So I pretty much fail at this whole blogging thing. I’m going to try to be better.

We pass over the last several months in silence. Not really, but it’s just been too crazy for me to summarize it without writing an encyclopedia. Pretty much insane, but I’ve learned a ton and it’s been good.

The reason I’m picking back up now is to tell you about my epiphany. I will do my very best not to wax preachy and philosophical, but this kind of rocked my world, so I’m going to try to explain it.

It was a dark and stormy night…no it was not. It was a couple weeks ago. Background: I’ve been having a bit of a dry patch spiritually the last couple months, not really getting much out of the Bible, being really busy and not making much time to really seek God. Out of that came a realization that I know a lot about God but don’t know Him really well personally. Life has been crazy and I’ve been praying a lot for wisdom and guidance, a lot. I decided a couple weeks ago to start reading the Gospels in an attempt to get to know Jesus better.

And then boom, epiphany. I was reading along in Matthew, asking God to show me Himself, and give me wisdom about stuff. And Jesus was teaching the disciples the Lord’s Prayer and I got to the part where He says “Give us today our daily bread.” And God kind of exploded that in my mind. He was like, you want to know Me? You want Me to guide your life? Well, I want that too, and it’s a daily thing like every other relationship. I’m not going to just show up randomly and give you answers and pearls of wisdom here and there. I want to be the most important thing in your life and I want you to trust me with every single thing in your life. The way I will give you wisdom is not by giving you hard and fast long-term answers. I want you to walk through every single day and every interaction with Me, trust Me in everything and I’ll give you wisdom day by day.

He reminded me that I can’t control my life or what’s going to happen. The only thing I can do is to keep Him as the center and priority in my life: the One I love most and trust completely for everything. Every single thing that happens every day is a gift from Him and a chance for me to trust Him. And when I’m really trusting Him every moment is when He is most glorified.

Just before the Lord’s Prayer Jesus talks about how you cannot serve both God and Money. I’d never really gotten that before but it makes sense now. Money gives security, trusting it is a way of being self-sufficient and relying on yourself. God wants us to rely on Him daily for everything, not to put our trust in the money we’ve saved up against a rainy day.

My studio just opened Godspell on Broadway. One of the better known songs is “Day by Day”, the chorus has become my motto:

Day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray

To see thee more clearly

Love thee more dearly

Follow thee more nearly

Day by day.

Poetry, say whaaat?

So rumor has it that I have become a poet. It is in fact true. Never having written a poem in my life until now, I have so far this week composed six.

It’s really weird. But I can’t help it; they just keep coming out and I have to write them down. I think it’s a way of me processing things. Just the random little things that I think about all the time.

I post them here for your viewing pleasure. In chronological order.

#1

Little red light

You don’t rule me

Why am I so dependent on you

I know I’m lonely, I get it

You seem like the gate to heaven

I don’t want to be that person

Always waiting for someone to call

Feeling like nobody loves me

Lost in self-pity and angst

But I know I need people

Technology helps me reach out

So, little red light, come by more often

You’re always welcome here

Letting me know someone cares

#2

Shadow vibrations

Waiting for you to call

Phantom elations

Hoping this time it’s for real

Texts two times

More for a phone call

Buzzing away in my jeans

To check now

Or savor the moment

Anticipate what you might say

But half the time it’s nothing

Isn’t you writing me back

Not a long-lost rich uncle

No quick text just to say hi

Instead it’s my shadow vibrations

My butt is making stuff up

Loneliness hope and dreams meet

One golden moment of glee

But then reality strikes

#3

Other people’s bodies

Sleek smooth skin

Muscles moving underneath

Wrinkles scars and spots

Tattoos and metal rings

History on your skin

How you want to appear

Contrasts with you are

Where were you when you got that burn?

Why did you choose that tattoo?

How much do you work out to look like that?

Did that piercing hurt?

What let you to that haircut?

What does that necklace mean?

