Friday, April 6, 2012

learning journal 04.09: last one!

I feel that somehow this post needs to be a culmination of my entire learning journal experience; however, I'm not very good at culminations, so this might be a bit anticlimactic. I wanted to continue some of the thoughts I developed in my last post, because I am {still} thinking about place. I wanted to do another creative post incorporating the theme of place in my writing. As far as my project goes, when I'm in London I want to gain experiences in the city that I can write about. I want to allow myself to have as much experience in the city as I can, which will inspire writing, likely writing that is centered on place. Writing with place in mind for personal essays means exploring the self in the context of place, so there will be explorations of the city itself as well as my experiences in the city. Theoretically :)

So here goes:
Burnt Orange and Blue

At the start of the Civil War, leaders of the yet-to-be-annexed state of Utah sent settlers down to Southern Utah on a cotton mission, hoping the growth of cotton would help to achieve their goal of self sufficiency. The endeavor, although eventually abandoned, earned Southern Utah the nickname “Utah’s Dixie.”
I can image the first settlers’ reaction when they came to Southern Utah. Many of them, coming from the lush green countryside of the eastern United States, must have cringed at the sagebrush laden landscape. The rust colored dust, kicked up in the suffocatingly hot breeze, forms dust devils that look like a weak, red-tinted version of a tornado. Unlike a tornado, you probably couldn’t be killed by a dust devil; it doesn’t do much more than blow around more dirt and roll around the dried up tumbleweeds. I hope the settlers didn’t show up in mid-July, when the heat seems to sink down from the sun and rise up from the ground simultaneously, creating the uncomfortable feeling of being inside a waffle iron. Granted, I’ve never been inside a waffle iron, but I can imagine how it would feel.
Despite the unrelenting heat, the settlers would have been impressed by the sweeping vistas of brightly colored rock against skies of unbelievable blue. The rocks are called red by residents and visitors alike; really, their hue is correctly categorized as burnt orange, a fusion of bright orange and brown. I suppose it’s easier to say “red rocks” than “burnt orange rocks” Kind of like it’s easier to say “redhead” instead of “burnt-orange head” (which would also be a more accurate description). The land, previously occupied only by Native Americans, has earned every inch of its ecosystemic category: desert.
When my family first moved to the desert, we house hopped around Southern Utah until we settled in Ivins. Ivins is right outside of St. George and, being much less populated, is more in touch with the desert and lies in the shadow of the big Red Mountain (burnt orange mountain). When my parents purchased our home in Ivins, I was four(ish). Before the initial purchase, my sisters and I were allowed to accompany our parents to “check it out.” I remember peeking my head into the windows, on my tiptoes, seeing not much more than dingy emptiness inside; I explored the overgrown backyard, a veritable wilderness decorated with spiked stickers and worn weeds.
The lonely house, previously vacant, came with unabashed 1970s style, complete with left-over linoleum, assorted colors of carpet (boring brown, sage green, neon orange, and dusted pink), a large backyard that looked like a true desert field, and a gnarled, half dead rosebush planted smack dab in the middle of the front yard. In no time, the six of us (soon to be seven, later to be eight) plus two cats, Calvin and Hobbs, permeated the bare house with activity and Barbie dolls.
Over the years, little by little, the house has been painted, tiled, refurbished, updated, added onto, and landscaped. When I look at the little picture of our house in its original state of desolation and compare it to the home it has become, I can barely see the resemblance. Several times my parents have looked into buying a newer house, but somehow (happily) it has never worked out. Our home has been lived in. Six girls, two dogs, a few birds, a gerbil (who chewed through his cage and got stuck in the corner kitchen cupboard) and who-knows-how-many cats later, it is ours in every sense of the word. And situated conveniently in the middle of the desert, it provided ample entertainment for my girlhood days.
As a girl growing up in the desert, I fondly recall my sisters and I (my mom, even) screaming and standing on chairs as intruding lizards raced through the house. Our cats, well adapted to the environment, didn’t bring us gifts of dead mice on the doorstep like usual tamed felines; instead, to show affection, our domesticated desert housecats brought us lizards. I remember Yoda, our grey tabby, strutting around with a deceased lizard tail hanging limply out of her mouth (so appetizing).
My sisters and I would race through the fields, risking ticks and scratches, and catching horny toads. Horny toads (as we called them) are actually called Horned Lizards; they were slippery fellows, and quite tricky to catch. Once caught, the reptiles would sit annoyed, waiting for us to tire of petting and investigating their scaled and bumpy skin. Their exterior appeared hardened, spiked, tough as a helmet, and able to inflict harm on anyone who touches it. One touch, however, reveals that the lizard’s skin is like a dog whose bark is worse than its bite; the roughened texture is satisfyingly fun to touch.  After letting the lizards scurry off to their sheltered retreats, we would continue to race and frolic under the brilliant sun. The tumbleweeds provided more opportunity for sport, though not much more than desiccated sagebrush shriveled and dehydrated to the point of being a ball of prickled twigs. Ranging in size from a few inches to four feet in circumference, they could serve as soccer balls or high-profile hiding spots; we played carefully with tumbleweeds, because one slip and the offended tumbleweed would bite back with its prickles. After returning home, panting and beat, we would pick the stickers out of our red-dirt stained socks and brush the orangey earth from our play-worn clothes. The oxidation of iron in the dirt makes it burnt orange, but I didn’t know that. All I knew was that it’s nearly impossible to keep white socks white in the desert.
A culmination of childhood memories collected under the Southern Utah sun branded me with an endearing, yet not often expressed attachment to the desert. Last summer, standing on top of a mountain in Zion National Park, I realized what I had always known: there is a part of my soul, epidermis-like in size, that can only be touched by the desert. Located in Southern Utah, Zion contains some of the most stunning, almost unreal, sandstone canyons and cliffs I have ever seen. Castled, imposing cliffs jut out of the ground, towering over and intimidating the surrounding landscape with their majestic display of warm-toned rock. Angels’ Landing, one of the tallest peaks in Zion, affords a sweeping view of the park, as well as the miles of sagebrushed desert beyond. The climb to the top of Angels’ Landing is no easy feat; the two and a half miles to the top appears menacing at best. Determined to tackle the beast, I put my right foot forward on the trail and started up. After I trudged up the seemingly endless switchbacks that make up the first part of the hike, I held fast to the chains anchored in the rock that provide a safe passage up the cliff. Finally, I stood windswept, enchanted, and three feet away from 1500 feet of down, down, down; and I understood. I understood how the sum of prickled sagebrush and dried earth and red rock can be a soul’s perch; I understood how settlers braved the imposing southern heat to settle the wild land; and I understood how this geographical location can be a home for me as it was for them. 

