Colors

Driving in the dark, the near-dawn, to begin hiking the Narrows:

The anonymity of duskiness brings a slow blink, a nod of the head, a study of the car interior. Eyes raise, and the sudden shift of the environment shedding its monotone shocks, unnerves, and then delights.


Strokes of watercolor percolate through the rock--streaks of sunrise and sunset, blue haze wafting off the trees and far peaks, junipers exhaling indigo to slurp up the sandy stone smudges. The rim of the sky embraces the leafy colors seeping upward, against gravity, and the domed sky swishes upward as the cloth is whisked away, first white and yellow, then orange, pink, sloughing away to leave the powdery blue of a dawn sky.

The sky recedes and the sun reveals the stony pigments blasted into the rocks, deep-seated color like kilned ceramics. But, blocked from the sun's radiance, the creviced blue shadows siphon the hues from the stone, wicking them back to air and sky.  

As tones become hardened by the sun's entrance, the scrubby flora emblazons gold, scarlet, and bronze onto the landscape. Orgasmic leaves boast their own brilliance, confident in their breath-taking, almost unnatural richness, until the sun overwhelms and incinerates the now curling, ash-light foliage. 

  It is too much to bear. Sunrise deceives us, portrayed so often as a calm, peaceful, moment of yawning and potential, of waking. As I watch it emerge through my window I am hard-pressed, breathless, stunned. The earth falls prey, surrendering its brushstrokes of innocence to the sun's savagery. We also fall prey to this celestial tyrant, intent on exposing beauty, pursuing it to the climatic moment when it is consumed. 

Up to This Point...

It's a bit sad how quickly time flies--my New Year's resolution to blog weekly never even had a chance...nor did the reformed goal to blog once a month...oops.

So, well, in to February, I come back again, hoping to capture in a brief, picture-filled post, everything that has happened in the past nearly 3 months. In a few words:

Rosie.
Grad school.
Work promotion.
Christmas, holidays, and family.

That about sums it up.  I'll add a few quick notes between this long line of pictures and end with a promise to be back on soon--and with some pictures from 2013! (we've switched recently to taking video rather than pictures since Rosie has been so mobile and entertaining, but I don't know how to upload them...)

My apologies, none of these Rosie pictures take place past her 6 or almost 7 month mark--she is almost 9 months now and crawling EVERYWHERE and standing up and shuffling around objects. She actually has hair now and refuses to stay still for diaper changes or bath-time--she loves to be MOVING! She likes the car unless it stops too long at a traffic light and then she starts complaining.  She is not afraid of other kids anymore and loves playing with her cousins Elizabeth, Matthew, and William as well as her neighborhood friend Cedar.  Rosie never went through a shy stage--it might be because she stayed with so many different people while I raced up to campus to go to class or teach.

For Thanksgiving we left the chilly Utah weather and headed to sunny and dry Arizona to see Rosie's other cousins (Alyssa, Rebecca, Samara, Westin, and Celeste) and enjoy hiking with Grandma and Grandpa.  The food was stupendous.

Rosie's 1st Christmas brought some wonderful memories as well.  Dustin and I dressed up--plaid shirts, ear-muffs, gloves, etc.--in order to "cut-down" and set up our oh-so-authentic 3 foot fake tree.  Fun times.  Rosie got lots of fun gifts but had more fun waving paper and bows around then she did getting presents--she'll get it better next year, I'm sure :) We loved seeing the beautiful lights at Temple Square over the break as well.

She is the chubbiest, cutest baby ever and she and I have so much fun at home avoiding the stairs and exploring each nook and cranny.  I love this girl so much!

Dustin has gone from a one-man-band at work to hiring, training, and managing his own team, so he has been extremely busy.  I SURVIVED my first semester of grad school (whew!) and have been even more busy this semester since I began to teach a freshman writing course as well.  My students rock, though, and so far everything has worked out.  We are super busy but loving every moment we have together.  2013, here we come!!!

a full life

I haven't blogged in a long while--not since I began graduate school, which has taken up all of my time that is not dedicated to Rosie.  In one of my rhetoric classes we are discussing blogs and why people blog and what blogs should be about and how often bloggers post, etc. etc. etc. Lots to discuss.  Lots to discuss about the growing role of technology in general, in our lives, in our school, in our minds.  An article I read talks about how to begin a blog and especially what you need to begin one (an urgency for your subject matter, an important/reasonable purpose, a sense of authority/qualification, strong personal interest, and an audience to supply positive feedback).  I think that's asking a lot, especially because my reasons for blogging are much more laid-back. Academic discussions are interesting, but usually I walk away musing about the purpose of life and why I do what I do--questions rather than answers.

But the reason I (we, thank-you for your occasional post, Dustin) started this blog was #1 to keep a record of the fun places we visit (not quite as exotic as of late, seeing as most of our time goes towards work and most of our money goes towards school) and #2 to remind myself and others of the quirks, joys, happenings, and consequences life brings.  Today I wanted to share a few things that makes my life fuller:

First, there are machines that run through our neighborhood eating leaves.  Yesterday there was a lengthy gusting of wind which caused most of our burgundy and gold leaves to take a tumble to earth.  Today most of them have disappeared into the belly of the whirring beasts that roll through the gutters and drive-ways of our suburb.  However, for some reason yesterday Rosie and I decided to take a break from life and homework and go out stomping int he leaves.  Rosie is learning to sit up, so she sat in the leaves smashing, throwing, and biting them.  She giggled as I swung her through the swirling colored leaves and I had a moment to take a breath and look at my mountains and realize once again how beautiful my favorite season is, even in its later throws of transformation.  Today the leaves are gone, but yesterday gave us enough time to make a memory with them.

Second, the joy of food.  Dustin and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on Monday by going to a fancy restaurant and ordering a platter of lobster tail, king crab, salmon, and a few different varieties of shrimp.  It was my first time eating lobster and MAN it was delicious.  It was fun using the nut-cracker device and dipping steaming meats in butter and doing it all with the person I love more than anyone else in the world.  Even better than all of that, when we showed up to the restaurant there was a 40 minute wait, so we put our name on the waiting list and went out for a dessert-before-dinner run.  Ice cream is the food of the gods, and it makes waiting infinitely more enjoyable.

Well, my list of a few things has been shortened to a mention of two--Rosie is waking up and I still have 3 articles to read before beginning a paper that is due tomorrow...then I have to start my homework for the next class :)  I sure have enjoyed this year of blogging, and I still look forward to the comments I get from old friends and new followers.  Thanks to all of you out there that make my life means something, who give me vibrant personalities to anchor my own to against the blusterings of life that would obliviate the fullness of life except for the strength of people like you.