brigham young U at provo ut

sometimes you can feel the spark in the air-- a little electric feel of openness and willingness. you see a stranger next to you and you figure you can just try doing something together. the world is open for any experiment. if we have ideas, energy, a way to channel energy, mutual support, what can't be done?
you feel that way in Provo at the coffee house and music venue on university ave. kids are milling in and out of the place. there are 3 bands and assorted acoustic guitars being passed around. the ambient chatter here somehow seems full of possibility. many people here are BYU students with strict religious guidelines on sexual behavior. we meet three girls who want to discuss some of these very issues, excitedly, from the hour of 1am to 3am. the three sat in a row on the easy enveloping couch at the back of Giff's Corner, their friend's thrift store. they're giggly and excited to talk about feelings and experiences. they have some kind of trust in this experiment of human communication, some kind of trust that something of import is happening. there is less fear here in some ways, even as they speak of repressing & stamping out feelings that we all agreed are perfectly natural. it's a coexistence of open-mindedness and dogmatism we've now seen more than once on our trip.

does a direct interview approach incite our subjects to resort to their dogmatism? can we disarm them and give them space to open? i'm thinking of the Georgia O'Keefe's Angel's Trumpet or August Lily, or something, that opens up at sunset and closes again at mid-morning.