Wow, I finally feel like I'm not homeless. I decided after two months of living in Zion that I'd get a PO Box so I can use it this last month I'll be here. My address if anyone wants to send a little greeting is:
Juli Neff
PO Box 973
Springdale, UT 84767
Think that's right. If it's not, the mail will get to me anyway. I like being in a small town. The post office lady knows me and always asks about my job. The job's going pretty well. I have my moments (and they're increasing) when I really want to go home. I don't miss Ohio especially. I just miss the familiar people. Even after being out here for 3 months, I still find it hard to feel known. People know me and I know them but they only know me 3 months old. They don't know my past. They don't know the dork I was in middle school. They don't even know the whatever I was in college. They don't know my family or my friends. They only know the Juli I have been since coming out to Utah and what if it's the wrong Juli? What if I sort of forgot who I was and have been faking my identity since? They wouldn't know the difference. I want to be with people who know the difference. People who can remind me of who I am when I forget. I forget a lot. I do appreciate the friends I've made out here though. I just feel ready to see the old ones again. I'm sure I'll miss this place so much once I'm gone but I'm ready to go home. I miss my dog.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Saturday, August 13, 2005
lightning strikes
Last night I was driving back from Hurricane and watched the most amazing sky I have ever seen. I kept thinking of reasons to stop even though I needed to get back. First, I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, then I decided it was a good time to check my oil (even though the wind was swirling around me like Kansas and almost blew my hood shut on my fingers), and then I stopped again at another gas station (this time, I figured I'd really fill up my tank). Then I drove by La Verkin overlook and decided I'd turn down that road and watch the night sky up on the ridge, but reality got ahold of me too fast and told me that was a stupid idea to sit up on a mountain ridge with lightning all around me. So I headed back to Zion. I felt like I was walking down the red carpet and camaras were all on me and flashing all around me. But instead, I was driving the curvy desert roads with a storm that seemed to stretch all of Utah.
Defeated, I drove back into the canyon, where the cool lightning was hidden behind the rock walls and I could only see the light sometimes. Couldn't stand it, so Jeff, one of my housemates, and I decided to go for a drive and find a good place for pictures. So we drove, and drove, and realized the only good place would be somewhere up high, where we'd be stupid to be. But we drove to none other than LaVerkin overlook and sat up on the mountain ridge, overlooking the city, with lightning in front of us, behind us, and above us. Another one of the stupider things I've ever done, but it seems the stupidest things are the most rewarding.
Jeff got some incredible pictures and I hope to steal some and put them on here. I'd never seen lightning like this. It was eerie and silent, but the clouds were on fire. I love the west.
Defeated, I drove back into the canyon, where the cool lightning was hidden behind the rock walls and I could only see the light sometimes. Couldn't stand it, so Jeff, one of my housemates, and I decided to go for a drive and find a good place for pictures. So we drove, and drove, and realized the only good place would be somewhere up high, where we'd be stupid to be. But we drove to none other than LaVerkin overlook and sat up on the mountain ridge, overlooking the city, with lightning in front of us, behind us, and above us. Another one of the stupider things I've ever done, but it seems the stupidest things are the most rewarding.
Jeff got some incredible pictures and I hope to steal some and put them on here. I'd never seen lightning like this. It was eerie and silent, but the clouds were on fire. I love the west.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club
Remember when they'd pass around an attendance sheet at IWU meetings or classes and strange and suspect names would suddenly appear? Or maybe that was only the religion division. I could never contain my smile when I'd watch poor Bonita go around collecting the clipboards, just imagining her trying to figure out who in the world goes by the name Jiminy Crickett or the typical Seymour Butts (I bet she figured those ones out). But my greatest joy (I mean, it literally made me kick my feet back and forth underneath me in glee) was writing Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club. I think they attended all of our senior year meetings and religion department functions.
