Writing is Rewriting

In the battle of 'Write what you know' vs. 'To know is that you know nothing' which write is right? If I can only write what I seemingly don't know then I end up in an empty space!

Here is my blog re-write. This will be my last post on thedarlingview. I'm not giving up just trying something new. I found that my favorite piece that I've done all summer (for those of you who don't know I've been writing loads of journalistic articles all summer long) (I'm not tooting my own horn because not many of them were published) I realized that my favorite one I did was the 'Revelations in a Cop Car.' Where I got to fully step into someone else's life and learn about who they are. So, I plan on making this my writing career, at least for a little while.

The new blog is http://onestorylegacy.blogspot.com. There's nothing posted on it YET but will soon be filled with stories from people of all ages. The premise of the blog is this:

Everyone is a legend. We all have had experiences in our lives that have changed us. If you had one chance to leave one story behind what would you tell? I've VERY excited about this new venture and where it might lead!

Thank you all for your faithful visits to this site and hope you find my next blog to be even better. If I could leave you with my final last words and advice it would be this, Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.

Regrets are for the Wickless

We all have regrets. It's the down side of life that no one seems to be able to escape from. My regret may sound ridiculous to some, but its a true story.
Ever since I was three years old I wanted to be an actress (there is home movie to back me up on this). I wanted to be one of those Hollywood greats who had style as well as talent. I flipped flopped from my pursuits over the past four years, but when I was encouraged to try out for a favorite T.V. show of mine something sparked within me.
I got my acting resume in order, scheduled time for a photographer friend to do head shots and knew exactly what song I was going to sing for the audition. All my "me time" became booked with exercising and voice warm-ups. Everything was ready for me to send in an audition tape, but I never did. I waited until the due date slipped past me and did nothing.
Why didn't I try?
It wasn't fear of rejection; high school boys numbed me to that, years ago! The truth is I was more afraid of them saying yes and me not being able to hack it then getting rejected in the first place. For that reason I chose not to be a contender.
Is this what's mean by keeping your light under a bushel? Maybe that proverb isn't just talking about giving others light, but to not let your own candle get snuffed out. What good is a candle without a spark on top of it?
Readers, I make you this promise: next time I have a chance I won't hide myself again. Not that I think I'm the most amazing at anything or that I am the next movie great, no, but I know I should at least try. I'll know then that I've given myself every chance possible to let my light shine.

I'm Abraham De Lacy Guiseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley, O'Malley the alley Cat

I've got that wanderlust. Yes, 'wanderlust is a real word and not one of the many that I make up for these blog posts. You can look it up, but I'll save you the trouble: it means to have a very strong or irresistible impulse to travel and everyone has it pumping through them.
Not just that wanderlust of wanting to move from one geographical location to another. The word can mean so much more. Maybe your wanderlust manifests itself in the form of time - you wish you could only be 15 years younger of that you children would grow up faster. You might be lusting for your career to be further, your schooling to be done, or your hair to grow - anything! You want to be somewhere/something/someone else. In the words of every mother talking to their three year old child, "Why can't you just stand still?"
Why can't we?
Why do our proverbial feet itch so that we must be constantly planning our next move up and out? Thousands of outside influences entreat us to stop and smell the roses or enjoy the day. We, ourselves, give that advice to all others around us raving though life, but never set the example by being the one to slow down first.
But isn't that what makes life wonderful? It's that ongoing anticipation of the sun coming out tomorrow after all, tomorrow is supposed to be another day? Wanting to wander for better isn't haste it's hope. It's the built in human right to dream for something more out of life. It's how we let go of our disappointments from today.
Lust on my friends. Lust for that better job, a day when you're out of debt, or when that moving truck comes and sweeps you out of life known as today and brings you home to tomorrow. I am a wanderluster. And I'm proud to live so.

