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This semester has been one of the hardest I've had since being at college, and for several weeks, I have felt like I had been trying to swim and/or tread water...without ever taking a breath. I've been figuratively holding my breath...and with the end of the semester and moving out, I finally surfaced on Wednesday night as I drove home in torrential rain.

So I haven't blogged because I've been sleeping, reading, exercising, family-ing...oh, and planning our family trip to England. :) I haven't been able to write a whole lot because I feel so intellectually and emotionally fried. Especially having left these beautiful women:

I'll probably return to the blogging world in another day or two. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying the air above water.

There is this blog that I follow, called theapronstage.com. I love it--the posts are generally not too long, whimsical, well-written, funny and/or meaningful without saying too much, and always clever. Lots of people follow it, and it's often as fun to read everyone's comments as it is to read the posts themselves, because it attracts a talented, educated, Christian (especially LDS) audience, and everyone is so insightful and good at what they do. On Fridays, they have a guest post, and this week, they decided to use one of my previously written posts. 

My smart and good-writer-ly/good-dress-er-ly friend Julie posted on her blog today about one of my favorite things about springtime. My dad used to say that you can always tell when spring is near, because the forsythias are the first thing to bloom. As soon as I see them start (generally in the second or third week of March), I begin to get excited, because it means that springtime-and-butterflies-and-flowers-and-rain-and-good-smelling-things are nearing.

I've learned a lot of life lessons from these guys.

Forsythia bushes have some of the yellowest yellow flowers I have ever seen. Against the backdrop of a whole lotta gray, they make a difference like you wouldn't believe.

But forsythias are really brave little guys too. I also know every year, when I see them start to bloom, that it will snow a few more times before they're done...but they do it anyway, every single time. And they beam, brightly brightly through the wet, freezing snow, in spite of themselves.

And when they're finishing up, which is what they're beginning to do now, their goldenness melts into green--not anything too ostentatious. Just a soft, pale, kindly sort of green. Kind of like the background of this blog. The forsythias leave just enough of a hint of the gold blazing against gray there within the green to remind themselves of what they can become, but their day is over, for now. Their job was to lead out--to remind the world of the glory it can become, just when it was beginning to think it was too gray to do it. They last just long enough to give all the other flowers the courage to begin blossoming...and then they pass the baton and stay in the background, a foundation of quiet strength for the other flowers, all the while reminding them to follow their example and be bold in their bloom.

But after their time, they're happy to retire to simply being green, a backdrop for the other flowers to let them shine.


I'd like to be a forsythia.

...till classes are over, I am writing research papers. And no matter where I look and how much I read, I feel like I'm always searching for the "right" book. I keep trying and trying...when really, I just need to get writing.

And this is a little bit what I feel like.

Okay, it's not really, but I just really, really like that scene. (Name that movie, by the way...)


But these two poems are the two that I am deciding between to use for my final paper for Dr. Siegfried's class. And they're both lovely. Any preferences on which to use? They both fit the requirements I need them to fit, I think. I'm leaning toward the first one, but we'll see.



A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
by John DonneSTAND still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
    These three hours that we have spent,
    Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
    We do those shadows tread,
    And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.
That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
    As the first were made to blind
    Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
    To me thou, falsely, thine
    And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.





THE RELIC.
by John Donne            WHEN my grave is broke up again
            Some second guest to entertain,
            —For graves have learn'd that woman-head,
            To be to more than one a bed—
                And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
                Will he not let us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls at the last busy day
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
            If this fall in a time, or land,
            Where mass-devotion doth command,
            Then he that digs us up will bring
            Us to the bishop or the king,
                To make us relics ; then
Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
                A something else thereby ;
All women shall adore us, and some men.
And, since at such time miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

            First we loved well and faithfully,
            Yet knew not what we loved, nor why ;
            Difference of sex we never knew,
            No more than guardian angels do ;
                Coming and going we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals ;
                Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals,
Which nature, injured by late law, sets free.
These miracles we did ; but now alas !
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.

I always was a weird little kid. I had a rather overactive imagination. Think Anne Shirley--no really, I used to name different trees and walks that I especially liked and dream of a more "romantic" life. Le sigh.


Anyway, in this rather overactive imagination o' mine, I imagined that nonliving things had feelings and imaginations, in the same way that I did. Obviously, my dear stuffed animals Fluffy Kitty and Best Teddy felt and thought and dreamed like me, or else what would be the point of confiding in them or showing them all my secret hideaways as I did? Of course, I didn't confide in people who weren't important. And judging on the number of my five-year-old secrets that Best Teddy and Fluffy Kitty knew, they were the most important people in the universe.


Because I cared so much about what various nonliving toys, objects, and abstract ideas thought of me, I always especially tried to treat all of them equally and fairly. If I played a lot with one particular stuffed animal on Monday, I'd play with a different one on Tuesday, cycling through all of them before I played with Monday's child again. I wanted to be a very, very good and fair mother to all of my little charges, and this desire to be fair and equal with my attention-giving crossed into my treatment of everything in my life. If I couldn't give equal attention to all things that I felt were important, I was obviously doing something wrong or bad or cruel. Obviously.


I don't feel that way anymore. I've learned that sometimes, you just can't get to everything. And sometimes, certain things get neglected.


In the case of the past few weeks, it's been my blog. I'll try to do better at playing with my stuffed animals more fairly. But sometimes, certain ones just get neglected. 


Sorry, Best Teddy. Sorry, Blog.