Why yes, I will.

Circa age 11, I discovered that the whole gum in your digestive system for 7 years thing is a myth. That’s because 7 years previous I had swallowed gum, very much on purpose, just because my mom told me not to. My gum ingestion was motivated by the desire for freedom. Sort of.

Motivation is important. There’s a million.5 ways to define people and I say that one way to define someone is by what motivates them. Perhaps on the surface you’re motivated by Reese’s Puffs, or by attention from boys, or by saving baby chimpanzees.

But if I were to make a huge generalization, I would say that the main motivators of the human spirit boil down to two things: freedom and love.

Freedom makes you want to think for yourself. Love makes you want to keep commandments and follow others. It seemed that the two were always at odds with one another until recently. Are obedience and freedom opposing forces?

(Probably not and here’s why)

If our main motivator is love . . . then the obedience/thinking for yourself thing falls into place. Because if I really love someone, I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit for them. So then it’s not like I’m a blind bandwagoner. I’m thinking for myself and I’m thinking that I love someone else more than me and am willing to do what they ask. Still very much free, just using my freedom to show love through obedience.

This puts my anti-establishment spirit at rest a bit. Because obedience doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking for yourself. It means you are thinking about more than yourself.

And a Merry Christmas to you.

for the sake of camaraderie

Sometimes I find myself doing things I don’t actually want to do.
This one time, a car passenger of mine, rolled down the window and began snaking her hand up and down like her fingers were doing ski jumps.

“Don’t you like to do this?” Passenger says, phalanges flowing freely through the wind.

Me (thinking): No, not really. In fact, I wish you’d stop because if the car suddenly crashes right now we will be frozen in time as “those” people who do things like “that.”

Me (in actuality): “Sure,” while rolling down my window and watching my fingers unfold a life of their own.

Rolling down your car window and sticking out your hand is probably not a big deal; I get that. But there seems to be some things unavoidable, especially in the girl sphere, and it upsets me. Namely, like, such as, Bachelorette things and Twilight things and so on.
When faced with the opportunity to see a Twilight movie, I only had 2 options.

Do I . . .
a. Stay home, scowl superiorly, prove my point, and refuse to talk about it because that would only give it more attention (like I’m doing right now. Dang it. )
b. Go, swallow that pride, and “bond” with my sistas (speaking figuratively, not literally, although the literal sisters may apply here too)

Do I be antagonistic or agreeable? WHAT do I do??!! In this great contest of reason vs. feelings . . .

It’s a talent to stick up for things that are good while still letting people know they’re loved.
It is now that I have come to this conclusion:

People > points proven.

If our motive is really to help people and not push our own agendas, that’s good right?

Because it's hit me lately that Christ wasn’t crucified to prove a point, but to save people. It didn’t matter if no one saw and no one knew. It didn’t matter if the event was unrecorded and the rest of history went on quite naturally with this whole thing forgotten. We were rescued from our own destructive selves. That’s what mattered. Love is much more than a system of checks and balances.

So yes, stick your hands out my window dear car passenger, because you are more important to me than the stigma of hand wavers.

Love, Chloe.

Titled.

I’ve been staring quizzically at my friend, who is not actually person, for quite awhile.
I think he changes his facial expression like every twenty minutes but all in all, his meaning his clear:
“Hi, Chloe. You suck at this. But I’m not going anywhere. Love you long time.”

My friend is the Decision. He sits glaring and not once has he ever blinked , even though I sit there sometimes squeezing my eyes shut, in hopes that when I open them, he is gone.

He’s never gone. I’ve realized I’ve got to do something about him.

I’ve been plagued with phantasmagoric mental states: Decision as it turns out, is a shape shifter. Occasionally he has blonde hair or occasionally he is a grad school or occasionally he is a crappy summer apartment.