Sad news guys. Ibrahim will no longer be attending. He passed away on Saturday.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/06/ferrer.obit.ap/index.html
But don't let that keep you from checking out some great music that can transcend all musical trends and top 40 lists. Some of you may have had the pleasure of listening to it in my little Scrappy... especially a group of 6 (or 7?) of you that crammed into my car to go to Icehouse that one last time. I miss those days too much. I'll pop the cd back in tonight and reminisce.
juli
Sad news guys. Ibrahim will no longer be attending. He passed away on Saturday.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/06/ferrer.obit.ap/index.html
But don't let that keep you from checking out some great music that can transcend all musical trends and top 40 lists. Some of you may have had the pleasure of listening to it in my little Scrappy... especially a group of 6 (or 7?) of you that crammed into my car to go to Icehouse that one last time. I miss those days too much. I'll pop the cd back in tonight and reminisce.
juli
Thursday, August 04, 2005
happy feet
My feet are soft. I took off my Xanterra employee shirt for the last time and kicked off my brown shoes, stripped my second skin khaki pants, and pullled off my socks to reveal clean, healthy feet. I smiled to myself as I touched the skin as if for the very first time. The mystical lady at Muddy River Books told me back in June that dry, cracked feet mean that you do not like where you are placed. How right she was. It seems my mood must have determined it all because at the time I would have given almost anything just to get out of here. I did not like where I was placed, not at all.
But now I’m soft. I have the tendency to grow fond of most anything after awhile, just because it becomes familiar and comfortable. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that my bed sheets don’t fit and are always full of little black bugs amongst the wrinkles. Suddenly it makes no difference to me whether I live in a dorm full of older men or a floor full of annoying Russian girls. I don’t mind showering behind a clear door now. I’m used to the strange stench my room always has and how my blinds are always closed keeping out the sunlight. I enjoy my trips to the hammock to make my phone calls. Driving to town to check my email is no inconvenience. Mistakes I make at work are just something more to laugh at and I laugh at the thought of how terrified I was of this job to begin with. I now realize everyone creepily knew my name the moment I got here because indeed this is a soap opera and everyone is involved in everyone’s business and I am aware of that and accept it. People I have never met before have been coming up to me today to tell me "Juli, congrats on the park ranger job. We’ll miss you around here." I want to say "Thankyou, ______," but then I realize I’ve been living in a self-centered mindset that finds no interest in knowing names.
I look up at the calendar hanging on my wall. It says August now. I remember when it seemed it would call out June forever. I think I am still under the misunderstanding that I will return home in late September expecting to start June all over again. I don’t feel like I am missing an Ohio summer. I feel like it’s not happening anyway. How could an Ohio summer be going on without me? It won’t go on without me. Can’t wait to go home in time for June picnics and July bonfires and August meteorite shower nights where we’ll sleep out in my backyard under the stars.
That calendar is one of the only things decorating my walls. I longed at night to be able to glance around a room full of color and stillframes, but it seems a part of me always knew this was just a step. My life has always been a staircase. One step leads to another. I move toward an intended destination and find once I get there that it is only another step, leading me onward. Don’t know if I ever will get to experience the top.
So there won’t be a whole lot of packing tonight. Don’t think so atleast. Just going to load up some milk crates full of books and toiletries. Fill a couple shopping bags with clothes. Gather my mexican blanket and pillow up in my arms and load my car. I move into the Park Service dorms tomorrow. Though I’ll still be around Zion, I know things will be different. I’m going to actually miss this place. I already miss my job.
I realized tonight that the old man who sits in front of the dorm all the time just staring off into space really just longs to fly. I never could figure out what was wrong with him. He looks at his feet when he walks and grunts if you say hi to him. He puts no effort into raising the corners of his mouth into any sort of smile and darts his eyes quickly away if you catch him even glancing up. I made it my goal to figure him out and get him to say a word, any word, to me. Last night I startled him out of his daze with a "Hello!" He quickly said "Hello" back to me in a squeal as if I had accused him of something. Tonight I walked past him one last time to see him intensely studying pictures of airplanes in a magazine. He just wants to escape. He needs to fly.
