Lodestar

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After hearing an interview on NPR (as if I listen to anything else) with Anne Zimmerman, the author of An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of MFK Fisher , I wanted to read something by MFK Fisher. She was a food writer and if there are two things I love -- other than sleeping -- it's writing and eating. 

In one of the pieces in MFK Fisher's book As They Were, she mentions a lodestar. 

Anything can be a lodestar in a person’s life...

It is fortunate to recognize lodestars as such. They light our paths, and shape us mysteriously, and in the process can teach true humility.

A lodestar is a guiding light, like the North Star. Something that directs you were to go, shaping your path. I got to thinking. 

I don't think I have a lodestar. As a Mormon, I might have read lodestar as "Holy Ghost" or "Book of Mormon," but now. Do I have a lodestar? Do I have a guiding influence? For me, one of the most frustrating -- and scary -- parts of leaving the church was the feeling of Holy-Shit-What-Do-I-Believe-What-Controls-My-Life-Now!???! 

I panicked after reading the lodestar. I've been feeling a little lost and chaotic after the excitement of moving here as become a little more day to day. I have to slow down and remind myself that I don't have to have everything figured out. Especially right now. If I can't quite figure out exactly how much food it take to feed only two people, I'm not the biggest domestic failure there ever was. If I have no idea how to get anywhere on this island other than the grocery store and the medical school, I'm not a lost moron with no sense of direction. I'm new to the island! If I try to drive B's jeep with the broken emergency brake and touchy clutch and...run it into a tree without even leaving the parking lot and a big, fat man laughs at me and shouts to B: "Better start praying!" I'm not a dumb girl who can't even figure out how to drive. I panicked! If the other spouse's don't "click" with me right away, it's not because I'm a social retard who can't figure out how to make friends. I just need to relax and smile and keep trying to make friends. 

I think the biggest reason behind my panic at not having that Lodestar in my life is I was taught (however explicitly or in-explicitly) to distrust my own thoughts. I was taught the ultimate Lodestar was in control and I, as a human, had no fucking clue what was going on. I was weak, I needed guidance, I couldn't trust my own thoughts without the approval of those in authority. I lived for that approval. In some ways, I still do. And it kills me. I long for approval, but at the same time, loathe it because of what it represents: I still don't trust my own instincts. How could they possibly be right? 

While writing this, I came to a sort of mini-realization: Fuck this. I'll be my own Lodestar. My own guiding light. I'm calling the shots here. I don't have everything figured out, but don't panic. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. 

Everything is going to be okay. De-programming and learning to trust yourself takes time. I sometimes feel like I'm not "recovering" as quickly as I should. The Church wasn't even that important to me until suddenly I had to evaluate it and then I realize how much it really did shape my thinking and EVERY SINGLE PART OF ME. 

I hate it. It's been almost two years and I still fucking hate it. 

Stop mindfucking me. Please. 

Just leave me alone. 

Let me be. 

Let me be me. 

Let me be my own Lodestar. 

- Emily

I really thought they might kidnap me

As I sit writing this, I have “run away” from my TBM family. After much thought ( a year!!), my boyfriend and I decided to move in together. I let my family know I was leaving.

All. Hell. Broke. Out.

My dad said he hadn’t felt this bad since his brother killed himself.

My mom said I didn’t give a rat’s ass about my family.

My sister said she wants nothing to do with me and pushed me into a marble countertop. This is the same sister who I slapped across the face for calling me a...skank I think it was, over my pin sized earring in the top of my ear.

I tried to talk to my parents about moving. After hiding out at my brother’s house, I decided to come home. Or I guess, what was once my home. My family continued to ask what the church had done that was so bad. What had The Church ever done to me?

Oh, let’s see….lied to me for 22 years?

Of course The Church didn’t lie. They didn’t lie because it’s true.

My dad (predictably) said: You have lost your conscious. You have lost your conscious and your morals. I can just tell by looking at you that you have lost ALL FEELING.

Hey dad? I haven’t been a virgin in YEARS. Way longer than I ever stopped going to church.

You might say, Emily! That’s WHY YOU STOPPED BEING MORMON!?

nope.

The Church rules are arbitrary. They mean nothing. Obeying or disobeying them has absolutely no basis. It’s like saying a United States citizen should go to a Canadian jail for not following the laws of Canada...while living in the United States. I don’t know. Maybe that is a bad example because the laws of Canada aren’t built on complete lies. But, I digress.

I’m tearing my family apart.

I made my gramma cry.

She compared me to my aunt who lives in a trailer park and never went to college. Not that I dislike those living in trailers. Rock on. There was an awesome trailer park where I went to college. Overlooked the ocean. Doesn’t sound half bad to me. At least my aunt GTFO of UT.

I tried to talk to my family. I told them I still wanted to talk to them. Visit them.

