It Feels Good Like Tony Tony Tony: An expression of gratitude.

Haven't had time to write very much, but this is what I've been feeling the last couple days. It didn't start out being a thank-you-mony but it ended up that way maybe.

I just wanted to write about yesterday, because it was like one of the most gratifying days I've ever had. I graduated. I didn't really feel any different and I didn't really feel the full weight or sense of accomplishment that should accompany that, but I felt a sense of relief, and a renewal of appreciation for the experiences I've had the last 4 years or so. Elder Nelson talked about the lesson he learned through retiring: That though we can gain some sense of pride from our occupations, they are a means to an end and not an end in themselves. I have felt profoundly despondent in the true sense of the word, because I had been in this limbo stage of uncertainty and I was doing nothing while counting my losses, reapplying self pity lotion like a hot day at the beach. But really, I couldn't let go of Romania and I kept feeling like there was nothing I could do to have a purpose. Going from seeing one of the most important people in my life lighting up when I walked in the room to coming home to an empty apartment (comfortable though it was) or many times not having a reason or desire to leave was a difficult contrast. I feel there are opportunities ahead and I know a little more how to follow after them and I have much less time or energy to contemplate what I lack emotionally.

Later the day of my first graduation, or commencement I was given the surprise of my life. A tangent fantasy conversation I had with Rachel became a reality. Instead of the plan that I had set up (dinner at an overrated italian restaurant), my dad and she conspired to throw me a graduation party at Andale's cafe. They tricked me by saying there wasn't enough time to get to the restaurant before they gave our reservation away and so Rachel and I had to go to the cafe. When we pulled up, there were two llamas in front of the cafe. Thinking of the most ridiculous thing I could say, I shouted, "You got me llamas for my graduation party?!" I knew there was no graduation party and so this was a safe and silly thing to say. But they were and there was a big picture of me hung up from when I was like 5 with a spiderman t-shirt on hanging from a jungle gym. My dad offered to park the car and I got out with Rachel we started getting to know the llamas. People kept coming up asking to take pictures with them. It was crazy. And we started making up silly stories about why we might have llamas. We are thunderously clever and so it was great fun. We took the llamas for a walk. Her llama was quite obstinate, but he was firmly and warmly disciplined. I had so much fun. And most of my best friends were there. Jimmy showed up and David was there and Andale and Brennan and Brandon were there. I was so happy. And then Brennan's band othello played and they were great. It was like something so cool. People don't throw me parties and it was really nice of my parents to do that. I think everyone secretly wants a surprise party sometime in their life and this was just great. I loved the point where I realized everyone was in on it. Everyone involved had this mischievous look and laughter. I couldn't believe it, it made me feel so happy. Everyone signed this picture of me and that meant so much to me too. It meant an incredible amount to receive such attention and appreciation and when people remember little things about me and turn them into something tangible with meaning, it just makes me feel valued and warm. (Matt. 7:11 NOT Ezekiel 16:33)

Rachel is a shot of adrenaline to my brain. She is the cocreator of a world that doesn't exist. She makes me laugh convulsively and feel like the world is full of possibilities. She is thoughtful and kind and warm. She is inalienating and has the refreshing innate ability to seek understanding. A very good friend who has taught me things I never had supposed.

Later that night, I got to spend some quality time talking with my parents. One of the better and more open talks we've ever had. They are so good to me and are incredibly supportive of the decisions I've made in my life and have given me opportunities I would not have been able to secure. Sometimes I forget that or lose sight of it or use it as a crutch and then resent it, but I have moments of reflection like this to recognize that I can be grateful and use it to give me momentum to do good things. It has taken me a long time to see my parents as real, imperfect, but good and loving people. It comes in degrees, but I am really grateful for them.

