making a miracle

There’s a lot I want out of life that in this exact moment I don’t know how to get. There is so much I want to do, so much I am capable of: finding happiness in my career, starting my own family, making the best pizza in the world, making new discoveries in my family history, traveling the world. I believe that it is within my abilities to accomplish these things. Moreover, I feel that some of these things are what God wants for me¹. While I know how to inch my way forward in their pursuit, I don’t know how to achieve them with any sort of velocity².

To accomplish any one of these items would be, for me, a miracle.

I’ve never not believed in miracles. I know they exist and I have seen plenty in my life and in the lives of those I love. I just have never taken time to pause on the nature of miracles until about a month ago when I came across the Stephen Tobolowsky story I wrote about briefly in the previous post. The questions he asks near the end of the story have caused me to ponder:

What happens if miracle and catastrophe are not these two events that happen on the edge of probability? But what happens if they are actually part of the same fabric? And that they’re not outside of nature but they are a primary element of nature itself? What if a miracle is an antidote to fate?

The LDS Bible Dictionary’s definition differs slightly from Tobolowsky’s succinct thesis ("a miracle is an antidote to fate"): "Miracles should not be regarded as deviations from the ordinary course of nature so much as manifestations of divine or spiritual power."

It’s interesting to look at what these two definitions have in common: miracles are "a primary element of nature itself," and part of "the ordinary course of nature."

If miracles are indeed a natural occurrence, how does one create a miracle?

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While recovering from a broken neck, Tobolowsky asked his doctor, "How do I heal?" The doctor explained that after a period of time the bones get sticky and eventually fuse together and are whole. Tobolowsky responded, "That wasn’t the question really I was asking. The question I was asking was, how does all that happen, not how long does it take me to heal, but how do I heal? And he said, 'Well, nobody knows that. That’s a mystery.'"

I’ve thought about this question—"How do I heal?"—in great depth over the past month or so in regards to mental illness, specifically depression. It’s interesting to juxtapose something like depression with a broken neck, or even with something more common and simple, like a broken arm. Suppose I break one of the bones in my forearm. I go to the doctor, he sets the bone and sticks my arm in a cast for eight weeks or whatever is normal for a broken arm. After that time, my arm isn’t necessarily as good as new but if the fracture was simple and cared for properly, it’s likely that my arm will function as it should.

It’s amazing—dare I say miraculous?—how the body heals itself this way. Sure, it takes some intervention on the doctor’s part to set the bone, but once it’s in a stress-free environment, the bone seems to take care of itself³. If I am depressed, how do I heal? What needs to be healed, my body, my mind, or both? Which of these, if not both, needs to be kept in a stress-free environment to foster healing? And once isolated, how do I set that healing in motion?

Perhaps the biggest question of all is, can I heal?

The other day I came across a short quote by Caroline Myss that simplified those questions: "The soul always knows how to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind."

If Ms. Myss is to believed and we assume that my depression⁴ requires healing of the soul⁵, then the what and how of healing take care of themselves, the same way the body does. So the question now becomes, how do I silence the mind?

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I’ve thought about Tobolowsky’s miracle—that the arthritis in his neck deflected injury to his spinal cord and saved his life when he broke his neck—and I’ve wondered, how do I produce that sort of miracle in my life? My life doesn’t need saving, at least not in a physical sense, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t use a miracle to help me accomplish what I desire, even if that miracle is more patience and a greater tenacity to plug away at what I have already set out to do.

Tobolowsky’s perspective is part of what interests me the most. Rather than bemoan the fact that he broke his neck and could have died, he gave credit to his arthritis—something he had referred to as a curse—as the means of his salvation. Others might not have the insight to recognize the miracles in their lives⁶. That means an important part of living a miraculous life is being able to actually perceive miracles when they happen.

While, yes, this recognition is important, it doesn’t explain the how or the why of the miracle, and it doesn't give me much help on how I can produce miracles for me. Other than declaring what I want and need out of life, and simply being open to them (in other words, having faith), I don’t know how to produce my own miracles. I can only trust God to give me what I need.

But what about producing miracles in the lives of others?

I love the quote by Spencer W. Kimball, “God does watch over us and does notice us, but it usually through someone else that he meets our needs.”

It can seem presumptuous or arrogant to think that I could be a miracle or produce a miracle for someone else. Yet, there are instances when something I have done or said was the answer to someone else’s prayer. And I know that others have been answers to my prayers. Even more significant, I know that people have been the answer to a question I wasn’t asking—a question that I didn’t have the words or experience to articulate—the question that God knew was deep in my heart.

