Ghost Inside

Yeah, it's not new, but I'm really quite taken with this song. I heard it for the first time this weekend as I was driving back from a ski day and have had it on repeat ever since. I'm always amazed by artists who sound just as good (or better) live as they do on their records.   James Mercer of The Shins heads the band Broken Bells, singing what is now one of my favorite tunes.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me. . . I want to know. 

And just like that, I was drawn in.  I think this poem, the one you're (hopefully) about to read, is one of the most beautiful things I have read, to date.  I saw a snippet of it on Wily Brunette and then discovered there was even more.  It's lengthy, so I selected the parts that resonated with me the most, and upon the second or third reading, I realized it was becoming a list of sorts.

A list of what I want, or aspire to want.  But more importantly, a list of who I want to be--an invitation to become.

-- 

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

--Oriah 

Possibility Intoxicating

--as we circled the fountain, an elderly couple appeared at the gate of the courtyard.

The man called out, "You can jump in if you want to, I won't tell anyone."

He approached. "Where are you from?  Are you two married?"

"We just met," he replied.

I liked that, 

The absence of denial. 

In the balmy night air, the fleeting taste of

Possibility, intoxicating. 

Truth and Beauty

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Tonight I was privileged to attend the lecture of Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (bio here), on the subject of truth and beauty in Islam. 

One thing in particular that he said--or quoted, really--touched me:

Beauty is the splendor of truth.

Taking the statement in, a student in the audience followed up with the question: If something that is truly true is beautiful, can anything untrue still be beautiful?

And his response (to paraphrase): It may be enticing, yes, but it will never attain true beauty because it will always be encumbered by falseness, whether you recognize it at once or not. 

Think on that.

A few more of my favorite sound bytes from the night: 

--If this world is something, God is nothing. If God is something, this world is nothing.

--Expression of truth brings with it an understanding of hierarchy of art.

--God is beautiful. Sacred art is always divinely inspired. 

--Ugliness is human invention.

--Truth means that there is God.

Elusive Elation

In those elusive instances of piercing elation and wonder, a shadow hovers somewhere between my stomach and heart reminding me that I will never be so happy the same way twice.  Even as I take in the joy of the moment, I mourn its inevitable end. A faint sadness for the girl without.

But if there is one thing I have learned in my short nineteen years, it is that these moments, they return.   A particular composition of people, place and time meant to be enjoyed and not reciprocated, yet each bound by a common sense of reckless freedom and separation from reality.

And just as these experiences are never the same, I am never the same within them.  A theretofore unknown piece of me illuminated.  Yet as time moves forward and people and places fade, the memory of illumination remains.

Returning to the daily, weekly, monthly, the subtle, warm knowledge that once

I dabbled in brilliance.

Wonderland

"Time is tricky.

You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don't go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day, or an hour, or a half a second when so much happens its almost like you got born all over again into some brand-new person you damn well never expected to meet."

-- Life is Funny - E.R. Frank

Pink Dusk

Mulling at the brink of the water, s'more in one hand, camera in the other

Fire popping and smoking fifteen or twenty strides behind 

And the cool breeze whispering through the grapefruit tinged atmosphere.

Tonight happiness smells like lake weeds and the wafting scent of one more round of hamburger patties.

Later, when the sun sinks beneath the rising city skyline, 

Silent fireworks set off at the far distant pier are completed by a new soundtrack--

Muffled laughter and soft conversation

As I find myself no longer alone at the water's edge.

Rivals Collide

 ...with good results.

Today the Chicago experience was being sandwiched between a multitude of Cubs and Cardinals fans on the way to the big game. Despite the looming rivalry, the fans took the close quarters with good humor as reds blended with blues. 

I ran into this traffic flow on the way home from a tour of NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me studio.  May or may not have scored tickets to the taping next Thursday, in addition to a contact or two.  Working for NPR is becoming a new dream of mine--it'll be interesting to see how far I chase it. 

Not to mention that the view from the station was incredible.

Up this weekend: Gelato, some Olympics and an impromptu visit to Northwestern University for a musical collaboration. 

I love this place. 

Rolling Storm

Violent gusts of wind dragged the waves forward as foreboding gray clouds rolled in, seeping the air with thick moisture.  Waiting in line for an outdoor concert, I observed nature's display from one of the best vantage points in the city.  I think I will leave behind one small piece of my heart here--in this city, yes, but maybe even more so in this lake.

Good Night Marilyn

My city view as I settle into bed, listening to the bewitching sound that is Bon Iver.

Listen to this one

So many foreign worlds, so ready for us. 

Night Chicago. 

Windy City Check List

X  Take the subway to work and back without a map

X Experience deep dish Chicago pizza

Eat a Chicago hot dog 

X Go to a concert in Millennium Park 

X Explore the Art Institute of Chicago 

X Check out the vintage shopping in the area

Go to a Cubs game

Cake shake from Portillo's 

Experience Chicago brunch

X Successfully hail a taxi

X Go shopping at Trader Joe's

Check out University of Chicago campus (Grad school?  But mostly just cause it's awesome). 

