Raspberry Picking

Today I ventured into the backyard to do the unthinkable. I picked raspberries. Allow me to explain why this used to be the unthinkable. When I was a little girl I found it amusing to step on bees when they were buzzing around the little weeds in our backyard. Then somehow I developed an irrational fear of them and of being stung, which has pretty much stayed with me until now (at the age of 21). Most people stay really still when a bee is near them and wait for it to buzz off. I am the type to go ballistic and start running in any direction whatsoever until I get away from the thing, which often results in quite an embarrassing moment, as it usually occurs when I am in public. The worst is when I'm baby-sitting somebody's children and I actually desert the children in an attempt to save myself from an insect smaller than the size of my pinky toe. There are some things in life that just are the way they are, I guess.

Anyway, throughout the years I also developed a love for raspberries. There is no taste better in the whole world than the taste of a lucious, red, ripe rasberry. When my mom decided to plant raspberry bushes in the backyard a few years ago I was overjoyed to say the least. I waited in anticipation for the day that they would grow big and strong and start producing little sweet delicacies. My world turned upside down one day when I realized that bees really like raspberry bushes too. They were always swarming around my raspberries and doing absolutely nothing except hopping from leaf to leaf like they have nothing better to do in life. I felt threatened. I felt defeated. For too many years I let those bees deter me from my precious fruit. For too many years I snuck up on the bushes only to grab a few raspberries, hear the threatening sound of buzzing in my ear, and take off running, tripping over the sprinkler in the yard and nearly breaking my toes.

Today I conquered my fear. I took a bowl outside and picked raspberries until I had filled it to the brim (well it was full until the dog snuck up and started eating out of it while I was busy avoiding bees and staying still in the middle of the bushes while I spotted clusters of ripe berries). I even recovered from a heart attack after I saw a snake on the fence, which is actually fake and meant to scare off birds (that was the neighbor's idea apparently). And now I'm going to eat my raspberries and enjoy every one of them!

I dreamed a dream

Last night i dreamed a dream. This is significant because normally i just dream about the color black. Or else i forget my dreams as soon as i wake up...Anyway, i dreamed and remembered it.

i was on a train riding through the country in Romania, only it wasn't the kind of trains we took while we were there. it was a train where i stood outside on the platform and i was holding onto a metal rail and trying not to get blown off the platform by the wind which was hitting me really hard. When the train stopped i would run past a bunch of gypsy women and grab my duffel bag and throw my belongings in it and then run back to the platform before it took off again. i didn't know anyone i was with and i was just trying to get all my stuff together and hold onto the metal rail so I wouldn't get thrown off the train.

My life is like that dream right now. im just trying to get my stuff together and hold on until the ride slows down a little and i can stand on my own two feet again. i am trying to figure out how to balance myself and become more comfortable along the way. It was really scary in my dream when the wind actually picked my feet up off the platform and the only thing keeping me on that train was holding onto the rail. The result of letting go would have been devestating, except not really because you can survive anything in a dream. i have even breathed underwater in a dream without any scuba gear (1 of probably 5 dreams i actually remember) . . . but still it could have been bad.

Sometimes life is hard and you just have to hang in there. Sometimes it feels like we are scrambling to pick up all the missing pieces and throw them together again but we just can't quite get it together. We always forget something. But it's okay. God is watching over us.

"Bear with patience thine afflictions and I [God] will give unto you success."

Alma 26: 27

The Book of Mormon

I am so blessed:)

A few weeks ago my brother got married to a beautiful girl in the Phoenix, Arizona temple. I have been blessed with such a good family and now it is one person bigger. I have never appreciated my family as much as I do now after returning home from Romania. I love them so much!