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As I ponder miracles, as I consider with gratitude those who have wrought miracles in my life, as I search for strength, humility, understanding, tenacity, as I seek to silence my mind in order to give expression to my soul, Stephen Tobolowsky’s words of discovery become my words:

I started to get it. That the miracle I’ve been looking for was me, or part of me. … I thought all of my life that the great access to miracles I was going to have was either through telescopes, microscopes, I had no idea that all I really needed was a mirror. So then I ask this: if we are the miracle and the purpose of a miracle is to change the course of fate then it means the next question is, what’s going to happen today?

Notes, Asides, Post-Scripts, and Acknowledgements:
¹I think God couldn’t care less about whether or not I make the best pizza in the world, but I know He does want me to have my own family, make discoveries in my family history, and serve those that I love (and don’t love).

²I realize that if these things are God’s will then they will be accomplished in His time. Patience might be one of the miracles I need in order to keep inching forward. Still, I can’t help but wonder, why do miracles exist, in addition to being the antidote to fate, if not to move life forward with velocity?

³I realize there is much of which I am ignorant in the medical process, and I might be mistaken on a few points (I've never broken a bone). The bottom line: the body the amazing ability to heal itself.

⁴Keep in mind that I’m not talking about depression as a whole here. I’m simply referring to my depression and that’s it.

⁵I don’t know how Caroline Myss defines the word "soul" but I like this definition, and it’s what I mean when I refer to the soul in this post: "And the spirit and the body are the soul of man" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15).

⁶It’s interesting that Tobolowsky’s doctor helped point out the miracle of his survival. How do others help us recognize the miracles in our lives?

The Antidote to Fate

In his book The Dangerous Animals Club, Stephen Tobolowsky mentions more than once that he had broken his neck while on a horseback riding trip in Iceland. But in the book he never tells the whole story. I thought it was strange that he would leave out such a huge life event—how did he survive this harrowing, potentially fatal accident?—and I've been wanting to hear about it since.

I was excited when over a month ago I came across a podcast on PRI called "The Afflictions of Love" wherein Mr. Tobolowsky relates the story of his neck injury. The podcast has been taken down from the PRI website but I found a video of Tobo performing the story for an audience. It's 20 minutes, which seems long and I'm sure you didn't plan on spending 20 minutes on my blog, but I promise it's worth it. If you listen and you sincerely feel like you've wasted your time, I'll buy you your favorite candy bar. I'm serious.

His comments at the end of the story have been stewing in my mind for the past month (again, watch to the video for full effect):

What happens if miracle and catastrophe are not these two events that happen on the edge of probability? But what happens if they are actually part of the same fabric? And that they’re not outside of nature but they are a primary element of nature itself? What if a miracle is an antidote to fate?

How do you define your miracles?

Overshare

A couple weeks ago I started reading a book called Weakness Is Not Sin by Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D. I wouldn’t have picked up this book had I not known Wendy personally during a short period of my life. From December 2001 to December 2003, I served as an LDS missionary in Quebec and Ontario, Canada. For the majority of that time, Wendy and her husband, Dave, presided over our mission. They are both extraordinary people and were a huge blessing and source of learning to me as a missionary.

I have a distinct memory of Wendy discussing weakness and sin during a missionary training. I remember hearing that lesson more than once, but despite its repetition, it’s not one I completely grasped regardless of my desire to understand. So when I saw a book called Weakness Is Not Sin by Wendy Ulrich pop up on Amazon, I immediately ordered a copy, although I didn’t plan on reading it immediately. I suppose I was saving it for a rainy day.

At several points in my life I have struggled through episodes of anxiety and depression. It has been hard to know what to do and where to turn in these moments. It’s so easy to feel alone and isolate yourself. During one of these moments I spied Wendy’s book on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in my bedroom. I remembered Wendy's wisdom and I wondered if her book could help me find the relief I was searching and praying for.

Throughout the book, Wendy refers to a verse from the Book of Mormon, Ether 12:27¹, many times. It’s a verse that gets thrown around a lot among Mormons—and rightfully so, it carries a powerful message—but only in one or two instances have I exerted great effort to apply it in my life. This verse speaks of God’s power to turn man’s weakness into strength:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

As I’ve considered this scripture and read this book, viewing my depression as a weakness—not something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about—has opened a whole new way of looking at depression. I have found myself seeking strength² and patience through humility and prayer. And I have been able to find self-assurance and satisfaction in the fact that I have been working through this particular weakness in a healthy and proactive way.

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Growing up I was the shyest, most closed-up kid I knew. In my ninth grade algebra class I had a crush on the girl I sat next to. I think her name was Lisa. I remember one night as I went to bed so frustrated with my inability to talk to her that I cried myself to sleep.