X Party in a high rise 

X Beach volleyball at North Ave Beach
XArchitectual Cruise

X Go for a lakeside run

Finish The New Rules of Marketing and PR

X Photo-document all of the above

Trending Chicago

(and New York City for that matter), are men's Ray Ban Wayfarers.  I see them dotting the faces of multiple people as I ride the subway from Lakeview to my office in downtown Chicag each morning.

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And I could not approve more.

Not Just A City

Not just a city, but a wild metropolis. A collision of cultures and lifestyles.  An explosion of light and noise and movement.  A place to lose yourself completely.  And while you're looking for yourself, a place to find a world bigger than you ever imagined.

Not just falafels, but New York pizza and frozen yogurt and a waffle with strawberries and the most delicious burger and chocolate shake that have ever graced my mouth (Shake Shack, I am a convert for life).  

Not just a hostel, but a welcome face-full of cool air conditioning, a neighborhood full of lively bars and a room full of lovely girls from England and Brazil.

Not just any weekend :).

CEOs and Compliance

Today I avoided the nasty humidity + 95 degree weather tucked away in Bayer HQ working on a mysterious project entitled "Compliance".  As it turned out, Compliance involved hundreds of pages of reading regarding Bayer's ethical and legal standards. I can now definitively tell you  the circumstances in which you may or may not feed a group of  medical professionals (which, seriously though, is an ethical issue that has bothered me since I put in the hours at that medical records office last summer).

So, yeah, it was a slow day.  But that only made the highlight of the afternoon that much better: meeting Phil Blake, the Bayer U.S. corporate executive (aka President Boss Guy). I was immediately put at ease; he was down-to-earth and soft-spoken, with quite a lovely English accent to boot.  In our brief meeting he related his misadventures going for runs in the area, his mental processes as he oversees the many divisions within Bayer, and his vision for the hemophilia community.  My fellow interns and I surprised him with some recent breakthroughs in hemophilia research and he requested we forward him an article or two.  I left feeling honored to have been able to spend time with such a successful yet humble man. 


With the windows rolled down and NPR turned up, we whipped back to our hotel.  After a week of intensive communication, conflict management and presentation skills training I'm looking forward to a weekend in The City That Never Sleeps.

West Orange and the Lab of Mr. Edison

My fellow intern Amanda and I spent our first full day in West Orange hiking to and from the lab site of none other than Thomas Edison himself.  I both loved and was horrified by the tour of his chemical lab--safety standards were nonexistent! My favorite part though had to be seeing the elderly couples nodding their heads in gentle remembrance as old tunes blared from the demonstrator's phonograph. 

West Orange is beautiful; its lush green hills and old brick neighborhoods  resemble West Virginia's, although with a dash of South American flavor.  We passed around five Peruvian restaurants on our three mile walk alone!

On the way back I caught sight of the peak of this cathedral.  Amanda humored me and we hunted it down.  I'm a sucker for Gothic architecture; I think the only thing that could have made me happier is if I had been allowed up into the tower.

We wrapped up the day with some shopping at Whole Foods Market, dessert with the internship director's family and some relaxing in the hot tub.  Looking forward to my first day on the job tomorrow!

Memoir of a Couch

Stress Relief

It's been a stress-filled week-- the shooting out of bed, heart-pounding at 5 am kind of stress.  My to-do list has been rather hefty, but certainly not more than I've had to tackle before. I've never experienced jittery anxiety quite like this before: hands quivering, mind whizzing from one thing to the next like a hummingbird.

Luckily, the move across the country during my junior year of high school honed my coping skills.  And I've picked up a few more since moving to Provo.  Here we go:

1. The Office

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This show has gotten me through so much. No joke.  One episode and several laughs later, I can't help but feel better, my mind carried ways away from the present worry to the lovely town of Scranton. And before I know it, one episode turns to six. . .

2. Hot drinks

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Originally the drink of choice was hot chocolate (with a Harry Potter book in hand), but I've since opted for the healthier option of herbal tea, peach being my favorite (and college reading requirements have stifled my beloved Harry Potter sessions). 

3. Running

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Doesn't always sound good, but always, always works.

4.  Phone calls

 Julie and mother dear have been on the receiving line lately. (Thanks & much love).

5.  Naps on a soft couch in the warmth of a sunbeam

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Need I say more?

6.  Watermelon

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This is a new one, but so soothing.  I think I have possibly single-handedly consumed four watermelons in the last month.

7.  The Book of Mormon

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When nothing else works, this does. The spirit of this book has comforted and lifted my heart and brought light to my life when I needed it most.  Learn about it here.

8. And ok, I won't pretend this doesn't happen. Often. 

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A Goal is Born

Couldn't help but write this down in my statistics notebook in my very finest looping cursive after hearing it in  New Testament class:


Real leadership is communicating a person's worth and potential so well that they are inspired to see it in themselves.


...Because it's so true.  As a communications major, this struck me as a worthy goal: to communicate people's worth and potential.  And to do it effectively.  


My mind is brimming with the faces of people who have done this for me, who have not just instructed me or pulled me along, but who have filled me with the desire to be excellent. 


If I could do the same, what could be more fulfilling?

Sweet Pea

Someday. . .someone will sing this to me.

And I will be blushing furiously.