The next day, I had another graduation and I got to walk with Holly. Sometimes I get a little emo when I think about her and her influence on me. She loves the kids in Romania so much and knows the ins and outs of things so well. She is a true friend and one of the most humble and good seeking people I know. The fire can bring you to appreciate those people who are there. Landes Holbrook, I finally got to thank for how much he helped Katie and I while we were waiting in a hospital in Bucharest. I got to thank Chris Porter to his face for the class that challenged me more than any other I've taken. I got to hug Roberta and thank her for her caring so much for us students (treasure hunts and all). I even got to see Dave Shuler, Ashley, and Larry Nelson over the last couple days. Richard Miller handed me my diploma and he remembered me from his classes and addressed me with a warm tone of familiarity instead of passing disinterest. Strangely I'm going to miss a lot of the BYU faculty.

My parents and Dave were there. David is one of my best friends and has been loyal since we have met. We are a support to each other and I have seen him grow and progress so much in the last 3-4 years it is incredible. He has been there to talk to when no one else was and has helped bring me back to reality. He basically lit the fire that led to me being the musician I am now. He is the harbinger of brutal honesty and has helped me become more honest with myself.

Last night I also saw a movie that touched me a lot called the Soloist. It is about a man who is diagnosed with schizophrenia who is a phenomenal cellist. There is a writer from the L.A. times who starts writing a story about him, then starts trying to understand him, then tries to fix him/help him, then realizes that the best thing is to be his friend. It made me think of Robert and I started crying. Robert has been a real friend to me and we can talk about everything. He is one of the people I hope fervently I will be able to keep association with in the afterlife. I went through a very similar process with Robert of beginning to serve him for the personal gains of getting over some things in my life at the time. Eventually I came to see the wonderful person that he is and though at times there frustrating things about him, he is so valuable to me as a friend and I count that as something priceless.

And my father in heaven is the one before all of these people who never leaves even when I have chosen things that keep me from feeling Him. And my Savior who brings the cool water to my drying tongue and lets me back in again. The reasons that love exist. His hand in all things.

This has been mostly to document my feelings on these couple days and more fully form my gratitude for (some) of the important people in my life by expressing it and giving it a name.

My New Job

Today was my second day at house of hope. I'm really starting to love this place. House of Hope is a drug addiction treatment center for women and their children. I work in the preschool and work on developmental goals and behavior issues with the children.

I'm still in the n00b phase where I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I know I have to learn the goals of each child and start finding creative ways to help some of them develop more prosocial behaviors. I don't even really understand what meth does to kids yet. I can already see that some of the effects are probably almost no boundaries, as one child who came in yesterday acts out about just every chance she can get. It's interesting to watch what happens. It's too fast for me to make meaningful decisions about at this point. It's weird, because the first reaction and most of the time only reaction people have are for the peace to return to the system; to pacify them. I realize this is thing that needs to be done many times, but I also have a sinking feeling about that notion. It seems that the things which are resisted most frequently are the very things that the kids need help with. It takes several observations to take in and quick analysis is crucial to meaningful discipline. It makes me wonder what kind of parent I will be. It is very easy to slip into selfish responses to preserve a quiet peace that serves me. Babies perplex me more than anything. It is apparent that there are instinctual responses to their cries and I should know something about what is more appropriate than the next thing, but I'm just as vulnerable to just want the crying to stop. That's enough about that stuff.

It's interesting, because it's a lot more like section 2 than I thought it would be. There's a director who rarely shows his face, but is an awesome guy and various therapists and a psychologist who is over us workers. She's kind of a guru on child development and way cool just like Teo. There's a worker who comes in on most days who prides herself in being mean, because she sees results.

The kids are so fun when it is time to have fun. Today we played with boxes and the kids all took turns being trapped in one box two at a time. It was only me dropping a box around them and making sound effects and evil laughter, but they loved it, and so did I. We also played what time is it Mr. Wolf? I'll explain it if you ask me, but it ends with the wolf saying, "Lunch Time!!!" and running frantically after everyone else. We also played with a parachute, which is always a good time.

Today I felt so happy as I left, because I had a million (well more like 10) little kids saying, "Bye Robby!" one at a time. I'm starting to get to know all of their personalities a little better and they're so fun. It just made me feel appreciated. That's an amazing feeling to me. Anyway, I'm excited for more fun and more work with them.