Thursday, April 5, 2012

learning journal 04.06: planning my london excursions

I found this book. Okay, I don't know what the title is, because I have a packet of copied pages my faculty mentor gave to me. It's some sort of literary guide to London, and goes through the long history of London authors by district, giving the locations where London writers intersected with the city {birth sites, death sites, home addresses, churches frequented, etc. etc}. It is AWESOME, because it completely justifies my entire field study. For example, there's an entry for St Andrew's church, where William Hazlitt was married, with Charles Lamb acting as best man. It gives A.A. Milnes' address where he wrote the Winnie the Pooh books {he was an essayist, too, so I'm not just interested in his children's lit. but Winnie the Pooh is pretty great}. This book will be key in my literary adventures, because it will cut out much of the work I'll have to do in searching through the city for anything that has to do with the authors I'll be studying. I'll be able to compile a list of sites to visit from this book, then I can supplement with any additional sites I find in the essayists' writing, and I'll be off to have an adventure interacting with the beloved dead. It's going to be freakishly awesome. As you can tell, I'm super excited about it.

But this post is more than just a place to express my excitement. I wanted to take one of the last learning journals in this prep course to explore and justify the purpose of my project. I've obviously taken time in my project proposal and other assignments in the class to do just that, but I wanted to take a step back and look at the larger picture of how important I feel it is to explore not only literature but the places where that lit. was conceived. One of the ideas that always comes up in my writing is how much of who I am I can attribute to where I come from, both physically and, eh, genetically {if that makes sense}. I'm from Southern Utah, and I find that the desert of Southern Utah has helped to define who I am. We have more of a connection to the place(s) we grew up than we tend to give credit for, and I think at some point we have to come to terms with our place of origin. When I say come to terms, it has an almost negative connotation; nevertheless, coming to terms, for me, means that we should think about it enough that we realize how much of an impact it has had on our lives. But maybe I just think about it too much.

No, I don't. I don't think you can think about it too much. Well, let me amend that as well. Of course you can think too much about something, and I think that thinking about place is an important thing to think about more than once or twice or five times. So that is why a project like mine is so attractive to me, because it gives me a chance to ponder about place outside of my own experience. It's my hypothesis that being more familiar with place will help me to better understand and experience the authors I'm studying. That's the hypothesis, and the hope that I have.

Before I end, I wanted to look at a couple example of authors' using place as a vital part of their writing. First, let's start with a classical essayist: Virginia Woolf. I often use her as an example, because she not only lived in London but wrote a LOT about London. She would take walks through London and tell the reader, in her very frank yet approachable way, what she saw on her walk. She was keenly aware of her relationship with London, and it's very evident in her writing that she identified with the city. Take London away from her writing, and you would be not only cutting out a sizable chunk of text, but alos cutting out a sizable piece of Woolf's character and relatability. Now another example: Terry Tempest Williams. She's a contemporary writer, and one that's closer to home. Terry Tempest Williams writes a lot about different landscapes in Utah, and I can tell by reading her essays that place is a huge part about her identity as a writer, and as a person in general. For example, in her book Refuge, she writes about her mother's death from cancer in context of the 1983 flooding in Salt Lake City, and the effect it had on the landscape, especially the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. She writes a lot about the birds in the refuge, and makes amazing connections between her family life and the refuge (and its inhabitants) and the landscape. It's a fantastic book.

