African Elephants (Prompt #3)

You would think after getting a mockingbird tattoo last week that I would want to talk about mockingbirds. I got the tattoo because To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book. If I could write at least one book as eloquently and as poignant as Harper Lee did, my life would be complete. I did do a little bit of research about mockingbirds because I thought if it's going to be on my body permanently I should know more than I do about them. They sing...a lot. That's their personality. They also harass other birds who come into their territory.

I am a mockingbird.

A few weeks ago I did something that I vowed years ago that I would never do, I went to a zoo. I am a vegetarian, at least 95% of the time--working up to 100%. Mostly, I am vegetarian for health reasons, meat makes me sick. However, I do believe in animal rights and I believe zoos are damaging to animals and takes away from their inherent natural right of freedom. When we went to Hogle Zoo and came to the African Elephant and the newest baby African Elephant I was face to face with my hypocrisy. I have never seen an animal look so depressed. They were thin and sad. I turned to my mom almost in tears and stated my feelings and she agreed.

I will never go to a zoo again.

I did my research on African elephants.

African elephants are the largest land animals, even bigger than their relatives, Asian elephants. Their ears, although used as a cooling device, are shaped like the continent of Africa. The trunk is used for many things such as: smelling, breathing, drinking, communicating, eating and grabbing things. There are approximately 100,000 muscles in the trunk alone.

Like me, African elephants are vegetarians and as big as a house;) They also, don't sleep a lot--they are looking for food, while I am just sick from the food that I ate. African elephants are not easily domesticated, so why are they in a zoo again? In the wild they are able to live up to 70 years old.

I have always been fascinated with elephants. Perhaps, because they are so tall and I am so little (I'm 5'1", don't judge:) Perhaps, it's because of the saying, "An elephant never forgets." I always wanted to be an elephant with a great memory, forgetting nothing, you win a lot of arguments that way. You also lose a lot of boyfriends. Or maybe it is because as a child I remember feeling so sad for the elephants who were killed for their tusks that are made of ivory. I remember being truly devastated when I learned about this. Men killing, stealing from another animal the beauty that he/she possessed because it could be sold.

As a woman, I feel that I have been objectified for the beauty that appears on the outside. This objectification has felt, at times, that something within me has died. The African elephant is on the threatened list, which means that it is an endangered species. Women are objectified daily. We have to fight to keep our spirits from becoming extinct. I was drawn to the African elephant for a reason.

I am an African elephant.

Who Am I (Place #3)

It's hot. Summer has finally arrived. It is Wednesday, July 6th, 5:50 p.m. I'm sitting under my tree and wishing that the mountains to my east that are still covered in snow mind you, would send some of that cool air my way. Today is the first day, to me, that it felt like a Utah summer day. I mean, Snowbird (snowboarding/ski resort) didn't even close til yesterday. The 4th was the last day it was open. It is never open that late because Utah's weather quickly changes from winter to summer. This year is the first year in a long time that we have actually had a spring. I was grateful.

I'm sitting under this tree in high 90 degree weather wondering to myself, who am I?

I came to Utah for three reasons: to write, spend to spend as much time in the mountains and nature in general as possible and to see friends and family. I feel that I am always behind on the first and unable to write about the things that I wanted to write about in the first place. If it wasn't for this class I wouldn't see the outside of my office building or my house. And because of my job and my classes my family and friends are wondering why I even came back to Utah in the first place. On the plus side, I was given a raise and more hours:/

The sun at my back, warming it. I stare across the field onto the baseball fields--there are games going on. There are always games going on. There are games of Ultimate Frisbee going on as well. I wonder if people are watching me the way that I am watching them. I wonder if they feel sorry for me because I am all alone, without a team. Just me and my thoughts. I like being alone with my thoughts...most of the time.

Casey asked me the other day if I was going to move back to Utah after grad school. I told him I didn't know. He then asked me if I wasn't going to come back to Utah because I would feel like I failed. I told him no. There are many reasons why I would love to come back to Utah, the main reasons being: my family/friends, the geography, the weather/seasons and it feels like home to me. At least it used to. The reasons that I wouldn't want to move back to Utah: because it feels small to me now, if I ever want to get married I couldn't live here because I have dated everyone here (at least that's how it feels) and I don't know if my writing would flourish here. I feel more confused than ever and I hate admitting that at 29.

