A Journey to "There"

Sorry for the stupid title. It’s the best thing I can think of for what I’m about to write. And the seventies pop-icon photo? Joke. Okay.

Three months ago, I was a freshly-minted college graduate who had just ended her on-campus job of four years. A job that was in some ways fun but in many other ways tedious. It is hard to muster up the discipline to do work you have no intention of ever doing again.

That job ended and through semi-miraculous means I snagged a government-sponsored internship at the Orem Public Library. In my interview with the library director and my two future supervisors, they asked me what I wanted to do during my few months there. I want to do everything, I said. I want to be a librarian, and I have no idea what that entails. I want to do reference. I want to be involved in programs. I wanted to know what it was like to actually be involved with patrons—living, breathing, thinking (sometimes) people! And not just books.

They decided to split my hours between Reference and what is known at OPL as the Outreach Division, which is in charge of exactly what it sounds like it’s in charge of: programs, community outreach, etc. It’s the branch of the library that doesn’t just wait for the patrons to come in, but does whatever it can to invite them in.

After the first few bumpy weeks at the reference desks, I was getting the hang of it. The training had been intense…but then I started getting repeat questions. “Where do I find books on building decks?” “How do I download an attachment?” “Can you please recommend a book?” Etc. Etc.

I conquered my fear of the telephone and began to use it semi-proficiently. “Let me transfer you to circulation.” “Just one minute while I look that up for you.” “Yes, I can renew that for three more weeks.” Yes, yes, yes. The eternal importance of getting to yes. I got to know my coworkers better, and I even think I began to earn their respect. They certainly had mine.

I learned what customer service means and discovered—to my surprise—that it came naturally to me. It wasn’t just my job; I wanted to be helpful! I wanted to feel the sweet satisfaction of helping people find EXACTLY what they needed. Of learning for myself that knowledge really IS power, and that empowering others people feels really great. I loved working the desks. Often people who I had helped even half an hour earlier would walk back by the desk on their way out, and catch my eye, and say thank you. It was like getting flowers.

I loved my morning routines. 8:15 every morning, I’d be down in the basement of the adult wing spraying down keyboards and tables, turning on computers, unlocking doors, straightening books and replacing them…. It was my alone time when my iPod and I could disappear together among the stacks, straightening wayward books, delighting in the simple ordering of disorder.

Mornings at the desks were quiet times where I could study up on databases, shelf-read (i.e. making sure the books are on the right place on the shelf) and answer the occasional question. They were peaceful.

Then 12:15 would roll around and I would go to lunch for half an hour. And then the structured, predictable, comfortable part of my day was over.

I dreaded my afternoons with Outreach—not at first, but later. At first, I was given menial tasks like folding fliers, or filling out forms or what have you. That wasn’t so bad, at least I knew how to do it.

I was entrusted with more important tasks. They knew I liked to write so they asked me to write a blurb for the bi-monthly newsletter. In preparation, they handed me a binder full of all the back issues. I read them all. And as my palms began to sweat, I determined that I had nothing to write about. Every article was a feature about some artist or musician that was coming to the library, or about part of the collection or some other topic that I was NO authority on. I can’t do this, I told my Outreach bosses. (P.s. I have a LOT of bosses.) I have nothing to write about. I don’t know enough. They looked pained. The deadline for getting the July newsletter was days away and they needed an article. Look, said the one, just write about something you love.

What I was really afraid of was not that I would write an article unfit for the OPL bi-monthly newsletter (bastion of journalistic excellence that it is) but of mediocrity. I felt I was being asked to do something that someone else could do better. It wasn’t laziness, it was pragmatism. Why have little old me do it when someone better could do it? This mantra informed my whole attitude toward Outreach for many weeks and was the source of much frustration and outright insecurity. Why was I being asked to do things that someone who knew what they were doing could do so much better?

At some point—I don’t know when—it occurred to me that whether or not what I wrote or what I worked on was amazing was not really the issue, but whether it was needed. If there was a need, I needed to fill it. Not because I was the most qualified person for the job, but because I was THERE.

This realization carried me through the next crisis.