Your body reads like a book

Scars recording your past

But they are only suggestions

Shadows of things that have been

Only you know the whole tale

And then there’s body language

What a conundrum

Bravado hides insecurity

iPods and books cover fear

Fear of what could happen

If we looked in each other’s eyes

And actually saw someone there

#4

I wear my sunglasses

Face is bland and empty

Look at you then through you

Never engage

You are not real people

Only terrors to be avoided

Walking question marks

Earbuds are earplugs

To any sound you make

A book fills my vision

Or I close my eyes

Can’t let anyone near

Animated bubbles

Never close enough to pop

Alone in our fear and shame

If we only realized

We are so much the same

#5

I can see your shoulders through your shirt

Muscles rippling smoothly

There’s your arm near mine

Shapely and strong

You don’t know you’re beautiful

Your hand is a wonder

Crisscrossed by veins

Long fingers, strong palms

I can see your bones

It’s a strange thing

Another body close to mine

So similar, but other

Unique, complete, and separate

There’s a romance and a power there

Another soul next to mine

I feel your energy

Watch you breathe

Wonder what you’re thinking

#6

“Hey gorgeous!”

Quiet mutter from a passing stranger

Leering call from the man in the car

I walk on, my shoulders stiffen

I relax and shrug it off

“Mamma sita, you are bonita!”

What do you expect me to do?

Is there a purpose to a catcall?

No respect, no hope for relationship

All that interests you is my body

If that’s all you want

I want nothing to do with you

I’m not an object for you to use

I’m have a soul, thoughts, and ideas

Somehow I think you might, too

“Why are you so beautiful?”

Don’t know, don’t care

Conversation over, I’m out

You gotta have more than an opening line

Have a conversation or leave me alone

Good Times

I had a lovely 4^th of July weekend. Worked all day at the frameshop on Saturday. It was ok, but I was a little out of sorts and it was a little stressful. I felt like I was really strung out on caffeine most of the day, but I’d hardly had any coffee at all, so I don’t know what was going on. Maybe something to do with the fact that I woke up at 6am for no apparent reason and thereby lost a couple hours of sleep. We did have some fun jokes, though, and soon enough the workday was done. Caitlin was due to arrive any time, so I stepped into one of the bars I like near the shop and had a quick beer while I waited for her. It was a good decision: helped me to relax and let work go and transition to spending time with Caitlin.

Her bus arrived and we found each other and took a leisurely walk down through the Village in search of food, catching each other up on our lives as we went. We ate outside at an Italian pizzeria and drank about 15 glasses of water as we continued to chat. Eventually we decided to continue on and headed towards the Hudson. We enjoyed the lights on the Jersey shore and meandered uptown next to the river. We walked a little bit of the Highline, and then headed to Chitos (because I have to make sure that every person I know goes there at some point :-P). David joined us after a bit and we had a great time laughing and talking and sipping delicious margaritas. Caitlin started to fade around 1:30 so we said goodnight and went home.

Sunday we woke up in time to head down to Chelsea for breakfast before I had to work. Ended up eating at a French bakery where we each got a chocolate croissant and a large coffee, which they served in bowls. We had a lovely philosophical conversation, which I enjoyed so much that I lost track of time and was a couple minutes late to work. But no one cared. It was a slow day at the shop, combination of rain and the holiday weekend. I worked by myself in the back and listened to my iPod, which I never do at work and thoroughly enjoyed. We closed early at 3pm and transitioned to our company BBQ. Which started on the rooftop as planned, but had to move to the shop basement because it started to rain again. The food was ok, decent BBQ, and we all brought our own beer (Caitlin bought us some Sierra Nevada). The party was not the greatest, not a lot of people came and there was a weird awkward vibe. I had a few good conversations with individual people, but the group dynamic was weird.

Afterwards Caitlin and I decided to walk to City Hall Park to see a sculpture exhibit I’ve been wanting to visit. It was a lovely walk over, very leisurely, and accompanied by good conversation (the theme of the weekend). The sculptures ended up being fairly disappointing, but there was a lovely fountain with gas-burning lanterns that we sat next to for a very long time. Just sat, not talking. It was really cool to be with someone and be so comfortable that we didn’t feel like we had to talk. Eventually we decided to continue on, and so we walked the Brooklyn Bridge, across to Brooklyn and back again. It was a lovely evening and the Manhattan skyline was gorgeous. We had a fascinating conversation about Mormonism which transitioned into one about science, evolution, and philosophy as we headed up the east side. Around 1030 we got hungry so we ate dinner at an Indian place (very delicious) and eventually headed home, arriving around 1am.

