Freedom

shopko mj

2012-01-31T21:01:00.000-08:00

I have French stuck in my head. What's that about?
My house smells like bacon.
I ate dinner at 9:00.
I wear a Michael Jackson shirt to bed every night.
Except it is from someplace like Shopko, and his face is white and his lips are red. I wish he wouldn't do that.
I ache to shoot film.
I have a Japanese umbrella atop my bookcase. It is from LA.
I have a jar with money in it for a someday trip to Japan with the boy I love.
I had a dream last night my mom was pregnant.
I am not bothered the least bit by people's baby comments.
Jared's new favorite thing is to see how long I can tickle him before he gives in and laughs. It makes no sense to me because I am female, but is hilarious.
I have a hot husband and secretly almost kind of want a dog.
I eat a lot of fruit snacks.

Underrated.

2012-01-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

Jared had his first taste of gelato tonight; hazelnut flavor, and the working man made us say the names in Italian before he'd let us sample them.
I sampled about every flavor, because I chose wrong lots of times.
Hate when that happens, you know?
We used our coupons, laughed about politics (does Rick Santorum look like a perfect mix of Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld to anyone else? Only really, really, un-funny?), and rolled our eyes at ridiculous garbage bags given out by mall stores, and talked about how easy it would be to build a table and how hard it would be to own a restaurant.

Being happily married is way, way underrated. Even when we're not vacationing lavishly, romancing glamorously, or being generally movie-worthy, it's those quiet moments when I look at him and the world is huge, swallows me, and I feel it all in the palm of my hand, in the very same instant. It's seeing backwards to that time he cut his hair in a mullet to be silly and forwards to our babies that will have personalities and being totally awake in the moment at hand, breathing in the whole earth full of bursting love for another human.
And yet, those gigantic inside things happen in regular clothes, coats, and ponytails.

Seventy times a day I talk to his ears about how I can't describe what I feel. It frustrates me, expressor that I am. (See? I just expressed mahself, makin up the word expressor. That's how it should be spelled, no questions asked.)

Only having a wimpy four letter word to account for all that hugeness feels pretty lame.

It's part of what I'll do in this life; turning words and thoughts inside and outside to find every one of the sixteen million ways I can explain how I feel about this boy. He is my dream.

Steps toward bravery.

2012-01-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

I'm finally ready to post this--just for your reading, though, just to share, and not for a response. I believe in taking steps toward bravery and vulnerability, even if it's in a medium as small as one's little corner of the internet.
....................................

November 10, 2011

Today my grandpa died.

He was supposed to die yesterday, three weeks ago, ten years ago. They’ve thought he was leaving a lot of times; he’s just a fighter. Man of steel, mom said.

My mom has cared for this man all her adult life, when no one was really around to take care of her. You have your husband but he doesn’t care for you the same way your parents do. She cleaned out their fridge and had the cameras installed in their house to watch them, keep them safe.

The ultimate safety is death.

But that truth doesn’t often transfer well to us still here.

For mom it’s probably about goodbye; for me it’s all the things we didn’t get to do. Not in a I’m-so-gypped way, but a sad reality that’s-the-way-it-was way. That makes no sense.

I want to know him.

I want to know the whole story.

I want to know the battles my mom fought with him as her father.

I want to know the full extent of his genius, about what the patent from 1963 on my bookshelf really means. People ask me and I don’t know.

I watched him watch TV for those months we cared for them. He told us stories, but I still don’t know. I just watched him watch TV, filled up the hot water bottles the way he liked, got impatient when he wasn’t all the way ready to go to bed when we arrived, sweats-clad after long school days and just ready to sleep.

When I was driving home from a meeting in which a girl thoughtlessly joked about my grandpa’s death, I wanted to go to the house where all of that happened. Where I played with handed-down toys with dying batteries, enough to confuse the duck’s sound with the cow’s. Grandma had bright brown hair then--I never saw the gray roots.

I want to sleep, or throw up.

I thought I knew how to process death. Checkmark shebang bam alakazam I’ve got it. A lie to keep myself functioning. Plus I would be heartless—worse than selfish—if I did.

Sad. I feel sad.

I feel sad about the memories I don’t have for writing in this moment. Just the blaring TV is coming back to me. Running into him at cougar creations in the Wilkinson center—being a little embarrassed that running into my grandpa could happen to me. Didn’t I know this man well enough not to run into him? I mean, see him often enough that our paths would naturally cross?

They did, every Thursday. Why can’t I remember more about grandpa on Thursdays? He took ages in the bathroom.

None of this is right. I need sleep and time.

I need to let my heart ache even if I feel I don’t have permission to let it.

Ache, heart. Do your thing. I set you free.

The ultimate freedom is in death.