When I am in Pittsburgh I feel that I am free to be me or at least who I think that I am. I feel that I do not have to be fake or walk on egg shells with what I am saying or believing. When I come back to Utah I have to watch what I say because this person is friends with this person and blah blah blah. I feel that I am constantly telling my family that I do not love them any less because of my beliefs. I want to please everyone, including myself, and I feel that I am failing miserably at times.

I just want to figure out who I am and what I want once and for all so that way I will not be swayed or pulled in directions that I don't want to go. I feel that I should have had this figured out before now, but I guess now is as good a time as any. I want to be firm as my mountains. They are beautifully solid.

I will become a mountain.

My Refuge (Prompt Entry #2)

As many of know, or have figured out, I love Terry Tempest Williams. To say that I admire her work would be an understatement. When I saw the prompt for "this" week (this is in quotes because I am obviously writing this after the week in which is was supposed to be written) I was intimidated. All that was running through my mind was Refuge and needless to say, I was greatly intimidated. I wanted to write something that would evoke everyone who read it to say, "that sounds a lot like TTW." I thought about it all week and the more I thought about it the more I psyched myself out. There is no way I can write like TTW. She is so lyrical and wise in her writing. My tone is very conversational. Although music plays a very big part of my life, my writing lacks a definite rhythm. So, I just have to do it. Besides the fact that my grade depends on it, it is a great exercise. So... here it goes.

God's country. Isolation and a landscape of grit were just what the Mormons were looking for. A land that no one else wanted meant religious freedom and community-building without persecution. It was an environment perfectly suited for a people unafraid of what only their hands could yield. They were a people motivated by the dream of Zion. They had found their Dead Sea and the River Jordan. The Great Basin desert was familiar to them if not by sight, at least by story. Refuge--Terry Tempest Williams

My single mother moved her and her six children to Utah when I was 5 years old. It was to get away from her own battle with persecution and to make a better life for herself and her children. We were not a rich family by any means and so we spent a lot of our time in the Wasatch Mountains. Depending on which hike you wanted to go on you could be hiking within 5 minutes. It was wonderful to have mountains so close to us. They grounded me. They gave me direction. We had many picnics, parties and cookouts in these mountains. When I began driving these mountains were where I came with friends when ditching school or for a night of ghost stories. They also became my place for solace and to think.

Mormons believe that our first prophet, Joseph Smith, saw God and His son, Jesus Christ, in the Sacred Grove. It was in nature. I was raised with this belief. I was also raised with the belief of Mother Nature and of a Heavenly Mother. To me it makes sense that Heavenly Mother was there in the Sacred Grove, even if she wasn't seen. These beliefs instilled in me at such a young age made the idea of God being in nature, natural. The idea that I could be closer to God in nature was just a given.

Because God is in nature, He is in my mountains. He was there when my sister and I would go for our morning runs through the trails behind the Bountiful Temple. He was there when I learned how to cross country ski. He was there when I was walking an unknown trail by myself, lost in contemplation of whether or not Pittsburgh was where I was supposed to go to school.

He was in the creeks and the leaves. He was in the earth and flowers. He was in the roots and the rocks. He was in the Aspen and the Ponderosa Pines. He was there.

My involvement with the Mormon Church has been like the mountains that I grew up in, filled with ridges and peaks, hidden trails and shallow creek beds. Whether I am active or not, what no one seems to understand, no matter how hard I try to explain, is that just like God and Nature have always been there for me--never leaving me, I too, have never and will never leave them. I will always believe in God and I will always believe in Nature. My family doesn't understand that I can still believe in God without going to church. It is hard for them to believe that I still believe, almost as hard to believe that a 14 year old boy saw God and His Son. My mom worries that I am missing out on blessings that I would be receiving if I only would come back to church. I believe that I am blessed everyday that I get to wake up and see snow capped mountains outside of my window. I have found answers to questions when abiding in Nature, in my mountains. I have felt loved, of worth. I have felt a call to fight for Nature and her life. I am pulled to Nature and I do not think it is a coincidence. I have found my spirituality through Nature.

For The Beauty Of The Earth Hymn

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
Pleasures pure and undefiled,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heaven,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

For thy Church which evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.