20 March 2013

{deep} beach read


I spent a good part of our last day in Mexico curled up in one of these cozy beach beds listening to the waves crash in front of me while I read an entire book--The Fault in Our Stars by John Green--in one sitting.  I enjoyed the book very much and have since moved on to another of Green's called Looking for Alaska.  One passage in particular stuck with me as I read there in front of such a vast expanse of sky and water, as the sun sank to my right on the beach empty except for me...





"So everything happens for a reason and we'll all go live in the clouds and play harps and live in mansions?"
 
Dad smiled. He put a big arm around me and pulled me to him, kissing the side of my head. "I don't know what I believe, Hazel. I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe but that has not been my experience."
 
"Yeah," I said. "Okay."
 
He told me again that he was sorry about Gus, and then we went back to watching the show, and the people picked a house, and Dad still had his arm around me, and I was kinda starting to fall asleep, but I didn't want to go to bed, and then Dad said, "You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class, this really great math class taught by this tiny old woman. She was talking about fast Fourier transforms and she stopped midsentence and said, 'Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.'
 
"That's what I believe. I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it--or my observation of it--is temporary?"
 
"You are fairly smart," I said after a while.
 
"You are fairly good at compliments," he answered.
 
 

 
I noticed.

17 March 2013

Hitched {and happy}


Mr. and Mrs. Tyson and Lindsay Johns

"It's a beautiful night...we're looking for something dumb to do--
Hey baby, I think I'm gonna marry you..."
 

We're back from a week in Mexico, where we celebrated my sister Lindsay's wedding.  She married Tyson on our second night in Riviera Maya, on the windy but beautiful beach at our resort with our whole family, Tyson's family and a couple of friends.  My dad did the ceremony.  There are many other pictures to sort through (and a reception to put together for this coming Saturday here in Springfield) but we are all home now and so happy for the newlyweds.

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