Writing like this seems lame but I still think it’s important while it’s fresh. No judgment, just feelings and thoughts that float by in this moment—today, the day of his death. My grandpa is dead. He is gone. He is happy. I want to know him.

I am still here.

2012-01-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

Here I am.
No grand plans for this post.
No big life events to announce, nothing out of the ordinary. No pregnancies, divorces, deaths or diamonds.
But I'm here.
And I'm finding more and more how important that is to me, for my life--I've tried to make writing my practice for a while now, and though I make excuses I keep coming back, even with nothing pressing to say. I am learning to own up to my soul needs: nurturing reading material, time to write, paper, pens. It's unglamorous and ugly and thrilling, mundane, exquisite.

Here's to this: doing things even when the genius is out to lunch, even when the glitter has settled and all you have to discover is the trudge through the dregs of those parts of yourself you'd rather not face.
My life is full, and I am buoyant and cheery despite a cold and a mile-long to-do list. I've learned to take pleasure in that mental checklist, in some twisted form.

I am still here.

Saint + Loving Prankster=Friend.

2011-12-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

Suddenly I'm voracious for writing, for filling the world with my words. making sense out of things.
I wrote a lot here in 2009.
I had a lot of stuff to write about. Not events, but big soul-searching stuff that was essential for me to move forward.

A lot of thinking and processing with fabulous friends about futures. Sometimes we may have included boys.
Now I'm married to one.
But last night as I was walking to my car from the Christmas concert with all the old ladies wearing Christmas red sweaters with appliques from 1982 I thought about one boy.
I never loved this boy in a romantic way.
But I loved him.
We had a relationship that I'll never have with another boy again--and that's not in a dramatic way, just a manifestation of what it meant to have something so unique and precious.

I've never been one of those girls that's always like, "oh-em-gee, I've always had more guy friends than girl friends. Girls are too much drama." Those girls are the girls I would like to shake and kick their teeth in, because what the heck? You are a girl. Anyway.

It started with pranks, like throwing water on us or turning off the power to our apartment. And I thought I was a good prankster, with my can of tuna fish under the couch. Child's play.

Somehow the pranks transitioned seamlessly into him being the big brother of our apartment, baking special cookies for us, taking us small 19-year-olds for rides in his car or inviting us to his fancy apartment for smoothie night, hot chocolate night, a special Valentine's Day dinner just for us friends. He was not usually in charge, but always the light bulb that all the people gathered around. He had quiet brilliance about him.
Intellectual brilliance, and emotional brilliance. He wrote neuroscience all over our whiteboard one night.

We asked his advice on everything. He joked with us and told us about the girls he was liking and we gave him wimpy know-it-all love advice back for good measure.

He was so wise, and I don't know what made that relationship flower in the first place because we were still a clump of teenage girls doing big soul searching while he'd been on the planet for ten years longer, loving and learning and sitting there with lots of things figured out for eons. I mean, we were just so freakin cool, I guess that must have been it.

I spent a lot of journal entries trying to convince myself to love him romantic-kind.
See? Clueless.
I especially have no idea why I did that since it wasn't like he loved me romantic-kind. Gosh I'm funny.

He cared for us that year, made sure we didn't do anything totally horrifying that would haunt us forever. We loved his playful sarcasm and his hilarious laugh and the way he would come over and talk for hours, as if we were his favorite people in the world.

I loved Ian Morris.
He is a saint and a real friend.

Amazed.

2011-12-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's sometimes hard for me to believe that God doesn't get sick of my prayers, which are mostly all the same. A whole lot of "please help me"--over and over again. Sometimes, I'm just amazed that He's not just like, "Oh, you need something again?" "This girl again?"

But when I get humbled and realize (again) that I can't do whatever I've been banging my head on brick thinking I can do, He is there, waiting and anxious for that moment. Never resentfully. Never tapping His foot and watching the clock and wondering when I'm going to get past my latest bout of dumbness. I guess I figure as the Maker of the universe He might have more important things to do than pay attention to my mood swings or the small happenings of day-to-day existence as Brooke Schultz, but the miraculous thing is: He considers that intimate care of His children the most important thing.

This is the point where I get frustrated: I want to use something besides the maddening word 'indescribable,' although it is. I'll try to tell you.

See, God isn't just some wispy ghosty existence out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of everywhere and all heavenly and inaccessible. He's in each of us raw human beings. He's near me when I do wonderful things and when I'm failing at trying to move past my mountainous weaknesses, whether I ask Him there or notice Him there. When I, like Peter, cry out for the Lord to save me because my faith falters, He comes to my aid immediately.

But He doesn't pull me out to a paradise with white sand and lead me to a pile of glittery faith, mine for the taking. He still requires a lot of steps into the darkness, darkness that seems so thick and powerful that I get afraid. But I only get afraid because I've forgotten the full extent of the light--how penetrating it is, how infinite and limitless.

