Idaho’s shapes radiated brilliance, literally breathtaking. Arrival as the first snow touched basis with the green grass. Oddity of the blades dipped in a white chocolate truffle, September initiated. One of my roommates who was native to the town told me it snowed once in July.
Two months now I’ve lived in the borders of the BYU campus. From what I saw around this place, these people were a brand on their own. Looking around at faces unfamiliar to mine. People surrounding me, indifferent to my likings. Even if we had similarities in clothing options, our uniqueness apparent.
Acquire information to continue in hiding. Submission to the wonders of middle-class foolery who enforce absolution of merging students into the upbringings of society.
When I walk through the hallways an immediate silence no one confesses is present. Classrooms are generic in my opinion. Every student flocking in direct intentions opposite to mine. Nonetheless pursuit for contacts commences, cajoling to create colleagues. I smile in a polite manner of course, not offering unruly remarks on the first days as a college freshman. I do consent them with is an awkward pause, not offering a name to be called by, not even a syllable to remember me by.
I am twiddling my thumbs when the Sister or Brother Teacher calls upon me by my actual name and I am nervy yonder credence. Exposure of the clandestine, parting the image of my being vulnerable. I muffle out that I go by a nickname: Trae Lae. Quizzical looks toward me evaporate.
Waves of scholar bodies incline from complete entrances. Their lives look meaningless, unaffected by shaken storms or the unbearable breeze. I’m aware of others’ journeys, yet it’s the strong empty area in them that comforts me most; lost like I am.
Lines grow vicious in length. Groups of girls hover around each other. A cloud of whispers floats above their childish minds swirling in misconstrued things, always imagining themselves with a fiancé in a week’s time.
True to what they say the Mormons mate and breed so quickly. Their will to convert and take over the planet plan is substantial in motion. I saw this ad in the school paper, as a joke, but I think they are incredibly serious.
Resume to find a suitable mate to marry. Inevitabilities are as follows:
Served on a mission (Preach for two years on home front or abroad)
Loves to play Apples to Apples (Mormons like to play with fruit)
Loves children
Wants a big family
Holds the priesthood (NO CLUE)
Speaks 1-4 languages
So forth
Where do these ladies come up with their longings for a guy to wed? They acknowledge the space you take. What more could you want? When will the elements add up to equate enough for you?
I create a mental sign stating Love is from above, so why are you searching below? Of course, even thinking of casting the opinion out rummages up grief. I involve myself with commercial statements; false.
My ‘sisters’ are anything but solitary. Everybody is open to each other’s life stories. Compliments given to the wondrous braids I manifest upon my obedient head. You have lots of time churning butter and baking bread to think up extravagant ways to displease your parents; appearance wise. I give a sheepish smile, giving quiet thanks.
Middle rows in classes are associated with my fanny, mixing in with the white walls and desktops. Aimed always to the attraction to other models.
The prodigies I live with spark conversations wanting me to take part and join in on the getting-to-know-you game. Bite marks on my bottom lip, my eyes widen; invitations for my contribution are aborted. My voice impulsively misplaced, letting them do most of the careless gossiping.
Girls range in age from 18-24 informing myself of important evidence I’ve ignored. Raised in an retrogressed cult. Did I say cult? Implications intended culture, yes, that is the word I contended to profess. Organized religion, what a wonder that has become.
Updates are the following. In order of importance:
1St Update: We are all sisters they inform me.
2nd Update: All have various fathers and mothers, none intertwining in each other’s family trees.
3rd Update: My entire mind is a perplexed fog.
Even if their fathers opposed to having more wives than one. Interpreted the whole polygamists’ scandal being kept on the down low.
My contemporaries’ superstitions on the land I come from evolve from Amish country to the hick town outback.
Nobody wonders why an Amish girl is making roots in a Mormon town; images whisper to me they do. Where is the fun in being invisible? Predications of the gossip I might receive if they understood the history of the girl with bonnets in her carrier.
Exceeding friendly actions, roommates gape and gander at the odd placements of my whereabouts. Excuse one from the excited crowd: Ashlee Bleu. Jealousy raged from those green eyes the girls swooned over moments ago. Attention direct on others, she began fuming with potential cattiness. Which struck me as anomalous, because she was a nursing major. Assumptions of the health majors led me believe those characters enjoyed other individuals.
Clinging to my clothing everybody is out to make friends with one another. I’m looking for no interference from my peers for the next four years. Plausible, I try to convince myself, totally plausible. I breathe, as if for the first time I am exhaling.
The loveliness of the college, it’s gigantic nearly life defining. The tall buildings hold much over you and the stony brisk eastern Idaho weather is obnoxious to comment on the very least.
Round table after round table, we enter and begin each lesson with an opening prayer; not a silent solo one. Once called on to give this opening discussion. Mortified, I stuttered, eyes wider than ripe melons. I began and finished, grasping when I open my eyes that I prayed wholly in my Amish tongue. The teacher was nice enough to let me finish. Continuation with the lesson plan as if I wasn’t the outsider I appealed to be.
The thing about this university that bugged me out most, was not the fact we go around calling our teachers and professors’ brother and sister so and so. This pointless innuendo that half the student body claimed to be artists. Sing or play an instrument you got it, sign me up for musical choir and bandstand, that’s the fastest way into Heaven. The other 50% claimed to be the next business guru by 2020. Warren Buffet be warned, LDS graduates are coming for your trophy.
Every decision made with the influence of God, Jesus (Our Brother), and the Holy Ghost. Not just one standing over your shoulder at infinite times whispering imprints into your mind. There were 3 telling you what to do, who to be and where to go!
Talk about a lumbering crowd.
It’s remarkable to me how I had gotten here, how I suppose we had come to this place. Together, collectively we were a part of each other’s world connected in depth to the visionary of what we claimed as God.
It was our God wasn’t it? Not the sickness of the brain man had taken to kindly? We had a decision in the matter of where life could lead us.
Overall, I agree.
Truth be told this place I came to learn and devour such Christian knowledge for the sake of my own soul. If I am to confess every unworthy sin, my hand shall be washed clean. Though I examined and found no trails of dirt upon them.
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The Circus in Me Page 3
