ACCORDING TO ZAC

I’ve been overcome this weekend by the significance of people in my life and all they have done and continue to do for me. This isn’t new, given my reflections on Shaley , my two best friends , and how much a ward family can mean in recent times. But I feel it in my bones yet again, and it feels important to pay attention to. A lot of this started at a White Coat Ceremony for my second year PT students on Saturday. I loved hearing families and friends cheer as their loved one’s name was read. There was a really dapper older guy a few rows away from me (the rare occurrence where a fedora really worked; he looked great!). He was sitting alone, and when his person’s name was called he stood and clapped, not making much of an audible or visual statement in such a big space. Yet his act of showing up as one person in a busy room to support someone he cared about that was deeply touching to see. To be one in a sea of many can feel like it’s not much impact, but this guy knew that somet...

It’s so interesting how memories will surface after being tucked away so long, and how they can almost knock you over. That happened to me last week while I was reading a book called Warlight (3 out of 5 stars, FYI). There was a scene about packing a trunk and an impending separation between parent and child that was probably incredibly typical of WWII-era Britain. But what it jogged in my brain was packing for my mission almost 10 years ago. In the three months between opening my mission call and leaving for the MTC, everything that we bought for my time away got piled onto the bed in our guest bedroom. Periodically my mom and I would go in there and count out how many shirts I had, check the list again to see what else I might need, etc. Then the day before we flew out, we stacked it all on the living room floor, alongside the two big suitcases I would be packing my life in for the next two years. As I rushed around that day, packing somehow got away from me. And when I say “someho...

My last post was a list. This post is a list. I know I’ll have another list posted by the end of the year. Apparently this site is now a Buzzfeed spinoff where it’s just listicles organized by someone who is passionate but doesn’t utilize science to make good assessments? I’m not mad about it. Recently the prophet asked us to #givethanks on our social media pages. I like to use social media as a window into the lives of others, but I seldom offer my own life up to the internet spectators. I politely abstained from the prophet’s request. And while I did spend time compiling some lists of varying topics earlier this year, most of which involved gratitude, I’m here to #givethanks in a humble bid for repentance. 1. Arizona Gosh, this state. Summer was brutal, and lasted through most of October this year. Damn you, global warming! But the fall wind finally came and carried the desert heat away. I've recently taken to long walks along the canal near my house (nearly 5 miles, most times...

I finished a book this week called Greenwood that I really loved. It tells the story of a family, the Greenwoods, starting in 2038. We open with Jake Greenwood and walk backwards in time, learning about the previous generation, then the one preceding, and again the one that came before. Then, when we can sort of get a sense of where much of this family’s trajectory started, we start walking forward again to fill in the gaps and see how all of these individuals’ decisions were impacting people down the line, even if it was impossible to know that at the time. So much of this book spoke to me and made me think about my life, but two passages specifically go along with some thoughts I’ve been having about a couple members of my family. The first comes from Liam, Jake's father. He's a woodworker with difficult relationships with some of the people around him. In a tough moment, he comes to a realization: “Time, Liam has learned, is not an arrow. Neither is it a road. It go...

I didn't know when I first started my feature writing class how much I would come to enjoy learning from my professor, Bill Schmidt. He's a former New York Times bureau chief that retired to Tucson to teach and kick back a bit. He told good stories, managed to make a loosened tie look really classy, and used his expertise to make me a better thinker and writer. One of the lasting gifts he gave me, however, was turning me on to The Atlantic , a really interesting news magazine that I otherwise hadn't heard about. Since I took Bill's class back in 2014, The Atlantic  has been a place where I have learned a lot  about the world, the way people think, race and class issues, critique (mostly of TV and movies, but also of social norms and trends), and a host of other things. This year when they chose to go to a paywall model (subscribe to good journalism to keep it alive, folks!) I immediately purchased a subscription and have been thrilled to have unlimited access onlin...

They say that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, right? Personally, I like sweet more than sour, so maybe lemon bars would be a better analogy for me, but the thought is all the same: my life isn't perfect, but it's coming around based on my own efforts. I've been thinking this a lot  the last few days: (I'm rereading The Fault in Our Stars , where this gem of a quote comes from, and it's perfect. Minus the cancer and tragedy. But seriously, it's so good.) Anyway, the awesome part about me saying "WHAT IS THIS LIFE?" this week is that it has been about good things. As in "how the heck did I get so dang lucky?!" I mean, today is my birthday, and that's pretty cool. I've really felt a lot of love, even through generic Facebook wall posts from people I haven't spoken to in a long time. But even better is the love I have felt through the people closer to me (both emotionally and geographically) who have texted, c...

Cheryl Strayed  is a writer and generally interesting human being from what I've been able to glean from the little I know about her. She wrote a memoir called Wild  that was then adapted into a major motion picture starring everybody's sweetheart, Reese Witherspoon. Though I haven't read her memoir, I have read synopses of her memoir (and accompanying film). She has led an interesting life, full of passion, struggle, despair and joy, among many other things. One thing she has had to deal with is losing her mother. Cheryl was in her 20s, if I remember correctly, and her mother was only 45. It was a crushing blow to her. Now, many years later, she has compiled a series of her most insightful tidbits about life when she was working as an anonymous advice columnist named Sugar. My lovely friend Kristina sent me this book in the weeks after my mother's death in November 2014, hoping that it would help me find ways of coping with my recent tragedy and be able to move for...

(Context: my wonderful mother passed away in early November 2014 from cancer. The diagnosis a year previously had been shocking, but her decline was not. That has been one of many sources of great emotion over the last year. This entry will be about coping with the loss of her, but it could very well be applied to the setbacks we face in life, whether self-inflicted or otherwise.) Life is such a crazy thing. The range of emotions I have felt in the last year or so would take days to explain completely, and the emotions I've felt in the last few days alone have had me up and down. Fortunately enough, I started going through old journal entries this afternoon and I found one that was really encouraging. Last March I had just finished reading a silly book called Allegiant . There were a lot of things I didn't like about the book, but if there was anything redeeming at all about the hundreds of pages I read it was the core message delivered at the very end: "We can be...

[Kelsey and Kendle, like the title of this post? I thought you would. Hahaha] A lot has happened that I haven't blogged about. We cut down a tree in our backyard, we went to Bisbee and explored a mine, and so on. I might blog some of that stuff sometime (uploading pictures is a lot of work I'm just uninterested in doing). But, I do want to blog a very important day that occurred recently. Yesterday I turned 21! Crazy, right?  [The day.] I'm old. Really old. But that's okay, because time never stops, and life is pretty good right now. I woke up to knocking on my door. My mom told me there was a surprise outside for me. Well, I went out and my car had been decorated in honor of the day I was born! It was pretty tender.Ha ha. [Take one. It's bright.] [Take two. It's early.] [It says "Happy Birthday!!!"] Particularly notable Post-Its I found on my car were: I went to work, where yet again, there was plenty of decoration! I work with people t...

Here is last night in photos: This envelope stared me down for 6 hours. Friends waiting for the big reveal. Writing down one US and one foreign guess. Kelsey and Austin kinda tied for being closest, Kels with Ohio and Austin with West Virginia. Here we go! I love the pouting face. I swear, they were tears of joy! :) I'm going to Kentucky! (And Illinois and Indiana) Everyone is happy for me. I'm sad I didn't get a picture with my parents, but there will be plenty of those when I get dropped off in September. I have the coolest friends ever. :)   :: Here are some photos of other happy things: