Elliot, Frost, Tennyson - even Whitman, the best of the best cannot come close or even compete with the adoration my heart holds for E.E. Cummings.
Granted, a part of his poetry is somewhat provocative, and would have pushed the envelope 100 years ago...but I believe that Cummings and I are both two helpless and hopeless romantics at heart. If we were to run into each other on the street today, we would become the dearest of friends and I imagine we would spend hours and days in bookstores and coffee shops, talking about love and being in love and hating love and so on and so forth.

The most beloved E.E. Cummings poem there is, (at least personally speaking), is "somewhere i have never traveled" - as I read this poem years ago, it was as if Cupid took out that dreaded arrow and shot right at my heart.

I am in love with E.E. Cummings.

(and if you want to be too, read on)

somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

The beauty of this poem is in its simplicity - which, I believe, some of the most beautiful things are: simple.

This poem can EVEN go without capitalization and punctuation ...
Honestly people, who can get away with that?

So go on ahead and read Thoreau's "Epitaph On The World", "Life in A Love" by Browning, or anything by Oscar Wilde (and I readily admit that I do love them all) but they just can't beat this.

(whether it's because of Cupid or Cummings, I don't know, I'm just clearly biased).

"I Wanted It To Be You"

I wish I could take credit for what I am about to write, but I can't; Hollywood can however, but I would like to assure you that had I been born with brilliance or eloquence, I would have said this all a long time ago.
I am writing this simply because every time I see this movie, I can't help but think: I am Kathleen Kelly. Her lines speak from my heart.

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void."

"I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings..."

"No. No, but... but there's the dream of someone else. "

"People always say that change is a good thing, but what it really means is that something that you didn't want to happen, has happened."

"What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me...And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway?...Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."

"I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you."

"When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does."

"I'm completely jealous. When I'm confronted by someone I get tongue tied and my mind goes blank. Then I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning over what I should have said."

"I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."

Oh, how I love this movie.

Emotionally Accomplished.

Most of the time, I feel emotionally unaccomplished. Like a million loose ends are all stuck up in my head, but today - today was a special day, because as I stood in the shower, washing my hair, listening to music and thinking about life, everything finally fit - and I will tell you how I got here.
-As I drove to school today one of those "songs" came on - the song that somehow, identifies completely with whoever you are, and whatever you are doing, and whatever part of life you are in - it is as if it were written for you for that moment. Yes, I listened to a song.
-I talked to my best friend. It's been said that, "In a friend, you find your second self," - it's true.
-I talked to my mom and then my dad. While my mom will emotionally rationalize with all my problems and weird adolescent feelings, my dad always talks sense. He makes me forget the silly things and wise up. I love my parents.
-I appreciated my mother's left overs. For as long as I can remember, I have hated left overs with a distinct passion. Leftover Mondays were the worst growing up, but tonight, as I reheated last nights dinner - I became especially thankful because I just realized my milk expired a week ago and Apple Jacks were no longer on the menu.
-Last one continued: I was thankful for little things today. A friend recently read 'The Secret' and raves that it is the best thing to happen to him, but it starts by being thankful for the little things. So I did just that. As I walked on campus, I reminded myself to be thankful for the ability to walk up those nightmarish stairs. I was thankful for the chance to be nearly blinded by the brightness of the snow and the sun combined. I was thankful to be enrolled in a magnificently difficult Pysch class, and so the list goes on...
-I did aerobics. My endorphins skyrocketed as I nearly collapsed in my intense kick boxing/yoga/weight training/pilates/sweat til you bleed aerobics class. But I felt great after.
-Last but not least, I was reading for one of my classes, and bam, sham, cazaam - I read this marvelous line: "I love you" is much more a promise of behavior and commitment than it is an expression of feeling.
For some reason, that simple sentence made so much sense, that my life changed - not really, but really.

And there you have it. I am emotionally accomplished. I know all too well that by tomorrow I will probably come undone when my hair doesn't look right, or that cute, cute, cutest boy ever in my class doesn't talk to me, or I miss a pop quiz...
But for now, I am emotionally accomplished.

Venting.

The RM's in my religion classes need to stop thinking they know absolutely everything.
They don't.

Wishing 101.

"Dreams and wishes come true, without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."

Due to my increase in wishes this time of year, and also considering the many, many, many that have recently come true - I would like to spend some time enlightening others on the concepts of wishing.

Wishing 101.
1. You can make a wish on the following:
11:11
shooting star
first star
glow in the dark stars
first snowfall (comes true by the last snow fall..or so I've been told)
wishing bracelets
wishing fountains
eye lashes
holding your breath through a tunnel
if you touch metal while going over railroad tracks
candles
birthday candles (BIG deal)
in your heart

2) Rules to wishing:
Rule #1. You've probably heard that if you tell your wish, it won't come true...well, that's not true. You can tell someone if you'd like to, but sometimes telling someone will spoil it (especially if they are involved in the wish). I personally believe the best wishes are wishes untold, but if you wish to share it, you aren't putting your wish in jeopardy, unlike popular belief.
Rule #2. You have to put your whole heart into it. End of story.