I have a hard time getting my puny brain around 'infinite', when I spend a lot of money and time replenishing things that run out--groceries, patience, light bulbs. It's beyond me that someone's power and love and grace could all be bottomless pits of abundance, never scarce, enough to go around for me no matter how many times my prayers are lackluster or how many times I have to back up and ask for the desire to keep going instead of asking for opportunities to do incredible things.

I want to say that God has magnified my tiny efforts to nurture it and He has made faith bloom in me. Sometimes I neglect it and petals drop off; sometimes seasons of my life make it more susceptible to withering; Mostly I just try to keep going, while trying to avoid running faster than I've strength.

It's just amazing that God cares about that whole process and recognizes its hugeness, even if it's easy as pie for other people. It's amazing that He stands by me through my stupidity because He knows I can be better, and He supports me in attempts at progress even when those steps seem so baby I'm not sure if they count.

This all sounds like I'm going through something gargantuan and hard, but I'm not. In trying to live with greater awareness and presence I'm not always ready for what I find, and that's what this is about. I'm just amazed, constantly, that change is possible through a perfect being--a debt I will never be able to repay.

I want my life to be molded by Him.

Songs I Can't Stop Listening To

2011-11-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

And yes, I understand the irony of that title because it's not proper grammar.

1. Baby--Bon Iver
2. Let Him Fly--Patti Griffin
3. Zorbing--Stonoway
4. Real Love--Regina Spektor
5. Us--Regina Spektor
6. Scar--Missy Higgins
7. Marathon--Tennis
8. This Is Not A Test--She & Him
9. Human Of The Year--Regina Spektor
10. Big White Room--Jessie J
11. I Take What I Want--Aretha Franklin
12. The Park--Feist
13. The Conquering Lion--Lauryn Hill
14. Lovin' You More Every Day--Etta James

Grooveshark it.
..........................................
No rest at all in freedom
Of the choices we are given it's no choice at all
The proof is in the fire you touch before it moves away
You must always know how long to stay
and when to go.
.............................................
Hope you find some new love.
Share your latest music adorations with me?

Where Improper Grammar Will Land You.

2011-10-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

The prelude to this post is that I don't claim to be a grammar whiz, and the intricacies of perfect English sometimes fail me, BUT. I did go to fifth grade. Also middle school. Also high school. And while I felt a little gypped that in my world-class American education I didn't get more opportunities to actually write and be creative, I aced those hundreds upon hundreds of worksheets.
And actually it's very silly because I get very legitimately upset when I see these craplings.

My favorite grammar fails of late:
1. "I totally balled reading that just now." No, no you didn't.

2. "This is a picture of are house." F'real?

3. The ever present incorrect usage of "there" they're" and "their." I SWEAR we spent an entire month in each year of school on this topic.

4. The straw that broke this camel's back: an email that was sent to me from BYU, somewhat officially, begging me to take a survey as usual. I need to let the world of people who want me to take a survey know that I am much more likely to take your dang survey if you just ask nicely, once, without a littering of exclamation points and ALL CAPS WHEN NOTHING YOU'RE SAYING IS ACTUALLY THAT ESSENTIAL.

Sadly I think I deleted the email in a fit of rage, but here's what I remember:
"PLEASE take this survey! As user's of the library this effects you!!!!..."
aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I hate.
I am mostly very nice and I take those surveys.
Not today, Zurg.
Consider this your invitation to share your grammar horror stories.

Saga in which I whine.

2011-10-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

I hate studying and I seriously considered changing my major yesterday. It was horrifying and exhilarating all in one, and in the end (as if this were a long saga) I chose to stick to my guns. The guns that have worked for countless hours on my vocal technique, music theory, the list of crappity crap goes on. The guns that are about to memorize every single part of the larynx which is full of all kinds of muscles and cartilage I will have you know.
School sucks. I want out.
I've never hated it this whole-heartedly before. I've never hated it much at all before. There was a time when it was invigorating and I spread my arms open wide and swallowed the sky every day.

I am quietly waiting for my music passion to come back. I'm waiting to get fired up about teaching again. In the meantime, I'm obsessed with anything but. Photography. Writing. Somebody switched the loop tape in my head and I'm all sorts of confused, but I've been waiting very nicely, not making any waves.
I've been waiting, still analyzing scores in ways I will never need to know, still rehearsing bands and orchestras when I refuse to ever teach them. I have still been doing my homework, going to all my classes, and arriving on time for meetings and group projects.
It makes me want to pull my hair out, scream, and split myself in half so at least one of us can be sane.
My major makes no sense most of the time.
I am going to have a few choice words when I graduate from this lovely institution that refuses to change its ways even if for good reason. Who makes these decisions? Who determines this crap? Why isn't it ME? I think I would know best what classes would prepare me best for the life course I'm considering.
But apparently I do not. Apparently I am good for only nitty gritty. Apparently I am only smart enough to follow someone else's prescribed plan. Apparently I am not intelligent enough to make adult decisions and still need to be coddled and publicly humiliated all in one when I don't know the answers in class.
Excuse the emotion infused into the above paragraphs. They are not intended to be factual statements.
Done with my rant.
WEllllll. Not quite.

