endings and edges

today, this very friday morning, my dear dear Kimberly A. Barnes got married.

yesterday, one year ago, 23 August 2011, I arrived in the state of Texas to begin a meandering career as a graduate student.

three months ago I was spending my evening traipsing around Sighişoara, Romania. karaoke. pudding. a bit of rain. cobblestones and amazement. three months ago? yeah.

and on tuesday I traded my fabulous assistantship at the university press for a hopefully-just-as-fabulous assistantship as a graduate instructor. my last day of work was ... it's cliche beyond cliche to say 'bittersweet,' isn't it? it wasn't quite that. it was... sinking. that preemptive nostalgia, full of whispers from your future self that say 'you're going to miss this.' there's nothing you can do about it, either. in a year from tuesday I might look back on that last day and remember in vivid detail the paper-cuts and dust and boxes. the card (it's there on my desk for me to smile at still) from Joanna and Judith. the hugs and the pouty-sad faces and the promises to visit. or maybe I won't. and in two years? five years?

five years ago this month I was learning all about being a missionary service under the completely great supervision of Sister Lara Taylor (she has a blog and her name is Johnson now). how long ago that was. how much has changed since then.

in four months it will be Christmas eve.

hm. year marks. month marks. birth days. anniversaries. friend Hannah wrote about the whole weirdness of time and its ceaseless passage recently. we are here. have been here. were once there. all this insistent keeping track.

time.

change.

weddings.

all of this stuff just keeps happening.

the two of us in this photograph--Sister Kimberly Ann Barnes and I, in the blue truck we drove around the south side of Lethbridge for 3 months, entertaining ourselves and our cameras as we waited for whomever we were meeting that chilly February morning way back in 2008--did we know what was going to happen next? not a bit.

do we now?

well. she is going to be married. and I am going to go visit her in her new place in Oklahoma City, someday soon.

and what then?

more days, more months, more anniversaries, slicing up our existence and wrapping edges around all the things that end or change or for whatever reason need to be marked. more moments, freezing and melting and re-freezing.

muffled shouts

there's a hymn. it talks about unseen wounds, and how to heal them.

wound.

unless you're talking about clocks or stress or something, the word means an injury or a casualty. some bodily harm or figurative inner pain. to hurt. to bruise. all its synonyms feel so sharp in your mouth--incision, laceration, abrasion...

how could a person be wounded and not know it? pain is one of those really hard-to-ignore sensations. it's meant to be noticed and demands to be fixed. but I suppose the hymn is talking about spiritual wounds. the kind that aren't so hard to ignore, perhaps.

but even physically, there are a billion things inside our bodies that we can hardly imagine. the inner workings of cells and blood vessels. neurons and segments of DNA. there may be wounds on such levels that are impossible to notice.

I read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake a few weeks ago. it was a very easily devoured slice of literature, but it had a weirdness to it. I'll let you go read about the weirdness for yourself, if you want, while I sit here and tell you nothing much more than you could read on the back cover about the story. it's about a girl who can taste the emotions (or lack thereof) of the people (or factories) who produced the food she eats. and it's usually the emotions people aren't completely aware of. the depression or guilt they've buried far, far beneath their normal lives. or the anger or love or neediness that's screaming silently, deep in their souls.

why do we hide things from ourselves like that? is it out of self-preservation, or something? denial, or self-delusion? do we imagine that the things we refuse to acknowledge really don't exist? or at least that they won't effect us if we can manage to ignore them?

or is it so willful at all? what if we honestly don't notice these wounds we carry? what if these missing pieces in our hearts really are impossible to detect? what if it is not my fault?

a copy of The Book of Mormon. it feels rather strange not to have a copy in my hands at all times anymore. it feels rather strange not to be expected to flip open to particularly appropriate or comforting verses after every meal. it feels rather strange that instead of being carried around everywhere I go, my scriptures are sitting quietly next to my bed in their case. I wonder if they feel abandoned.

I don't often speak of my religion here. this is not the place for it, I decided. it is something mine. something I know and cherish and explore in my own little world with a few fat books of scripture and commentary, a pen, a notebook, and many prayers.

and so I hope not too many of you will be disappointed when I gloss over my last year and a half with not many details all gushed out right now upon my having been home one sluggish week. part of me is tempted to review all of my work. all of the miracles. all of my trying and triumphant experiences. photographs, scribblings, epiphanies and all. part of me needs to tell it all. write it all. justify it all.

but this is not the place for it.