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.

highlights and lowlights and redlights and golights.

because a little listed summary is the only adequate way to include all the important things.

in no particular order, some delightful lights of the break are included, but not limited to:

+ jillian's sealing. (the most beautiful morning of light.)
+ megs being back in america for a little minute. (can't even. those armknechts, though.)

+ fabfour reunion and an impending #apartment210 reunion. (i can't get over these women.)
+ break being one week longer than the byu one i'm used to. (more than a day after new years? what?)

+ having my first entirely solo session go supa well. (we gonna be bessst friendzzz.)
+ being just as entertained by the 'science experiment' as my client. (and the toy dinosaur that helped us.)

+ reading and reading. on my time. by my choice. the little things, you know? (i highly recommend the giver.)

+ naterson. (i mean. i know. right? i know.)

+ family parties. (and getting to know his delightful fambam.)
+ shnuggletimeourturn. (never gets old.)

+ movies. so many movies. (with a harry potter marathon on top.)
+ chinese food for dayz. (pass the sweet and sour chicken, please.)

+ dinners and laughs with laurs. (we're hilarious.)

+ christmas eve traditions. plus one. (the night before christmas is a crowd favorite.)

+ so many occasions for playing rosatheviolin of my own accord. (and fingers remembering things i forgot.)
+ jenniferannemariemckay. enough said. (cosmic soul connections.)

+ twinkle lights and the poinsettia quilt. my favorite place on a cold winter's night. (always.)

+ visiting with renaenae. (and. logan is literally in the middle of nowhere. how does anyone survive??)

+ the symphony. (always makes me heart-eyed. i really adore evenings at the symphony.)

+ sleeping in. naps. sleeping some more. (sometimes i think i spent the whole break asleep. opa.)

the only lower lights?

- it's january. (my januaryhatred is real. not over it. never over it.)

- snow. everywhere. (is winter over yet?)

- break ends.in three days. (i just.can't.even.)

who needs pictures?

brought to you by some places and faces filling my cameraroll the past couple months.
how was life ever documented pre-iphone?
can you believe people used to carry around cameras alldayeveryday?

right. me neither. and i even was one of those people.

steve jobs must be laughing a devilish laugh.
viva le iphone.
(in all its sometimes-blurry glory.)

if it seems i'm

in the same shoes, in the same places,
sometimes with people, occasional visitors, mostly alone,
sometimes eating, always reading--
you are seeming right.
всё правильно.
#gradschooling.

i've searched high and low.

two weeks ago (one representation of how behind i am on everything in life) the parkinsons came into town for hannah's birthday. those hales cousins, you see. and so grandma invited me to join with them at dinner to celebrate. ^^then had ice cream. (because what's a birthday without ice cream?)

it's been a month now since that night.

(the day i fully process the past three years of my life will be a miracle.)

but i'm still going to write about it anyway.

because it was meaningful. because it changed my perspective.

we sat and talked, and somewhere in the midst of hearing about them, and the missionary twins, and everything else, it really hit me: two months isn't that long. and from that moment, there were two months until the end of the semester. (two months until israel!) and now, just one until i'm done with my undergraduate career. and for the first time this semester, that night i finally started to feel that two months would go by fast. let me be the first to tell you one month later--it is. it's filled and flying.

after ice cream, we all went back to grandma's where my car had remained, and there we all talked for a little bit before i parted ways with them. and here my perspective changed again.

karen and grandma both started to talk of their college and after-college years. the years that preceded marriage and the years directly following marriage. they talked of their own experience and the way things came to be. karen told a story of someone she had dated and left thinking, i could probably like him. i could make that work. but then soon after, when dating mark (her husband, my uncle), she realized that she just did. she didn't have to think about it. she just liked him without having to think about liking him. it worked.

this is the thing. i've thought that before too. i could probably like him. i could make that work. and something about hearing that someone else has thought that too--well that meant something. you can think that, and you can let it go, and eventually him comes--a him that you don't have to think about it with--that you just like them. and then i knew. when it comes, i'll know. because i won't have to think myself into it.

the grandest thing of all, was something like this. seeing the universality of human experience and an enlarged perspective of families. the way these relatives of mine went through all these same experiences, though the details themselves were different. twenty plus years ago, they lived these years too. and here they are now looking back, seeing the way it all works out. seeing the way it worked out so perfectly, filled with love and light and goodness. filled in a way so perfect, anything else is unimaginable.

and now they're a part of my beautiful extended family, with a delightfully prosaic and snarkily charming family of their own. beautifully real relationships. because that's what it's really like as life comes to be, as life finally works out. it just is.

and back in february, i was struggling to see that.

struggling to see anything ever moving forward.

struggling to see how life ever falls together.

but now i know.

it always does.

i can't tell if each part is near or far.

i don't know all the when's or how's or who's.

i only know some.

but i know enough to know--it's there.

even now, just one month later.

my life. the destiny of my life.

all is falling together, and all will fall together.

it always is.

i've searched high and low. 

and the lost is being found.

hold onto hope.

because hope is always (eventually) filled.

if nothing else, given an answer of some kind.

filled with perspective.

because two months really isn't that long.

and neither is one.

( 31 days 

until my finals are through.

but who's counting? )

what a woman.

of ukrainian and russian women.
of the moments i've shared with the russian woman's soul this week.