To Judge the Judging

Every week or so I crack open the opinion potion of the local paper. Then I laugh. I'm not laughing so much at the authors or what they've chosen to write about, but more so of the inevitable back-lash of all the comments people readily give in return
For example: a couple weeks ago a columnist wrote about how they hated all forms of PDA and the week after the most passionate pro-PDA advocates had all come out of the wood work to write about their apparent outrage over the article. The week then after, another rush of letters came in with people arguing the original point of being anti-PDA. And so the cycle kept turning publication after publication until another issued article was printed and a new cycle began. The biggest twinge of amusement comes from the fact that almost all these letters are judging the other writers' words and telling them not to be so judgmental. Why haven't they ever found the irony in this circle of condemned men and women?
I'm not saying that we should stop judging, judgments can be a good and beneficial part of our lives. When I'm looking for a parking spot I'm going to judge the cars I'll park next too and usually pick the new-mint-condition one over the car with scratches all over their doors. Or I'll judge whether or not to buy fruit from a vender depending how clean everything is. Judgments are necessary.
Maybe we just need to add more 'benefit of the doubt's in our lives. My experience in life is this: there are always exceptions to things we dislike. Or in other words, nobody hates everything. I could say that I hate bees because their stinging hurts, but I like the honey they produce and the flowers they help pollinate. I could go on and on about how I despise people who wear socks with sandals, but what if a person was a burn victim and had to wear the protective socks; then I would have to make an exception there as well.
The down side of these articles is that they are not conversations and if they were the two debating parties might be able to agree on some middle ground. I love holding hands with my Ben in public, but I didn't appreciate when I was sitting in church and the couple in front of me was literally making out, tongues and all, for 22 minutes. (I timed them)
We should all take a breath when hearing someone's opinion and then actively look for what we do and do not agree with in their statements. There is always a little of both in every opinion.

From Bad, to Worse, to Mortifying

Break-ups are never easy and the longer you're together the worse the end becomes. When I broke up with Justin, for the fifth time, I was more then finished with him. I never wanted to see him again. Not so much in an 'I hate you' sort of way, but more of an 'I don't like to dwell on past mistakes.' Lucky for me the day after the final separation I left for 18 months on a mission for the LDS church and blissfully never saw him again.

Until two years later when I moved next door to him.

Yes I, Rachel Darling, managed to move into the very same apartment building as my ex-boyfriend and his new wife. To make matters worse, living in such a close proximity also meant that we would be going to the same congregation every Sunday.

Protocol and boundaries needed to be set up immediately. Without ever once saying a word to each other we agreed that a sustained silence and never acknowledging one another's existence was best course of action. And we never did cross paths again.

Until nine months later when I accidently flashed him and his wife.

It was an especially breezy day and I had recently purchased a bright pink skirt that is, shall we say, flowy? I knew the wind was howling, but the divine lust of wearing a new article of clothing to church overruled any shred of common sense. Yes, fashion over function will win every time. I devised a plan to just hold down the tufts of fabric while I was outside. The walk into church was cleared with no difficulty. It was the treacherous exit from the building when the incident occurred.

My Ben, seeing the hustle I made to get into the building earlier, went out and moved our car closer to the church door. As I stepped out in the parking lot I marched past my thoughtful man and into the parking lot filled with similar silver compacts. I quickly realized I'd walked to the wrong car, but didn't realize that it was Justin's car, at least not until I turned around and saw him and his wife walking up behind me.

You know those gears in your head that turn ever so slowly; where you see someone and one gear starts to click "You know them." click click click "You're at church so that must be where you know them from." click click click click "You should smile and explain that you're walked to the wrong car".

I did. Jovially I said, "I went to the wrong car! Haha". Mid sentence everything clicked and the gears seem to shout, "STOP Talking STOP Talking!" But it was too late; I had already broken our rule of silence. I never felt so embarrassed.

Enter then a stiff breeze from the east, my skirt up to the heavens, and my blushing levels rising. Now that was real embarrassment. I stood there; in all my granny panty glory. As the moment with the couple starring me down seemed frozen like an old western the gears in my head were the only things that moved. They told me to run away and run fast. But I didn't.

I knew that if I did shrink away it would be like giving them a part of my dignity. I decided on the opposite and stood there and laughed. I started walking towards them again (the only path I had to get back to the parked Ben) and assumed Just would start laughing with me. They didn't. And that's ok. They chose to sneer at me instead. A part of me felt sad for them as we finally passed by one another. They could've at least cracked a smile.

I learned that day that laughter is the best medicine. It works especially well for bruised egos.

Revelations in a Cop Car

Last night I spent two hours in a police car, the K-9 unit to be exact. Before you start wondering what misdemeanors I could have violated let me assure you - I never get caught! This ride was for different purposes. My journalism teacher insisted that we take a jaunt around the city with a police officer and then write a paper about it. What was supposed to be about Rexburg's finest turned into a paper of revelations.

Before I met with Officer Hirschi (pronounced, Hershey, like the candy) I started thinking of all the questions I was going to ask him. Living in a secluded town of small population and an overly predominate religion (Mormons) I knew that we wouldn't see much action; this was going to be like taking a ride along in Mayberry.