Monday we took it easy and slept in. Got breakfast at a diner in my neighborhood, and headed downtown around noon. We got off at Central Park and took a long meandering walk around, accompanied by more good conversation. We sat on a bench for a while and watched people go by, then walked down the west side looking for food. Which took longer than planned, but eventually and after a few mishaps we got some at a diner. It was getting late in the afternoon so we continued to head down to her bus, but stopped in Hell’s Kitchen at a French café to split a carafe of sangria and a complimentary plate of olives. And then we headed to her bus. Which she got on and was whisked away around 630pm. I’m so glad she came up; we had a lovely visit. It was great to reconnect.

My plans for the evening were up in the air for a bit so I hung around in Chelsea and proceeded to search for a restroom. All the Starbucks had closed theirs for the holiday, which I thought was lame, so after some wandering I went to Chitos. Which you’re not supposed to use unless you’re a customer but I felt that I am such a regular there that it wasn’t a big deal. And they didn’t seem to mind. As I waited for my plans to firm up I sat in park and read and listened to patriotic songs played on church bells and watched the hordes of people heading towards the river to get spots to see the fireworks. Literal hordes. And I hate crowds. Because of this I’d asked David if I could come over and watch the fireworks from his roof. And eventually he got back to me with a yes, so I headed over around 830. And we had a lovely evening. We drank beers, ate chips and salsa, and watched the fireworks from his roof. We had a pretty good view and the show itself was awesome. My favorites may have been the smiley face fireworks, but there were lots of awesome sparkly shimmery ones too.

After the show we watched the hordes returning from the river and felt so lucky and smart that we were on a roof and not down on the street. We went inside and hung out for a while, played with the cat and got into a long awesome conversation that started with the founding fathers, racism, and the civil war and ended with psychology and the brain and how it works. Very interesting stuff. I left around 1am, made it home and to bed by 230, and got up and headed back to the studio this morning. It was a long slow day, I did a script breakdown of a new show we’re doing about the Laker/Celtic rivalry (excellent, by the way) and struggled to stay awake after my long weekend of partying.

I think my recovery will be a bit slower than normal but it was 100% worth it. I had a lot of fun, a lot of great conversations, and thoroughly enjoyed my day off of work. I feel tired but restored and happy.

And two more weeks have flown by. Things at the internship have continued to improve. I did a few drafting projects after my model projects, but then started doing real things. We had a fast approaching deadline for the Godspell model, so I spent a lot of time working on that. I got to go to the bid session for that show this week, which is where the design is presented to several scene shops who then come up with estimates for how much it will cost them to build, and whoever is cheapest gets the bid. Very interesting. I’ve done some small research stuff, run random errands, and have been working on a wallpaper project for A Doll’s House. I’ve made a couple trips to this awesome wallpaper store to collect samples for David, and have been doing lots of Photoshop work making renderings for him and the director that show the various options in the model.

David has been back in town for a week now and he’s a real bundle of energy. I’m getting used to having him around and find it very interesting to listen to his interactions with people in production meetings and around the studio. He’s purposely trying to let me see as much of what he does as possible, which I really appreciate. He’s really nice and handles the incredible amounts of stress that he’s under very well. Yesterday he got nachos for us all and we ate them together and then started our long weekend early by leaving work at 430.

We just found out that Chinglish, the new show that David was teching in Chicago a couple weeks ago, has become a huge hit and is transferring to Broadway in the fall. So that’s exciting. And we started a new project called Magic/Bird. I’m working on analyzing the script and can’t wait to read the rest of it: it’s about the Laker/Celtics rivalry in the 80s.

Things have gotten much better on the hanging out front. I’ve been scheduling people in and have greatly enjoyed spending time with them. I hung out with Stephanie both weeks: we did a picnic on the piers by the Hudson the first week and dinner at an Italian place this week. I love hanging with her. I also got to enjoy Mexican with Liz, my small group leader, and eat with Caroline from small group as well.

Also I’ve managed some very restorative alone time. I played in the rain last week. We got this torrential rainstorm and I was outside and didn’t have any reason particularly not to get wet, so I stayed out in it and walked around and got completely drenched and had a lovely time. Then went to small group and froze in the air conditioning for the rest of the night, but hey. It was worth it. Last Saturday after work I went back to the Chelsea Piers and sat by the water and watched the boats for a couple hours and enjoyed the breeze. It was lovely. And Thursday this week I took a beautiful long walk across Manhattan from east side to west side. I made it to the Hudson just as the sun was going down. The weather has been so beautiful recently, I’ve loved being outside every chance I can get.