Pa, Alyssa

My little fireball of energy,

I thought about you and Andrei a lot today as I drove home from Utah. I wish you could have been in the car with me and sitting beside me playing hand games and looking at my fingernails like you always used to do. I imagined you walking around the playground outside and riding that big bike you used to ride outside of the orphanage. Remember how you used to sit in the big basket and yell at Maria to pedal but she couldn't because you were too heavy...and once you went in oras to get apples with Simona and you came back with a succor in your mouth and an apple in your hand. Before you left the playground I asked you where you were going and you said, "in oras" (in the city) and then you said "pa, Alyssa" (bye) to me. The first thing you did when you came back was give me a sticky kiss and show me the prized apple in your hand.

You used to throw yourself against me and hug me so hard it hurt. It kind of scared me at first because you were a big girl:) By the end of the summer I was getting somewhere around 15-20 of these hugs on certain days and I loved it; I couldn't get enough of it. I loved the way you held on tight and stroked my fly away hairs and breathed on my neck and gazed into my eyes for a few seconds before you ran off and went back into your own little world, rocking back and forth on your feet, riding your bike around dangerously because you always looked straight down, and hitting the toddler's bums because that was your way of showing them affection.

Before I left for Romania I read a quote that I thought was brilliant:

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adina, Ralph Waldo Emerson can say beautiful things, but I think he is wrong. I was never out to win your affection so I could claim success as my own. I remember your tokens of affection now with such fondness. It brought so much joy to my heart to see you skipping back to the main room after lunch time and turn around for a split second and yell, "pa Alyssa" and "mine tu?" (you are coming tomorrow?) before I left the orphanage for the day.

Adina, To earn your affection was BLISS. It was a BLESSING. It was BEAUTIFUL. I love you and miss you every day. Take good care of Maria.

a friend's tear

This is a tribute to my wonderful friends. I came back to Provo feeling like an emotional mess and not knowing how I was going to face my life again after leaving Romania. God showed me just how much He loves His children in the last few weeks that I have been here in Provo. On the first day of school I happened to run into one of the fetele I served with in Romania and we hugged and cried in the middle of a busy hallway on campus while people stared and walked on by. So many friends called and texted to see how I was doing. Talking to friends in person or on the phone kept me distracted and helped me to feel something when I was feeling nothing. Another friend bought me pizza and sat with me in the park for a few hours and told me about how he got through hard times in his life. Another friend talked honestly with me about how she felt when she got home from the very same program nearly a year ago and what got her through the transition period.

Possibly the sweetest and most tender of all these moments, and the one I almost failed to see or recognize, was one silent tear that fell from the eyes of one of my fetele as I told her of the struggles I was dealing with. What more can I ask for in life than sweet friends who feel my pain and cry with me and for me and strengthen me so that I can stand on my own two feet again and reach out to others?

And even though these friends have been huge blessings in my life, there is one more friend I have who is even greater. One of my friends loved me so much he suffered every affliction known to mankind so that He would always know exactly what I was feeling. He promised to always be by my side and to carry me when I am too weak to go on. All I have to do is reach out and take his hand; He will never leave me comfortless. 

Life is BEAUTIFUL. Everyone alway has at least one reason to live.

Dear Andrei

dear andrei,
i miss you. i think about you every day and i imagine your face in my mind and i hear your laugh in my ears. it has been 3 months since you left the hospital and i watched you run down the hallway and out of my life. i stood there in shock with tears silently streaming down my face and tried not to think about how long it would be until i see you again. since i have come back home to America i have found that life lost a lot of its meaning for me. i dropped school this semester because i couldn't sit in a classroom and pretend like research papers and textbooks were my top priority right now. i couldn't commit myself to group projects and to the other students.

i lay awake at night and cry for you and for all the children who filled my heart with so much joy this summer. the sun set on my life when you left, but i survived. the sun set again when i returned home. but i am surviving. do you remember when the nurses used to make you cry because they made you sit on your potty or refused to give you food? remember how you wiped your tears and your snotty nose with a tissue and then regained composure and laughed and played with the fetele? i know how that feels now. i am wiping my eyes and my snotty nose and finding a reason to laugh and be happy again. i love you andrei. i miss you every day.

i hope you are playing and laughing right now.