Outreach is in charge of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, and as that monolithic event loomed ever closer, I was asked to do tasks—out of necessity—that I had to teach myself how to do, or received confusing instructions at best.

Explanation. Busy and overworked as she is, J, my boss, is not especially good at giving instructions in a logical order. “Do this,” she would say—(not officiously, but kindly.) And then I would spend the next three hours figuring out how to “do this” when I know she could have done it herself in minutes…if she weren’t so busy. “Do it yourself!” I often felt like screaming. Especially if I’d made some terrible blunder, which happened…frequently. I found myself apologizing a lot. Obsequiously.

It eventually occurred to me that my apologizing was getting old. So I stopped. But every day for a while I’d come home burning with the desire to shout, “If you want something done right, do it yourself!” Fortunately for me, that attitude, and that insecurity passed.

Among other jobs I had to re-write letters to sponsors from years past and send out hundreds of mailings and comp tickets; I drew up performers’ contracts; I taught myself how to use Excel (and still hate it); I updated lots of old documents; I put in a purchase order for 500 hand-puppets, for crying out loud! I didn’t do anything really grand like choose which national storytellers would come (that had been done months ago), or organize the whole set-up of the venue. But I tied up a million little loose ends. I took care of things that needed to be done. Maybe I didn’t do things as efficiently or aptly as J could have, but they got done. Only that mattered.

Every day felt like a giant puzzle I had to solve, and I would come home exhausted and shaken. But okay. I had survived to survive another day. And then, somehow, over the natural course of things, all of that wonderful insecurity went away, and I learned how to solve problems as if that alone were my job. I even enjoyed it. I felt…trusted. It was exciting to be entrusted with an important project. It felt great to stride into J’s office and present her with the outcome of my work and to see the look of relief on her face. It was actually the same satisfaction as working at a desk and helping people access information they needed. I liked the sense of my invaluability to the division. I wasn’t, and am not, invaluable. But I sometimes felt like the work I was doing actually couldn’t be done by anyone else—at that time. Satisfaction like a drug. And I wanted more of it.

I began to open my eyes to how overworked my boss was. She looked—looks, actually—old beyond her years. She walks upright and with an energy even I find hard to match, but you can see the heaviness in her eyes.

Two Saturdays ago, I sat in J’s office working across the desk at my own computer, and she began telling me about her family. (Her daughter had just come in and left.) How it was big. How every single one of her children had learning disabilities and lived at home, as adults. How three had already died—one DURING the Festival one year. How things had been difficult with the two oldest, who were her husband’s from a previous marriage. Etc.

It was not a long conversation—nor do I think she was trying to explain or excuse anything. It was just conversation. I had told her a little bit about my family—how we were all living on top of each other and making our way through.

I asked her if it was worth it, the Festival. If all the storm and stress of putting on the second largest storytelling event in the nation was ultimately rewarding. She looked at me tiredly through her glasses, he eyes lined by years of overwork and several days of no sleep, and she said, “Sometimes.” She didn’t gush idealistically about the virtues of storytelling. She didn’t say it was the greatest thing in the world. “Sometimes” expressed the reality of it all for HER. It was a glimpse of her immense fatigue that made my complaints seem so useless and trifling. And I also saw that J was doing the same thing I was doing, on a larger scale. She was filling a need. She didn’t found the Festival; it wasn’t her idea. She didn't go to school to become a professional accountant or event organizer. But she takes care of almost all of it because back when it all began, she was there.

Now the Festival is over and I will quietly slip back into my normal routine. I will clean keyboards and straighten books, and answer innumerable small—but important--questions. Important to the people who are asking them—therefore, important. The nightmare/amazingness of the Festival will quietly fade into the past, and my internship will end in a few weeks. When that happens, I will feel I have been her for a long time and will be here for years to come. It will be strange to think about how many people’s paths I will have crossed and how much—for lack of a better way of putting—amazing experience I can put on a resume!

But most importantly, this I will have learned. A) Insecurity, for me, is a form of pride. B)The attitude of perfectionism is unnecessary as it is damning. That is (and I never thought I’d say this) it is okay to be mediocre when you’re learning how to do something. It OKAY. As long as you don’t settle for mediocrity. And C) above all, just work. Fill needs as they arise. Even D) To forego NEEDING to feel needed. To not work for accolades. To just be there, and to make being there count for something.