I'm excited to start my project in London! Can't wait.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

learning journal 04.04: i'm allergic to everything

On Sunday, I was telling {not bragging, okay? just telling} a couple of friends that I haven't gotten allergies at all the past couple of years, even though I used to be allergic to every single season change in Provo. Aaaand then Monday came, along with the sneezy hazy eye watery bleary allergies I love so much. I was sneezing alldaylong, and it hasn't exactly gone away, so I ended up on the coach for 85% of today, mindlessly staring off into space and watching hours of the Forsythe Saga, which is still full of drama and scandal but is significantly more worthwhile than America's Next Top Model. Just sayin'. And also, it's British. But no, this post isn't about another tv show, as much as you'd like it to be. I just got to thinking that I'm probably going to have to suck it up tomorrow and be an adult and go to class and teach even though I'm currently a sniveling fool....

...that was last night, and this is today. And yes, I came to campus today to be a productive student and instructor. But all this is beside the point. Well, somewhat. I will tie it in to today's post, you'll see!


Okay, so as I was reading the culture shock article, I realized that the wide variety of culture shock symptoms makes it really hard to recognize if you're not aware of the potential problems. I had quite the revelatory moment as I was reading the article:  I know exactly why the first few months of my mission were so difficult. I've always thought that my first few months were so hard because I didn't get along well with my trainer! Well, I realized how much culture shock spoiled our relationship. In fact, I might go as far as to say that almost every single problem I experience as a new missionary was tied back to culture shock. And because of culture shock, it magnified so many of the problems that might not have been a big issue without the addition of learning the Uruguayan culture. Most of the magnified problems, sadly, tied back to my companion. So many things she did drove me BONKERS, and I can see now how much of the tension in our relationship could have been avoided had I known to deal with culture shock (or had I even known that it was a problem. Giving a name to my troubles would have helped in and of itself.)

It's been a few years now, but I can still remember how frustrating it was for me to adjust to the language; my speaking skills were probably better than average, due to a little more experience with the Spanish language than other new gringo missionaries, but I had the HARDEST time understanding the people. I would get so tired in lessons because I couldn't understand half of what our investigators were saying, so I felt like I lived in a bubble, and that contributed to the already huge adjustment of missionary work and missionary life--I would definitely have a hard time staying awake. I would get so MAD at my companion for the smallest things: she was very chatty with investigators, and after having lessons (in which I could understand more), she would sit and chat with them for the looooongest time. When I would talk to her about it, I attributed it to the fact that our district and zone leaders had been emphasizing the importance of using time wisely as a missionary, and sitting there for 45 minutes talking after a lesson seemed like such a waste of time. And maybe it was, to a degree. The biggest frustration, though, was that I couldn't understand most of what was going on in our after-lesson discussions. Because of that, I was more disconnected with the people and thus had little to no desire to sit and chat. I was really frustrated that I didn't know Spanish as well as I thought I did, so I really wanted to teach more in lessons and get as much experience as I could. Problem is, my companion wouldn't really give me much time in lessons to teach. She would teach the whole thing and turn to me at the end for me to add a few lines of testimony. I know that she was probably thinking of me, and thinking that because I was insecure I wouldn't want to talk in lessons. This would have been an easy barrier to overcome, but my frustrations tied back to the language and culture made me more irritable than usual. When I got to Uruguay, it was summer, so that was simply delightful (note a slight edge of sarcasm). I was frustrated because we didn't have air conditioning, so I didn't sleep as well at night. I insisted we sleep with the fan on even though my companion insisted that our power bill would be so much more expensive if we left the ceiling fan on all night long. She said we should just sleep with the window open, and the first night I agreed and we slept with it open, but the problem was this: when I woke up in the morning I was absolutely covered in bug bites; the whole night I was plagued by little buzzing and freaked out when bugs flew into my ears or in my face or... just gross. I was so irritable that I insisted on having my way and sleeping with the window shut and the fan on.

Without giving you an entire list of my grievances, I will just say that many of these problems would have been less of a big deal had I understood that I was experiencing culture shock, and taken the steps to deal with it directly. As it was, once I was with another companion I started seeing how wonderful missionary work could be, and thought my change of attitude was again directly tied back to my companion. True, yes, I did get along with her much more, but at the same time, I could tell I was getting more used to the culture. I was a little more confident with the language, and amazed that I was able to sufficiently show my companion around our area without mishap. As I got more used to the culture, the initial culture shock wore off, and I feel like eventually I was able to advance to biculturalism--if not completely, than to a much greater degree. I loved the culture and felt that I could understand more of the people's motivations and values.

Also, as I was reading the culture shock article I got to thinking that the MTC could probably do a much better job of preparing missionaries for experiencing culture shock. Because the adjustment from regular to missionary life is already a huge transition, and with the added stress of culture shock, it can be traumatic for a lot of missionaries. A lot of missionaries develop depression or other health problems on their missions, and I have to wonder how much of that is tied to not coping with culture shock.

So here's where I tie it into the beginning of my post. Because culture shock is a real problem, just as allergies or any other sickness is, it can have a real effect on our desires to get out of bed in the morning and actually work or go to school or be a missionary. Much of the time, and especially with culture shock, the best thing to do is get out of the house, stop feeling sorry for oneself and dwelling on the issue, and go to work.

The end.