3) Exceptions: Your wishes may/may not come true exactly how you want - the good thing about wishes, is they come true when they need to/how they're supposed to - so even if you end up wishing for something ridiculous like I did once upon a time (to marry one of the members in Dream Street - or something like that) it will not come true if it will make you unhappy one day... (this dream street member is now openly gay)

That's about it. If you read this, and now want to make a wish (which you all should) but find that there are no stars, eye lashes, or candles around - feel free to watch the video above and wish on the shooting star.

"If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme...Like a bolt out of the blue - fate steps in and see's you through, when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true."

The only thing to learn from my ramblings today is: wishes come true.

Monroe.

"I believe everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right...and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. "

word.

'Tis The Season

Christmas is my favorite time of year, but aside from the lights, snow and magical ambiance of the atmosphere, it reminds each of us to be a little better, a little kinder, and a little closer to remembering who it was that set the perfect example of keeping Christmas in your heart all year round.

I once walked into a store to do some of my usual Christmas shopping and ran across this sign:
NOTICE SHOPPERS!
Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy... forgiveness,
To an opponent... tolerance.
To every child... a good example.
To every friend... a smile.
To your family... your love.
To yourself... respect.
To all... your heart.

Now, years later, I have found a miraculous example of someone who followed that wise advice when he had every reason not to. I guess shouldn't have been surprised when I saw this story as the headline on MSN.com, but I was.

"A Korean immigrant whose wife, two young daughters and mother-in-law perished when a military jet crashed into his house [just two weeks before Christmas] says... "Please pray for him not to suffer."
Recently reminded during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, we heard of what President David O. McKay once declared: “True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service. It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men."
President Thomas S. Monson then concluded, "Giving, not getting, brings to full bloom the Christmas spirit. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than things. To catch the real meaning of the “spirit of Christmas,” we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the “Spirit of Christ.”

I wish everyone the very Merriest Christmas, and will wish (because I always do anyway) that we can try to do the same as old Ebeneezer Scrooge when he promised, "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

I'd Rather Be In Love...

I'd rather be in love during Christmastime than Valentines. Come to think of it, I'd rather be in love any day. Period.

Joni Mitchell explains me well:

It’s just another show
You leave em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away…

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud...

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way...

But I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all.

Dedicated to:

The nights on the bleachers, wrapped up in blankets with our penny candy, talking about love.

The night dancing on the bridge to JamisonParker.

The nights we danced with mattresses.

The night on the fence when I was 14.

The night on the phone when I was 16.

The night in my dorm room when I was 18.

And most of all to my 7up girl sister whose been there through most of my "loves illusions" and will be getting married in one week.

"All because I've been cursed by being in love...the sight of him! Heart pounding! Throat thickening! Absolutely can't swallow! All the usual symptoms..."

...I'd still rather be in love.

YouTube Is My Battlefield

I recently reviewed a few of the postings I have made on this popular video website and to my utter dismay I realized all of them were arguments.
Usually YouTube provides me illegal ways to catch up with my favorites: 90210 – sadly enough – The Hills – and of course, the news. However, something always catches the corner of my eye.
It is a tiny box that says: related videos.
My mouse wanders...
And sure enough, I end up finding myself watching random “politically correct” videos with every political agenda possible and then the trumpets sound as I begin to unleash my wrath among many other YouTubers.
So whether it’s defending Mitt Romney in political ads, arguing against the many hypocrites asking “tolerance” for same sex marriage, but forgetting to practice what they preach towards the LDS church (a blog or two will be coming your way soon enough about that), discussing the questionable affiliations of our new President Barack Obama, and yes, even siding in defense of Selena Gomez (I am not team Miley Cyrus) in a recent feud between these Disney pop stars… (My sister informed me of this, I have outgrown the tween scene I assure you)…. It all makes me wonder, what is it about YouTube that can aggravate me to the point of joining, signing in, and then proceeding to write with limited amount of characters allowed, my own beliefs and opinions?
At the beginning of the semester in one of my oh-so liberal sociology classes, we got onto the topic of “Racist America” and my professor exclaimed (yes this is verbatim): “There is little good about this country!” Whether this was a teaching method or her personal belief is still in question, (it’s probably a little bit of both), but after picking my jaw up off the ground, my hand instantly shot up – the rest is history, and the remainder of class was spent in a heated debate among the students, TA’s and professor.
Even in the eighth grade I remember fuming with anger in class over SheDaisy (am I right? probably not) and their outspoken stance on the War in Iraq.
You see, I was taught and raised in a home to respect differences and differences in matter of opinion and I do, (cross my heart), but there seems to be this monster inside that must make its point known as well, gosh dang it.
I guess it all comes down to this: where does this pride of mine come from and why must I argue – even online? Whether it was joining the debate team in high school or the inherited stubborn nature from my father, I must argue (for better or for worse).
They say, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, but in my case: scorned, challenged, confronted, irritated, and the list goes on…just ask my ex boyfriends.

Breakfast Readings

I'd recommend to those who love to read or even those who flip through the pages of books to only understand the gist of it for their upcoming quiz, the wise advice I followed from my ninth grade teacher. With every book you read - or simply just skim over, and with every lesson that comes, underline, highlight, wrinkle the page or do whatever it may be so when that book is opened again, you can remember that which was once important.

So with that being said, as I looked through some old books this morning to try and find one suitable to read over breakfast, I ran across "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", and sure enough found that page marked up and almost torn out.

"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything... It's hollow."


Just some food for thought.