The point is that he’s ubiquitous and entirely unavoidable, which I guess when you think about it, is kind of the point. Because if he weren’t ubiquitous and entirely unavoidable, well then I’d guess we wouldn’t really be souls. Just robots learning to perform a function. Because if everything in life could be fixed by reading the right things or going to the right places, wouldn’t we just be learning how to compute?
Ah. I guess that’s where the whole choosing thing (and closely related cousin: faith) comes in handy.

Someone wise once said: “In mortality, choice isn’t a goal, it’s a method.”

Which at first seems like a nice flowery phrase, but really it means so much. Choice is a method. Not a goal. So the point is not to have choices, but to make them! Cool! And scary!
Choices are not to be collected and put on a bookshelf, looked at and examined, until they are dusted away by the cleaning fairy. No sir. They are to be used. They are utensils.

So this is why I decided (oh!) Decision is my friend and not my enemy. Maybe he’s still the friend I love but don’t like . . . but I’m getting there.

Recurring Themes

So me and Sierra hit the road this last weekend for a camping trip in the Grand Canyon.

We were acting so grown up! Planning it all, fixing the car, having our own tent, oh man. We're like super adults now.

But of course, every vacation needs its indulgence. We had lots of Oreos (more of a staple than a luxury) but even splurged on some Dr. Pepper. It was Heritage Dr. Pepper. Real sugar and no syrup! Also, it comes with letters in a groovy font.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you see where this is going.

It was Sunday morning. We found a branch that met inside the Grand Canyon and we're all dressed up ready to go (evidence of grown up ness!) We were even ready for church EARLY. So we decided to put a few of those precious cans into the cooler for cold-keeping.

Sierra did it. She picked up on DP and dropped it. It bounced off the cooler. It exploded. Into the dirt.

Shrapnel splattered all over us -- a sticky combination of Dr. Pepper and mud all over our Sunday clothes.

As if the sight of two twenty-one year old girls walking around a campground in dresses wasn't weird enough, you could say we looked a a bit more funny.

I hope the Bishop didn't notice.

Practicality

It’s raining outside and I don’t believe in sharing umbrellas.

There are three things in this world that really shouldn’t be shared: boyfriends, umbrellas, and *hymn books.

I mean consider the outcomes of umbrella sharing: you both get wet. That generally is the only outcome. And then there’s the whole walking in sync thing during which someone’s elbows always get in the way. Really, it’s okay, we don’t have to share; I’ll sacrifice someone for total dryness. Even myself.

So . . . unless you’re height allows you to get your hair totally wet under my super short showerhead . . . one of us (you) should wear a hood. Because the day I share an umbrella with you is a special day. Consider it my sign of true affection.

As a disclaimer. . . I’m really not that selfish. One time I shared my Reese’s Puffs.




* stop giving me looks when I don’t take a corner!

mine over matter

5 years ago, if there was one place I never thought I’d be with one outfit I never thought I’d wear, it was in the bottom of an open pit mine with a hard hat and prison-orange vest.
Guess what? Last weekend I shattered all my expectations and did just that. I was in a mine, with some very unfashionable sailor-mouthed geologists, who drove big trucks with little red flags on them. I trudged through wet, sticky muck (official mining word) and stood next to a scary machine with wheels as tall as two of my abnormally tall little brothers. It was an adventure.
We like to lick rocks in geology. Some are salty and some stick to your tongue and sometimes you just need to know. And in the mines there were quite a few rocks I couldn’t keep my tongue off of. However, I learned one very important lesson about using your taste buds as chemical indicators. In case you ever happen to be in the bottom of a mine, let me share:

This is chrysocalla.


Totally lickable. It sticks to your tongue or, in some cases, really sweaty palms.
(also a source of copper, super cool!!!)

This is realgar.


See how pretty?? I know you’re salivating, but don’t lick it! Just don’t! It’s 90% arsenic (something I knew) and can poison you (something I didn’t believe). Totally not lickable. Still take-home-and-show-your-friends-who-probably-don’t-care-able.


So there’s your geology lesson for the day. You can thank me later.