Naked Trees

I put one foot in front of the other as I gave a visit to the concrete.  THis would be another day of walking home from school that I experienced this past week. I gazed into the black and white of my checkered vans shoes as the scent of winter filled my nostrils and I exhaled, tilting my head and seeing the townhouses to my right I shifted my vision to the left. Ice. Looking down again I managed to dodge an ice patch and continued on my walk--my mind and eyes fixed upon a certain tree.


This brought my mind to another walk I took on my way home from school, only this time i was 4 years old and my Mother was my companion on this autumn day in 1990. ( I just stopped to think about this and couldn't help but chuckle.) As we walked hand-in-hand, Mother and Daughter, we admired the trees in Lorton, Virginia. In autumn, during this time, all the leaves had fallen to the ground and layed beneath the towering bark, waiting to be bagged. I remember this day she taught me a lesson in english writing, about the term personification. She said, "Dianita, look the trees are naked." Smiling I looked up at the pale wood trunk and branches that laid in front of a blue background, with their clothes laying on the cold ground...in the shape of rigid leaves. After that day, whenever I saw trees with their fallen leaves, i would happy proclaim, "Look, the trees are naked!"


On this walk of mine, as I continued on my walk--January--2010--I began looking at another tree just up ahead to the right of me. It was naked and because of that I could study it's body. The trunk, thick and secure and then it's branches or hands and arms. The wind was strong and as i tucked my head into my jacket avoiding it's piercings.I told my mimd to focus on my music I was listening to instead of how cold I felt, and then what I saw became profound............................................




"We tend to think of the results of repentance as simply cleansing us from sin. But that is an incomplete view of the matter. A person who sins is like a tree that bends easily in the wind. On a windy and rainy day, the tree bends so deeply against the ground that the leaves become soiled with mud, like sin. If we focus only on cleaning the leaves, the weakness in the tree that allowed it to bend and soil its leaves may remain. Similarly, a person who is merely sorry to be soiled by sin will sin again in the next high wind. The susceptibility to repetition continues until the tree has been strengthened."




Elder Dallin H. Oaks, 1990, Sin & Suffering, p. 5

A Red Day: Good and Bad

Ever since it happened all I've done is notice the color red, I even considered going up to the girl walking on the other side of the street to see if she found it. I did not have to. The red turned out to be pink...definitely not my color.

I woke up today around the same time I normally do...5:30am. I got dressed, put on my face to last me the day, and then looked at my scarves, neatly hung on a white hanger in my walk-in closet. Don't be fooled, that doesn't happen often, organization lasts only so long until i destroy it only having to clean it up later. With only a few seconds left before I would have to confront the possibility of running toward the bus stop, I contemplated between the three options of scarves hanging ever-so nicely. (I neatly placed them on that hanger, I know, another rock on point for me). I chose the best, my red scarf, from Perú.

In June, 2007, my fate would be a chalina (spanish for scarf). Location: Chiclayo, Peru. Serving as a missionary and spending most of my life outside than inside, my pensionista (church member who fed us 3 meals a day), Hermana Galvez, would very worryingly tell me how cold it was and how i needed to keep my throat covered at night, so I would not get sick. She reminded me of my own Mom. Very graciously she lent me her sons scarf...never knowing if he was okay with that, until I finally got my own. My ruby-red scarf...and it came with a hat (yes, and proud of it). I used that scarf more than i remember, in Peru and after. Compliments poured in over it. Yes, it's yarn woven together, but of all the bazillion people in the world, who made it? I still remember the face of the woman of whom I bought that item, and how we made an exchange that day. I gave her soles (Peruvian money) and she gave me a memory embedded on my heart.

I am quite attached to the things I've acquired in Peru (my coconut ring, the plastic earings given as a gift in Jaen, the beaded bracelet my convert gave me, the hemp bracelet received by a sister from the CCM in Lima, the ring a girl gave me when i told her i liked her ring...yup, she took it off and gave it right to me, my "te amo" (i love you) Peru shirt...the list goes on). Little pieces of history from my life, all with a special meaning, sentiment, a certain time cherished. It isn't just a thing, there is a meaning behind it, memories of who I was when those experiences occurred, and how it affects me now. I can even picture the people of whom I received these treasures in my MIND! ah! So amazing how you can never forget a face!

Yeah, today i ruined that. Sitting on the bus on my way to work armed with the necesitites: coat, backpack, lunchbox (in the seat next to me keeping me company), and my red peruvian scarf. My face squished in what seemed like the red sea filled with fog (a.k.a. my breath). Sitting there, I tried reviewing for my Music 101 test. My mind filled with words like: Middle Ages, polyphony, plain-chanting, In paradism. Arriving at my stop I shoved all my notes into my music book, grabbed my lunch box, took out my bus pass...and jumped off. Within one minute...i realized how many memories lied within a ball of yarn folded nicely together that once sat upon my neck...I left in on the squishy blue seat on bus 833 northbound.

I called UTA, got the bus schedule again and found my same bus 2 hours later...boarding and my scarf was taken. Not there. Disappointment.

The good news??? I've been in the need for ketchup for the longest time, and my co-worker and friend Celeste, offered me hers for my hamburger that i had for lunch. Yup, she gave me the whole bottle. That will be the only red I will enjoy looking at. But you know what?...

That's enough red for one day.

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