So I’m adjusting to my new life. I do miss the frameshop still a lot, and just the comfortable happy existence I had there. I’m definitely being stretched in new ways at the studio, but I am learning a ton and am getting happier being there. I know I’m where God wants me right now, which makes all the difference.

1 week down, 23 to go

Last week was very long. I spent 40 hours at the studio and am happy to say it got better every day. Monday was exhausting. David, the designer, was out of town teching a show so I was shown around by the rest of the studio. There’s 3 other people there full time: Rod and Amanda, David’s associate designers, and Sarah, the office administrator. Two days a week another girl named Sarah, who we call Mucks, comes in as well. The first day I spent entirely on the computer, something I hadn’t really done since college. My assignment was to build a model from the drafting of a past show, so I spent the day looking through all the drafting and then drafting my templates of what to cut out to build the model with. When I got home I was so tired that I went to bed at 10pm.

The rest of the week I pretty much worked on my model. I would send photos to David every night and he would write back with comments. I finished the first version after a couple days and Amanda critiqued it for me and gave suggestions and then I built it again. It was cool to have a second chance to change some of my methods, fix mistakes, and focus on getting faster.

The environment at the studio has proved to be a big adjustment. It’s basically the complete opposite of the frameshop: I sit most of the day, whereas at the shop I’m always on my feet and usually moving. We don’t talk much, because everyone is focused on their different jobs, whereas at the shop we talk constantly and laugh most of the day. There’s usually no music (though we did play some for a little one day, which was amazing), whereas at the shop we always have music going. And there’s only 4 of us, whereas at the shop there’s all my coworkers and then all the clients to interact with. And it’s in midtown, which is crowded and full of skyscrapers and people in suits, as opposed to Chelsea, which is much more relaxed and casual and artsy. It’s basically working in an office, which is something I’ve intentionally avoided for years. But I am adjusting. I missed the shop very much all week, but it bothered me less as the week went on.

A couple times I went out on errands, which I thoroughly enjoyed because it meant I got to move and be outside. I dropped some paperwork off at a job sight one day, and then moved a bunch of stuff down to our Brooklyn storage unit with Sarah another day.

Wednesday was small group, which was really good, and Thursday I talked with Remus for a long time, which was awesome. Saturday I went back to the frameshop. It was so good to go back. We were low on people because a few of them were out of town, but it was a good day anyway. I spent most of it working with David, which is always lots of fun. Laura arrived after work and we went to Chitos for dinner and then took a lovely walk through the Village. We came home around 10 and sat around talking until 2am. Sunday we got brunch in Chelsea, then I worked for 6 hours while she wandered around the city, then we took another lovely walk around Chelsea and the piers. We got an amazing Thai dinner and frozen yogurt as well, and continued wandering around until her train left around 915. It was so good to spend time with her—we had a ton of fun and lots of good conversation.

And this morning I went back to the studio. David’s still gone this week, and I’m continuing with my model building. I switched to model furniture today. I’m trying to plan friends activities because I was very lonely several evenings last week. Tomorrow night I’m hanging out with Stephanie, which will be awesome.

A side note of a curious coincidence in my life that I don’t think I can spend a whole post on but deserves noting: the preponderance of men in my life who are named David. It all started with Uncle David and David Sewall, but things really picked up once I got to college. There I dated a David, was really good friends with another David, and worked in the shop for a David. All of them were huge influences on me. Then I got to the city and one of my best friends here is a David, Susan Hilferty’s husband who has mentored me a little is a David, and now I’m interning for a David. If fact, of the guys I know, I almost feel like more of them are named David than aren’t. An odd coincidence, but I find it very amusing.

Hey it’s me again. After the overwhelming success of my last post (finally got a comment 6 days after posting), I’m going to grace you all with even more of my thoughts.

I was on the subway going to work on Saturday and was thinking about the internship and the change that’s happening in my life, and I suddenly got really happy about it. Extremely excited, and really happy. I’ve been a bit apprehensive because I feel like I’m being uprooted from my frameshop-and-small-shows-world that I’ve been building since August. I moved here and spent the past year making friends and building a comfortable and happy existence that was self-sufficient and enjoyable. It was slow growth but it was comfortable. And in the last couple months I finally felt like everything was where I wanted it to be. My friendships are growing well, I love the people I’m around, church is good, work is great. I finally had a routine. And now, all of a sudden, it’s all changing again.

