Stream of Consciousness 4/21/2022

And before he even argues, and before I even fill up

There’s a spider on the counter

And his lips are painted red. 

And before he fills it backwards

On the couch-ride to the city

There’s a monkey three weeks backward

With a cradle for his head. 

Today I saw at least 200 Cedar Waxwings in the trees outside Isis, or rather, on the walkway between Isis and Heaven. 

I remember when I had my interview day, they explained that we had the name first, and that we’re holding onto it in hopes that our building far outlasts the terrorist group. 

The Waxwings were hopping from branch to branch, and chirping with little mini screeches. 

I didn’t know what kind of bird they were, but I figured I’d be able to identify them since they were so distinctive looking. 

They had bold, yellow bellies, and sharp little crests on their heads like faux-hawk hairstyles. And little black stripes on their faces that went out from almost their beaks and back to almost to where their wings began. The tops of their bodies and their wings were tan. They seemed to be looking down, at least their eyes looked that way, but their movements seemed like they didn’t really care about anything but the branches, and maybe the clouds. 

I figured just googling “yellow-bellied bird” would make them easy to identify, but there are lots of birds with yellow bellies. It took a lot of scrolling and then a step-by-step ID process on the National Ornithology website to finally conclude that that’s what they were: Cedar Waxwings. And by the time I had found what I thought was the right bird picture from the comfort of my office, their actual image had faded quite a bit and I was unsure. The pictures of these birds looked so much more smooth-winged, kind of waxy, which is maybe where they get their names. And they looked bigger than the ones I saw on the trees outside Isis. I thought maybe they were juvenile, but juveniles don’t have the yellow color yet, at least not as starkly. 

Even in the later afternoon, many of them were still in the tree–fewer, to be sure, but still many. And then I was very confident they were waxwings. The Cedar part I had trouble remembering for a little while, and I kept looking it up again on my bus ride so I would remember. 

Deliver us!

Deliver us from caring so much against same sex marriage. Deliver us from the weight of gendered theology. Deliver us from the pressure of the overwhelming idea of a completely unified doctrine but a reality far less clean. 

Deliver us from the ground and into the trees. Keep us from floating too far into the sky, but deliver us. Deliver us Deliver us. 

Harden the hearts of those who would keep us back in Egypt. Harden so the deliverance will be yet more striking. Let us hop ever higher in the tree. 

I never liked the feel of Q-tips. I was glad when i learned that they really shouldn’t be stuck in your ears. Leave me waxy, I say, but ironically, not sticking anything up there is actually the best way to keep from being too waxy, you know? 

You don’t know. 

I’m tired of those videos (TikToks) which are jokes about the Black Menaces videos. The Black Menaces themselves I like. But the people commenting, especially from outside the church, as if the conservatism at BYU is all that unique. You do know that Mormons don’t have a monopoly on this stuff right? TED Cruz isn’t a Mormon. Neither is Trump. Nor most of the Florida legislature, or Texas. 

And I’m actually always a little pleasantly surprised at how non-cringey the BYU-ers answers are. Like the joke, is that they have a hard time answering basic questions about basic human rights, but that’s only true in a small number of cases. Yes, there’s some hesitation sometimes about support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and there are other stinkers. And while I think this kind of hesitation is uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunfounded, I get it. If you consume a lot of conservative media, then you’ve heard a lot about BLM being some kind of violent actor. That’s not a BYU thing, it’s a Trump’s Republican party thing. 

But anyway, 

Even with all that, the majority of the people asked questions by the Black Menaces say the correct answer. Yes they support black lives matter. Yes they support marriage equality. Yes there are grave racial injustices in our society. And the few people who can’t see it aren’t really blotting out the hundreds of glowing yellow waxwings in the tree. Except that they do, because people perceive that they do. 

And the money in the kitchen

Counted up to all the ceiling

And the sealing of a dozen

Doesn’t count at all to ten. 

And the way it makes you feel yah

Is the horse’s cousin backwards

And the candle on the counter

Is a gold-egg laying hen. 

And I don’t know how it happened

When I saw the golden sunrise,

That the chill of April morning

Is a signal and a sin. 

Yes the chill of April morning

Is a signal and a sin.