contentment is:

waking up to bright natural light flooding a room. sunny and calm saturday mornings, you know?

sheep. my inexplicable fetish with sheep. (and the little ducklings!)

laying in the grass to do a little talking with the sun.

the scent of spring wafting through the air.

tomorrow being may day. we all know how i adore mymay.

sunshine breathing air into my soul, keeping me alive.

come the may, i say.

carry on.

the due time.

a few months ago, 

when i discovered it could be done online,

i went through and requested the patriarchal blessings of my direct ancestors.

just up to my great-grandparents, for the ones who received one.

i requested them, and then, quite frankly, forgot about it.

a few weeks ago my maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother's arrived.

yesterday my maternal great-grandmother's arrived. 

you know what?

the more blessings i read,

the more my perspective shifts.

at first they felt like nothing grand.

they're all unique, i suppose,

though carry many similarities, as could be expected.

at first that irked me.

where's the personalization in that?

today, though.

i realized that i love the overlapping language. 

that it is personal.

these blessings are laced with similarities,

though no two are alike.

(with one another as well as with the blessings of 

living individuals--those that i have had the privilege to read.)

a couple share a couple things, a couple nothing at all.

but there's an overarching similarity in all of them.

as if they're all different branches of the same tree,

sprouting up in a myriad of individual combinations.

take three branches.

one may share similarities with both of the others.

one with only one of the others.

but they all somewhere have a mutual link--

the trunk from which they all emerged.

the one i read today is hard to read.

(literally--it's a copy of a page from an old book, written in abysmal handwriting.)

but there's a line that reminds me of another patriarchal blessing i've read,

and a line that reminds me of mine.

three different blessings for three different people at three different times in three different places.

and here they share wording almost identical in parts, 

though not in a place where you'd expect identical wording.

and something about all that inspires in me their divinity.

not because they're all different,

but because they're all woven from the same cloth.

it's the same God speaking to us all,

regardless of who or when. 

at first that seemed impersonal to me, but now it's what i cherish.

the constancy of God across time and space.

because when it all comes down to it,

regardless of how we visualize it

or by what means He personally manifests Himself to us,

it all comes and goes from the same God.

we all turn back to that God who breathes into us life.

notes from the underground--grad school edition, volume 7.

i'll write you a postcard, 
i'll send you the news
from a house down the road, 
from real love.

live through this, and you won't look back.

there's one thing i want to say, 
so i'll be brave:
you were what i wanted.
i gave what i gave.
i'm not sorry i met you.
i'm not sorry it's over.
i'm not sorry there's nothing to say.
(your ex-lover is dead, stars.)

that's how i feel about this semester, you know?
there were some really good moments.
there were some really rough moments.
i'm not sorry it happened.
i'm not sorry it's (almost) over.
i'm only a little bit sorry there's little to be said.
living through grad school, i won't look back.
i'll send a postcard someday.

- - - - -

midway through march, one of my clients stopped coming.
(ihatemoneyandinsuranceandmoney.)
it was sudden. and i found out after the best session we'd ever had.
on the corners of a grand transition and elevation in progress
while i didn't realize it at first amidst the uncertainty of potential return,
i grieved that sudden loss.
i grieved what could have been and the progress i wouldn't see.
there, right on the cusp of significant progression along the mountain, that's where we stopped.
and i grieved.

it seems strange, really.
i'm only formally acquainted with this child and his mother.
just these few hours a week we shared.
nonetheless, i was sad to see him go.
sad when i realized, that's most likely it for the rest of the semester.
i was involved in the diagnostic for this client.
i wrote the report.
set his first goals.
watched him make phenomenal progress much more quickly than we anticipated.
the initial sessions entrenched in routine suddenly gave way around february.
and by the end of february, he'd achieved his semester goals.
i'll be brave and i gave what i gave.
i'm not sorry we met,
and, to be honest, i have mixed feelings about the fact that it's over.
i'll send a postcard, someday.

- - - - -

the classes have been much simpler this semester than last semester.
the course-load much less.
sometimes i feel a little guilty about my lack of engagement or focus on school this semester.
i mean, i get everything done, of course.
clinic always is priority over classes.
everything we do is constant triage of simply getting done what needs to be.
doing what you can, giving what you can, and moving on.
sometimes i feel a little guilty for how hard i know i'm not working for this.
it's a rigorous program--it really is.
but not in the ways you'd think for being given the label of graduate school.
you're always busy while actually not always busy.
schedules are somewhat flexible for getting done what you need to,
aside from classes, sessions, and meetings.
i have much more time than i ever did in undergrad--
especially my last couple years of undergrad.
it's much easier than that.

and intellectually.
well, it's not challenging.
it's not.
there's critical thinking,
but a different kind than that required in the intricacies of foreign languages and russian literature.

i'm always busy,
but mentally--
i'm often far far away.

my russian capstone was completed a year ago today.
our priceless skits of adaptations to chekhov plays.
meaning, a year ago this week,
i graduated.
(kind of. #israel.)

there's still two-and-a-half weeks left for this semester.
and i'm over here like--
are we done yet?

