-> BRASIL <-

I realized that I have loathed every January since the beginning of all January-s. Why? Because. They have been COLD and AWFUL. Until this one. Gloria Hallelujah. I love January. And I have Brazil and Bruna to thank for this. You see, I went for three weeks to Brazil to see Bruna and her family. Who is Bruna you ask? A girl from Brasil who happened to be an exchange student that happened to live with my family when i was in high school. And besides, I graduated and no longer have a purpose in life and my eggs are rotting. People like me go to Brazil in January. But I digress.

Bruna and me

 

My Brazilian Family

Whilst in Brazil I was able to go to a samba. I went to a pub, which for a Mormon English speaker proved to be a bust. (sat there and watched Brazilians drink beer and talk in Portuguese. For over three hours.) I saw and lived through a savage bone rattling thunderstorm. I thought a lot about life and who I want graduated Anna to be while everyone else spoke in Portuguese. I went to the pool and began my summer tan (take THAT January!) I drove with my Brazilian family for 6 hours to a beach house. The drive was fantastic. Huge jagged peaks of tangled mountains, covered in green jungle with the occasional shout of a bright red or purpled flowered tree. There we villages, which i found most beautiful, and occasional trucks off to the side full of pineapples for sale. Large blue butterflies the size of birds flew by and there were road signs to watch out for monkeys!

The ten days spent at the beach were relaxing and glorious. At the beach house I spent my time reading on the hammock and watching wild iguanas roam.

The beaches either had sands of gold flakes that were panned by the waves or white powder like salt. The water was warm and rich. I actually named the beaches, however, the "Brazilian Runway." Because it was. The men were in ridiculous speedos and the women in fancy bikinis and long dangling earrings. Even as they bob around the salt water like sea otters they manage to remain fashionable. And exposed. Can we talk about that? Never have I seen so many exposed butt cheeks (and other various body parts) at one time and in one location. And may it never be seen again. Winner for most modest? ME. It was interesting that me, the covered one, ended up drawing more attention than the practically naked ones. The world is upside down. Signs of the times my friend.  The beaches were crowed and at times I felt as though I was on a page out of a "Where's Waldo" book. (or "where's the modest bathing suit girl?") But I got to drink with a straw straight out of green coconuts and I felt right about that.

The evenings were spent on the cobble stone streets eating chocolate crepes and buying things. One evening we all went out to eat. It was Bruna and her family and some extended family as well. And there it was. A table full of well dressed, dark haired, Portuguese speaking Brazilians, drinking identical beers- and then me on the end- jeans and t-shirt, blond haired, English speaking American drinking a bottle of water. I never fit in though in life so I felt right at home.

One day we went to Rio de Janiero! I got to go see the Christ Statue.

And take airlifts up mountains.

It's these things that I don't deserve. Like ever. All of it. The whole thing of going to Brazil. Me. I don't deserve it. I was the wrong recipient to their kindness. My parents should of been the ones there. But alas, I went. And. I got a tan.

Is anybody still reading this? On one of my last days I got to go to a town called Ouro Preto. Its an old gold mining town. In the same area they managed to build 13 churches (watch out brazil, that's an unlucky number... ) and inside the churches are painted in gold. The town was a small time machine back a few centuries. Inside the churches the had statues of different saints, only they were made out of life sized dolls with real cloths. They were surrounded by lots of white and gold paint and gody architecture. The effect was somewhat like a mix of Catholicism, baroque, Victorian church meets Disney's "It's a small world" ride.

The last church was something else though. The high vaulted ceilings painted gold, every inch of the walls carved and gold and saintly. Golden eagles were mounted on the walls with gold chandeliers  hanging from their beaks. Elaborate deep red curtains hung up high. And the main event was the beyond elaborate bollywood-esq presentation of golden saints and carvings. There was so much gold and details that is was more chaotic than.... a Thanksgiving dinner table... Or Tokyo.... or both?

 

 

We also got to trek into an old gold mine. With hard hats on. To get there we had to rage up a mountain and through some villages full of chickens and laundry.

 

 

Oh! And before all of this I got to go to an LDS church service back in Bruna's city. Did a little missionary work.

And then my last night. After I was done packing I decided to go lay on the patio in the warm summer night. I looked up at the distant stars that pin-pricked the black as a breeze tip-toed across me. Suddenly someone down the street began to beat some sort of tribal Brazilian flavored drum. I closed my eyes and listened. Somehow the thumps seemed to belong among the cherps, bings, and zumzs of the bug choir around me. It seemed fitting. When man is left to his own he always seems to find something to pound for noise. I decided this was the human's "cherp." And this music echoed off the houses and up into the night sky- sealing my time in Brazil.