I did a social experiment for a class tonight in which Jared and I went shopping for phones separately to see what differences in treatment we would receive because of our gender.
I was pretty disappointed. A little part of me hoped overt sexism was dead.
Jared came back reporting normalcy on all accounts. She was nice and friendly, showed him a lot of phones, and told him to avoid the crappy one on the far left.
When I walked in she was helping another guy, and didn't say anything to me. While I was still waiting, another man walked in. She said: "Hi, how are you? I'll be with you in just a second."
She helped me before she helped him, but my heart still sank.
I can't say it was because of my gender any more than my position in the room.
But it was still just FROWN.
She didn't tell me about the crappy one.

.

2011-09-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

In Vocal Pedagogy today I had more important things to think about. I don't know how to concentrate on the parts of the larynx very well these days.
Even though this is heavy I want it known that I share for the hope that you can empathize because you've felt something similar, and nothing more than that.
............................

Push from a swing I wear a bulky scarf it's life in motion
life that is far more complex than being a music education major at BYU
and being sick to death of it.

There is a difference between real faith
and praising the name of Jesus with lip service
confessing Him your Savior
I feel like puking at the hollowness of that,
just to fill it with SOMETHING.
motion makes me sick; call up a barf bag request;
this girl's gonna upchuck.

My feelings hurt and my eyes pricked with salt, overflowing over and over again.
I am patiently waiting with expectation and faith
In an awful dream I had last night I somehow knew
or kept telling myself something my mom told me
that has stuck in my mind and kept me floating in a lot of rough patches
She said
I know nothing can hurt me
because I have God.
And she said it with real knowledge, because it was really her truth and not just a nice catchphrase with a good ring to it.
In the dream I knew this
even though ones I loved were dead or worse

And now, awake
is where the rubber meets the road; where it becomes a matter of life and death
whether I really believe it.
Whether I join my faith with time and stand solid through any hurricane
Or just passively, passionately preach to the members of my Sunday school class
to pray and trust with might greater than they thought they could muster.

How do you trust when you have to keep stepping through the fog,
keep running at a snail's pace over snaking branches set up to trip you up
keep tromping through the thickness
OVER
and
over

without
R
e
    l
      i
        e
          f
            ?

I Won't Ever Forget.

2011-09-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today I cried for people I didn’t know—people who lost their lives and people who watched others lose their lives. It was a confusing day because I didn’t know what the Twin Towers were, or the World Trade Center. Our student council advisor didn’t believe the girl who announced it in our early morning meeting.

The rest of that school day we walked around dazed, sixth and seventh and eighth graders without a clue what all this meant for our country and our future.

I sat in the hall with a popular girl who hardly ever talked to me, and she looked at me with worried eyes, but eyes that saw me, really saw me, for the first time.

“Are you scared?” She asked.

“Why would I be scared?”

“I don’t know, all the teachers are running around and some are crying and it’s scary.”

We haven't talked since then. She’s a bartender now, on the east coast. But in seventh grade we shared a thread of humanity on September 11^th. Observing, backs up against cold metal lockers taking in the bustling hallways full of uncertain, afraid people trying to make sense of the shambled lives they heard about on TV. I didn’t really know about terrorism. I didn’t really know about bodies and bodies buried under rubble and families left to wonder. I didn’t really know about pain on a scale grand enough to touch a whole nation.

Around the dinner table, my dad told a story from the attacks and cried hard. We all cried, too, and hugged a lot.

In pre-algebra for the next few days, we spent the time talking about the meaning of life and mourned with those who had lost distant family members on the other side of the country. People talked about the west coast being next on the list, Seattle, because it was another big city. We created stories to make it make sense. But in spite of fear, we stood united, America did, and we came out with all kinds of commercials and wrote a whole bunch of songs and built memorials. Everyone was concerned about the big picture, kissing their kids ten times the usual. But that kind of intensity is too much to keep up for ten years. It’s too much pressure when logistics have to be attended to; the country can only stop, pause in electrified repose for so long. So after a while those commercials didn’t make sense to run anymore, Hilary Duff went back to being Lizzy McGuire, the thousands of T-shirts with American flags printed on them went on clearance, and all that was left were a few bumper stickers about not forgetting.

Maybe we didn’t forget all the way, but we had to move on at some point, right? We had to resume normalcy—that was our proof to the terrorists that we were resilient. That and declaring war.