because.
i'm quite excited for summer and my clinic placements.
(i'll be at the children's center and the intensive stuttering clinic!)
i'm quite excited for next spring.
(i was offered a medical externship!)

it's been real, spring semester 2016.
but let's never meet again.

photo credit: nbc.

brought to you by:

the distractions throughout the semester that have kept me sane.

the darling clients who make it worth it.

the spring sunshine and blossoms galore.

the mountains and the blue sky.

the audio books that make commuting more tolerable.
friday mornings working at the preschool.

thoughts of future vacations. 

and also. chocolate shakes.

because--why not?

holding.

because you're supposed to hold on to good things, right?

and my means of holding on to things is to write about them.

and for the occasions when i can't find my words,

i let photos do the talking instead.

so that i may remember the good days that life graces me with.

(because wednesday was a really really good day--

filled with the deepest kind of tranquility.)

plate and i went up the canyon on wednesday.

after a long, cold winter sometimes i forget my mountain obsession.

the way being in the mountains fills my lungs with air.

the way being in the mountains grounds my soul.

the way i say (probably much to his annoyance) over and over again--

i love the sun.

oh, how i dearly love the sun.

made even better by spending a good portion of a day with nate. 

sunshine and mountain therapy is a real thing.

here's to the mountains and the sun.

perfectly magical dots of snow followed by radiant blue skies and sunshine breaking through.

here's to my obsession with springtime in the rockies.

(and enjoying it with an exceptionally good human.)

sorrynotsorry for the attack of photos.

- - -

i can gather all the news i need on the weather report.

i've got nothing to do today but smile.

(the only living boy in new york, simon&garfunkel.)

THIS IS REAL LIFE.

i repeat: THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

(insert sappy comment about how darling he is here.)

spring never ceases to fill me with relief.

my soul can breathe again.

happy spring, world.

glorious, glorious spring, indeed.

to be alive at all.

to be alive at all is to have scars.

(john steinbeck, the winter of our discontent.)

it's as saturday morning session is in its final quarter.

that's when the boots come.

it hasn't always been this way.

i wish i knew how, what, or why.

but heaviness comes and stays awhile on the saturday of general conference.

this, the loveliest of all days.

last october is when it happened the first time.

i tried to push the struggle and worry away.

it worked for a few hours.

and then i wept my way through saturday afternoon.

i never cry.

hardly ever.

i can practically count on one hand

the occasions in which i wept throughout the past five years.

these baby blues don't cry.

when i was approaching the end of my mission, 

there was a day.

i was serving in saltovka, 

and we were supposed to have a meeting with a man named nikolai after district meeting.

on a bench across from the branch--

we were going to meet him there.

then we discovered that our scheduled meeting with nikolai,

was really a meeting with the nikolai in my soul.

(if i were a ukrainian man, my name would be nikolai.

a story of name stereotypes for another day.)

anyone who serves a mission can tell you:

though there are many experiences of light, love, and joy,

there are incredibly heavy things that are a part, as well.

particularly in a land that has faced--and continues to face--so much sorrow.

i'd become quite good at holding those sorrows for a moment.

bearing them without letting them weigh me down.

i had to learn, and so i did.

but every once in awhile.

they'd accumulate.

my heart swelled wide as eternity 

with a simultaneous love and grief for the whole human race.

so many people.

so many trials.

so many fiery paths to walk through.

so much heartbreak.

so much hopelessness.

how could we ever help anyone?

how could we ever pass God's light to all of them?

how could we ever ease their burdens by showing them how to give it to Jesus?

how could we ever figure out ourselves how to let go of control?

how could we ever breach through the darkness?

it was cloudy that day.

a cloudy, muddy day in late september.

i remember looking up to the clouds and seeing flecks of light.

a small space where the clouds were a little less thick.

my heart swelled wide, thinking of all the people who have ever lived.

it was heavy, and i wept.

(my darling little companions at the time were молодцы about this.

letting me release my overwhelming grief.)

i cried my tears, and then i got back up and kept walking.

sharing a little light here, a little light there.

helping to peel scars from someone's back and letting them blow away.

here a scar, there another scar.

because that's how.

that's how we help someone.

that's how we pass on God's light.

that's how we ease burdens and show how to give it away to Jesus.

that's how we let go of control.

that's how we breach through the darkness.

one moment at a time.

here a little, there a little.

здесь немного и там немного.

that's the answer, really.

but every so often, 

the heavy in my boots accumulates.

every so often,

i need to spend some time on a bench with the nikolai in my soul.

every so often.

my boots overflowed today.

instead of weeping through saturday afternoon, though,

this time, i slept.

why must people kneel down to pray?

if i really wanted to pray, i'll tell you what i'd do.

i'd go out into a great big field all alone,

or in the deep, deep woods

and i'd look up into the sky--

up--up--up--

into that lovely blue sky 

that looks as if there was no end to its blueness.

and then i'd just feel a prayer.

(l.m. montgomery, anne of green gables.)

peel the scars from off my back.

one moment at a time.

look at the sun and sky, and feel a prayer.

this is how we stay alive.

song of the day: welcome home, radical face.