dripping with passion

speaking of wonderful words, i was recently made aware that once john steinbeck wrote a letter to his son about love. young thom told his pa that he thought he was in love, and here is how his father responded… dear thom: we had your letter this morning. i will answer it from my point of view. first - if you are in love - that's a good thing - that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. don't let anyone make it small or light to you. second - there are several kinds of love. one is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. this is the ugly and crippling kind. the other is an outpouring of everything good in you - of kindness, and consideration and respect - not only the social respect of manners but the greatest respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. the first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you di

last january, i made a goal to read 25 books in 2011. weeeeell, i didn’t exactly make my goal. BUT i did read 15 books over the course of the year, which all delighted, inspired, entertained, moved and/or uplifted me in different ways. i have dog-eared so many pages in these magnificent volumes, and i wish i had a brain that allowed me to remember all the goodness in them. i sighed at luscious passages of gorgeous description, became engrossed in brilliant storytelling, laughed out loud many times and certainly shed a tear or two in the midst of these 15 books. the power of the written word is a phenomenon of beauty that transcends this world. i love reading good books.

  there is nothing quite like the classic golden gate bridge bike ride on a sunny saturday. the adventure, which i’ve done quite a few times, always with a perma-smile, goes like this: -rent bikes at sports basement at crissy field -ooh and ahh at the views from the top of the hill -bike across the iconic, gorgeous, fantastic, vermillion bridge, and stop at both of the towers to take it all in -walk bikes under the bridge -enjoy the views at vista point -cruise down the thrilling hill into charming-beyond-charming sausalito -eat something super yummy and walk along the harbor -park bikes in the ferry and stand on deck while cutting through the bay past alcatraz and into the skyline -delight in the ferry building and/or fishermans’s wharf -bike past ghiradelli square, through a gorgeous park, fort mason, and the marina -return bikes -ask yourself: is this really my life?! last weekend i took the excursion with a group of both new and old friends. and gosh, it was great. it was such a

two days after i landed back in california and into a new life, my mom hopped over to the bay to provide some back-up. oh man oh man, she truly is the best. i was in the midst of life-change-shock and a weird housing situation, and my dear mother swooped in and took care of me. it meant the world to me to have her here. she helped me so much, and we had so much fun, and each night we knelt to pray together and i felt an overwhelming surge of incandescent, grateful love for my beyond fabulous mom. a lot of mom’s visit revolved around food. as soon as i picked her up at the airport we headed straight for thai food and yogurtland in downtown palo alto. then the next morning we headed up to the city and i took her to batter bakery/square meals for brunch: ever since the new shop opened (operating in addition to the kiosk where i worked, and in partnership with an amazing personal chef), i have been wanting to try brunch, and both mom and i were blown away with the yumminess. we sat in

twelve days ago i moved and eleven days ago i started a new job. and it feels like everything in my life has changed – like i’m stuck in the middle of a cartwheel. i’m hanging there, examining my new life from the air, wondering if i like it, all the blood rushing to my head. it’s been a crazy couple of weeks, and honestly a hard couple of weeks. i’m grateful for this mortal experience. i hope i can learn what i need to learn, because i know that this place and time has been written into my life curriculum by a divine hand. the emotions i had in my last few days living in the city were peculiar. as i took a little extra time to notice my life around me as it passed by gauzy and slow, i kept thinking of the word melancholy . once, a dear friend told me while we watched a golden ocean sunset that she felt feelings of melancholy connected to moments when something beautiful comes to an end, like the last lingering strains of a sunset. we talked about how there is such true sorrow connect

five years ago this week i embarked on the most fantastic, sumptuous adventure of my life (rivaled only by the mission). since all of my siblings went, one by one, to study abroad in the holy land, i dreamed of going to the byu jerusalem center from when i was itty bitty. my junior year of college came, and the center was closed (and had been for an extended amount of time) for security reasons. i prayed literally every day for two years that it would re-open and i would have the opportunity to live my passionate dream. just in the nick of time, the center again opened its doors to students and i was selected to be in the first group back (after 6 years). i can’t think of anything in my life that has been more completely “dream come true” than my experience in jerusalem. because of all this lead-up, i had super high expectations when i took off for the holy land that january five years ago. and honest to goodness, my expectations were exceeded an hundred fold. i loved every single s