Santa Fe, are you there? Do you swear you won’t forget me?

For a quick note, I’m currently in Santa Fe, NM (though I’m heading out of town in about an hour).  It may be the loveliest place I’ve ever visited.  Or, at least, the loveliest city.  To be honest, I don’t particularly want to leave.

The biggest reason that I decided to come up here–it is, after all, about 2 hours out of my way–was the Georgia O’Keefe museum.  I’ve enjoyed her work since we first learned about her in elementary art classes, though I really fell in love with her work during my American Art class sophomore year of college.  I also rather enjoyed Alfred Steiglitz’s work, which I studied again in my Photography class last fall.  After all spending so much time in art museums in Europe, I’ve come to enjoy American art even more.  So of course the O’Keefe museum sounded fantastic.

The truly fantastic part though, which I didn’t know until I got there, was that the current exhibit is “Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities”.  Y’all.  O’Keefe and Adams are my two loves.  Far and away my favorites.  They encapsulate everything that I love about painting and photography.  They are the reasons that I started painting and taking photos.  So the museum was pretty much heaven.  I literally walked around the entire time with a huge goofy grin on my face.  I was in my own little world (though I did notice a number of strange looks being shot my way when my face would light up at particular paintings/photos).  It was awesome.

In any event, there were lovely quotes from both O’Keefe and Adams all over the walls of the museum, mainly about their approaches to art and their love for the Southwest.  And I kinda felt like the two were quoting my soul (never mind that Adams died the year before I was born and O’Keefe died the year after).  There was one in particular from O’Keefe that I felt like really captured what I often have trouble putting into words: “You know, I never feel at home in the East like I do here–and finally feeling in the right place again–I feel like myself–and I like it”.

I’ve realized (yet again) in being out here that this really is where I belong.  I simply don’t feel at home in the East like I do out here.  The East doesn’t speak to me like the Southwest does.  It doesn’t understand me like the Southwest does.  It doesn’t beckon me to stay like the Southwest does.  It’s a wonder to me that I’ve been able to spend as much time in the East as I have.  I keep complaining that at some point I’ll have to go back east to go to div school, because there really aren’t any div schools–or at least of the calliber that I’d like to attend–out west.  But part of me wonders if maybe I’ve bought into the mindset and the lifestyle of the East, if maybe I’d never want to go to that kind of school if I hadn’t grown up and been educated in the East.

Part of me wonders if perhaps I’m out here for good.  And at least for now, nothing would make me happier.

A myriad of things…

Ok, so perhaps not precisely a myriad, but that sounded much better than “multiple” or “a few”.

 

For those of you all who hadn’t heard yet, I am no longer living in Memphis.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  I am in Memphis right now, but only for the next week.  And then I head out to Arizona, where I’m going to work at the Grand Canyon again.  Everyone seems to think I’m exaggerating when I say that I have an ongoing-impossible-to-break-off-no-matter-how-hard-I-try love affair with Arizona…but I’m really not!  I’m more or less going to be out there indefinitely…I have a tentative plan to leave in March/April and move back to Raleigh…but I may not actually do that.  We’ll see where life takes me!

 

But on to other things. 

 

First of all, my best friend is an incredible singer/songwriter.  I mean, we’ve been friends for 12 years, and she’s been making music since before we met, and I’m still constantly in awe of her.  What I wouldn’t give to write/sing/play like her!  She recorded an EP this spring called Silver Living.  And it’s awesome.  So go check out her myspace: www.myspace.com/jessicalongsilverlining.  You will not regret it!  I swear! (Also, the song Attic was recorded on her computer after the EP, which is why the sound quality is not so hot…but the song is great!)

 

Second of all.  I still get some mail at my parents house, which they collect and give me whenever I visit.  I was there earlier in the month, and among other random pieces of mail was a copy of Boundless.  I have no idea where that came from.  I sure as hell didn’t request it (as evidenced by the fact that it was addressed to Katie…and, you know, the fact that it was Boundless!).  But I was bored one evening, so I picked it up and gave it a look through.  It made me want to slit my wrists.  Ok, that might be a bit extreme.  But seriously, it was pretty depressing.

I now understand that it’s a magazine specifically for singles, but the tagline on the cover of the magazine said “a magazine for 20-somethings”.  The entire thing was filled with articles about making the most of being single, being single in your mid-20’s when you thought you’d be married, accepting help from parents on picking a mate, preparing for a solid biblical marriage, etc.  I know I already said this, but it really made me want to hurt myself.

I know that singleness sucks sometimes.  It sucks more for some people than others (like the people who want nothing more than to be married and have kids…I have all kinds of thoughts on those people, but I’ll save that for another day).  But I felt like I was reading about a disease.  One that’s virtually incurable.  One that consumes the every thought of 20-something’s everywhere.