A lot of people here need to escape. And I hope they do. They use this place as a stepping stone (like I did) and they hope that Zion will heal their drug and alcohol addications. They use it as a stopping point just after a nasty divorce has left them dry. They try out new personalities on this eager crowd so they can go home a new person, only to find none of us believed their lies to begin with. We knew it was all fake. And many of them just sit outside the dorm, staring off into space, and look at pictures of airplanes, using this place as a rock to sit upon as they create their own world in their minds. Many succeed. Many people here are living in a fantasy world. And I hope they escape. I’ve never seen the security guard without earphones in his ears. Tonight I wondered if he just left them there all the time, no music playing, just a wall to keep others out of his world. It works.
I came here hating the thought of getting to know these people. I just wanted to get back to Ohio where everyone’s "normal." Somewhere in the past two months, these odd people have shown me the flipside of my perfect world, a place where life is not always fair. Most of the time it is extremely unfair. A place where those who were once homeless on the streets of Vegas are now doing the laundry of rich lodge guests, but a place to sleep and eat and 6 bucks and hour beats the streets they once roamed. But they still long for something more and they sit outside the dorm with me at night and tell me all their fanatic philosophies about who God really is and how we’re supposed to live our lives. They rarely give me the chance to speak, so I think I’ve been changed more than they have. I realized that everything I have ever been taught about God has been held out at arm’s length, and I bring it closer to my chest once it has been tested and made real in my life. Todd likes to prophesy to me about the end times. It has been meaningless information so far, but someday I will allow it to take shape in my own understanding. It works the other way around too. I can tell Rachel that God loves her, but I don’t think she allowed that truth into her life until last week when she enrolled, was accepted to, and attended orientation for college. She told me she knew God was clearing the way. Her evidence was the money that was placed in her hands and the paycheck that came 6 months late equalling the amount she needed. Though I’ve doubted Christianity more than ever before in my life, I believe I have grown in my faith more than ever in my life because when all is refined in the fire, the gold remains, purer than ever.
This place I once thought filthy has made me clean. I get to move to the next step tomorrow.
But now I’m soft. I have the tendency to grow fond of most anything after awhile, just because it becomes familiar and comfortable. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that my bed sheets don’t fit and are always full of little black bugs amongst the wrinkles. Suddenly it makes no difference to me whether I live in a dorm full of older men or a floor full of annoying Russian girls. I don’t mind showering behind a clear door now. I’m used to the strange stench my room always has and how my blinds are always closed keeping out the sunlight. I enjoy my trips to the hammock to make my phone calls. Driving to town to check my email is no inconvenience. Mistakes I make at work are just something more to laugh at and I laugh at the thought of how terrified I was of this job to begin with. I now realize everyone creepily knew my name the moment I got here because indeed this is a soap opera and everyone is involved in everyone’s business and I am aware of that and accept it. People I have never met before have been coming up to me today to tell me "Juli, congrats on the park ranger job. We’ll miss you around here." I want to say "Thankyou, ______," but then I realize I’ve been living in a self-centered mindset that finds no interest in knowing names.
I look up at the calendar hanging on my wall. It says August now. I remember when it seemed it would call out June forever. I think I am still under the misunderstanding that I will return home in late September expecting to start June all over again. I don’t feel like I am missing an Ohio summer. I feel like it’s not happening anyway. How could an Ohio summer be going on without me? It won’t go on without me. Can’t wait to go home in time for June picnics and July bonfires and August meteorite shower nights where we’ll sleep out in my backyard under the stars.
That calendar is one of the only things decorating my walls. I longed at night to be able to glance around a room full of color and stillframes, but it seems a part of me always knew this was just a step. My life has always been a staircase. One step leads to another. I move toward an intended destination and find once I get there that it is only another step, leading me onward. Don’t know if I ever will get to experience the top.