Part of what was so frustrating was that not only could I not talk to Lisa, but I couldn’t talk to anyone about the fact that I couldn’t talk to her. I was so afraid of how others might treat my oh-so-tender feelings. I was 18 years old—18—before I could tell someone else that I liked a girl. Not the actual girl but someone else.

I’m still a fairly shy person. I’m not particularly fond of this fact and it’s something that I’m working on. In the meantime, I’ve developed several compensating strengths³ to counteract that. Expressing myself through writing is one of these strengths. Writing is not always ideal, though, because if I’m not careful, it can create a crutch that I use to avoid expressing myself in real time with real people.

Another compensating strength is my ability to share myself with trustworthy people. You might ask, How is sharing yourself different than overcoming shyness? Well, I still have difficulty opening up in groups with people I don’t know very well. This is especially true when there is someone in the group that I would like to get to know better.

What I’m saying is, it’s gotten much easier for me to share myself with people I trust. I know that might be a normal thing to grow into as an adult, looking back at 14 year-old Myke with all those pent-up emotions, crying himself to sleep, the progress seems very significant.

So when I struggle with depression and anxiety, communicating that struggle with others has been an important way for me to gain insight, strength, peace, and relief. Now, this doesn’t mean I share the details of what I’m going through with everyone. The circle of people with whom I share the particulars is fairly small and rightfully so. But I want to share the generalities of what I'm going through with a larger audience for the following reasons:

One. It just feels good. Experiencing life—a composite of good and bad—with another person or other people is simply better than going at it alone.

Two. I often don't know what I'm thinking or feeling until I express it. Whether in writing or vocally, I learn so much about myself when I let someone else know what's going on in my mind. Through conversation, as another individual contributes his or her ideas concerning my experiences and thoughts, as he or she asks questions I wouldn't think to ask, I learn exponentially more than if I were to hash things out on my own.

Three. Sharing myself can help others. I know this because I have received so much strength and comfort when others have been frank and honest in sharing their struggles, whether they are similar to mine or not. When I am open, it allows others the opportunity, if they want it, to share what they’re going through and what they need. It allows me to be a friend to them. And it gives me an opportunity to practice my strengths, to be a good listener, to be compassionate, encouraging, and caring.

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I wish I knew how to be permanently free of my depression and anxiety, or at least how to better manage them. I suspect that I will deal with these issues in one form or another throughout my entire life. I am learning how to be OK with that fact. And while I wrestle with that idea, I am learning that my anxiety—almost always a precursor to my depression—comes not from circumstances and other people, but from how I react to those circumstances and people. I am slowly learning how to act instead of react⁴ (that too is the pursuit of a lifetime).

And while I would love to be free of this weakness, this predisposition toward anxiety and depression, I can't help but be grateful for it because it has helped me develop compensating strengths that serve me so well, strengths that will also be of great benefit to the people I love.

Notes, Asides, Post-Scripts, and Acknowledgements:
¹I feel that Ether 12:27 sometimes is not very well understood by Mormondom at large as so many of us seem prone to feel guilty and ashamed of our weaknesses when these weaknesses—which are not sins, not something to repent of—are simply part of the human experience. As Wendy puts it, "Weakness is the great equalizer, the human trait we all share" (p. 106).

²I think a big part of strength lies not in being free of weakness, but in what we do and where we turn when we come face to face with our weakness.

³Wendy mentions the development of compensating strengths as one of the ways that God helps us overcome weakness.

⁴Act or react: my cousin Jenny has shared a few recent experiences on her blog that have helped me realize the powerful nuance between these two similar words. This post explains it well.

Where possible, I have tried to explain when certain ideas came from Weakness Is Not Sin and not my own brain. The best way for you to find out is to read the book. Really, I can't recommend it enough. (And I haven't even finished it yet.)

Happy Birthday, John Steinbeck

I love celebrating birthdays—celebrating my own and those of others. So my favorite writer’s birthday is no exception. But I never know how to celebrate. How did John Steinbeck celebrate his birthday? No idea. I imagine it was no different than how most of us do it: with friends and family, presents, and maybe some cake. I threw a Steinbeck birthday party one year and plenty of my friends joined me, but I suspect it was because it was something to do and there was cake. Which is totally fine, I don’t expect most people to hold Steinbeck and birthdays in the same regard that I do (even if I wish they did).

He's got a sea captain vibe happening here. Which is awesome.
Image from here.

Maybe this year the best way to celebrate is to share some of my favorite passages from the man himself. Here they are:

To his son Thom in a letter (1958):

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 greater 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 didn’t know you had.