There was more than that left after those buildings fell down. Deep stuff America learned all together that can't be described very well in words. Even swimming through the politics and the hurt we knew we would make it.

I’m grateful for those few months of intensity, of kicking math lessons to the curb to discuss weightier matters of life and death and family and love. Even though the math had to be returned to, I am still thankful for that time of regroup and re-gluing. I'm grateful for time for a seventh grader to process compassionate pain and the healing of an entire nation.

Those moments of depth and incredible manifestations of human compassion anchored me;

I won't ever forget.

Sometimes I write Poetry

2011-08-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

This mess
is forsaken
Alabama is a state I've never seen
stab wound one I've never known
And the height of my non-experience frightens me
Like a lion instead of a hermit
I determine to fight
in a camisole turned inside out accidentally.

.............................................
My nails are red the sky is blue sugar is sweet
and gives you cavities
such that you have to make an appointment with the dentist
your tooth aches and your bed is empty
love is asleep inside a hungry belly
and insatiable eyes.
.............................................
The cup runneth o'er
with fountainous pens
piles of paper and shifts of notes
scratched helplessly on aluminum foil
this place is awash with helpless mess
scratched out bleached pumpkins and seeds unfit for eating
old abandoned and mildewing, what IS this place?
...........................................
a dewy delight
a change of perspective
socks with crap stuck to the bottom of them
i hate that.

My glamorous life.

2011-08-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

My life is not filled with red lipstick and scrumptious dinners on the table by 6:00 sharp. It's not bursting at the seams with glamorous walk-in dust-free closets and bi-weekly manicures. My life is not littered with fresh flowers, perfectly styled outfits, trips to Ireland, deep-dish cookies and two hour workouts.
These things all sound nice to me. But most of the time they are not my reality, nor anyone else's. Let's stop kidding ourselves.
Because the dishes in my sink are piled so high they've started to stink--or maybe it's the carpet still a little droopy from getting ripped up after that flood last week. The hair on my head is a little frizzy from a bike helmet; the clothes on my body are a little wrinkled; my nail polish is a little chipped; I'm over it.
We all have to live.
And I think that's just fine.
Not to say that these things aren't fun for me to look at and configure every now and again. Not to say that we should be proud of sloppiness or dirt. But just to say, I choose reality. It really is better.

Oh, and hey really gorgeous girl who keeps posting photos of ridiculously skinny and buff women couched in self-motivation? I feel sad about that. You deserve a cookie. Perhaps I'll make it deep-dish for you.
That's all.

I am From

2011-07-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

In 9th grade I wrote one of these poems. At 21, I wrote another.
......................................................................................
I am from music
It bubbled up inside me without my asking for it
from running through the sprinklers
fresh picked berries in the evergreen-laden fields of western Washington
I am from peace
scrumptious Sunday feasts, family bike rides, and 'love sandwich' as a code for the group hug we did
after family prayer each night.
I am from a sea of good looking people
who still had problems, fears, and sins
I am from a life without grandparents
who could play with me
They all meant well
and I didn't realize the value of that wisdom
until my grandmother was brimming with dementia,
neck deep in forgetting
and I longed for her to remember
the glorious life she had lived, the legacy
she couldn't recall.
I am from time alone
crafting a world full of books and made up names for colors and Celine Dion blasting through my ancient Walkman.
I am from the time before texts
when calling was the scariest prospect
and Star Shots from the mall with my friends crowded out my bedroom door.
I am from sleepovers, secrets, and curiosity
from homemade bread, steaming fresh from the oven
from cheating at babysitting
and popsicles in July
breaking bones on the trampoline, skinning knees on blacktops, quitting gymnastics
and declaring my life's mission into a sky full of night and promise
I am from simple things: the same bed, the same church, the same freezer jam
See, I am from the extraordinary squeezed from the mundane
like a ripe piece of Juicyfruit
a life milked for all it has been worth.

What Are You Optimistic About?

2011-07-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

I started reading a book by that title, a compilation of essays by "today's best thinkers."
Today's best thinkers, apparently, are optimistic that religion will soon be eradicated, that people will realize God isn't real, and on, and on, and on. I got pretty fed up with it. I sent a scary email to one guy who is a fancy philosophy professor, at least one hundred years old, and actually not optimistic. He's actually quite crabby.

But I am optimistic, and I want to tell you about it.

I'm optimistic that someday women will revolutionize against unrealistic expectations and ridiculous media messages and demand a change. I picture riots in malls, clawing at the airbrushed Victoria's Secret signs demanding justice; writing in to Carl's Jr. and them pulling their awful ads; magazines losing subscribers by the billions because we've had enough. It makes my heart smile.
I'm optimistic that I'll age gracefully, like my mother, my aunts, and my grandmother. I'm confident I'll embrace wrinkles when they come and still value age and wisdom over silicone boobs.