But, though I’m still a little nervous, on the subway I realized how awesome that is. Comfort and routine is all well and good I suppose, but it doesn’t make you grow very much, it doesn't make you very alive. Now I get to start from scratch again, build up from the ground. New people and a new workplace with a huge learning curve staring me in the face. I can throw myself fully into this; I kind of visualize it as hurling my entire body against a wall to see what happens. And not in the sick and twisted way that that sounds, but in an excited and happy way. I get to really live and work my hardest. I’ve always loved challenges, and this is a big one. But it’s not as scary as it sounds: vestiges of the comfortable life I built are still definitely there. I now have a good support system up here, friends from small group, school, work, and theatre. I fully intend to rely heavily on them to get me through the internship.

It’s an opportunity to reinvent myself, to shake up my life again. I can drop the habits that I’ve formed as part of my routine more easily than I would if I stayed in it. I plan to start exercising again. I’m hoping to start running again, starting slow at small amounts twice a week and hopefully sticking with it and building up from there. Crunches will happen again, and pushups will continue. I hope to drink less coffee and less alcohol. That may be dreaming, but that’s the goal. J

I will have most of my evenings free now, so I’m going to work hard to schedule in my friends to make sure I keep my social life alive and therefore keep myself sane. I want to read more and remember how to enjoy the little things in life.

But best of all, this shakeup will make me depend more directly and immediately on God again. I’ll be a little closer to desperation on a daily basis, which is a good place to be when it comes to God. I’m looking forward to learning to rely on and trust Him more.

Lately

Wow. Don’t know what to say. Or where to start. And feel slightly lame for being overly dramatic about it. But hey, that’s the way I am.

So the last several weeks have been crazy and feel more like the last several decades. Things have been great and I’ve had a wonderful time, but it’s just been a lot going on. It would take way to long to talk about everything, and I doubt I still remember it all, so I’m just going to do highlights.

Picking up from where I left off, I did the scenic art for Alex’s show at the Metropolitan. It was called One Third of a Nation and was about the history of tenement buildings in New York. We played a lot with turning the space into the interior of a run down tenement building: there was lots of peeling wallpaper, water and mold damage, a broken down staircase, and dirt. I had a lot of fun playing with different effects and Alex paid me well. The show itself was incredible: beautifully staged and really really interesting. The theatre was awarded an OBIE a couple weeks ago for best off or off-off Broadway theatre this season, which is a really big deal. It was awarded for the season as a whole; I am very proud of them all because I was able to be very involved in 3 of their 4 shows this year.

Right after I finished at Metropolitan, Jon Collins called me to ask if I could assist on RENT, a project he was assisting on that opens off-Bway in July. So I pulled some strings and took time off from work and spent the better part of 2 weeks helping build model pieces and running errands. It was a good experience and I learned a lot. Mainly it’s a cool resume credit. I put in a lot of extra days at work to make up for the time I was taking off, so didn’t really take any weekends for about 2 months all told with all the shows and everything.

Around this time, the beginning of May, the weather was starting to get nice and I started to get spring fever. So I sort of conned an invitation from David from work to come to a barbeque at his and Hannah’s apartment. They have a sweet place in Chelsea with a small balcony. I came over after work one Sunday and we grilled burgers outside. And watched the end of the last Lakers game (they laughed at me as we were humiliated by the Mavs). And hung out and talked. It was a great time. I got sick from the vodka we were drinking so ended up sleeping on their couch for the night. David still enjoys teasing me about it.

