revamped

So we have to have a blog for my technology for education class, and i remembered that I still have this one, though horribly mistreated and forgotten. I don't really know what I'm going to write about, or when, but at least I've started.

Here we go..

Reflections

Two houses down the Card’s were doing renovation on their house and the workers left a big hole in the backyard. Brian Card’s parents said that the kids were not allowed to play in the hole but we were allowed to play on the huge pile of dirt out in the front yard. This was no ordinary pile of dirt; this thing was bigger than the biggest kid in the neighborhood, bigger than my dad even. The thing was beautiful, one of the best things that had happened to me in my five years of life. We could play on the pile for hours, and we could play for days if our parents would let us. Kids would come from all over the neighborhood to play on our dirt pile. The Cards’ were celebrities.

The dirt pile represented an era in my life; an era of self-discovery, and adventure. We scaled mountains, and survived avalanches; we gave thought-provoking speeches atop the pile. We found dinosaur bones and Indian arrowheads. We played so many different games. I would wake up every morning thinking about the adventures that I would have that day. I would wonder about what I would find. One time I found a rock that was in the shape of a heart. It was perfectly smooth and symmetrical; there was no flaw to be found. I had found a treasure, and I could not show anybody else because they might claim it as their own. I slipped it into my pocket and later that night I washed it in the sink and kept my prize on my nightstand for years. When we moved away from our Utah home, my mom made me leave the stone behind. I remember being so upset because it had become to mean so much to me over the years. It was just a small thing, but I saw it holding some significance to me and leaving it behind was an awful lot from me. I did leave it behind though. I dug a hole in the yard and buried my heart-shaped rock in the earth so no other kid would find it.

Another time, Brian Card’s dad tied a rope to the tree next to the dirt pile. The knots that he tied in the rope for us to stand on were genius. Brain was Indiana Jones and my brother was the Bad Guy, and I was the Princess, but we all took turns being Indiana Jones because we wanted to swing onto the dirt pile from the rope. Our make-believe consisted of only the parts where he would swing into the battle and rescue me. We did not trifle with the unimportant filler stories, only the action mattered. After we had exhausted all of our Indiana Jones stories we would make up jungle scenarios, we would try anything once, as long as we got to swing onto the big pile of dirt. We leapt from remote country to remote country. We even made up countries and cultures, because we could not be Indiana Jones in Utah. He was too exotic for Utah. One time while were playing my brother fell and that was the end of our rope adventures. Brian and I were so upset with him. We tried to get him to act like a big kid. We begged him not to run home because we knew that if he did we would not be able to play with it anymore. My brother’s boo-boos and pride made him run to my mother, and things came to pass exactly as we had predicted. The rope came down.

I remember one day there was a different kind of excitement in the neighborhood. A space shuttle was scheduled to lift-off that afternoon and my mom told me that we would be able to see it. I was not particularly interested in space, but my mom’s excitement was contagious. The kids gathered to our mountain of dirt and we impatiently waited for the shuttle. Although I was interested in seeing it, I quickly became distracted by a big beetle fighting its way over the rocky terrain. The screams and shouts of my friends pulled me back and I looked up to see the small, white shuttle pass overhead and I saw the cloud that it left behind. There were actual people in that thing! We waved and jumped trying to get their attention, trying to get them to acknowledge the crazy kids on the dirt pile. Once it disappeared I realized that those people were going to the moon. They were going somewhere other than the earth. I realized that there were other places out there other than my big dirt pile.

My five-year-old mind was blown away. That day I realized that the world was bigger than the block that I lived on. There were things going on, other kids playing on a similar dirt pile somewhere else, maybe space kids playing on moon dirt. There were other kids swinging from ropes and playing pretend. There were other kids going through the same things I was. There were other kids starting school and learning how to read. It helped put things into perspective. The space shuttle helped me categorize what was important versus things that were more trivial. I was still five years old, so trivial things like heart-shaped rocks were still important, but in my young mind I started to mature. The space shuttle captured my attention and the memory and my realization has stuck with me through all of these years. The idea that there were kids somewhere else just like me was one of the most important realizations that I have ever had. It became easy for me to visualize and identify with other people. I felt a connection to the other faceless kids looking up, open-mouthed, at the space shuttle. The world always seemed so big to me, but after I shared that moment with people from all over, far-away places seemed tangible and important. I began to care about people I could not see because I started to realize they were just like me. The space shuttle and my dirt pile made me a world citizen. I became part of a whole, something bigger and more important.