On friendship from Sweet Thursday (1954):

If you love him you must do anything to help him—anything. Even kill him to save him incurable pain. This is the highest and most terrible duty of friendship. I gather what you must do is violent. You must first make sure it can be successful, and you must, second, make sure within yourself that you know you will be punished. It is quite possible that even if you are successful your friend will never speak to you again. That takes a lot of love—maybe the greatest love. Make sure you love him that much.

I don’t know where this one came from originally, but it appeared in a short TIME feature titled “People: Dec. 20, 1963.” It’s one of my favorites:

One of the laws of paleontology is that an animal which must protect itself with thick armor is degenerate. It is usually a sign that the species is on the road to extinction.

From “About Ed Ricketts,” a tribute to Steinbeck’s best friend found at the end of The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951). This can be a hard thing to acquire:

It requires a self-esteem to receive—not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.

And finally, from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1962), a bold declaration as many of Steinbeck’s contemporaries seemed to believe otherwise (read the entire speech, it’s incredible):

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

Alice and the Clown

About a year and a half ago I decided to explore the idea of getting a master's degree in French. Studying French on a higher level is something I've always wanted to do since learning French in Canada as a missionary. So I signed up for two classes at ASU: advanced French writing and 19th century French theater. While I loved both classes, my heart wasn't really in it so I decided not to pursue that degree.

In my writing class, one of our assignments was to write a short story using words from a word bank. I came up with a story called "Alice et le clown" and I posted it on my old blog about a year ago. Which was a bit useless because very few people who read my blog read French.

Earlier this week I thought I'd revisit that story and translate it into English. Here it is, "Alice and the Clown":

We arrived at the train station in Düsseldorf as the last train of the night pulled away. Alice let out an exasperated expletive. We met during my last year of university in London where I was studying European literature. The first time I saw her was at the library where she worked. It was in helping me locate a volume of short stories by Anton Chekhov when I fell in love with her.

But she didn’t reciprocate my feelings of love. Regardless, we he had become good friends and she accepted to grace me with her presence during a literary research trip for two weeks in Germany.

During our first afternoon in Berlin, on returning alone from a trip to a nearby cafe, Alice noticed something strange on the corner across the street from our hotel: an old man with bright lemon hair wearing a dilapidated pink clown suit from a time long passed.

Two days later, Alice saw him enter a store in Hamburg. Curious, she insisted that we follow him but in the store we didn’t find any clown. When she saw him the next day in Hanover she started to believe she was crazy. Finally, in Düsseldorf, after seeing him exit a cafe where we were ending the evening, she asked in tears that we leave immediately for Paris where her parents live.

Now here we are alone on the platform. Tears appear in the corners of her eyes and roll down her cheeks every time she blinks. She shivers from the cold. I know she’s not crazy but I don’t see what she sees. I approach her and hold her in my arms.

I've tried to write (lengthy) short stories in the past but with no success. I guess I just don't enjoy writing fiction enough (and I'm absolutely terrible at writing dialog) to tackle any sort of fiction over 1,000 words (this story weighs in at a light 283 words). So maybe really short fiction, or flash fiction, is my calling. Or at least a good place to start.

So here's where I need your help. I want to establish a word bank -- words I have to use in a future short short story -- to help inspire me. So please post a few words in the comments. Any type of word will do (except adverbs, I'm trying to steer clear of adverbs). I'll do my best to use them in a (very) short story.

a savory cephalopod

Last summer I came across a recipe for grilled baby octopus. I've been wanting to try this recipe ever since so last Saturday I went to Mekong Plaza, a local Asian market, with my brother Matt and picked up a pound of baby octopus.

The octopus needed to marinate for a few hours before grilling, so during my lunch break today I came home to defrost and prepare the octopus. It was a really weird experience. Whenever I cook any kind of animal -- like beef or chicken (I don't cook much fish or seafood) -- it's usually just a portion of the animal and that doesn't really give me much of an idea of what the animal may have looked like. On the other hand, with these little guys (each octopus was about six to eight inches long), here I was handling the animal in its entirety (minus most of the guts which had been removed from the head). I gained a new-found respect: respect for the butchers and chefs who prepare most of the meat that I eat; but mostly respect for this small, delicate, so interesting sea creature, whose life had been taken so I could eat it.

When you're dealing with the entire animal, it's very hard to ignore that this was once a living, breathing organism. Nor should you ignore that, animals should be consumed -- if that's your thing -- with thanksgiving.