Officer Hirschi and I met in the back of the police station at 9pm. The sun held onto its last chance of light before giving up in favor of the night. Right away I could see why this officer chose the K-9 unit as he seemed to have a preference of dogs to people. That wasn't nearly as surprising as we appeared to be about the same age, which made me a little less nervous that I was going to do or say something to offend him. I still held onto some anxiety that I might take a picture of something that's confidential or hit the siren button on accident.

We started the night with an odd form of repetition: question, answer, silence. Question, answer, silence.
"How long have you been a police officer," I asked, too worried that maybe the slang of 'cop' would be seen as too common or something.
"7 years"
Silence.
"Is anyone else in your family in law enforcement?"
"My dad."
Silence
the only comment Hirschi mustered on his own without probing was, "This is going to be a long night."

I kept my constant desire I have, to hear my own voice, muted. The stream of voices on the police scanner filled the car with codes that meant nothing to me, but I didn't want to interrupt them. They all held different importance to the policeman next to me and I didn't want him to miss something important.

I suppressed my logorrhea for as long as I could, but began monologing; mostly about how I couldn't wait to move out of Idaho. Lord love and bless these people, but the culture here is such of a mold that I don't want to press myself into. Of course, I said everything with the assumption that this officer was Mormon as well. He stopped me mid-ramble and said, "We are on two different sides of the spectrum. I'm not Mormon."

In our greatest difference we found common ground. And the evening changed.

I grew up being the minority, religion wise, in a small town with molds of its own. I knew exactly what it felt like having my beliefs constantly questioned by those around me. Hirschi was now in the boat I jumped ship from years ago.

The pattern: question, comment, silence, excused itself and allowed conversation to take over. It turns out; we had more interesting things to say! Even the streaming of codes over the radio took a back seat. Hirschi opened up about his wife and how she's a successful real estate closer. They have three children of all different races. Their youngest they just adopted from Texas. He would show me pictures and I soaked in every story. Then, Hirschi told me what it was like for him to be a cop and different things he'd seen and done. He told me about finding college students cannoddling in church parking lots and we laughed at the irony behind it.

As the evening ended quicker then it began, I hopped out of the car and thanked Officer Hirschi for the experience. He smiled and joked that I better drive slowly home so he wouldn't have to give me a ticket.

For the rest of night, where I was still awake, I tried to remember what sparked the change in our drive along. What switched our view of one another? Then all at once it hit me: I was able to know the man behind the badge when I stopped talking to the badge and started talking to the man! Everything I had prepared before our drive could have been answered by any policemen or women in the station. I hadn't prepared for the actual person I was going to be meeting.

How many times in our lives have we done this? We go talk to the nurse, the teacher or the boss without realizing that there are people behind that profession. They all have favorite TV shows, beloved family and friends all outside of their careers. And they want to be viewed as people, as we all do.

I learned that night that there's a reason God didn't just leave the idea of people on paper, we were all meant to be seen in different dimensions.

Money is like Manure

When you figure out what occupation you want you're supposed to find a matching major to study. But what if what to become isn't close to what's being offered at your university. Or any Universities for that matter.

I'm going to be a Professional Philanthropist. What kind of classes am I supposed to sign up for that?! I could take business, but I'm interested in the making of the money only the spending. There's always economics, but the numbers are for the banks to sort out, not me. I've decided to keep with my communications degree because shopping always comes in second to talking.

Do not misunderstand me: I don't want the money for myself. I'm not a spoiled brat...alright I am spoiled, but I'm not a brat about it. I have bigger plans for the dough then just fabulous shopping sprees.

First: I'll buy up one hotel in every major city and transform them into Half-Way houses for families; ones who have lost their jobs or fallen on hard times and a need good clean place to stay while they get back on their feet. I'll stock each place with healthy meals and teach culinary classes so the people living there will have an opportunity to learn a new skill while providing a service for others.

Second: I'm going to buy up the best ad agencies and PR reps from all over. They will be my personal team of experts who will choose 100 small businesses (mom and pop shops) give the owners free services. This way their business will grow and get costumers coming in regularly. Every year we'll work with a brand new group of business owners until they can stand on their own two feet.

Third, well I can go on, but I want to keep these blogs short-ish. I guess you can say my dream in life is to make other's dreams come true. And it may sound "Pollyanna-esc" but I honestly believe that since my intentions are so pure that somehow I will find away to get finances sufficient enough to do it. Let's round up this week with 2 great quotes:

King Benjamin: "If God...grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another."

Dolly Levi: "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."

Now it's your turn- leave a comment or an email answering the question, if you had millions upon millions how would you give it back to your fellow brothers and sisters?