War Horse—Savor it

I’m not really a fan of animal movies. When the wellbeing of an animal becomes greater than the wellbeing of a person, it rubs me the wrong way. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that War Horse is really about people. People who drink. People who mock. People who hate. People who love. People who care. People who overcome. And people who die. The film intersects stories of men and women who do whatever it is they do with grace and kindness, and when they tried with the worst, they continue with simple goodness.

In the same sense that this is much more than an animal movie, it’s also its own breed of war movie. Death here is appropriately horrific and appropriately reverenced. The nightmare of the trenches flashes into you in a way no history book catches, yet with a gentle enough hand for you to grab hold of the respect you need and nothing more.

No one character is particularly glorified or outstanding. They each exhibit greatness as they cross paths momentarily. I was distracted throughout the movie because each new character seemed to look just like someone I know: my dad’s boss, my piano teacher, my neighbor. As I watched soldiers descending into the depths of WWII, it occurred to me that these are people I know.

These average looking and ordinary people represent the men who come before me—at least one of my direct descendants—but more so they stand in for the souls that were just down the street from my relatives, who gave and shared bread with them before they died. Where many family lines ended, mine did not, and it survived with the traces of good neighbors who gave their lives in full in the end and who had likely given bits of their time and spirit to their friends before.

War Horse sweeps across these stories lightly against a color palette of hope in bleakness. See it, and savor it.

Good people striving

I've been learning a lot about just how mortal everyone is, especially myself. We all have struggles in life and different weaknesses that we deal with. I'm only just beginning to see mine more clearly. I can be a very negative, discouraged, and fearful person. It's really true that this is a part of who I am, but it's not who I'd like to be. Heavenly Father knows this is part of who I am, and He is working with me everyday to make me into something better. I'm accountable for how I deal with my challenges, but it's not as if He has made me imperfect so I will fail or as if He's cursed me in any way. I am just imperfect, and God uses those weaknesses to teach me.

I'm learning that everyone around me has challenges. These challenges all look very different—some more visible, some more hidden. This is something I'm learning on a lot of levels, and I fear I might miscommunicate my intent or opinions by linking this idea with this video, but I'm going to try to express these things clearly anyways.

I believe that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God." Family life can be very hard because we are all mortal and imperfect. There are abusive husbands; there are materialistic wives; there are parents who neglect their children; there are addictions; there are fears; there are emotionally abusive people; there are prideful people. In short, there are a lot of hard things to be dealt with. Yet no matter what we struggle with or what the people in our lives struggle with, God cares about those problems and He understands them far better than we do. Marriage and family still have the greatest potential to bring us happiness. That doesn't instantly happen because we have to work at it, but it is still true.

I don't quite endorse every single word of this video, but as a whole, I love it because I think it says, in effect, "I am struggling with this, but it is still a part of who I am now." My challenges in life are not the same as the good people in this video, but they are challenges. I think we can all understand what it's like to have something that we hurt over, we stress over, we cry over, and that we don't always know how to deal with. These things are a part of who we are, but they aren't everything about us. I believe that they are challenges to overcome and deal with, and I recognize that how to do that isn't always clear or easy. For all of us, we have to keep pressing forward, trusting true principles, and trusting that God does know us and wants us to be happy. He will teach us how to do that, as we seek Him.

What I will be

The little yellow kitchen in my little yellow house, 2010.

In a few weeks, I will walk; meaning, I will cross a stage and receive a fake diploma. I won't really graduate from Brigham Young University until August, and I'll finish my last class in June, but for all intensive purposes, I am finishing my last real semester of classes.

I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the thoughts and feelings attached to that. Some of them, I've pushed down pretty far, which is alright for the time being, because I cannot handle them right now.

I say that because the past few months have been marked by the deepest depression I've yet endured. I will not say that my entire time at BYU has been rough, but I will confess that much of my time at college has been really hard. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the biggest ones is that I often didn't know what exactly I wanted to become. Choosing a major and actually applying myself to learning often felt like a battle I could never win.