Unwrapping

I needed this summer to gather myself in tight
Like I was sitting on a blanket, and I gathered it close to me
pulling in some of my loose corners
tightening some things that had come loose

To rediscover. To learn, mellow, become. to wrap myself up in things that really mattered.
and then to loosen what needed loosening and letting go.

Change.

Now I'm ready to unwrap again, and spread out,

out

out.

The Vital Importance of Being Good

The hour is late and my thoughts are not necessarily coherent, but I feel like I should write about this. I’ve been in a huge spiritual slump lately. No, I haven’t stopped going to Church, I haven’t lost my testimony or anything. I’m trying to do my calling as the first counselor in my ward relief society—but the fact is that I’ve been in a slump. I don’t remember what I was doing or when exactly I started thinking about this, but a day or two ago I realized that I had been letting little things slide.

You know, it’s funny…I can say I don’t know why I’ve been in a slump, but I do know. I think we all know deep down the reason WHY we ever get in a slump. For me, it’s partly because I haven’t been reading my scriptures every day. Sure, I read at least three times a week, but even then, it is a cursory reading and not a real study. It’s different for everybody, but for me, this kind of study isn’t enough. Going through the motions isn’t enough, and so I’ve slid. The other thing that I don’t go to the temple often enough. Sometimes only once a month. Sometimes less. And when I go, it seems like it’s out of duty and not out of some purer motivation. Often I’m rushed, almost always…I get bored. I’m being very honest here. And, I’m not excusing myself. But sometimes I don’t want to go because a session can feel like such a long time commitment.

Part of this slump is a result of media inundation. There is so much out there that is purely to entertain, to provide vicarious enjoyment of something. There is so much DISTRACTION! Sometimes, I don’t want to do the little things that are right because they don't initially excite me. Why would I want to read my scriptures for twenty minutes when I could read my novel or watch my movie? It’s easier for me to escape the sometimes-tedium of life on Facebook or in some other form of distraction than to diagnose my boredom with scripture.

Diagnosing boredom with scripture. Hm. That’s something I’ve never thought about until now.

Anyway. Now to the point of this post. I’ve been trying to figure out lately just WHAT is really important. I didn’t mean to spend so much time talking about media distractions. I wanted to talk about what is the most important thing to BE. And I’ve decided that the most important thing to be is…well…good.

“Good” is a loaded word, but I’ll tell you what I think it means. It means doing the right things for the right reasons—which excludes, by it’s very definition, self-righteousness.

I have spent so much energy in the past little while developing somewhat superficial (let’s just called them worthless) traits. In a world where in order to be taken seriously you have to be ironic, a little edgy, a little cynical, and it's not necessarily cool to really FEEL things, it is only natural that I have, however subconsciously, been developing a rather world-weary attitude. To be ironic is to be the opposite of sincere. So here’s something to think about: If fitting in means sacrificing sincerity, is that really worth it? Is it worth it to be a little disingenuous in the way I express my opinions in order to be thought witty? Smart? Informed?

Here’s another one. Is it so important to be pretty? To be hip? To have all the right clothes? The right music? To read the right books and watch the right movies? Am I saying that these things are bad? No. But are they the most important things?

And what about friends? True, I don’t need to be best friends with everybody. (impossible.) But does that mean I am entitled to write people off who don’t initial interest me? Does my attitude say that I a think I am entitled to be unkind, and that I can justify being cold? (And believe me, I can be cold. I despise that version of myself.)

Enough. You get the point, hopefully. I truly think the only thing worth actively trying to be is GOOD. As stupid and obvious as that sounds, I really think it is the only thing ultimately worth it. And by good, I guess I mean sincere even at the expense of...whatever..."coolness". By good, I mean doing things for people in the spirit of disinterest—not thinking about “what’s in it for me.” I mean not letting the little spiritual things like scriptures study slide and not putting too much stock in media distractions. Cultivating something inside that will somehow radiate to other people, draw them to you (not for personal gain). I’m not talking about being nice, or even merely kind—though kindness is part.

