through the tangled thread

Reasons I love Utah right now:

-it doesn't seem like the real world. it seems like we're suspended in our own little Stepford-esque environment. sometimes this can be frustrating, but sometimes it's a nice break from reality. provo isn't a bustling city. even though there are plenty of people trying to get to plenty of places, it still has a bit of a small-town feel. again, sometimes this isn't my favorite, but today it is.

-last night I went longboarding in the freezing, windy rain {which is actually my idea of a good time. anything that involves rain is great}. churches on every corner = plenty of parking lots to carve it up.

[and in a momentary lapse in judgment i grabbed alyssa's st. patrick's day socks to wear with my hawaiian vans. the good news is that i looked as awesome as i felt.]

-the hikes are breathtaking. no, literally. the elevation and the dry air make it a good lung workout, every time.which means that when i leave provo [elevation 4549 feet] and go back to texas [elevation 3256 ft] it will be easier to breathe.[right?!]

 

-even when it's hot during the day it cools off at night, making morning hikes actually enjoyable

-provo is, in fact, laid out in a grid system. for those not familiar with utah natives, they insist that their roads are easier to navigate. yet i still frequently got lost, though theoretically it should be simpler for me to find my way around. the grid system is just set up diagonal to the mountain and lies a little haphazardly next to orem. this is the key to not getting lost--that and knowing the difference between university avenue and university parkway. after spending the first three months getting lost [and throwing other people off by mixing up these two roads], i finally know where i'm going.

- there are parks EVERYWHERE. which means i can go outside and watch non-cancerous ducks swim in ponds and polynesian dads chase their beautiful brown babies [in a non creepy way of course] and play soccer and watch the sun rise and set while i swing on the swings that i steal from children

 [lindsey and i tried to teach alyssa to play soccer while a creepy man walked around with a guitar being creepy]

-utah grass isn't as scratchy as florida grass, even when it's dying/dead, supporting my barefooted-ness

-UTA. it's more like a european public transit system than one in south florida, meaning i've overcome my fear of buses. hello asians wearing matching sneakers and grown adult men with lapdogs. it also means i can stop by my sister's apartment when she's not there and rearrange her furniture, which i've done on several occasions.

-i'm close enough to take some flowers to jada periodically. [thanks to lindsey and bixby] i always try to find the brightest flowers to offset the gloomy atmosphere that is almost always present in the cemetery, especially when it's covered by gloomy skies.

 -the temple. at night, at noon, at sunrise, all hours of the day. i love the spacious green field that lies in front of it, making the white even brighter. i love the sidewalk that's lined with trees that finally produced purple blossoms. i love that there's a little forest in the corner of the field, perfect for lying down, for thinking, for resolving, for planning. i love the iron fence surrounding the mtc. one day in a state of distress i walked from alyssa's apartment to the mtc wearing just socks [that ended up with several holes in them] and sat against the fence for an hour. the view from there is gorgeous, the temple and the mountains complimenting each other equally. clearly i spent a lot of time there.

 -utah sunsets, if you can get up high enough to see the lake

-utah has a B street :)

 -my cousins house. these cousins lived in florida for the majority of my childhood, so everything here--from the red koolaid to the seashell decorations--reminds me of home. we slept out on the trampoline one night, which is absolutely a florida tradition

 

[retrieving the sleeping bags]

cara was temporarily possessed by the devil, despite alyssa's ghostbusters shirt

we woke up to the most beautiful sky i've seen in a while: 

[and yes, i literally woke up, saw the sky, grabbed my phone, and took a picture]

which leads me to the next thing i'm loving right now:

-the weather here is even less predictable than in florida; in florida your choices are warm and sunny or warm and rainy, and it vacillates almost hourly. in utah it can be ninety degrees and sunny one day, and forty degrees and rainy the next. which means that it's imperative to lay out in the sun while you can, because there may be snow the next day. 

it's finally gotten overcast and rainy lately. and if i can't have a sunny beach, a rainy day is my next choice.

the overcast sky coupled with the mountains on every side makes the whole valley seem a little smaller and cozier, as though if you were to listen carefully you could hear everyone quietly bustling about their rainy day business.

mmm it's so wonderful! last night [you know, when i was longboarding in my mismatched getup] it was so windy. it was straight up hurricane weather, which brought me indescribable happiness. this morning i went outside and surveyed the debris as though there'd been a natural disaster.

and while natural disasters might not be everyone's thing, it seriously makes my heart skip with joy. 