I'm optimistic that one day the education system will be reformed by a legislature who gets it, and that teachers will realize how foolish the unions are, and that somewhere and almost everywhere children will get a high quality education from K to 12 from caring professionals who love what they do. I'm hopeful that I will be a vehicle to such change, as a reformer and advocate for, ummm....reason and logic? Yeah, that's it.

How did things possibly get here? How is it possible that a big enough knot of people thought all this standardized crap was a good idea, when we believe in America as the melting pot of greatness in talents and abilities that can't even be described, let alone measured by fill-in-bubbles?
Well, back to optimism.

I'm optimistic that collectively we will realize how broken we are and use our collective genius to make repairs.
I'm optimistic about the creative capacity of humans everywhere in solving problems, pioneering innovation, and making the world more beautiful. I'm optimistic that the world will go in a positive direction, creatively at least, because of the innate nature of human beings. I'm optimistic that the hoards of folks working jobs they hate will eventually give voice to their dreams, follow their bliss and set fire to the system that claims money as the answer to that aching pit in your belly. I'm optimistic that the composite good of the world will outweigh and eventually stamp out more bad than can replenish itself.

Yes, I'm optimistic that the nature of human beings is inherently good, with potential broad and deep enough to stretch in all directions and blanket the world, shape it into an all-around wonderful place.

What about you? What are you optimistic about?

Sparks

2011-06-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

Sparks were flying from my blow dryer this morning--real, actual sparks that I saw.
They were tealish-blue.
I've had this blow dryer since I stole it from my little brothers. They would get goopy gel all over it when they fired it up to cement their 'dos, and I was the proud rescuer of the thing. Back in, probably, uh, 2007.
Before that, it was my mom's. For who knows how many years.
But getting a new blow dryer is just something you never think about. You take it for granted until one day, sparks are flying and the 'hot' setting is actually icy cold, and makes you feel like a wet dog in Antarctica. I should confess that this has been going on all week. And when the sparks fly I just do a little "AHH!" face to myself in the mirror and then I move on with it. I realized today that this is probably not the best course of action, as those sparks could very quickly be flying into my brain. And I try to make a habit of keeping my brain fire free, I dunno. Just a thought.

Sparks were also flying between me and the gigantic grapefruit I brought to eat (not actual sparks. Fake emotional ones.)
--it is enormous. So large...that I have to show you.

Behold, the grapefruit in relation to itself, and in relation to a very normal sized apple. The best part about this grapefruit is that I can tell it has a really thick peel that will send little grapefruit fuzzies into the atmosphere when I peel it. I love thick peels on fruit with a fervor that borders on romantic.

This is my "I'm so sorry you are not as privileged as I, to eat this lovely grapefruit" face.

I would like to thank my blow dryer for not catching my hair on fire and actually doing a very nice job today (see my bangs?), despite my very increased risk of electric shock.

P.S. Do you see my pitiful red eyes? I started wearing my contacts again, doc's recommendation, and they promptly returned to their bloodshot state. I'm thinking this doc probs doesn't know what he's talkin bout no more. He told me if I come in there one more time he's gonna have to put me on the Christmas card. I'm about to be famous.

I hope you have enjoyed this week's edition of extremely random and exaggerated tales from my morning. Heh.

Photography Blog

2011-06-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

Alright, troops. Lately I've been up to a whole lot of stuff that's not writing. Mostly photographing. And I want you to see the project I've been working on because it is so supremely FUN!

So you should check out my new photography blog and you should follow it because the pictures are going to continue to be awesome and I want you in on it because I like you and you are great.

The end.

Dear EFY girls.

2011-06-07T14:56:00.001-07:00

Lately my days are filled with teenagers clawing at the windows and door of my office, acting as if it doesn’t exist, or waving vigorously at me in hopes of response, like I did when I was five to cars behind ours. Their hairs are perfectly coiffed and their lips are perfectly glossed. It annoys me. I wish to invite every single one of them in and have a heart to heart about all the life lessons they need to learn, and quick! Let the rest of your life get started, for heaven’s sake. For your sake. I am only annoyed with them because I used to be one of them and those threads still run through my blood and guts and I can’t get rid of them.

Teenagerism was such an unfortunate time. I’m so glad I’m past the waking up at unholy hours just to do my hair for boys who didn’t notice me. I’m glad I can say no to kisses I don’t want and parties I could care less about. This chunk of me aches for that chunk of me—she went through so much, and for no real reason. Self-inflicted torture that was absolutely purposeless. In the wee small hours of the morning she was mourning in journal pages about deep stuff and horrifically not-deep stuff, regular old boring teenage thoughts of the most lemming brand.

How, how did we come out unscathed from the pit of poop that was early high school?