Finally, I found the editing minor, which combines many things I love. Even with that though, I still often find myself disliking the field. I do not succumb to these feelings though because I know God has given me gifts in this area and that I enjoy it most of the time. This is good enough for me, and I trust that He will open up opportunities to make good use of me as an editor and as a writer. A few weeks ago, someone challenged me, asking "Is editing really a good thing for you?" In essence, I replied firmly, "We are not opening up that can of doubt and fear again. I have made a choice, and I will make it good."

I often think of this talk from Elder Nelson about choosing an educational path and a career. He said:

A doctor’s ultimate destination is not in the hospital. For a lawyer, it is not in the courtroom. For a jet pilot, it is not in the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Each person’s chosen occupation is only a means to an end; it is not an end in itself. The end for which each of you should strive is to be the person that you can become—the person who God wants you to be. The day will come when your professional career will end. The career that you will have labored so hard to achieve—the work that will have supported you and your family—will one day be behind you. Then you will have learned this great lesson: much more important than what you do for a living is what kind of person you become. When you leave this frail existence, what you have become will matter most. Attributes such as “faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, [and] diligence” (D&C 4:6) will all be weighed in the Lord’s balance.

I wish I could say that during my time at BYU I have developed those attributes splendidly. I haven't, but I have made some good progress.

Even now, when faced with decisions about jobs and internships, I think I still don't know exactly what I want to be. The question I've been wrestling with all this time is still there, still bothering me.

But out of the depression I've been in lately, I've found a better question to ask: what kind of person do I want to be for my children? In many ways, I ask this in the same spirit that I ask God who He wants me to become. That's probably the more important question to ask, but I've found that phrasing it in terms of my children helps make it a bit more tangible.

My answer to this question is primarily that I want to be a woman of faith. I want to be a mother who knows. Those are my primary goals.

I also enjoy reflecting on the fun parts too. My mom likes to remind me that I will be a good mother someday because I am creative. I believe this is something I can use to make the world my children live in good and bright.

Dorothy Lee, a wonderful anthropologist who writes many good things about motherhood, says, "Motherhood is not a thing in itself, it is I who am a mother and I have to be myself first." She doesn't mean this comment in the sense that we have to go out and find ourselves in some grand external sphere to be mothers. Rather, her point is that what our children want is us. They want to know us as whole people with quirks and flaws and preferences.

I find that lovely. It also makes me want to be my best self—the one who writes good things, does not fear, and is fun. I can imagine that the day-to-day stresses of motherhood might threaten to dampen that spirit within us, but it certainly does not need to. In fact, those daily activities of eating, cleaning, sleeping, working, worshiping, and playing are exactly where our true selves lie. Knowing this makes me worry a lot less about what my degree says I am.

As my period ends

If you're doubting that I mean "that period" as in my menstrual cycle, don't doubt. I am actually saying in this space that as of today, my monthly cycle is winding down.

I feel comfortable saying such things partially because most of my readers are female, but more so I'm saying it to express gratitude. Usually when women speak of their periods it's in terms of misery and lamenting. Unlike many women though, I feel the symptoms only slightly. A bit of discomfort off and on, but not the intense cramping and headaches that many experience.

My gratitude isn't actually so much so for the lack of pain though. I'm grateful for the lack of pain because for me, it means something more. When my mom reached age 24, her periods became more intense and painful than they ever were before. That marked the beginning of a long struggle to have children, as the pain was a manifestation of other problems, including endometriosis. This is why it's just me and my brother.

So with each passing cycle in my body, I feel excited at the thought that my body will—most likely—still be capable of conceiving. Whatever physical problems lurk in my future, they have not yet set in. When all the other aspects of my life seem to be falling apart, I'm grateful that one thing in me will work when the time is right. This is not of course to imply that women who suffer problems with infertility are "broken" or "failing." But in my own personal realm, it means I have a potential in me that is greater than I can imagine. This is something to be grateful for.

With that thought, I'll suggest you download this free album with a special tip of my hat to the song, "On the Hudson," which invites us to "sing of avocado trees and ships and unborn children in your hips."