Homeward Bound

I call California home, but for the last three months I've been living in Utah for a summer internship. And let me tell you, I do not recommend this state to anyone who lives in a better one.

Northern Utah is beautiful; the rivers are stunning; the scenery is simply amazing. Yesterday I drove through the mountain canyons northeast to Bear Lake, a large turquoise water body that divides itself between Idaho and Utah. Along the highway were craggy, red rock-type formations that looked like the Grand Canyon, but those rocks were surrounded by lush forests, a river, some meadows, tall mountains-- almost every type of mountainous nature.

If people don't bother you or you really love nature, Utah is great. Of the people who return every summer for this internship, all spend their days off rock climbing or backpacking or just driving around. I don't think this is a coincidence, because there is NOTHING ELSE TO DO. I can't even go out to dinner anywhere but Chili's or Olive Garden on Sundays. The fact that I don't have frequent access to a car that might take me places only exacerbates my boredom. 

But the people. Oh, the people. The ones I lived and directly worked with were, for the most part, great. But the citizens and theater patrons were too much. I do not mean to generalize- there are genuinely amazing people here- but there are a disproportionately large number of 1) old people and 2) ornery religious people and 3) self-righteous, old, and ornery religious people. 

These are people stuck in an age where the word racism had not yet been invented, not because the concept didn't exist, but because it is still socially acceptable to speak ill of an "inferior race." These are people who actually judge me because I am not Mormon, who truly believe that a woman's job in this world is to get married and reproduce, and, if unable to marry, ought to dedicate her life to converting others to her faith. These are people who predicate their missions on the idea that people in third world countries are poor because their belief systems are wrong. 

Again, this is not everyone. But the very fact that there are individuals at all who agree with these philosophies, who preach these practices and shelter themselves from all that is deemed sinful, disturbs me greatly. It is this kind of a place, where public water fountains are constantly overflowing and people are arrested for not watering their lawns, that makes me realize just what kind of work we have ahead of us in the quest for progress.

And maybe I'm the one predicating my mission on the idea that some people in Utah are weird because their belief systems are flawed, but there's no excuse for blatant racism, sexism, and homophobia. Some locals tell me that everyone is either a little more orthodox or a little more progressive within the Mormon faith, but I wonder how the church rectifies those differences. It is, after all, the richest and fastest-growing religion in the world. Don't you think it could unite its members?

Anyway, I guess I'm just glad to be going back to California. Coming here has certainly made me appreciate what I have back at home, even if it was the hard way to learn a lesson.