Seriously Eat Here

I like food. It is good. Some food is better than other food. I went to Stoneground. It was really good. I had the Forest Mushroom and Goat Cheese with Pesto Sauce and the Great Tuna with Wasabi Mashed Potatoes. It was divine. I recommend eating there. And eating what we ate. I went with a really cool person. This person was neat. You can see this person's elbow in this picture and also a glass of water. This pizza place is great. They play lots of good music and have pool tables there. The person I went with was like totally freaking out, because they played so many songs that this person liked. I think this place is great.

Here's a picture of the food we ate in intervals between gasps of awe at the awesomeness of this great pizza place. Seriously eat here.

Another Circuit to Break (1/2 depression 1/2 a week later)

The kind of cloudiness that comes from despair has no triumph in description.

Identities are meaningless, though they would tell you it’s the beginning of the solution.

To live alone is not a bitter pill or a stoic honor, but a consignment best embraced for the time.

Sometimes I am terrified of that notion, or that I have embraced it for too long.

I just am and though I have created enough weight from shame to press newspapers, it is mine to leave.

There is no trick to living; it is a simple competition against nothing.

Some are justly content with being nothing; others crave insatiably to be something which is nothing to those around them. In finding truth, the insatiable cravers seem to come out ahead in the real world. They work to forget and forgetting allows them to keep working.

In living as an escape artist, I have been able to study those who truly live. My life is not attractive to them and theirs is a mystery to me. Yet we coexist and tolerate one another. I will find life more than a terrifying set of inescapable circumstances and they will visit me on their bad days.

Someday we will both arrive at the end and realize how many tools each of us lacks. Walking into the dark and hoping to see those we found here smiling to greet us naked in the sense of facilitators to our hiding, but clothed in something we will find much more durable.

This is what we hope for and forget and cling to and forsake at trivial transactions throughout our days and nights. There is an inescapable power in this reality that is either grasped and lifts, or destroys us to degrees.

I am a fool to many things that would save me from myself. I can’t describe those things acutely, however they breeze past me overhead and on my sides and below me, but on occasion strike me with pain to the extent that I am not pliable.

So I find Someone to live for. If I forget that, I am doomed to myself. If I choose someone else, I am doomed to them. I can choose to serve others and even love them and sacrifice, but if I live for them I will die to them. That is the fear in me. That I will die and never realize what has happened until they leave. Everyone leaves someday. Perhaps that is the giving up I need to learn sometimes.

Writing this is not attractive, it’s alienating and precocious, but it’s what I have today. Not all I have though.

I have a room full of clothes and a couple boxes full of accumulated ornaments and distractions. And monuments to things I’ve learned or people I’ve loved. I have notebooks full of regrets and life longings and simple ideas that serve as mile markers to my growth from naïve to still naïve, but a smidgen more aware of the fact.

Forget those things. The inward journey quit halfway through is a diver’s nightmare. He’s seen a glinting, taunting him through the water, dimly lit by a tiny headlamp. Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.

The peaceful spirit grants me something to hold on to; a promise that it’s still down there. He lets me know that I can live a life between dives that isn’t worthless. I say I don’t know, but really it’s a gasp for air when I’ve lost sight of what I’m looking for.

And then I am released from that question. Refreshed and content without answers though I know they lie below and someday I shall see as if there were no water and I needed no air.

Reading on the Bus

After purchasing gifts for some members of my family and riding the bus from Northgate back to Westlake, I saw a poem. It was printed and posted as part of a literacy program on the public transportation.

A dream that really really happened,
And the mother and father didn't know.
And they loved their little little girls,
and they wanted to see the dream,
but they didn't see it,
because it already happened.
And they were poor.

I hastily raced my dying phone battery to enter it into my notepad, because I wanted it to go with me. I'm not really sure why it was important to me. Also it said it was written by a 3 year old. The message of class divides wasn't the real meaning I got from it. I was more concerned with who the girls were and what the dream was. Were they the dream? Were they poor because they didn't see the dream? What does poor mean?