I guess that’s what really bugged me about it.  It claimed to be a magazine for 20-somethings, but it was entirely about relationships—most notably, the lack thereof.  Is that really all that 20-something’s care about?  I know that I, for one, care about quite a bit more than my relationship status.  To be sure, I’d like to get married and have a family someday, and I wouldn’t mind if it were sooner rather than later, but in the meantime I’d prefer to pour myself into other endeavors, things that actually mean something.  Like art, or friendships, or service, or ministry, or writing, or traveling, or just plain being me and being happy with that.  I’d rather not spend every minute of the prime of my life bemoaning my lack of a significant other.  But maybe that’s just me…

Cabbages and kings…

I find it a little amusing that I wrote in my last post (so long ago, my apologies!) that I expected my interest in fundamentalist Mormon literature to continue into this year.  I actually had absolutely no idea at the time that very topic would become my senior paper.  It actually baffles me that the culmination of my undergraduate education is a paper about sex and violence in fundamentalist Mormon polygamy.  Because I’m actually breaking the rules and not writing my paper on a topic with which I’ve done previous study.  I’m also breaking the rules by writing on a topic with which no faculty in my department has any familiarity.  Ooops.  Imagine that, me ignoring the rules and doing what I want (I may or may not feel pretty awesome doing original scholarship…which in other departments at Rhodes isn’t that big of a deal, but in the RS department, it kinda is).

In any event, it’s pretty fascinating.  And rather depressing.  However, it ties in well with my two other classes this semester: Feminist Theology and Violence and the Bible.  All that to say, my semester essentially consists of reading about rape and sexual assault.  I assure you, it’s good times.

I am, however, no closer to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  I believe I’m just about to the point where it really doesn’t bother me…but not quite.  I’m a little anxious about not getting into seminary (I’ve learned to not be so sensitive about using that word, especially since my top choice is now a seminary and not a divinity school).  Because if I don’t get in anywhere, I need to really start thinking about where my life is going and how I might steer it in that general direction.  Regardless, I still very much have a job in the Canyon this fall.  Which puts me in a much better position than most of my comrades here.  Except, of course, my friend Matthew, who’s gotten into every seminary to which he’s heard back from, got a full ride to one of them, and was asked to apply for the premiere scholarship at his top choice.

It’s all very strange that this is the end.  I’m pretty sure I won’t really start believing it until September or so.  Which will be a little bittersweet, seeing as the past two September’s I’ve just wanted to leave school and go back to the Canyon.  But I’m sure that this September I’ll want to not go to the Canyon and instead go back to school.  But I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing.  Anyone who knew me in high school can tell you that I was miserable pretty much the whole time.  Some people are made for high school; I was most certainly not.  I was very bad at high school.  And I was entirely too self-aware for my own good.  But my last semester of high school was great.  College is turning out the same way.  And I’m ok with that.

Emotional attachment is really not a threat…

I have the tendancy to create really odd emotional attachments to random objects.  I’ve been this way as long as I can remember.  It’s pretty much the primary reason I’m a pack rat and never throw anything away.  And even if I don’t have an emotional attachment to something I’m about to throw away, I’m able to instantaneously create and keep from getting rid of it.  Roommates and parents love this quality of mine, let me tell you.

 It should be of no surprise to anyone who knows me that I have extreme emotional attachments to two guitar picks.  One of them I borrowed/stole this summer from my friend Peter.  It’s just generally a fun pick, and I used it when we recorded the guitar for Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.  So it has definite good memories.  And reminders of Peter are good things.  Yay.

 The other one was given to me by an old friend.  And by old friend, I mean someone who used to be a friend, but is no longer.  It’s not particularly a happy story.  And while there are certain parts of our friendship worth remembering, it’s tough to recall the good while ignoring the pain.  So I generally try to downplay the former existence of that friendship.  Except…I love that guitar pick fiercely.  It’s the only remaining physical reminder of that friendship.  And while it did end badly, I so love having a reminder of how wonderful it was.  I don’t often use the pick, mostly because it’s starting to chip, but I see it a lot.  Just about every time I play, I have to consciously choose between that pick and Peter’s pick.  Peter’s generally wins, more out of protection for the other pick than the victory of his.

The thing is, as much as I leave that pick alone…I can’t lose it for the life of me.  I’ve tried.  Many times.  Granted, none of them purposefully.  But I’ve tried none the less.  I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been utterly convinced that I lost it.  And it always makes me die a bit inside.  My heart sinks and I just don’t have the verbal capacity to fully realize what I’ve lost.  But it always shows up again. 

I chose to use it this week to play the double-necked dulcimer that I built for my Physics of Sound and Music class.  And after presenting the project on Friday afternoon, I stuck the pick in the front pocket of my bag, along with my phone, and headed up to the Chaplain’s office.  Along the way, my phone fell out of my bag.  When I got up to the office, I reached in for the pick, and it wasn’t there.  I nearly lost it.  The topic of this former friendship had come up several times over the past week, so all of it was at the forefront of my mind.  But after about half an hour,  I came to terms and accepted the fact that it was gone.  And that it was good to have it out of my life.  I’ve had a hell of a time moving past that friendship, and maybe I just really needed to get rid of that pick.  Maybe getting rid of all reminders of the friendship was what I needed.  Good for me for losing it, because I’d never get rid of it on my own.

And then I found it today.  Despite knowing that it was gone forever.  And I’m not one to read into things as signs from God…actually, scratch that.  I absolutely am.  In any event, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason this pick keeps showing up, after countless instances of having no hope, nor attempting to make it ever show up again.