Yes, it is cool to be edgy and it is fun to be fascinating. But honestly, to be good is vital. It is so unglamorous and so hard to be good.

I had already been thinking about all of these things a few days ago, and then—as if on cue—I came across this quotation on Jill’s blog, and with(out) her permission, here it is. I think it sums up the way I’m feeling:

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

My Feelings about Being 24

1. I feel…the same. I have felt more or less the same for several years (barring the mission) and I feel like I’m going to feel the same from here on out. Or at least until some things, which are totally out of my control, happen.

2. How do I feel about my social life? Personally, I feel invisible. And a little weary. But not…washed up. I am just barely discovering the truth that it’s okay to give people glimpses of my unadulterated self.

3. I love my job. I feel like I have found something I can do to support myself for the rest of my life, and it happens to be totally enjoyable. What a wonderful feeling of security. I am confident.

4. I feel like I am finally an adult in my family, and I don’t have to do anything to prove it. I just am. And it doesn’t mean being any less silly or uninhibited. It just means being less self-conscious and defensive.

5. People definitely attach way too much baggage to the arbitrary numbers we use to tell age. My being 24 in and of itself means nothing. It doesn’t mean I should be any certain way at any given time. I don’t have to feel too old or too young or too late or too tired. It just means I’ve been alive for 24 years.

“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

The famous first line from the novel Rebecca.

Actually, it was Santos, a coastal city in Brazil. Early this morning, I dreamt I went to Santos again.

As most of you know, I spent about eight and a half months there—so long that even though I haven’t seen it for well over a year, it is as fresh in my mind now as it was then. I have a map all but etched into my brain of most of the streets of four “bairros,” or neighborhoods, in Santos. I would still know the most efficient ways to get everywhere. And because I went about on foot, I know the aspect of the streets, the homefronts, bakeries, bars, and salons. So many salons! The skate park in the middle of my area, where the eternally busy Afonso Pena intersects Canal Four. The quiet, tree-lined streets where trim little buildings on stilts stand shoulder to shoulder like sentinels.

I can go on, but the details in my head mean nothing to anybody but me.

There is something to be said for going everywhere on foot.

Some people’s dreams are characterized by scary, intense sequences, or consist of various montages of nonsense. My dreams—when I remember them, which is not often—almost always provoke thought. Last night, as I said, I dreamt I went back to Santos. I don’t know how I got there. I was supposed to be somewhere else. In fact, I had momentarily been somewhere else—at a party with family and friends or something. But suddenly, I was in shorts and a dark green shirt I don’t actually own in real life, and it was noon, and I was in Santos. The sky was a beautiful partly cloudy. It looked light a hot day, but felt pleasant. I found myself on a busy road that vaguely resembled Afonso Pena—the dividing line between the nicer bairros and one called Macuco. I wandered around, almost in a trance or daze. I wondered how I’d gotten there—I assumed by plane—but it didn’t really seem to matter. There were lots of pedestrians, everywhere. All around me were the old, old houses, with tall, narrow wooden doors—houses that in real life, I always imagined sailors having once come home to, but now are filled with immigrants from the Northeast. I went places I could never go again as a tourist. I thought, “I’m going to walk all over Santos, even the Center.” The Center is not a safe place in real life. It made me feel invincible, the idea of going there. I passed by buildings that even now I can see in such detail that I wonder if I really did see them once.

I caught my reflection in a window. My hair was short and slightly flipped out. I looked really hip! I swear—I swear—I passed some people I actually saw or knew or something in Brazil. I caught some of them looking at me, maybe wondering where they had seen me before. I felt triumphant, returning as a competent tourist, well-dressed, confident. It’s as if I were glad to prove that missionaries were human, too—not always dowdy their whole lives. I didn’t feel out of place as a blond. Lot’s of people were blond, though fake. And I knew the language.