The next week was my birthday. My small group got me a cake as did the frameshop. I hate it when people don’t tell people about their birthdays, so I planned a party at the Mexican place near my job and invited my coworkers, small group people, and pretty much everyone else I know in the city. I was a bit nervous about hosting a party, but it ended up being tons of fun. About 15 to 20 people came out over the course of the 5 hours I was at the restaurant. Christy was coming up to visit for the weekend so she was there and David and a couple others from work came, and my roommate, and lots of small group girls. It was cool to have all the different people from my life here meet each other. It was hard to talk to everyone, so I kind of facilitated conversations at first but ended up mostly talking with Christy and David. I drank many margaritas, not sure of the exact number. J Around 11 everyone left except me Christy and David; we stayed a bit longer and then David walked us down to the subway station and we came home and crashed. It was a great birthday; I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The next weekend I caught the train home for Remus’ graduation from college. It was a lovely visit: so good to take a break and see the fam and see Remus say goodbye to college. I was proud. We spent a fantastic evening with the Chapmans catching up on everyone’s lives. Some of my favorite people in the world. Had a great meal at Rio Grande which was lovely. But it was too short a visit: Daddy kindly drove me to the train early on Sunday morning, I was the last person on board, made it back to the city, and went straight to the shop for a full day of work.

And as soon as I got off work I met up with Meg who had come up for a weeklong visit and to attend a theatre conference. We had a great but busy week. She had to be at the conference most of the time and I worked a lot, but we did manage to have dinner together most nights and do some fun stuff. Like me getting my tattoo. It was fun, not too painful. I was a bit nervous, but actually the whole thing was pretty casual. I am very happy with it, very happy I got it. Every time I see it in the mirror I smile. It’s healed beautifully, no complications or itchiness or anything. As of today I’ve completed the 2 weeks care period, so I can now premier it to the unsuspecting world!

The last night of Meg’s visit I had gotten us tickets to go to a concert in Brooklyn to see Fang Island, a band that David introduced me to. I invited Stephanie to come too and we had a ton of fun. The evening started off a bit stressfully because my phone died and I had no way of meeting up with them after work, but the good folks at the Verizon store let me charge it for a couple minutes and I was able to find them. The concert was at 1130 so we had several hours to kill, so we went down to Brooklyn and took a really long walk around. Probably walked a couple miles. Eventually stopped into a biergarten for drinks and then found this awesome delicious and cheap southern-food place that had an outdoor garden to eat in. We loved the concert: the band was fantastic, brilliant musicians, great music, good crowd. It was a good night.

Meg left the next morning and I dragged myself out of bed in time to go downtown to tech my show. My latest design gig was at the Access Theater, same group of people I did Nance O’Neil with in the fall. They were doing a one-act play festival of 9 pieces directed by 3 people, and hired me to do the design. I’d been working on it for the past month and had been very frustrated: it was hard to work with so many people and communication was terrible; they kept changing their minds about things and not telling me about it. Anyway, we teched it over the weekend and got it up and running. We opened last Wednesday. I’m so happy to be done with it; it was cool to have another show and fun to see those people again, but it was messy and I felt that most of my ideas were sacrificed to the need to just get the thing open.

So that was last week. And then my entire life changed. I found a set design internship at a major Broadway designer’s studio and went in for an interview. And the designer gave me a huge wakeup call about the need to really pursue design if that’s actually what I want to do. Long story short, I’m going to intern for him for the next 6 months, Monday through Friday, and work at the frameshop on the weekends. It’ll be long, it’ll be hard, but I hope to learn a ton and get good experience and good perspective from it. I’m going to try very hard to rest through it and not get all bent out of shape about working 7 days a week and not having a ton of money. At the end of the day, it’s too good an opportunity to pass up, I can’t say no to it. I really feel that this is what God wants me to do; He’s basically thrown this in my lap without me even looking for it. I’m gonna need a ton of prayer to get through this, but right now I’m really excited about this new chapter.

My brain has been spinning all week as I readjust to the new everything. But I’ve still had fun. I’ve finally put all my files on my new beautiful mac (which I love!!!). On Friday I went out with David and Hannah for drinks and then to a BBQ place for dinner; it was so much fun to hang out with them. Saturday I met Stephanie and we went to a delicious Italian place in the Village for sangria and awesome food. We sat outside and caught up and she paid because it was my birthday dinner. J Sunday I went to church for the first time in a while; it was good. Excellent sermon from Keller on God as our Father. Definitely something I needed to hear.

And this weekend I’m vegetating. It’s my last free weekend until December, so today I’m doing absolutely nothing. I slept in until 11, and have been watching Gilmore Girls and am now writing to you all. I’m staying in my pajamas all day, am not leaving the apartment, and plan to order in some delivery for dinner. Tomorrow I’ll do all my errands and laundry and small group and transition back into life. And then it’s onward and upward.