- - -

i wrote the following for my mother's birthday (8 september) while i was still away in ukraine:

my mother could be a ukrainian woman.

   the ways my mother could be a ukrainian woman? countless, really. people always tell me i look more like a ukrainian than anything else, disbelieving when i tell them there's not a drop of ukrainian blood that i'm aware of within me. but maybe i was wrong all along. maybe it's the product of my mother--a genuine ukrainian woman.
   what exactly is a ukrainian woman, then? who is she? she is one who gives everything away. her own dreams or desires are laid aside as she gives all that she is to holding together all that she holds dear in any way she knows how. she's the woman that rises early, marching through snow and ice to work. working all the day, because somehow they must live. she's the woman who turns with kindness to others, though always keeping a guard. the woman whose thoughts are forever preoccupied with everyone but herself. she's the woman who returns home late in the evening--feet, body, and mind exhausted from the long day that makes up every day--and yet on the path homeward she still stops at the store to pick up the things her family needs. she's the woman who frequently has little to no support and hardly anything for herself. her children love, but in childhood are oblivious to all that she does. and her husband? i suppose you could say there's a little variety in them--if he's present at all. though even then. rarely is he in between-usually hot or cold. a loving and soft-hearted family man or one who spends his time with a bottle of vodka--stumbling home eventually in the condition of a needy child, though claiming power still as the scientifically speaking man of the house. the woman, though. she carries everything on her back. it's the women that keep this country alive. any strength this country has is founded in the strong shoulders and weary legs of the babushkas that spot this land. they do the dirty work, they keep the faith alive. all the while, taking care of and dutifully defending all loved ones. these women epitomize strength: tough, and yet sensitive. the rock of a nation.
   who is my mother? she peacefully bears all burdens placed upon her. she gives every part of herself to the welfare of those she loves. rarely, if ever, does she have any moment that is her own--only in small, occasional pockets. despite exhaustion, she trudges forward. despite having nothing left to give, she gives a little bit more. just to see her children smile. to bring them peace and shelter them to whatever possible extent from the darkness or hardships that exist. my mother gives her whole heart--keeping faith and teaching by the means of love unfeigned.
   my mother could be a ukrainian woman: the strongest woman there is.

(written august 2013.)

- - -

in one of my russian literature classes, we're reading works from the 20th century. just recently we finished the revolutionary works and are moving into the works written during and about the great terror and purges of the 1930s. just this week, the first works in either this semester or last semester (19th or 20th century) written by a woman: anna akhmatova. and then. nadezhda mandelstam.

these women, though.

they suffered so profoundly and yet carried on.

i am in awe of them.

complete awe.

speechless with lack of words to describe them or my experience with them.

anna akhmatova.

she and i had a moment the other day. 

i was reading her requiem.

(i'll write even more on this soon, in honor of upcoming eastertime.)

and.

words don't exist to express the depth of soul within her words.

the raw emotion--depth of grief together with numbness of frozen feeling.

giving voice, no matter how hard they tried to hush her.

everything was taken from her, one by one loved ones arrested, sentenced, killed.

but she remained with her country, refusing to run away.

not only that, but maintained a certain hope--a hope in resurrection, a hope in new life.

and so she wrote of truth and wrote in rawness.

she wrote her story, and the story of so many women.

she wrote of the unintended friends--these women standing together.

standing in lines outside prisons, seeking any sort of news, though often being told nothing at all.

(like unto what is described also by lidia chukovskaya in sofia petrovna.)

these women who held onto hope, because there was nothing else to hold.

she wrote the story of the grief of a nation, 

ripping through every family in some form or another.

and nadya. oh, nadya.

nadezhda mandelshtam.

she and i had a moment tonight.

this feisty, snarky, beautiful woman.

her husband, the poet osip mandelshtam, died in transit to the camps in 1938.

fearing putting pen to paper, she memorized his poems.

and she lived.

writing of hope, and hope abandoned.

it's only fitting, isn't it, that her name itself means hope? 

надежда. // nadezhda.

in her memoirs, she tells the story of a bull.

a bull being led to a slaughterhouse versus a man submissive to the inevitable.

it goes like this: 

When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair.

(the word in russian used here for despicable more directly means dirty, filthy, or grimy.

and the word for despair more directly translates to hopelessness.

the filthy feeling of hopelessness.) 

and so she wonders--is it needful to howl, when being beaten and stomped down?

or is it better to stiffen in pride?

she decides, it is better to scream.

because even if you don't know where that scream will go,

even from soundproof cells,

by that cry, a person leaves a trace and sends a message of how he/she lived and died.

even if nothing else remains, one must scream.

I decided it is better to scream. (...) Silence is the real crime against humanity.

and the translation of any of their words doesn't nearly do justice the depth of feeling.

but these works.

something different in these from what we have heretofore read--the works of the men.

don't get me wrong, we have read some stunning pieces. 

the men have talent as well and write stunning things.

but these women.

there's a certain spirit within them--a character that oozes from between each line.

these words written not only to declare the raw truth of what they have seen,

but for all those who suffered similarly across their innocent trampled nation.

for the women they represent.

for who they are.

i am in awe.

in awe of the soul of the russian/ukrainian woman.

(for they are of the same blood.)

something different in these women--the women of the last wagon.

women who are not praised enough.

these people--men and women alike--there's something different in them.

an indescribable something in their character, this special kind of strength.

as evgeni zamyatin said (rough translation),

the russian person has needed and must have especially strong ribs and thick skin

in order to not be crushed by the heaviness of that unprecedented load,

which history has thrown upon his/her shoulders.

there's something special in their souls.

something important and impenetrable.

these people who are not praised enough.

i for one, will be praising them forever.

not because they are perfect,

but because they are imperfect.

because of their tenacity.

because of the way they are never disingenuine,

but rather unabashedly sincere at all times.

a people to be praised.

- - -

for past additional thoughts on women//ukrainian women:

можно зайтй сюда.