I posted a photo of one of the octopuses* on Instagram and I was sort of surprised by some of my friends' comments. Sure, I will readily acknowledge that purchasing, preparing, cooking, and eating fresh octopus is a bit gnarly. But I didn't expect very many of my friends to vocalize how gross they thought it was. Which is totally fine -- I get and respect that tastes differ from human to human. For example, I think bananas, a typically normal food by western standards, are gross. Perhaps I'm more open than most when it comes to seafood. I grew up in a family that ate seafood pretty regularly. And recently I've been accompanying my friends Jeremy and Buster on a quest to find the best sushi in Phoenix. So after sampling shrimp heads, fish eyes, monkfish liver, jellyfish, sea urchin, and more, fresh octopus doesn't seem so weird.

I'm only just realizing this, but I'm actually a pretty daring person when it comes to what I'm willing to eat. Which is awesome because daring isn't a word I would use to normally describe myself.

I'm not too interested in trying this recipe again. The payoff could have been greater: while the taste was decent, it was just too chewy (as octopus is known to be) and not terribly easy to eat. But it was a fun experience cooking and eating something new. Most of all, I'm grateful for the respect I gained for those who prepare my meat and for the animals whose lives are taken so I can eat them.

*Contrary to common parlance, the plural for octopus is not octopi. It's octopuses.

of mustaches and transgender trench coats

The other day I posted this photo below on Instagram with the following caption: "If you want to start taking yourself less seriously, grow a mustache."

A few hours after posting I received a short text from my girlfriend that read: "so. mustache. tell me about that."

I responded: "Well, when I was at BYU--Idaho that was the only facial hair allowed. So of course I had to try it. So I would grow a mustache for the typical ironic reasons but also because no one else dared. [...] Anyway, there came a point where for me it crossed over from irony to 'I actually kind of like this.' I don't know... sometimes I feel more comfortable with myself with a mustache. It's kind of like, 'Yes, I have this awkward piece of facial hair and I don't care what anyone thinks about it.'"

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Do any of you watch New Girl? [If you do and you're not caught up, this post contains spoilers from the most recent episode.] If you haven't seen it, here's the premise: Jess (Zooey Deschanel) moves into an apartment with three guys -- Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Winston (Lamorne Morris) -- after she discovers that her boyfriend has been cheating on her. Antics ensue. It's not always my favorite show but it usually manages a couple good laughs per episode. (That said, one of the best things I've seen on TV was when Schmidt pretended to be one of Mitt Romney's sons.)

Last week's episode opens on Nick modeling a new coat for Jess and Winston -- a women's coat that was delivered to their apartment by accident. Despite the gender mismatch, Nick sports the coat throughout the episode because he feels it gives him a new sense of confidence.

Since the debut of the show, it has been fairly obvious that Nick and Jess will end up together at some point. But until this episode there haven't been any concrete steps to making that happen. At the end of the episode, Nick is finally forced to give up his prized coat when its rightful owner, a female neighbor, knocks on their apartment door. Nick surrenders the coat and has a laugh with Jess about it outside their respective bedroom doors. Jess says goodnight. As she turns to retire to her bedroom, Nick grabs her by the arm, swings her around, and Nick kisses Jess with the passion of a season and a half's worth of sexual tension. Watch it here:

My friend Heidi compared it to Jim and Pam's kiss at the end of season two of The Office. Here, Jess and Nick put Jim and Pam to shame.

Since I watched that episode earlier this week, I've wondered at the writers' reasoning of including Nick's coat in this episode. The coat wasn't a necessary plot device, per se. Sure, Nick wearing a women's coat to gain confidence is funny and ironic but the story would still move on without it. But the episode wouldn't have been as meaningful without the coat. That coat was a bit like my mustache; it was Nick's way of saying, "Yes, I'm wearing this piece of women's clothing and I don't care what anyone thinks about it." That coat put him at ease and Nick stopped taking himself so seriously.

So then why did Nick's burst of confidence to finally kiss Jess come after he removed the coat? I don't know why or how but I feel like figuring out the answer to that question might be one of the keys to my own self-confidence. The coat was a crutch that would have hindered Nick from truly expressing how he felt for Jess. Yes, the kiss could have been just as passionate, but with that coat to lean on, it wouldn't have mean as much. It would have made the kiss, like the coat, seem like a joke.

Yes, I know, this all TV, and stuff like this doesn't happen in real life (does it?). But TV, movies, books -- stories, really -- matter. Stories matter because they give us a new way of looking at ourselves, a new way to relate to our world, a new way to identify and examine the crutches in our lives. And these crutches exist not only in love, but in all aspects in life.

So with that I ask: what is your mustache? What is your transgender coat?