Plain Catie

It has a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. It stars Anne Hathaway sporting the least-believable northern English accent. My roommate who “loves terrible movies” won’t even watch it with me. But the first time my best friend Bronwen showed it to me, snuggled up in my parent’s basement in the marshy anxiety of post-college life, I felt something shift. And at least once a year, when life gets dark—I move across the country, my dear friend and roommate moves away, there’s a global pandemic—I find myself curled up in my bed, crying and laughing at this awful, predictable, brilliant narrative of the deep pain and joy of life. (Also, I would be lying if I said my aesthetic wasn't based on Anne Hathaway's character's curly bangs and Docs.) The movie, One Day , follows twenty-three years in the lives of best friends Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, dropping in on them the same day every year—July 15 th —from their college graduation in 1988 to “present day” 2011. Romantic tension builds t...

Thinking about what I've learned living in Boston this year/grad school year 1, I've compiled the following list, which for me is about as raw and vulnerable as this year has been: 1. God can't drive a parked car. Move forward even if you don't know the way. (P.S. HE is the way.  John 14:6 ) 2. Ask for help. Ask for rides. Ask for friends. Ask for shoulders to cry on. People want to help, but you have to tell them what you need. 3. Be kind to people and talk well of everyone all the time. The relief of complaining in the moment is never worth the anguish of hurting that person or their reputation or compromising your character. If you feel the need to gossip about someone/process, talk to God first. 4. Always turn to God first with feelings, hurts, anguishes, excitements, gratitude. Treasure your relationship with Him. He will always be there to comfort and take care of you, even when no humans are. 5. God gives miracles often at the same time as disappointments o...

I'm calling poems I publish on here "flash poetry," for the double meaning that they may be briefly illuminating, and indecent exposure. Lecture Now, what I have here is a candle. Some of you may not be familiar with candles; let me explain: They are made of wax, they are wick within and burned, they are light and flame. What I have here is a candle; Now remember that the candle cannot see herself. She sees only the shadows she casts, her distorted form, she cannot tell that she sees because of her own light. She doesn’t know: she is the reason we see as we have never seen before. Now remember, what I have here is a candle. To the candle, the world is melting; Or rather, she is melting, while the world grows up around her. How true, she thinks, that I will only shrink forever. The candle does not understand, she has melted before, and will melt again. Here is a candle. She wants to hide her twisted body under a bu...

Dive To plunge the depth of my Divinity-- like when I dove on the reef, dove deep to see the life there, tumbled through pressure to the dancing bottom, waves breaking above, tempestuous, relentless, and I drew small tube breaths, took a black rock from ocean floor to sky, pumping arms and aching back and heavy tank and surface breaks-- I held the underside of that rock, flashing Mother of Pearl, in the sparkle sun, and was happy just to breathe.

Nothing Is As Certain As Death: like applesauce, both solid and liquid, an unlabeled jam jar, a bagpipe, deflated; an iris closed before dawn. Taxes: struggling to spell your own name, a broken power cord, a father's wheezing snore; when you wake up late on garbage day, and run to the curb in your bathrobe and slippers.

This week I drove across the country with my siblings, who are the best people ever and drove over 2,000 miles just to drop me off in Boston. (And are currently driving back to Utah!) The last day before arriving, we stopped at the Sacred Grove  in Palmyra, NY, a forest behind Joseph Smith's childhood home where I (and other Mormons) believe he saw God and Jesus Christ when he was only 14. Sitting there, in that holy wood, I was struck by the radical fissure that vision produced in Joseph's life. One day he is an ordinary farm kid--curious, walks with a limp--, the next day he sees God with his own eyes. Sure, he had to grow into his prophethood, he definitely didn't understand where the vision would lead him, but he was fundamentally changed. In his own words, "I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it" ( Joseph Smith-History 1:25 ). He took a risk, sincerely asked God intending to act on whatever he learned, and was n...

While cleaning out my computer, I found this mini essay from adorable 18-year-old Catie. I wrote it for my Chem 105 class (Dr. Macedone, whom I reference, was my professor), and reading it made me cry, so I thought I would share it with y'all: “Both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual” (Moses 6:63) I attended my home ward’s relief society over Thanksgiving Break and the teacher taught on how for every temporal thing, there is a spiritual parallel. As I’ve pondered on that, and as Dr. Macedone’s brought up examples in class, I’ve realized just how true that concept is. Covalent bonds require two atoms to share their electrons, integral parts of themselves. In order to form strong relationships, two people must allow each other to see parts of their personalities they wanted to keep close or hidden. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says that we cannot predict where a particle is and how fast it’s moving simultaneously. The gospel is the Plan of U...