Well, I guess I can’t have my cake and eat it to.

I can’t do what they disagree with and expect them to support me.

And by support I mean talk to me. Ever.

I gathered together the money I owed my parents for the car I apparently no longer own, though my name is on the title. My parents put me on the title (they bought it), but apparently only those that are responsible (like my 16 year old self) can have a car.

I paid them for the phone my sister dunked in water and through across room when she read private messages to my boyfriend about how The Church is a cult.

My boyfriend told me not to worry because they are brainwashed.

Ah. Well. They didn’t take to kindly to that.

My mom yelled at me, “I hope you have a nice life.”

I was all I could do to keep from saying, “I hope I do too!!!!”

Both my parents screamed at me as I gathered my things.

I packed them (my things! Not my parents) into the car.

And I left.

If they weren’t so ridiculous, I might feel a little bad right now.

I’m sure it will come….- Emily

I is for...

Investigate:

I remember the heart pounding feeling as I sought out to investigate.   Investigate.  Searching with the intent to find.  But, to find what exactly?  Faith?  Hope?  Truth?

It started with a simple question from a friend in Italy.  Why do you believe what you do?  I paused.  Have you really thought about it?  I laughed.  Of course I had, you know.  I don't just follow along without thinking.  I'm not a sheep.  Really?  Personally, I don't believe anything without really thinking it over first. I swallowed.  Uh.  Yeah.  Me neither.

I thought back to my first days out of Utah.  Moving out of state.  Out into the "big bad world" of my conservative Christian college.  I asked my religion teacher to explain the Trinity.  She answered:  The Trinity is complicated.  I took this to mean: I'm wrong.  You got me there Emily.  I crowed to my family back home, attesting to the ignorance of my roommate when she asked, Do you think there are levels of Heaven?  I gave my coffee drinking friend a Book of Mormon.  Pushed it on him twice after he halfheartedly thanked me and then left the slim blue book in my car.

What an ass.

I put my hands over my ears as my non-Mormon boyfriend asked me:  If a man can be sealed to more than one wife in Heaven, isn't that polygamy? 

I ignored him further still when he pointed out B.H. Roberts, the Defender of the Faith, had a list of questions about the Book of Mormon.  When Roberts presented his questions to the Brethren, they told him to be quiet.  I ignored him when he pointed out the Book of Mormon was very similar to a book published around Joseph Smith's time.  Around where Smith lived.

Until one day, I looked.  I investigated Lying for the Lord.  Milk Before Meat.  Celestial Polygamy.  Dusting the Feet.  Second Anointing. The Word of Wisdom.

My heart pounded each time.  Convinced I was going to...I don't know...be struck down.  I pushed onward.  Told myself, Come on.  It's just knowledge.   The image of Satan as a serpent flashed before my eyes.  I watched the Mormon episode of South Park, scoffing at the depictions of Joseph Smith.  Imagine my hurt when I found out two writers knew more about my religion than I did. 

I joined Postmormon.com and searched and searched.  I became convinced the Church was not as it claimed.  Joseph Smith was a con.  A liar.  A fraud.  I learned what really went on in the Temple.

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Handshakes?  Passwords?  God needed a password? THIS was what my life was supposed to culminate in?  A secret club?  I felt betrayed.  God was the master of The Heman Womun Haters Club.  A silly tree house with a No Gurls A Loud sign nailed to the front. 


I fell into depression.  For eight months I felt like dying.  I prayed to God to leave me in ignorance.  To help me accept Mormonism.  To forget what I had learned.  To take it all away.  I prayed to never wake up.  I prayed to die.  I wanted to die.

What did I do to deserve this?

And what do I intend to find?

H is for...

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Holy Ghost:

Among the gifts I received for my eighth birthday, including the tiny CTR ring, I was "given" the “gift” of the Holy Ghost.  This meant I always had someone with me to guide me, a sort of more powerful conscience. I believed when I was eight that this gift helped me find my ring in the grains of sand.

I recently visited my non-Mormon boyfriend.  He lives far out of state while going to medical school and I don't get to see him very often.  I debated on going to see him, buying a ticket...should I really go see him?  My family tried to convince me it was wrong.  He was wrong.  He was a type of Puppet Master, pulling strings to make me want to come see him...on his godforsaken Caribbean island.  Even now, his control over me "knows no bounds."  It's as if my family sees him as replacing the Spirit I once had.  It is because of him that I like indie music, listen to NPR, don't eat eggs (what the fuck?), want to skydive and, of course, don't believe in The Church anymore.  It's because of him I like puppies, cooking and traveling.  That I've changed.

My father assured me that as I left to see Boyfriend, this was the moment he knew I had lost the Spirit.

My mom frequently tells me I need to take a good look at my self.  

I did.  That's how I got here.  To where I am today.  

You can't lose something you never had.