So there won’t be a whole lot of packing tonight. Don’t think so atleast. Just going to load up some milk crates full of books and toiletries. Fill a couple shopping bags with clothes. Gather my mexican blanket and pillow up in my arms and load my car. I move into the Park Service dorms tomorrow. Though I’ll still be around Zion, I know things will be different. I’m going to actually miss this place. I already miss my job.
I realized tonight that the old man who sits in front of the dorm all the time just staring off into space really just longs to fly. I never could figure out what was wrong with him. He looks at his feet when he walks and grunts if you say hi to him. He puts no effort into raising the corners of his mouth into any sort of smile and darts his eyes quickly away if you catch him even glancing up. I made it my goal to figure him out and get him to say a word, any word, to me. Last night I startled him out of his daze with a "Hello!" He quickly said "Hello" back to me in a squeal as if I had accused him of something. Tonight I walked past him one last time to see him intensely studying pictures of airplanes in a magazine. He just wants to escape. He needs to fly.
A lot of people here need to escape. And I hope they do. They use this place as a stepping stone (like I did) and they hope that Zion will heal their drug and alcohol addications. They use it as a stopping point just after a nasty divorce has left them dry. They try out new personalities on this eager crowd so they can go home a new person, only to find none of us believed their lies to begin with. We knew it was all fake. And many of them just sit outside the dorm, staring off into space, and look at pictures of airplanes, using this place as a rock to sit upon as they create their own world in their minds. Many succeed. Many people here are living in a fantasy world. And I hope they escape. I’ve never seen the security guard without earphones in his ears. Tonight I wondered if he just left them there all the time, no music playing, just a wall to keep others out of his world. It works.
I came here hating the thought of getting to know these people. I just wanted to get back to Ohio where everyone’s "normal." Somewhere in the past two months, these odd people have shown me the flipside of my perfect world, a place where life is not always fair. Most of the time it is extremely unfair. A place where those who were once homeless on the streets of Vegas are now doing the laundry of rich lodge guests, but a place to sleep and eat and 6 bucks and hour beats the streets they once roamed. But they still long for something more and they sit outside the dorm with me at night and tell me all their fanatic philosophies about who God really is and how we’re supposed to live our lives. They rarely give me the chance to speak, so I think I’ve been changed more than they have. I realized that everything I have ever been taught about God has been held out at arm’s length, and I bring it closer to my chest once it has been tested and made real in my life. Todd likes to prophesy to me about the end times. It has been meaningless information so far, but someday I will allow it to take shape in my own understanding. It works the other way around too. I can tell Rachel that God loves her, but I don’t think she allowed that truth into her life until last week when she enrolled, was accepted to, and attended orientation for college. She told me she knew God was clearing the way. Her evidence was the money that was placed in her hands and the paycheck that came 6 months late equalling the amount she needed. Though I’ve doubted Christianity more than ever before in my life, I believe I have grown in my faith more than ever in my life because when all is refined in the fire, the gold remains, purer than ever.
This place I once thought filthy has made me clean. I get to move to the next step tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
The Wave
The next few pictures are from a hike we took last week out toward Lake Powell. We actually crossed the AZ border at one point. It's called the Wave. We had to get a permit the day before, pay a small chunk of money, and pray for dry skies. The next day, we drove out in my little hatchback and encountered a 7 mile stretch of dirt road and washes with a sign that said, "Warning. Road impassible when wet." All the signs told us to turn around, but we kept going cause we're stubborn like that. Even when it began to rain, that didn't matter. We were determined to check this place out. It was worth it.
The wave is one of the most mysterious rock formations I've ever seen. And that means a lot from someone out in Utah, where no rock is "normal." And the stormy skies made for some sweet pictures. If anyone ever gets the chance, you gotta do this one.
The wave is one of the most mysterious rock formations I've ever seen. And that means a lot from someone out in Utah, where no rock is "normal." And the stormy skies made for some sweet pictures. If anyone ever gets the chance, you gotta do this one.
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