Funny Things Lately

Seth wanted to know the meaning of a song he was singing along to. It got to a part that meant something like: our dreams will be stronger than our fear! Seth was a little confused. I explained: "Dreams and hopes. Not like dreams when you're asleep. But when you dream of something for the future, and you think about how great that would be."
Seth: Oh yeah, that's right!
Me: Do you have any hopes or dreams?
He almost didn't let me finish my sentence, but blurted over the top of me: "Oh yes!"
Me: What are they?
Seth: To be a ninja. Or to be in a jungle all by myself...and be a scientist...and discover NEW plants. That would be great. Yeah....

And, with that, he melted away into his own reverie....

Haha!

Speaking of meanings of songs, Seth also loves the Bruno Mars "you're amazing just the way you are" song. Every time it comes on, he talks about what a wonderful song it is, and do I understand the great thing he's saying...? Last time he heard it, he was totally inspired. "I think what this song is saying is TRUE. You shouldn't change just to be like someone else! No! Heavenly Father made everyone different and that's great! You have things you're good at and not good at, and you are just WONDERFUL—just wonderful!—just the WAY YOU ARE. Mom.... I know this song is true. I know it's a true song!"

Love it. :-)

We were in Target recently and Maren got all excited to see a character toothbrush. "Gigi!!" I thought I was the only one who knew what she was saying, but Seth realized as well and exclaimed with enough gusto for half the store to hear: "No, Maren, his name is DARTH VADER. Not Jesus."

There were many a delighted shopper.... :-)

The Red Pony

My favorite thing about great writing is how it allows me to feel the heart and mind of a soul who is completely different than myself. I've always loved diversity—even thrived from it. I love diversity of opinion (I'm not that person who would like everyone to think or express the same things, or who hopes everyone will agree—or pretend to agree—with me). I love diversity of background and experience. I love to know people from many walks of life. I don't just love it. I need it. I thrive with it.

(If I seemed like my soul was sucked dry in my five years of all-white, all-upper-middle-class, all-Mormon, all-Republican, all-college-student life at BYU.... It was. Very, very much.)

I love to read a great book and get a chance to step into someone else's mind and heart. To empathize with a person's feelings, choices, experiences.... It's a sacred experience to me, truly!

But I also love those moments when a great writer captures, with better words than I ever could find, a feeling I've lived with in my life. I love when a great writer pulls something from deep within my heart, and makes it tangible through words. I love to get wrapped up in the thought he's trying to convey, with each phrase feeling like, yes, he's describing this better and better! I feel this! I know this!

It's so nice in those moments to feel...understood.... It's nice to feel like someone, sometime, empathized with me. And it's nice to be able to use the author's words in my own sooooo-INFJ quest to understand myself.

I just read a fabulous little book by John Steinbeck called The Red Pony. It's an atypical coming-of-age story, beautifully written, with compelling characters. I loved it. 

I didn't personally relate to these characters all that much, which made it even more of a wham-moment when he finished a chapter with words I'd searched for so many times in my life. The feeling he described even occurred as the boy sat and contemplated and admired nature, which is exactly when I have always felt this exact thing. I loved how he wrote this:

"Jody walked through the vegetable patch, toward the brush line. He looked searchingly at the towering mountains—ridge after ridge after ridge until at last there was the ocean. Jody thought of [some stuff... :)]. And he thought of the great mountains. A longing caressed him, and it was so sharp that he wanted to cry to get it out of his breast. He lay down in the green grass near the round tub at the brush line. He covered his eyes with his crossed arms and lay there a long time, and he was full of a nameless sorrow."

That's me! It's me. To be alone in nature, thinking.... Caressed by a longing so sharp you want to cry just to relieve it. But cry for what? It's a nameless longing. A nameless sorrow.

Sometimes I feel like maybe it's a moment of feeling like I'm in the wrong place, so far away from a heavenly home.... Perhaps a moment of feeling beautifully close to the Lord and needing Him so much closer. I don't really know. But I've felt it in peaceful moments throughout my life.... I've even sat by myself covering my eyes with crossed arms, as Steinbeck described, listening to a river flow, or waves crash, just soaking in the feeling. 

Now I see I must not be the only one.... :-) What a nice moment; to find this in this little gem of a book. I love great writing. 

P.S. This was my first Steinbeck novel since I was a kid. Oh, he's so good. His writing is so uniquely simple, but not a single word is wasted. So easy to read, yet so very meaningful. I'm a fan. :-)