A Happy Farewell and a Hold on a Minute

Last day at section 2 with the whole group today. I spent most of the time helping get pizza taking secret last day photos and watching the group go through their closure. Everybody took it pretty well as far as I could see.

There were two hard times for me. One was when I was explaining to Alex that Chelsea and Rhett were leaving and not coming back tomorrow. He understood. I also explained that I was coming back Monday and Tuesday. Then one of my favorite workers came over and told him that I was leaving like the snow after winter time. And that just sort of broke me, because I saw him smiling and then give me that, "Say it isn't so," look. And I wanted to tell him it wasn't. I still have two days left with him, which in my mind seem much longer than they really are. I wanted to wait till I was actually leaving to feel anything and she already got us both thinking about it. I felt that wound open a second like picking a scab that isn't quite healed, seeing the blood, and then quickly pushing it back down again. Not yet. But this one just gets worse.

I got to hold and take pictures with some of the kids I adore. Today was just fun. Too fast to feel for too long. The kids unwrapped the presents and loved them. It was so much fun. I can't really say too much more about that. If you see me in person ask to see pictures and I'll introduce you guys. I'll hope not to take too long. It's not that long.

I feel like sometimes I have struggled to get things done and felt hopeless to do so. Other times I feel like my only option was to sit on my butt and not die. Right now it is difficult to see myself in that mindset. It's just like how when I was in that mindset it was like believing in Santa Claus to think that I could be happy and have energy and love. I feel like I can sing that redeeming song. Yeah I remember how it goes now.

It starts with rituals, and persists with remembering, and ends with gratitude. Or maybe backwards. I'll figure it out someday.

That was a parenthetical expression of my happiness.

Another moment that broke the scab again was when Dr. Ciobano looked me in the eyes and told me thank you for working with Alex. She said that he was happy every day when I was here and she really appreciated me spending the time to - I can't remember, because at that point a wave hit me and I sheepishly composed myself against persuasion not to cry. To get publicly praised like that meant a lot to me. Especially since when I came out here the first time, Dr. Ciobano was this mysterious scary lady. I think she's great.

And Teo is a saint. She has made everything possible to do these things with Alex. She lets me use her office every day and sacrifices time (and lots of printer ink thanks to Alex) to help me and provide answers to questions and support my efforts to have things work. She took me out to see Mihai. She got other things to work that I thought would not be able to work. She was behind the scenes making stuff happen.

So another great moment was doing this...



(note don't take candy from strangers...)
(Also check out lady at 43 seconds.)

Not exactly during this time, because it wasn't captured, but on the 1st floor at one point in the cancer and burn unit, we started singing and I looked up for a moment to see a large group of people on both sides of us smiling. I felt great singing the Christmas hymns, but looking over while we were singing at their faces got me a little choked up for a second. And also very happy. Here's another one too.




It was a fantastic day.

I talked through some stuff with a good friend in a late night spazz attack. I'm going to miss Alex a lot, but I think I'll miss the person I am when I'm here just as much. I suppose I could possibly take that guy with me if I want to. I'm not sure which responsibility would be more difficult.

Quick one.

Needed to throw something in quick before I forget. Today was good. Teo got me pizza after we talked briefly. Amazing pizza from the one right by the langosi stand. We talked about the video we're making for Dr. Ciobano (her boss as she refers to her). We also got some time to work with Alex after he got out of school.

A big highlight All quotes are rough translation from romanian: Today we made a board that says "I want" then switches to another one, where the only available option right now is "to go," after which it switches to one that says different places that he can go. When he picked the light room and then put a period and clicked the box that reads the message, I was like, "Oh! You want to go to the light room?!" And then without hesitation I pulled his wheel chair out of the room and ran (about 3 feet because that's how close to Teo's office it is) and pulled him into the light room. We haven't been in there for awhile. He loves it. He started laughing and making that noise he makes like crazy. And we both laughed for awhile before going back into the room.