Telling my own story.

I saw The Brothers Bloom this past summer, and I absolutely loved it. It's a clever, funny tale about two brothers, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), who are con artists. But they take conning to a level of art; they endeavor to create a con that is an adventure, a beautiful story in which every person involved gets what they want. They end up conning Penelope (Rachel Weisz), a rich heiress who is eccentric and naive. Directed by Rian Johnson, it's really a moving film.

What's more, is it has an absolutely brilliant soundtrack, this wonderful and dynamic mix of clarinets and electric guitars, electric organ, jazzy saxes and yearning cello solos. It's the kind of thing I can listen to over and over again (which I have been doing, almost obsessively), and almost every time I listen, I notice something different. It amazes me in some new way. I can only hope to one day create something that inspiring, delightful, and whimsical.

I loved the theme of the movie, as well: telling your own story.

Penelope, explains it well. She tells Bloom about her childhood, how her parents mistakenly thought she was allergic to everything and kept her inside their huge, sealed-off mansion. When she's around 19, they finally discover that she's not allergic, but then her mother gets sick and Penelope has to stay home to take care of her for a very long time. Bloom asks her if she feels cheated, and Penelope replies:

"The trick to not feeling cheated is learning to cheat. So, I decided this wasn't a story about a miserable girl trapped in a house that smelled like medical supplies, wasting her life on a dying person she sometimes hated. No. This was a story about a girl who could find infinite beauty in anything, any little thing. And even love the person she was trapped with. And I told myself this story until it became true.

"Now, did doing this help me escape a wasted life, or did it blind me, so I wouldn't want to escape it? I don't know. But, either way, I was the one telling my own story, so, no. I don't feel cheated at all."

I love the idea, of telling our own stories. Of taking control. Of acting, rather than being acted upon--even if all that means is getting to decide who we are in less-than-desirable circumstances.

Things are so much what we make them; life, friends, enemies, good times, bad times. They are what they are, because that is what we believe them to be. That is what we make them.

Maybe that's what hope is: holding onto the belief that their is beauty in every person, situation, and thing, if we only look for it.

Stress for stress' sake

I'm becoming Bridezilla.

Don't worry—you didn't miss anything.

I'm not engaged —

just the editor for the Bride's Guide produced here at BYU—I.

Which is pretty ironic, considering that the part I dread most about the possibility of one day getting hitched is the whole wedding fiasco.

I could care less about flowers or cakes or centerpieces, and planning makes me anxious.

If there is anything that is possibly more painful than planning a wedding, it's planning a magazine about planning weddings.

Today we had the photo shoot for the cover. I was stressed out about it for a number of reasons. One, because this is the first cover of the Bride's Guide that was shot specifically to be a cover, and not just something a nice photographer is letting us use. It really has no general precedence, so a lot of the ideas and process were from scratch. Secondly, this is the first magazine cover I've really had to plan and make happen. A cover everyone will see.

And remember how planning makes me anxious?

Between trying to figure what props, etc. we needed, getting dresses from a local bridal shop, trying to line up times, photographer, reserving a studio, I was ready to go into a coma.

And what's worse is that I allowed myself to become crazy because of all of it. I'm not a detail person, so details?

They drive me crazy.

And somewhere between picking out fonts and deciding on a concept for the cover, the details jammed up my synapses and I morphed into Bride's-Guidezilla.

Finally, today we are in the studio. Our model, Meredith, is cooperative, sweet and fun. She's a recently-returned missionary, and totally gorgeous in the dress: a simple sheath, free of embellishment, the flares at the bottom, with an almost pearlescent sheen.

Joey snaps away taking pictures; after a moment, they appear on the screen. They look great; better than I'd imagined.

On the inside I sigh, glad to actually be doing instead of just planning and fussing. It's a relief to finally see the project.

And I realized that only about half the stressing I did actually helped lead me to this product. The rest of it was just me worrying and fretting over things that were unimportant or outside of my control.

When it comes down to it, I know that the magazine will go to print in a week and a half looking totally fabulous, and it won't be because I stressed about it. Actually, it probably won't even be because of anything I did (or didn't) do.

How about you? What things do you needlessly stress over or worry about?

Being more.

Heartaches.

They are caused by losing something that we loved.

Sometimes it’s a person you love.

People leave our lives, by choice, or circumstantially — it happens.
When most people think of “heartache,” this is probably the first kind that comes to mind; the longing for a person, their presence, their laugh or smell. The remembering and missing all wrapped up in one.

Sometimes it’s losing something we treasure. Like a book with sentimental meaning. A notebook of original poetry and sketches. Sometimes it’s memories.

We can lose places, too, as with homesickness.

But a person can also lose a space in time — remain nostalgic for a small speck of a lifetime that can never be retrieved.

Perhaps the thing is less tangible. Maybe it’s the idea that people are inherently good, that there is a God out there, that love is forever. Maybe it’s the notion that the world is a place of peace and beauty. Or perhaps it is the loss of innocence, of ideals, of hope.


Sometimes, my heart aches.
And I can’t quite lay a finger on what I miss, because I can’t quite remember it, but—I know it’s real.

Can a person be homesick for heaven?
I often think that I am.

Singing a hymn, the words say:
Yet ofttimes a secret something
Whispered, “You’re a stranger here,”
And I felt that I had wandered
From a more exalted sphere.

And something inside me agrees. The strangeness, the disconnect, the weirdness of being.
Living right now, it’s the only kind of being I can remember. So, why, then, does it feel so foreign?

My heart aches for what my head can’t remember, can’t even comprehend. It misses peace and truth, and love. It longs for clarity
It yearns for home.

There is a lot we lost before we even got here. Or, rather, we gave up so much in the process of getting here, to this life.

And maybe that’s what it means, choosing to live: being willing to lose things you love to be something better.

So, what does your heart ache for?

I'm an English major. Expect disdain.

I study English.

Which, as you probably know, makes me pretentious.

By definition of being an English major, I know more and have better tastes than you. It's just a fact.

Another byproduct of studying literature is the gross compulsion I have, upon finishing a good book, to talk about it. In fact, it often pains me to read books outside of a class, because the chances of finding an intelligent human to discuss it with are greatly reduced.

For instance, I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I was in the Spori office with it sitting next to me, and a friend walked up to me and asked me how I liked it. I replied that while it was a very despairing, I still found it very hopeful.

"Yea, I didn't really like his punctuation style. He left out apostrophes all over the place--it drove me crazy," he said.

I stared at him blankly. That's the style he wrote it in; that's the point, I explained. It helps construct the monotonous tone.

"I don't know. And what's up with the boy and the father not having names? That drove me crazy. And I really wish the book had had more of an exposition. We don't even know how the world got to its post-apocalyptic state," he said.

Again, I was confused. An exposition? Names? They would have ruined the book. It would be a completely different novel.

The father and son remaining nameless—that was the point. When there is only one person in your world, do they need a name? Do they need some distinguishing label?

I guess, as an English major, I have had an abiding trust of authors and writers imbedded in my psyche. When a writer does something like leave a character nameless, or drop me into a post-apocalyptic world without much explanation, I assume it is for a reason. There is a purpose for this, a statement being made, and if I don’t see it, it just means I need to look harder.

But then, maybe I shouldn’t go around assuming these writers are smart. At least, smarter than me.

Perhaps my friend is right, and he does know better than Mr. McCarthy how his book should have been written.

For now, I think I'll just have to stop reading extracurricularly.

It's causing me to lose faith in my generation.