Don't call my name

-I have exactly 2 weeks left in Mexico
-My camera charger and I have been reunited!
-My face is slightly sunburned and I couldn't be more pleased
-This laptop is burning my legs and I am not pleased
-This week for class we have a paper, presentation and test. Here goes nothin'.
-I just can't be with you like this anymore, Alejandro.
-Work on the Mexico video has commenced
-I might run into problems fitting everything in my suitcase when returning home. Perhaps.
-Sometimes life is really beautiful whether you make an effort to notice or not

Sometimes I can't think straight. Sometimes those are the times when I think too much.

Dontcha hate that?

Please?

Words mean what?

I appreciate that the spanish language demonstrates the difference between "I love you" and "I love you". For example, distinguishing between Bella's love for Jacob and Bella's love for Edward.

Yeah. That just happened.

Te quiero.
Te amo.
Love.

York. Oxford. Ibiza is home.

Painting over graffiti is a band-aid on the city. There is poverty, there is pain, there are problems. This is life. Let go of your perfect white wall.

Each day is a facade, masquerading in pride, pretending to fear nothing. But I see it, like hiding an oak tree under an old baby blanket.

Grass

I miss church in English. I miss Amanda Kathleen and McKenna Maye. I miss pizza. I miss my job in Provo and the people I work with. I miss crossing the street without a legitimate fear of getting run over. I miss feeling average in height. I miss unplanned philosophical conversations with my dad. I miss feeling like I know what I'm doing. I miss the international cinema. I miss my best friend of a brother and my mom playing with my hair while we watch another badly written episode of CSI Miami. I miss lightning bugs and 10 minute showers. I miss drinking tap water, washing machines, and falling asleep next to my Austin. 


However:


I know when I'm back in the U.S.A. I'll miss the Mexico sky. I'll miss clay roofing and tile floors. I'll miss Maggie and the bread she bakes. I'll miss brightly painted houses with their infections of graffiti. I'll miss the long walks to class in the morning and the friendly guard at the gate. I'm going to miss speaking Spanglish and being understood. Real orange fanta and helado. Weekend excursions with my family of 16 college kids and one very small Colombian mom. People who call me Natalia instead of Natalie. Tiny latin kids with big brown eyes. Street vendors and air that smells of fruit and spices and sweat.


I miss my home. But I'll be ok for a little while longer.

Sometimes it works

8:49 a.m.
There's a fear here not seen in the United States. It's in the eyes of the niña who asked to trade a peso for a sticker. In the face of the store owner at seeing an American walk through the open door. In the actions of a seemingly careless bus driver weaving in and out of heavy traffic. He hides behind Mary and a pair of plush dice beneath a black light just before 10 when his shift will finally end. Even our well off Mexican mother speaks to us of our plans for the weekend with a subtle terror in her features. I would tend to assume this is related to religion, but these people believe with everything in them. Yet in their faith, they shake. I wonder what it is they fear for. Perhaps the fact that I have to ask is a testament to how American I really am.

10:22 a.m.
I like the jagged movements eyes make when staring out the car window.

11:41 a.m.
Dear Jorge Lopez,
Your successful family's business ad picture looms above a broken down barrio, and within that same panorama sits a small boy begging for pesos. Were you aware?

12:48 p.m.
I have a strange kind of kinship with my feet. I'm looking down at them and have the impulse to apologize for everything I've put them through. Right now they are covered in scars, scabs and tan lines. They don't complain much.

12:52 p.m.
We are all just kids on an inflated field trip. What do we know?

1:42 p.m.
A 6 hour bus ride later, I am relunctant to part from my headphones and window seat. I am such a loner sometimes.

Bare Bones Magazine

This.
As Alex said, the people working to put together Bare Bones magazine are "a collection of people who desperately want to bring you into our world and make our world your world and your world our world."  Ranging from phenomenal photography to extraordinary writing, it's lookin good, folks.

Kelsie Moore

One of my favorite entries so far:

A guy was digging a hole by the side of the road as I walked home. There was a mound of dirt about 3-feet high next to him and he was waist deep in the ground, busting a shovel against the dirt to loosen it up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m digging a hole man,” he responded. He took a minute to wipe the sweat off of his brow.

“The air smells like ginger huh?” I asked. It was oven-like outside. Warm and sweet.

“Que?” he asked. He peered down into the hole.

“Why are you digging a hole?”

“To put in a sprinkler.”

“Why are you putting in a sprinkler? This is a desert. It’s supposed to be dry.”

He suddenly looked up at me and stared hard. We stood a few feet apart; him deep in the ground, me on the dusty sidewalk.

“Why do I care if it’s a desert? I get paid to make it not,” he said. And turning back to his shovel, “I get paid to help people lie to themselves!”
Alex Christman looks up the definition of 'metaphor' every single day of his life.


Ahem. This is the part when you go to their blog and see more, subsequently sending something genius you've been hiding from society all of this time.

You'll see.

One day when I am a cute pregnant lady,

I will wear long sundresses every day.

When I go to the store I will don my very large, floppy hat.

The thing about love is, I never saw it coming.

You kind of crept up and took me by surprise.

I think we've had it wrong this whole time. I'm not sure that love is really supposed to be so hard. I think we're so used to having to work at things that fall apart, that when something works out on it's own we dismiss it. All I know is I'm not going to ignore what's been given to me this time. Instead, all I'm saying is, "thank you."

I ask that you don't write me off as naive. I've been through my share of heartbreak, and I've given so much effort into relationships before that I found myself at my breaking point. I know that life is work, that relationships are work, that love is work. I've just figured out that I don't want it to be the death of me. It turns out that I'm allowed to be happy. In fact, it turns out, that's the objective. I guess I took "Anything worth having is worth working for" a little to hard. I saw love only as a service: being there for someone else to earn bonus points on the other side. I was tired of being tired at the end of every day with nothing to show for it. I was tired of no growth and no reward.

Now I realize I like the feeling of mutual effort. Instead of sweat and tears I like saying, "If love is a labor, I'll slave 'till the end." I like knowing that after a disagreement we get closer, not further apart. I like learning how another person works and thinks and feels instead falling deeper into misunderstanding and frustration. I like finally belonging to someone who treats me right.

So this is love.

Alright, guys.

That's enough.

www.mormonbuckles.com

What?

The road was callin

and I's on my way.

Midnight dreamer

Ride a horse, try strawberry milk, walk home in the rain, ride the city bus, go swimming, ace a spanish test, volunteer, laugh too much, go to a zoo, live a little more. Hey, Mexico.

I will listen to Laura Marling till I die.

Today, I miss this:

Condition of desperation

I've come to the conclusion that no one ever has a solid understanding of who they are because once you figure it out, it's already changed. What is that even supposed to mean, anyways? Don't act like you know. You're just looking for an excuse to illuminate your distressed soul when really all you need is more to do. You're gonna be just fine, honey child. Go on, now.