Soak.

Last night I conked out on the couch during my homework.
I dreamed about a boy I used to date.
He came into my living room and said "How 'bout I just read it to you?"
No hanky panky. Just me, and my book, and a foxy man.
Even this has become the stuff of fantasy.

You can find me in the library, decomposing beneath contemporary and romantic era literature... highlighter in hand, inspiration on the verge, greatly in need of summertime.

I have forgotten what its like to:
*eat something
(not prepared by three mashes of my microwave's ADD 30 SECONDS button.)
*participate in group discussions
(not involving symbols, themes, and character analysis.)
*think in language
(not resembling Jane Austen paragraphs.)
*wear legit pants.

Am I being drivin to insanity... or genius?

(Readin this stuff best make me a better writer.)

HELP.

Further. Further. Further.

It is the strangest thing-- to see someone from afar, and sense their loneliness.
Someone you used to know.
Sitting beside him, our distance was magnified.
"How are you?" I ask.
"Good!"
I wonder if that's true.
I wonder,
"Do I still know you?"

I imagine myself 10 years from now,
what will his name convey?
I hide from all the answers.

Then, I paint my hands in trust-- leave my prints on the door.

SEVEN.

Dear 208 visitors since November 24th,
I still don't know who you are, but I have so much to say.
I know... shockerrrr.

These days my words aren't comin out very well, but I won't suppress them. Here comes the flow.

1. I was drivin home from my nanny-job in Alpine last Tuesday, and decided it was time. Time to pray in the car. My Mamaw does this, and that woman is wise. The open road really pulls my words out of me.
This thing I've been dealin with lately-- I am confused about it. Sometimes I feel God say "You can do this. This is right."
And then sometimes, he seems to advocate a step backward, like I should re-evaluate the way I'm trying to conquer this.
So, we talked about my decision. Mostly I just talked and talked... and he listened. When I got quiet, he helped me know what to say next-- kinda like guiding me towards discovering my own answer.
This was healing for me.

2. Once upon a time, here in the conexsh, our heater broke. The boys from Corner Pocket donated blankets and large-man-clothes for us to sleep in. So, needless to say, over the past two weeks I have become very attatched to a certain pair of man-pants. Today, I found out they were Jordan's. I also found out that he said we can keep them... meaning I, Lyndsi Shae Brown, am goin to hog them.

3. Last night I felt failed by all the men on this earth. Okay, exaggeration, but really...It is time to raise up and say that-- dating is hard. It is not always like the stars of 1980s LDS pamphlets portray, in their soild t-shirts and blue jeans. Riding bikes and holding hands and just marriaging ALL over the place. The good news is, the mass frustration was all-talked-out in the fort afterwards. And by fort, I mean the sweet fortress in the bomb shelter of course. I've been avoiding it. But last night I faced up, went in, and told him everything.
Soon, I will tear down the fort. We'll need more room for FHE down there. But still, it will be another ending.

4. I am thankful for my roommates here at the Conexsh. With these women, I never feel out of place. We pray together, pig out together, cry our faces off and laugh till we pee our pants. Lately, I've had a feeling about our new roommate Steph. I've felt like her family is a ton like mine. So last night, I told her. Turns out: it's true. Relief.

5. Sometimes I go back to DT, it’s a big field now. I go to feel all that has passed through me since I came here. I feel my independence. My back-then questions. I feel my road and all of the changes. Last time I was there, I saw a sign as I drove away.
“I’M TRYING HARD TO GROW, SO PLEASE DON’T WALK ON ME.”
Love, BYU grass.
“I feel the same way,” I thought. So I busted a U-turn. I left my car parked and running in the middle of the street while I walked to the edge of the grass. And then, I straight-up stole that sign. Right there in my pajamas and slippers, emotionally nuts, I took it out of the ground and put it in my backseat.

6. So I don't know what's up with this wintery mess I see everywhere. It's pretty, but the cold is trapping me. Where is the grass? I can't flop-down anywhere without riskin my dang life. How am I supposed to play outside? Harder question: How am I supposed to stay inside? I'm goin nuts. If there are walls around me, they best be containing a swimmin pool. Tonight, I wanted to jump into some water SO bad. Me and Brooklyn we're runnin around outside. Three in the mornin. My pants started fallin off, story of my life. So... I just let them. I ran around with my pants at my ankles and I was free. TAKE THAT snow. I'll half-skinny dip right here on the sidewalk.