I am beyond grateful and thankful and any sort of emotion that humbles and ends with a "ful" for this chance that I got. Traveling changes me. Every time I get  on a plane I know that when I come back I will be a different person.

And so it is.















Congrats to anyone who read this all. (hi mom!)

Pomp and Circumstance

Okay. Enough of this poetic tragedy that I have all over this blog. I don't know why I even started that. Honestly i don't even really know how to blog. Like, how am I suppose to make my page all cute and stuff? Or how do I add pictures? These are all things I need to figure out. But. I have decided to start actually adding things here to update the three of you who read this. (hi aunts!) Good time to start too, I just graduated with my freaking degree. I think that's pretty cool but we'll see what the big-bad-"real"-adult-[world] has to say about that.

I can't wait, however, for people to ask me what year I graduated. Usually people mean high school but they never specify, so I will respond with the answer of "2009" instead of my old "2004" high school answer and they will assume I mean high school.
"Oh, I"m sorry, I thought you meant college. Yeah. I graduated that."
 I can't blame them though.   I mean, come on, I look more like I'm 18 than 24.

Which is fine.

I wish I could of graduated college when I was 18 though -so that I could still go save the world AND get married. Now I have choose between the two. Because. Apparently my ovaries are aging.

I open the door. It creaks. The wood smells of history and I can see dust strolling in the strands of sunlight that is coming through thick glass windows. It's warm. The small isolated house is empty. Except one room. Upstairs. It's filled with sunlight and the view from the window reveals the endless fields and trees. On the floor of the room is one lone mattress. A big one- frosted with old pillows and blankets. It's here that I decide to lay down. In my white sun dress I sprawl out, trying to cover any empty spot.
I fail.
I've been here many times before. To the place where we began but never finished. No matter how many times I go back it's still the same:
I'm too late.
But I keep going because when I'm here I cannot locate time- not a single decade, year, month, day, hour- not even a minute. Which is where I lost you.

I keep hoping you'll be here.
Lost.
With me.
But no.
I'm too late.

As always, the sun begins to set. The crickets begin to call. I leave that room and find myself sitting on the haunted planks of the deserted porch.

Staring down the stars.
Jealous of the moon.

A silent breeze caresses me. For a second I swear I can feel you.
But no.
It's empty.
Because I know where you are. You're thousands of miles away from this place. In a home.

Complete.
With furniture.
With her.

And me?
I'm here
               except.
I'm too late.

It never lasts long. They taunt as they fall. I believed in their colors; the light they reflected. I thought it was real. Alive. Green.

But it never lasts long.

Never as long as the dullness, the absence, the cold. Everything undressed and exposed as it really is. Dead. Grey.

It always lasts long.
Always

Perhaps

Perhaps I’ve already met you,
Perhaps you know my name.
Suppose we’ve been acquainted
An importance without fame

What if forever started
Back on some unwritten day?
Neither of us knowing of
The fact that you would stay

Maybe now I’m looking
Directly at your face.
Maybe we’re both praying
For each other’s saving grace.

Perhaps then there’s a reason
For the handshakes and “hellos”
To one day never say “good bye”
For the one day when we know.

Let's Run To

Let’s run to

Because we’re not running away
From anything.
We are running to something.
We are not leaving
we’re going
Coming
Arriving
In route anyways.

Let’s not run away.
Bring the past with us
Let’s throw it into the open future
and
run to it.

I’ll bring mine
And you bring yours
Wasn’t that the point?

Let’s stop speaking of it
Sacrifice.
We get more
That is
Than we give.

So let’s run to.

Because we can.
and because we should
for no other reason in the world
other than ours.
Lets run to it.

Throw open the doors
Don’t leave a note

Run
Skip
Swim
FLY
Anything
Together
Someway
We’ll run to.


Forever.
Into colored suns
And silver stars
We don’t leave the world
Simply
We create it

Ready when you are

Let’s run to.

Everything will be alright

october 2006

It’s raining. In my rage I look up at the empty dark sky. The night stars are falling and they land on my face. I feel angry. Why is it that everyone has gone, everything has changed, yet here I am, stuck? I feel an irritation towards the sky. I want to rip every star from it’s nook and place it in a new constellation that seems to fit the amount of change that has happened. It is fair or safe that there is something so constant as the stars? It’s false hope. When was there ever actual stability in a wish hosted by a shooting star? Yet night after night I continue to look up. There’s the big dipper, Orion’s belt, the seven sisters. Still, holy, and real. But I feel lied to, slightly bewitched. But then, always, the whisper that follows the light, “Everything will be alright.” And somehow, it always is.