when it feels "too heavy for Superman to lift" the only thing that helps me feel peace is to remember the Captain of the poor. There is so much about "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" that we can't fathom. There will be healing and rejoicing and restoring of sight to all of us who are so blind. I can't wait for that day, there are so many little ones I want Him to come to. There is so much hurt and neglect that I want Him to heal. I really believe He sees into homes and lives and hearts. Maybe I come back to this every time because I'm not clever enough to have any theories of my own, but if "everything that is wrong in this world can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ," everything else is just dust in the wind. He is my only hope and the hope of those children who are growing up in what everyone has thrown away. We are captive our sin and pain and our circumstances, but we have God with us. And because I know that, I want to feel what He feels for these people. I want to overcome whatever bleak judgment lurks in my heart and just be an advocate and an hermana to anyone who has fallen by the wayside of the world. I do see light in every face I see, despite the marks of weakness, marks of woe.

I felt better being in the sunshine with Jose Luis and seeing him take his careful pictures, mostly of flowers, and I felt joy seeing how excited he got when I praised him. I wanted to give him every kind word I had. Here are some of his best shots. He knows how to find beauty in his life. He helped me see it too.

In your love, my salvation lies in your love

I've had so many memories creeping into my thoughts lately. Are they important to record? Sometimes I find myself wanting to chronicle my stream of consciousness consistently so I can go through it later and connect the dots (nothing gets crossed out) and see what the picture is stretched out in the sky of my mind. I was remembering a trailer park I used to tract with Hermana Gaw on Sunday evenings in Katy. Nights there were so thick black because no one ever turned their porch lights on. We always talked to a number of men in various stages of intoxication. Some of them were so tender with us and asked if God would forgive them. Others felt compelled to explain their entire life story and philosophies on the world. (Someone very wise once told me that anyone inebriated is automatically attracted to the missionaries. Truedat!)

I was still green teetering on anxiety and choking out my testimony in feeble Spanish. We taught two men in a tool shed; they stopped their work and pulled out stools for us and sat on the floor at our feet. The wind whistled through the walls and I remember feeling so exhausted and hurt. Gaw tried to share a scripture and they explained that they couldn't read. She and I looked at each other weary. I shivered. For some reason the first lesson that night didn't seem to fit, it was too heavy for them, so we sang Accompaname (Abide with me!). That song cut into my heart and embraced me so much as a missionary because it's the song of a frightened child calling out--the night is coming, I'm afraid, please stay with me. I'm incompetent and awkward and I can't express myself. Please love me anyway, please help me shoulder these hard things. Please keep me close to You. I felt tears stinging my eyes and I promise I felt warm arms around me right then, gentleness and light. I remember thinking the shed must be glowing, such a brightness crept in. "En las tieneblas accompaname..." The two men we were teaching had tears glinting in their eyes as well. "Pero ustedes cantan como angeles!" They cried, You sing like angels. The only obvious thing to do was testify of the Savior. This feeling is real, He loves you. If you are patient we can explain our message, it is of Him and it will bring you joy. I remember feeling my heart unburdened as I spoke of glad tidings in less-halting Spanish. The words were there hanging in my mind like ripe fruit and I spoke them.

I think this came to my mind because I had an experience this week where I was struggling to express myself. I am very exigente (demanding) and a little snotty about my Spanish. It kills me whenever I mess up. In this situation last week I felt intimidated and embarrassed of my Spanish and I chose to harden my heart and become prideful and sullen and annoyed at myself instead of being patient and letting it come. Whenever I did that as a missionary, my Spanish became even more mangled and I lost the words. Sometimes I wonder if I really know this language at all or if "here by the grace of God go I"--if it's not a crystallized skill but the gift of tongues still in effect. I think speaking Spanish is like the Liahona for me--it stops working as well when I doubt or become prideful. And its main purpose is to edify and to testify of Christ. On my mission a very dear friend wrote me something simple but profound that always knocks my perspective back into place with regards to Spanish. He said, "The thing about languages is...there's always more you can learn." I LOVE that because it neither extols me falsely for my accomplishments nor allows me to sulk over my imperfections. It's inspirational, a reminder that there is always more terrain to climb. That's true with anything we "master," we never really arrive anywhere, but keep climbing. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and continually seeking more light and truth. When I fall back a little I lose so much ground. If I am really bound for the promised land I need to understand that it will be a hard climb, and I know there will be times when I need to force myself to stay humble and cry out for that brightness I felt that night in the tool shed. I know He will always come to us.