7. I keep changin. All the time I am changin. But there is one battle that remains—always, I am fighting for my youth. Back home, I felt like my youth was dying before its time. I worked to preserve the child in me. I think that is why I still need to play in the rain and sing loud and fingerpaint. I need to know that I am not hardened. I pay my rent and write my papers. I go grocery shopping and apply for scholarships. I help my friends tie-up their wedding dresses.
I. am. growing. up. Part of this is beautiful to me. But still, I ache with the change. As God stretches me into who he wants me to be—there is pain in the growth. I grieve for what I have lost. But I feel him here with me. I am grateful for the braid of past, present, and future. Sometimes, he reminds me, that he won’t make me grow up any more than is necessary. Being a woman doesn’t mean I lose my warmth. He will never rob me of my youthful spirit.

Home.

I walked around school today with that feeling-- that I am illuminating, capable, and lucky. I needed the reassurance. Then, I sat at my kitchen table for five hours, reading. Plays and Poems for college. And what is this feeling I am full of? Words I still crave... The spirit of them is in me but I cannot create their tangible body. What is this longing? This exhaustion that keeps me out of bed... what will be enough for me? After all the letters and books and quotations... all my reachings... who is this woman in me? This cry for freedom?

"a portion of that figured veil we cast against oblivion, then try, with little hope, to tear away..."
Still Life; C.K. Williams

dizzy.

Last week was empowering.
Monday felt natural.
Tonight-- unexpectedly, it came back for a while.

I want to write, but oh the homework.
OH THE HOMEWORK.

It's 10:55. I'll be back.
See? I'm back. 1:34AM...

***

The exposure of our capacity,
Requires the exhaustion:
of being a believer.
Did you fear your own rescue?

I was not scared, but tired.

The absence of your conviction
Eliminates our potential
Can you still fly?
Can you still feel it?
Am I still
red
and Golden.
?

* * *

"and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart."
-- William Wordsworth; Tintern Abbey

Slow. Restless. Future?

Dear 161 visitors since November 24th,
Who are ya'll anyway?

Today I realized-- that I can walk on water! It is frozen underneath my feet every day on my way to class. You know what else I can do on water? Fall on my FACE. Yep, I can.

Sunday night, I told God I was ready to listen.
He's been waiting on me. We talk about it sometimes.
This week, I am tuning-in to the answers behind the lines. (I used to be afraid of them.)
So far, if I could put them into a sentence-- they would sound something like:
"I love you, but it is time to get over yourself. You were capable the second you were ready to be."

It's not over yet, but there is a break in the silence.
Tonight, I sang in my car. Finally, I sang again.
Where my voice was once distracted, there is now conviction.

"But men who can consign over the rights of posterity for ever on the authority of a moldy parchment, like Mr. Burke, are not qualified to judge of this revolution. It takes in a field too vast for their views to explore, and proceeds with a mightiness of reason they cannot keep pace with."-- Thomas Paine; Rights of Man.

"Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, "I will compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it: for the mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity and grace, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet."

Percy Shelley
"A Defense of Poetry"

Head fulla this.

Lyndsi Shae is angstin for boys.
Nope, men.

That does not mean: that if I used to kiss you in the woods, you should passive-aggressively want me through text messages. Instead: MAN UP, and then, realize that it's not happening. I left.

However, if this does not apply to you, applaud yourself, and come snuggle.

* * *

I got back to Provo yesterday and fell into bed.
Finally, I was sleeping on purpose.
But since I've come back -- something is not right.
Am I awake yet?
What is this feeling?
So I take some untied ends and try to resolve them:
I make friends my the new girl in this house.
I take a shower. I look up my textbooks. I glue some pages into my journ... but I still feel very ____.
(unfinished.)
I finally send letters back to the missionaries.
I unpack my suitcase and clean out my bookshelf.
I go to the bookstore. I read I write I drink hot chocolate.
Still, _____.
I make lists of what I did last year.
Worked 3 jobs.
Kissed 5 boys.
Finished 6 journals.
Nope, not helping.
I try to convince myself that a new semester feels right. That I am ready for some type of beginning-- but I'm not.
Somewhere, there is a piece missing.
Parts of Fall Semester float around unfinished.
The faucet drips in the background. I am not at peace.

* * *

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

e. e. cummings

* * *