And now I can say that, of course, because I’m above it and out of it and can wrap my brain around it. When you’re swimming in that tar, it doesn’t seem toxic and stupid. It’s just your life. No one is around to tell you otherwise.

……………………………………………………

Dear EFY girls,

I hope this week is wonderful for you. Don’t feel obligated to answer when people ask you who your COW is. Please focus on the spiritual nourishment you are receiving and not the boys who are escorting you. You don’t have to be in charge of their salvation. Don’t pick up project boys. They do not change. It is silly and you are far too smart for that; also, don’t worry if boys don’t ask you to slow dance all that often. You’ll never see them again, plus they are sweaty so you don’t even want that so bad, do you?

I lied about the never seeing him again part. He might be in your BYU ward later on, where he is still the heartthrob of the universe. It still doesn’t matter. Just be in charge of your own life and keep your sweat to yourself. Expect others to do the same.

My, how your life would be different if you focused on your gifts instead of how everyone else is digesting your outfit.

Love,

Brooke

Harry Potter meets Judge Judy

2011-05-27T13:32:00.001-07:00

In what ways has your life turned out differently than you expected?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It’s obvious actually—and I make a point of writing not about the obvious.

The plain answer is in the bathroom, devouring Harry Potter about seven years late.

He may be late to Harry Potter, but he came too early into my life.

Right about here you’re expecting me to go into landscaping, painting the scene of our first encounter: blustery November day, wearing a black shirt he later confided he didn’t like, and dinner with my future mother-in-law.

I won’t talk about it. No can do, tiger.

What I will confide is that even though it was too early for marriage, it was way past due for a boyfriend.

And that’s how God snuck up on me.

He planted this idea deep inside my mind, an idea that grew like a cancer until I was considering folks that should have never been considered. (Names withheld to protect the current/future spouses of my excursions.) It was a foolish time.

Coy as a cat I texted my newfound mouse soon-to-be-husband and we decided to play.

I just wasn’t thinking. The chemicals in my brain were altered by one love potion #9 and suddenly my biological clock was ticking without warning. I wanted to marry.

The cool academic nonconformist in me calmly insisted we play it safe and jump promptly off the matrimony train,

but soon I just realized I was done for. Because all I wanted was to be one of those hopeless girls married at 19 (At least I made it to 20). Really, the last thing I wanted was to be one of them. I wanted to be married without having to reduce myself to that category.

This is the lesson. Are you listening? Because I’m just going to tell it to you flat out in a regular sentence and that’s not something I do every day.

You cannot figure out another person’s life. You cannot say what they should have done unless you are a fool, and love being incorrect on top of ignorant. You don’t get her. She’s living life the best she knows how, just like you. So even if that’s waiting tables or being a prostitute or (no!) a stay-at-home mom, just know: she wakes up every morning a human being the same way you do. She goes to bed every night planning how to improve her future, just like you, sister. So go on then. Be a sister to her. Pity her situation, but not her intelligence. Empathize with her decisions and her vulnerability, knowing full well that you don’t know. She’s pieces of you blown up poster size is all.

So what was different about my life than I anticipated? Having to explain to myself that I was just like everyone else.

Pursed.

2011-05-23T15:22:00.001-07:00

My purse hasn’t been the same since it was dumped upon with a Cafe Rio burrito plus burrito juicies after my little brother’s piano recital. I’ve wiped it with disinfectant wipes a multiplicity of times, and yet, that staled pico de gallo aura remains every time I reach in to re-vaseline my lips.

It’s troubling because I love both Vaseline and Cafe Rio and my purse (light purply/gray and snakeskinny, a glorious gift from my mother-in-law). So why not combine all these things together for a gigantic bout of love and adoration? Perhaps the reasons are obvious.

When the burrito spillage happened, Brennon was already quite upset about his piano recital. He played a Star Wars song (I can never recall the different names of all those tunes…) but was rudely interrupted by a few mistakes, after which he would stop, flush, and bury his woebegone head in his hands. He would look embarrassedly out at us in the audience, at his teacher, begging us to let him just quit and come sit back down. Well, at least those are the thoughts I injected in his head with my imagination, because there were whole lotta times when I felt that way. About piano. About singing. About being in a bathing suit.

The 7th grade talent show comes to mind. I sang Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby,” of course, because not only was Mariah Carey the most amazing female singer I had discovered to date, I knew it would win me the vast affection of my peers (it didn’t.) I went with my parents to pick it up on karaoke and I practiced with the TV in my parents’ bedroom, gettin a little crazy with my dance moves when I was feeling confident.

This was how it would always go—I’d get up my nerve to even audition for whatever thing it was, then I would practice, worry about practicing, worry more about performing, practice, feel supremely confident, and…

biff it.