In my wandering, I ducked into a kind of alley, walked into a little paved courtyard, and suddenly found a view of the city. There was a carnival in the distance, with swings and one of those crazy spinny things that people always get sick on, and a Ferris wheel. In real life, there is no carnival in Santos, and a view of the city is only possible from one of the hills in the center of the island. But in my dream world, anything was possible I guess. Even for a solitary American girl with no real money and no passport to feel safe. It occurred to me to feel nervous that I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a U.S. $20 bill in my pocket, no cellphone, nothing… But this fleeting moment of panic was replaced by awe as I walked the old streets of Santos feeling exactly like I’d come home.

My memories of Brazil haunt me, because they seem so much like dreams. So totally different was my life there than it is here, it is hard for me, in some ways, to believe I was actually there. It’s my driving force to go back. I guess…I guess I just want to go see if it’s really there the way I remember it.

On Going Very Early to Movies

There’s definitely something about Utah Valley and the general lack of acceptable entertainment that sends people in droves to the movies. Really. You’d think the movie industry worldwide would have pulled itself up out of the economic slump by now, if through nothing else than through Utah Valley’s unbridled enthusiasm.

Yes, I’m talking about Harry Potter.

Now. I have spent no less than a million hours of my life waiting in lines to get into blockbuster movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and (heaven forbid) Star Wars episode three. But I no longer relish this practice. I no longer absorb the expectant energy of the people in line with me, eagerly awaiting Heath Ledger’s phenomenal evilness, or Robert Downey Jr.’s irresistible bad boy antics. You might say I’ve grown bored of it all. I still like movies, but I don’t particularly enjoy lines.

Well, I made an exception today, for Harry. I even went to the trouble of buying the tickets two days in advance. I even…bothered to go stand in line (yes, you heard me…or…read me) a whole hour in advance. Die-hard early-going-blockbuster-line-waiter-inners no doubt scoff. One hour is really not early enough for such a big movie on its second day of release. True. But I figured that at least the four of us going wouldn’t get stuck sitting in the front row. Not even the genius of Harry Potter can ameliorate the effects of a permanently crooked neck. Anyway. I went early, stood in an enormous, amorphous line, finally got into the theater with what I thought was time to spare…and lo. It was nearly full.

You must imagine my rage. (But—do not imagine too carefully lest you overload your central nervous system.) In this same circumstance, some people would see the joy in the situation: families coming together to enjoy a nice, well-made, pg-rated masterpiece. (Which it was, by the way.) But I? Oh, no. I’d had a long day at work, and what I saw was whole families of twelve who’d sent their two little pit bulls three hours ahead of schedule to spread jackets, purses, arms and legs and whatever else on hand across ten other seats so that the rest of the fam could quite comfortably arrive two minutes before the film was scheduled to start. It was enough to make one sick with rage! I had already demeaned myself by arriving a whole hour early. Perversely, it wasn’t even because I was such an HP fan that I willingly wait in an unmoving line for three hours. I was merely playing by the necessary rules to get four seats together. Just four. Is that a lot to ask?

By the time I got into the theater, a mere half hour early, the seating was still underway.

Seating, in a movie such as this, is always a bloodbath. No sooner do you turn your back on two potential seats, then bam! Taken. One must be impulsive. You see a seat, you take it, you throw yourself bodily across it, because the minute you hesitate to consider whether this is really the seat for you, you’ve lost it. Your claim is staked by someone who was a fraction of a second less circumspect than you. (It’s unfair, but that’s life in the theater. Alas, there is a little bit of Darwinism at play.) And then, since the only two seats left together are two of the six handicapped seats, you are forced to plant yourself thither. Right in front, in the aisle. Exposed. Conspicuous. Like a sore thumb, or a growth on the fringes of society. Everyone walking by, tripping on your legs (which you tuck shamefully away) looking askance—and judging.

Judging.

What if someone in a wheelchair actually comes in? Which one of the six of us poor schmucks in the front is going to move? It is a frightening hypothetical. All joy is leached out of the experience. All expectation quashed by the single, bitter thought, “This damn movie better be worth it!”

Well, it was, happily. And no amount of my pre-show annoyance tainted the actual experience. My final word is this: go see Harry Potter. But—and I can’t believe I’m actually advocating this—show up a little earlier than I did.

Urgh

I need to write more and more often!

!!

And, I had such lofty goals for the summer...