Today I still value my open-mindedness. I care about other people and what is going on with them. I watch the news and care about world issues. Even if I cannot do anything about the problems in the world I can still feel for the people involved. I do not think that my experience watching the shuttle go into space made me see the world in a different light. I do not think that my five-year-old personality was drastically altered that day, but I do think that standing atop my dirt pile staring up at the big sky was the beginning of everything. My experience fourteen years ago was definitely the platform for the way I look at the world today.

personal sketch

It is hard to distill my entire life into a few short paragraphs. I have never reflected on my personal experiences and landed upon the conclusion that I am one specific thing. I would identify myself as a Latter-day Saint above all others, but there are so many facets of my personality and so many experiences that I have gone through that add some pages to my diary, I could categorize myself as an actress or a student but those are not unique qualities either. What sets me apart from other others is how I define myself. I do not define myself by the trials I have overcome or the events I have experienced but rather what I want to become.

I want to be a mother. I want the same life that my mother leads. I want to drive my children to ballet, soccer, piano lessons, and to the pool. I want to be PTA president at the elementary school and make costumes for them for Halloween. I want to wake up every morning to my children calling my name and cartoons on TV. Being a mother is the most fulfilling thing I can do. To see the love in my children’s eyes, and the curiosity they have in everything. I want to sit on the grass outside of our home as the sun sets in the first days of the humid, southern summer, and have them run up to me and show me the fireflies they have captured. I want to watch that wonderment grow and evolve into intelligence. I want to watch as they grow into teenagers and laugh at their attitudes, and then from teenagers to adults with families of their own. I want to face the challenges of being a mother; I look forward to every aspect of having children, even the unglamorous things; changing diapers, the teenage-angst, the worry about where they are headed in life. I look forward to it all.

After my role as a mother has been complete I want to live a quiet life with my husband. Sitting in a wooden porch swing watching the fireflies that my children were so excited to chase, all the while holding his hand. When I die I want people to say that I led a good life and to say that I stood for something and held fast to my beliefs. I want to people to be able to celebrate my life when I pass away. I want to leave behind a legacy of quiet gentleness, laughter, and service. I want my passing to be an opportunity for family and friends to get together and to laugh and reminisce over potato salad and fried chicken; I do not want it to be a time of mourning. The quiet, shady, warm plot of dirt will be a symbol of who I am, not who I was.

Another way I define myself is by my goals. One major life goal to touch someone’s life by my actions and by the way I live. I have never had a strong desire to save the world. I have never had the inclination that I was destined to be of any importance to great masses of people. The life I would like to lead is one like my mother’s life, she helps in any way she can and loves to be involved. She quietly steps in and offers her talents and makes a difference in peoples’ lives. I would like to have that same quiet power. I want to influence someone to make the right decision, whether it be my children or some acquaintance. I want to be the example for somebody, I want to be the one someone can lean on it times of trial.

The things that have made who I am today are actually those events in the future. I am living my life the way I am now so I will be prepared for what I will become. I could identify myself by my hobbies that I am involved with now, but those enjoyments are not cemented down, they will fade as new delightful things take place, as more lasting things mold me into my final character.

so, i'm a bit new to this whole blogging thing. i'm actually impressed with myself that i've set it up all by myself. haha! generally, i dont have much to say, but every once in a while a thought will cross my mind. i guess i just succumbed to peer pressure and started my own blog, and i dont expect too many people will care enough to look at this, so i guess that gives me some privacy. doesnt that kind of defeat the purpose of a blog?