At home I was looking at this book of compiled e-mails I had written my family on my mission. I sort of miss writing a weekly letter to someone. It was self-therapeutic. I wish I had someone to write a weekly letter to.

we watched this movie. i liked this part.

Te felicito, joven

The other day I was looking through some old stuff saved on my Google Docs account and realized that the younger me was a lot wiser than I sometimes give him credit for.

Also

I realize that many times I don't actually say what I feel or think to others, or explain why I like certain things I give them a watered down lame version of what I actually really think. I have absolutely no reason to do this but for some reason I have the habit of doing that by default, almost as if I have to be ashamed of what I really think or feel, which is ridiculous. I feel like I've come to this realization several times during the past few years of my life (like June 3, 2007 for example, and also in several e-mails I wrote to my family while on the mission) and I make the goal to do better but then slowly slip back.

For example, the other day someone said they liked the picture on the background of my phone (of Julia de Burgos) and then asked who it was. I said, "Oh, it's this Puerto Rican poet. I found a poem of hers once in a Spanish book that a missionary was studying and liked it." Then that would've been a perfect opportunity to explain why I liked the poem which would have given that person key insights into what really interests me and what values I hold, etc. but I didn't.

I realize that that was one of the key characteristics that I liked in myself after the mission, and I think that's one of the key characteristics I feel like I'm lacking now. Basically, I feel like few people actually know me beneath-the-surface and I realize that's why.

Someone also told me that reading my blog they understand me more, which I liked, but made me realize that I also don't want people to have to read my blog to understand me.

I realize that in my head I sometimes translate "quiet and reserved" as "insignificant", which isn't necessarily true.

Homesick

Hey fatty Skinner, lose some weight.

Even though I can think of a ton of things about the mission that I'd never want to go back to, when I look at these pictures I feel so homesick for this transfer. It is by far one of my the fondest memories of my mission. 

give/take

Lately I've been feeling discontent in that I never feel like I'm creating (I hate saying that because it sounds like some insincere pretentious bullshit crap but I can't think of a better word) things. (Start mocking voice w/ body language that suggests I'm trying to be cooler than I am to impress others with my crappy half-baked philosophy) "Yeah I feel like I'm taking everything more than I'm giving." (end voice). Shut up Dallin.

Anyways.

I feel like I have so many good ideas stuck inside of me that never come out. I feel like I could contribute and interact more. I feel like I could be a lot more significant than I currently am, because other people won't give a rat's ass who I am and what I have to say if I never say it. I guess I feel like there's a lot of incongruency in what I think about and what I feel and the actual image that I project outside to others. Incongruency between what's on the inside and what's projected to others on the outside.

I found this poem in a Spanish book once by a Puerto Rican poet named Julia de Burgos. The poem is called "To Julia de Burgos" and it is supposed to be a letter written from the rawer, more honest version of herself to her social self. I have loved it ever since. I currently have a picture of her as the background on my phone. Here is an english translation. I like it better in Spanish because it seems to flow and rhyme better. Especially the line

Tú te rizas el pelo y te pintas; yo no;
a mí me riza el viento; a mí me pinta el sol.

and

En mí no, que en mí manda mi solo corazón,
mi solo pensamiento; quien manda en mí soy yo

It just isn't the same in English.

A link to the Spanish version.

To Julia de Burgos

Already the people murmur that I am your enemy
because they say that in verse I give the world your me.

They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.
Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice
because you are the dressing and the essence is me;
and the most profound abyss is spread between us.

You are the cold doll of social lies,
and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.

You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;
in all my poems I undress my heart.

You are like your world, selfish; not me
who gambles everything betting on what I am.

You are only the ponderous lady very lady;
not me; I am life, strength, woman.

You belong to your husband, your master; not me;
I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all
I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.

You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God’s justice.

You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
heaven and hell, and the social, “what will they say.”

Not in me, in me only my heart governs,
only my thought; who governs in me is me.
You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.
You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,
while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.

You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,
and me, a one in the numerical social divider,
we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.

When the multitudes run rioting
leaving behind ashes of burned injustices,
and with the torch of the seven virtues,
the multitudes run after the seven sins,
against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,
I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.