Nauvoo, July 5

I've been here a long time now. I would have written more in this blog, but I couldn't figure out how to get back into it! Somehow I did it tonight. Now I can get back to journal writing. It's so much easier on the computer I don't know how I've avoided it until now.

Well, I have a post from earlier to add to this one (I had to switch to Microsoft Word to keep writing). Here 'tis:

July 5
I’m scribing now the events of the past week or so since I wrote. I believe it was June 27th, the day of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph when last I did. Things have changed a little since, as I suspect the coming weeks will see even more of. The red cast is coming along well. They are about ready to open up tomorrow night. They don’t quite exude the energy of the cast in Salt Lake, and the times I’ve seen them I’ve been a little disappointed by a lack of life onstage. But the people are wonderful and work hard. They’ve been very blessed in the rehearsal process by fair and cool weather, the likes of which no one has seen at this time of the year. I keep wondering when things will stop being so wonderful so we’ll have to persevere, struggle, and endure physically a little. I’m weird. I thrill at the adventure of hardships and challenge. I’m just a bit of a Don Quixote. Instead my challenges have been much more internal, especially in the case of Melinda. This last week after Carthage and the hard day she had during the sunset rehearsal of the sociable, I talked to her about it on the porch later that night and somehow she felt better afterward. I just did as Gayle said: listen. I hardly said anything except that I don’t care if she’s grumpy or crazy or whatever, I am just constantly delighted by her. On the opposite, I just don’t understand what she sees in the serious, quiet, and altogether uneventful me. I sing. I act. I’m talented in that way, sure, but I’m a bore, I’m also sure. Somehow she's still interested. But after that night, we became closer and closer, attached at the hip, as it were, going everywhere and doing everything together. We began reading our scriptures during breakfast together at 7:30 and then we wouldn't be separated until that night. We'd end the day by sitting out on her porch under the stars talking. Also we became much more physical. Well, I guess it only felt like much more seeing as we began with strict understandings against things like that. The relationship that began in Salt Lake sprouted and so thrived during the weeklong interlude between Salt Lake and here, that it was not about to be daunted by the sudden deprivement of being in Nauvoo. She would snuggle up during prayers and other times, and I began taking her hand regularly, and we spent an afternoon breaktime sitting wrapped about the other on the couch watching TV as well. I found myself focusing my entire being on her--the pageant and the daily rehearsals and work was just a means to get to her. I've been constantly distracted onstage. Honestly, all I ever thought about all day was Melinda. Yes--I've got it bad.
So yesterday I asked David during a Sunday Sociable rehearsal for some notes, and he took me into his apartment that night and told me I was distracted and needed to repent or I would in no way be able to do the work and I would need to be sent home, because I was incapable of accomplishing the Lord's work and had broken the agreement between us concerning Melinda. I was shocked. I just wanted to know some technical theater things, but that shows how disconnected I'd become from the work. I knew I was beyond what I should have been doing but no one had been saying anything. Like a little child I kept pushing the limit because there was nothing to push back. I realized what he was saying was right, and I really grounded myself. I went back completely stunned, but realizing the only thing I had to do was completely change my heart regarding my disregard for the situation. Time to lock my heart. I just didn't know how to do it. I lay awake after praying about it for a long time, the situation pounding in my head.
Melinda talked to her mother too, and was told that she should probably basically avoid me the next morning. But somehow the distance was correct. I was not affected by her as I had been. Miraculously, the feelings which were and still are strong submerged themselves, and I was able to be with her just as a friend, as any other friend.
So from then on we've hardly seen or talked to the other, and the tendencies have dropped to a friendly level.
The red cast is out there, and where they were so strong, fast, and good at the beginning, they have yet to really embody the energy of the piece.
Well, I'm off to bed.