-the housing layouts don't seem to be intentional. there are huge mansions next to tiny houses, chicken coops and farming fields in peoples' backyards, houses built halfway underground--you never know what you're going to see next

 - i love that utah has cast off its perpetual coldness. i love that it's sunny now, that there's green grass and creeks and people running and streaks of colorful flowers accentuating everything

-the sunlight is really golden here. it tints the sky and the trees and the grass differently than anywhere else.

 -i love that i can sit and write in a tree house. it doesn't get much better than that.

[Title from I'm Asking Her to Stay by Sherwood]

there is no tomorrow

Okay first of all can we talk about how Chelsea just came from nowhere and beat Barcelona? I'm impressed.

Also I forgot how good it feels to NOT have to go to class/study/do homework. It is absolutely fabulous. And now I'm doing exciting things like reading for pleasure, taking naps, cooking real meals, and creating a summer bucket list. How fantastic.

Last weekend I went to Cedar City for probably the sixth time in the past two months.

It's a three hour drive each way and, if we're being honest, I usually have high anxiety the whole drive; most especially when the wind sways the car or we get to close to semis. I'm still working on being calm on highways. Ha.

Cedar has served as my surrogate home for the past few months, always offering Sunday dinners with Lindsey's family and a reminder of what real houses are like and what real people do outside of college. We rarely get any homework done, opting instead to do things that make us feel like legitimate college kids. Things like longboarding uphill holding onto a car, scaling walls that were meant to keep us out,  and playing foosball/air hockey/ping pong. 

Most recently we made a video in which Alyssa was a boy and I was mostly bent over in laughter in every scene. If I'm lucky the video will never be publicized.

 We spent Saturday riding a four wheeler and a dirtbike, the latter of which presented significant challenges for me, both mental and physical.

I'm not proud of it, but I'm terrified of anything that has a clutch (because I can't commandeer them the way normal humans can), especially when it weighs more than I do. And I know it doesn't look it, but that thing is heavy. Which means that dirt bikes are a dangerous combination. After killing it once or twice and sucking up my anxiety I finally learned to ride it {and even got all the way up to 4th gear!} I was STOKED.

We were feeling pretty cool jumping these little baby hills until some kid who couldn't have been more than nine or ten came and totally showed us up and we mentally demoted ourselves back to ameteur status.

 

It's about a mile ride up into the mountains to get to an open clearing, and getting there is half the fun. The paths are uneven and rocky and sometimes have huge ditches running across them. When I was riding the dirtbike I'd try to coax myself into going faster, telling myself that it's not that scary/dangerous, that everyone else could do it so I should have no trouble. I'd finally talk myself into speeding up only to reach a stretch that was a steep climb covered in boulders or one that held a huge chasm that I'd have to jump. I'd get scared and slow almost to a stop to navigate the pass, then speed up again. I was near the end when I decided to man up and start speeding up at the difficult parts in an effort to catch up with the girls. And I still didn't die!

 

 The afternoon was gorgeous; warm weather coupled with rushes of adrenaline and a little bit of fishtailing. Gorgeous. We came home with some dirt in our hair a few new bruises, but not any worse for the wear.

After the sun set we coerced Lindsey's brother into starting a fire and we made s'mores and watched Lindsey's dog chase the escaping sparks relentlessly.

We headed back Sunday afternoon and it was actually hot outside, which was a little weird. I mean, Lindsey thought it was really weird.

Seriously guys. She's great. And Cedar is lovely. The end.

[Title from Friday is Forever by We the Kings]