Femimormonism

I'm turning into a shell of my former self and morphing into a French feminist. A Mormon one. Oui, sérieux. Yesterday I made bookmarks for all my friends that read "I heart french feminism" in the classic "I heart NY" style! I'm thinking of starting a club.

See, its final project time, and my dear, dear professor made the mistake of allowing us to do WHATEVER WE WANT with WHOEVER WE WANT (get your mind out of the gutter).

There are only six humanities majors that attend this university. I am proudly one of them. Three more of the six are in my class. I guess two missed the memo.

Naturally, then, we have united against the rest of the class, who all happen to be English majors, and for our final project have settled on a study of a bunch of French feminist ideas compared against points of LDS doctrine. Fascinante!

What I'm learning is that, with the exception of the sex-related stuff (abortion, modesty, etc.) the ideas are the same: Women rock. They have value greater than we've historically given them credit for, and they can contribute great things to society. And any man who says differently is an imbécile (That's French).

I'm taking orders for "I heart french feminism" bookmarks. If anyone's interested.

Lessons from hikes

Life is a hike.

A miserable, grueling, pain-inflicting hike.

This is the conclusion I drew yesterday after embarking on one of Hawaii’s most difficult hikes: the Crouching Lion.

Actually, come to find out, we went above and beyond the Crouching Lion hike. We missed a turn that would bring us back the happy safe way, and found ourselves wandering for six hours in a dark and dreary wilderness.

At least that’s what I thought for most of the second half. My legs were shaking. I was out of water. My skin was lobster-red. We had to balance narrow ridges, climb rock walls, and grab onto trees to stop gravity from pulling us straight down the mountain all at once. Sounds fun, yes? Only when one is in shape. And folks, this hike confirmed that I do not at present fit in this category.

It was during the most difficult parts of this journey that I had to remind myself now and then to look up from my muddy, cut-up, quivering feet. Doing so rewarded me every time with the most breathtaking views on Oahu’s North Shore: views that many who live here their whole lives will never witness. A lush, green, uninhabited valley stretched out below us, comfortably sheltered from the rest of the world by the watch of the towering tree-filled mountains around it. At other points I could see where the blue of the ocean turned dark before kissing a bright, cloud-free sky. I saw a mountain goat grazing on an opposite cliff. I saw moss-covered paths and stairways so perfect they looked like they’d been constructed by fairy-tale creatures. I discovered plant life that seemed to know it was too wonderful and strange to allow its seeds to spread past these mountainous ridges. These elements combined in my most grueling moments to assure me that there was still much to be appreciated; that beauty still existed; that God still loved me.

And so it is with life. When we least expect it, we are certain to be met with rocky ridges and wrong turns and, at times, unimaginable pain. Our weaknesses will slap us in the face. And it is in these moments that we need only look up. When we look beyond the pain, we find beauty. We find it in the people who love us, in the experiences we’re gaining, and in the promise of increased strength when it’s all over. We find beauty, most of all, in the constancy of a loving God.

I thought of all this on that punishing, merciless trail. And when Kendon and I emerged and slowly limped, hand in hand, back to the car, I had a flash-forward to the future of us doing this very thing together, on some distant day, when the long hike of our life begins to come to a close.

Enemies of date night

Friday night is date night.

At least that's what we say. Usually it goes like this: Me: "YAY! DATE NIIIIIIIIGHT!" Kendon: "Oh.... yeah. What do you want to do?" Me: "Uhhhhhh.... Dang it. I hadn't thought about PLANNING anything. You?" Kendon: "I'm tired. Let's read Harry Potter and snuggle."

So then date night turns into the-same-thing-we-do-every-night night, and I wake up way too early Saturday morning grumpily thinking that's it's another weekday.

But I decided tonight would be different.

So I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center after classes to buy student-rate tickets for the one and only annual WORLD FIREKNIFE COMPETITION! Shirtless greasy Polynesians spinning around giant sticks that are totally ON FIRE! It was going to be the best date night surprise.

Except for this.

I marched up to the ticket booth, debit card in hand, feeling further confident at seeing my good ol' buddy Ben at the ticket window. "Hi Ben!" said I exuberantly. Said Ben: "Hey Val. You pregnant?"

I was slightly less exuberant at this question. But in seconds I regained my composure, answered in the NOT affirmative, and said I was there to buy 2 student-rate tickets to the large greasy fire-twirling men (who perform, mind you, for a mere 10 minutes at the intermission of the regular night show).

"You have to come back tonight," said buddy Ben, looking annoyingly important with his shiny name badge and aloha shirt. "You can't buy a ticket until five o'clock."

"Oh." I was getting less excited about my surprise. I had been fantasizing about hiding the tickets somewhere romantic for Kendon to find when he came home... like in a grilled cheese sandwich. I turned to leave, then remembered one last question:

"Ben, how much are student-rate tickets?"

Ben did some important calculations in his shiny ticket-booth computer, then looked back up at me and said, "$43.16."

"No, no," said I, thinking he may be calculating my fictional unborn twins AND my husband into the pricing. "I mean for one person. A student person. It can't be more than $10 for a student person.... Right?"

"$43.16," repeated my only sort-of buddy Ben, then, "Unless you have a friend who works here. Employees get discounts."

I searched his face for a "hint-hint" grin. None came. The badge of my acquaintance Ben was way too shiny. It hurt my eyes when he puffed out his chest like that.

"What if we just poke our head in at intermission?" I asked. "We just want to see the men twirl their fiery knives! We don't care about the show." I did some math of my own without even needing an important shiny computer and said, "Surely we don't need to pay $83 just for some head-poking at an intermission....?"

"Yep. You do," said my enemy Ben.

And that is how, on this Friday date-night afternoon, I left the Polynesian Cultural Center with no tickets and a fat complex. I wonder if a Harry Potter book can fit inside a grilled cheese sandwich.