The Words That Made Me

I have a favorite book. My all time favorite book. I read it for the first time when I was 11 and it captivated me, and ever since that day it has always been special to me. I didn't really know why it stood out to me so much as an 11 year old (I hardly knew what half the words meant, and it was set in the early 1900's so I didn't understand any of the references) yet it was something that I really connected with. A book for 40 year olds was forever imprinted on my heart at the age of 11! Talk about a great author!

I've read this book probably once a year since that time and every time new things stand out to me, I understand more references, and I realize why I love it just a little bit more. I can honestly say that this book shaped me and it was something I could absolutely relate to. It tells the story of a young girl in Brooklyn through the early 1920's and her trials and struggles through life. I thought I'd share all of my favorite quotes from the book and give you a little more insight into me. Because, this book is me. Strange isn't it? How a book written and published in 1943 can feel like it was written for a girl born exactly 50 years later.....

Enjoy these bits of me!

"She wanted to own a book so badly and she had thought copying would do it. But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money, and buy ever single book that she liked."
(I actually did the same thing when I first learned to write, and I still have the same mentality.)

"Other people treated children like lovable but necessary evils. Sissy treated them like important human beings."

"Feeling his arms around her and instinctively adjusting herself to his rhythm, Katie knew that he was the man she wanted. She's ask nothing more than to look at him and listen to him for the rest of her life. Then and there, she decided that those privileges were worth slaving for all her life. Maybe that decision was her great mistake. She should have waited until some man came along who felt that way about her. Then her children would not have gone hungry; she would not have had to scrub floors for their living and her memory of him would have remained a tender shining thing. But she wanted him and no one else and she set out to get him."

"But they were made of steel."

"She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living form day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as which makes no tow fingerprints of the earth alike."

"'Because,' explained Mary Rommely simply, 'the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.'
'The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed.'
'That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all you r heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.'
'If that is so,' commented Katie bitterly, 'then we Rommelys are rich.'
'We are poor, yes. We suffer. Our way is very hard. But we are better people because we know of the things I have told you. I could not read but I told you of all the things I learned from living. You must tell them to your child and add on to them such things as you will learn as you grow older.'"

"Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way."

"Helpless in her pain, she was capable still of laying the foundation for bitterness and capability."

"Johnny knew he was doomed and accepted it. Katie wouldn't accept it. She started a new life where her old one left off."

"You married him. There was something about him  that caught your heart. Hang on to that and forget the rest."

"It was the sleeping. It always is. If it is good, the marriage is good. If it is bad, the marriage is bad."

"And Francie did cry. Not for all the names called but because she was lonesome and nobody wanted to play with her."

"It was the first of many disillusionments that were to come as her capacity to feel things grew."

"A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstraps route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb."

"She had the knowledge that she was small but lacked the courage to be otherwise."

"Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing."

"They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted."

"But she was accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered different. She did not suffer too much."

"There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory."

"From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood."

"It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable."

"Truth and fancy were so mixed up in her mind - as they are in the mind of every lonely child - that she didn't know which was which."

"From that time on, remembering the stoning women, she hated women. She feared them for their devious ways, she mistrusted their instincts. She began to hate them for this disloyalty and their cruelty to each other."

"A man thinks of the pain and agony that came to her out of their being together and then it isn't good anymore to him."

"Besides, there is this: If you love someone, you'd rather suffer the pain alone to spare them."

"A woman's hair is her mystery. Daytimes, it's pinned up. But at night, alone with her man, the pins come out and it hangs loose like a shining cape. It makes her a special secret woman for the man."

"'It's a beautiful religion,' she mused, 'and I wish I understood it more. No. I don't want to understand it all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery, like God Himself is a mystery."'

"I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding."

"And wherever she went, she saw a boy and a girl together; walking arm-in-arm, sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other, standing closely and in silence in a vestibule. Everyone in the world but Francie had a sweetheart or a friend. She seemed to be the only lonely one in Brooklyn."

"Francie had a vision. Fifty years from now, she'd be telling her grandchildren how she had come to the office, sat at her reader's desk, and in the routine of work had read that war had been declared. She knew from listening to her grandmother that old age was made up of such remembrances of youth. But she didn't want to recall things. She wanted to live things - or as a compromise, re-live rather than reminisce. She decided to fix this time in her life exactly the way it was this instant. Perhaps that way she could hold on to it as a living thing and have it become something called a memory."

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise;
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others.
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine."

"I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life is too short. If you ever find a man you love, don't waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, 'I love you. How about getting married?' That is, when you're old enough to know your own mind."

"And he asked for her whole life as simply as he'd ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as she'd offer a hand in greeting or farewell."

"I know that's what people say - you'll get over it. I'd say it too. But I know it's not true. Oh you'll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him."

"I don't know. I don't know anything, really. I just feel. And when the feeling is strong enough, then I just say that I know. But I don't."

"The landlord had sent two men and they chopped it down. But the tree hadn't died......it hadn't died. A new tree had sprung from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow towards the sky again. Annie, the fir tree, that the Nolans had cherished with waterings and manurings, had long since sickened and died. But this tree in the yard - this tree that men chopped down....this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn its stump - this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it."

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

Because I Matter

I really don't know. Lately I have been feeling.......yucky (I hate that word but it works). I know that life is peachy and  dandy and I really don't have very much to complain about, but the past few weeks have been rough. My bank account has slowly dwindled to nothing, I've been poked and prodded, I've felt very judged for recent decisions, our apartment flooded, work has been crazy, sleep has been non-existent, and I haven't gotten to the temple (though I know I DESPERATELY need to).

And then someone made a comment to me that I feel like put everybody else's thoughts about my situation into words. It hurt. But it made me really think. What am I doing? What are my plans? How am I going to make all this happen? To other people this might seem like the most simple problem in the world but I really struggle with this. I know what I want to happen and I have it all planned out in my head with a perfect ending, but how am I really going to make this happen?

All I know, is that as long as I'm working towards being the person my Father wants me to be I'll be ok. I know that everything will be fine. It might not necessarily be the way I was hoping, but I'll be ok. And I hope you know how hard that is for me to write. The thought of this not all working the way I have planned is so scary and painful for me, but I'll be ok. I have to be ok. I'm British!

Keep calm, and carry on..................

Fork In The Road

This Sunday there was a CES devotional by Linda K. Burton and she shared a story of Jeffrey R. Holland that I think everyone should hear.

He and his son were out in the wilderness of Southern Utah having a fun boys weekend of camping and being lost in the wilderness. As they made their way back from the desert they came to a particular fork in the road that Elder Holland could not remember which way to go. He suggested his son said a prayer and they both felt prompted to take the road to the right. After making their way down that road for a few hundred yards they came to an absolute and complete dead end and immediately knew they had gone the wrong way and needed to turn around and take the left road. After pondering this little conundrum for a few minutes his son brought up the question, "Dad, why were we both prompted to go to the right when it was the wrong direction." With all the wisdom of a man who is truly called of God he responded, "Sometimes, God knows that the only way to know, with absolute certainty, that we're going the right way is to absolutely know that the other way is the wrong direction."

Good ghandi! Can I just say how that spiritually shot me in the face and opened my eyes. God doesn't give me answers. He gives me 2 choices and I get to pick what I want to do. I've always seen that in my life and recently understood the reasoning behind it a few months ago, but this was just so much more to me. So many times, ESPECIALLY recently, I've found myself changing my mind about decisions I made months ago. And I've been really confused and jumbled because of it, but hearing that one story made a huge difference. Life makes sense again.

Except, not really. Well it does. It's just terrifying. Life changing decisions! Gotta love them!