Inherited Narratives

A complex narrative for your legs at Wolford, which I pass on the way to work

This week for Artist's Way homework, Lara and I are supposed to examine our perception of God or god--depending how you see Him/Her or him/her, or whatever God means to you.  (The Artist's Way isn't religious, but is big time spiritual.  So if that bugs you, you might have a hard time with it.)

It was interesting writing about this today--actually, maybe for the very first time.  What I came up with was that growing up, I felt that God was withholding, that S/He rewarded other families, but not mine.  And this didn't make sense to me, because there is this thing in Mormonism, this thing that has come out with the rise of uber Ritchie Rich Romney this year, that righteousness (church attendance, tithe paying, callings, Sabbath observed, etc. etc.)  will get you blessings--yes, even temporal blessings:  good jobs, good house, good money.  So where were our blessing?  Because my parents were checking off all the righteousness boxes, like totally checking off . . . and still we struggled, to a humiliating (at least for me as a kid) degree.

Sometimes our car broke down and we--mortifyingly--walked to church.   Because you know, Lara, that no one walks to church in Arizona, even if it's two blocks.

Well into adulthood now, I think I still live in the narrative I inherited, that life is a downward trajectory, that things don't get better--only worse.  And I'm really trying hard not to live in that narrative space.  But it's hard.  

On the upside, on the way home from work, I met up with two kids who were in the BYU dorms with me Spring term of 1983.  They met each other during that small window of a term, and ended up marrying about a year later.  And 29 years later--we meet up in NYC, and they are just as delightful and interesting to talk to in the Time Warner building as they were in the Morris Center cafeteria.