On the day of the seventh grade talent show I was wearing: a jean skirt (remember those? Wow. WOW.); one of those red thick cotton polo-ish shirts, clearly obtained from some un-cool place like TJ Maxx or Ross, maybe Old Navy if I was lucky; platform-ish strappy sandal things, trying to be stylish but…

falling just short.

I got nervous looking at the crowd of middle-schoolers crammed into the bleachers and felt my heart pumping double time beneath the not-cool-enough shirt. It was always like this. I’d be clam-cool up until the moment of truth when that microphone was in my hand and every insecurity decided to migrate to my vocal chords. Then, my voice would start shaking, I’d pray through the remainder of the song, and try to relinquish some ounce of pride as I walked off the stage/gym floor/athletic field. See, I knew I was a good singer. I knew I had a voice. And I freaking loved to sing. So why not? But after each performance, I would realize precisely why not.

I could never take people’s compliments very well, because I always wanted them to know that I knew I’d done poorly.

My method for letting the crowd know that I knew my performance was crap at the 7th grade talent show was to stomp back to the streamer-curtain the student council had made and flick it open with as much evident disdain as possible.

So all these memories came whooshing back on the day of Brennon’s piano recital, and I just realized: none of us care about each other’s pride. We’re all just on the same side. We all only want to hear beautiful music; we want to hear what you have to say.

Performing highlights insecurity and brings it right smack dab in front of your eyes, so you have to address it, one way or another. No more surface living, it demands. It obscures your vision to that crippling point when your heart is in your stomach and your logic is out the window and your head is in your toes. All of it is so mixed up, so what can you even do!! You have to share a piece of your precious, fragile, vulnerable soul with an audience full of somebodys, when you worry as you lie awake at night that you are a nobody. These thoughts haven’t occurred to you while you were practicing with the karaoke CD and polishing your dance moves. Practicing alone in that room with the TV feeding you the words with the little highlighter, you were safe.

The other problem is that performing brings all the junk to the surface you didn’t even know was there. SMACK! Blindsided by a crop of new fear that’s fresh and bloody how, how can you concentrate on notes or poise or, for heaven’s sake, dance moves? Because you thought, you thought you weren’t affected at all by all those somebodys’ opinions. You thought you were letting those nasty blog comments roll right off your mature shoulders. You thought you were totally nonplussed by the demanding, awful letters they wrote to President Samuelson about you. You thought you didn’t care one lick about that boy who dumped you via email. But it turns out you’re just the same as everybody else. Turns out you wanted to be a nobody because you were afraid of being a somebody.

Performing is about getting past your own humanity and being present in your own vulnerability. You have to embrace it with grace, even joy, for the fears to stop beating down your door while you’re trying to keep your voice steady.

Feigned cockiness won’t be a thick enough cover for you. Right in the middle of that your heart will bust open and all your demons will let themselves out.

Nope, you can’t do it. You have to name and cradle each one of those insecure demons and let them live inside you until they disseminate into the rest of your organs, absolve into your beating heart and melt into your overworked brain.

So it didn’t matter that Brennon accidentally slopped his beans and tortilla over my purse. I figured I’d let it go—he’s got a long road ahead of him.

Sandwich.

2011-05-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

The best sandwich I ever had: turkey with pesto and tomatoes and a fancy cheese, way down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Me and my freshly wed husband shared it at the deli downstairs from our resort. One day on the way back the sky dislodged all its pent up water and our sandwich-filled bellies got drenched.

But back inside the deli--red adobe tiles, cheap souvenirs, freshly baked bread, a little internet cafe for way too much cash. All of the Mexicans looked down their noses just a little bit at us Americans, and I just braced myself to be scammed or something.

In true Jared Schultz fashion, we were frugal as grannies on our honeymoon. We grocery shopped, for heaven's sake, at the local store that included a mall and lots of overpriced pizza. We didn't eat the produce, and instead filled up on homemade smoothies, breakfast cereal and daily made pastries. Gosh, those pastries! The donuts and the buttery breads so soft and chewy--you just stick them on a tray with the little tongs, whatever you want, and get ten or so pastries for a couple hundred pesos.

That sandwich was another Mexican luxury--and maybe I felt some twinge of remorse because I wanted to be pampered on our honeymoon--but there was something so down to earth simple and free about sharing that sandwich with my husband. It meant: I'm always gonna take care of you. And when I wanted the same sandwich the second day: I'm gonna indulge you whenever I can, because you're worth it.

Sharing that sandwich was just the pinnacle of for rich or for poor, sickness and health and life and death--there, in the tomato seeds, we were sowing our future. A future of frugality but simple joy, simple love, pure essence of bliss.

Walking--well, running--through the torrential rain after Sandwich #2 I looked at that husband and I knew, I just KNEW--it was all going to be alright, even if we never had another dime.

eating is an option.

2011-05-16T15:32:00.001-07:00

1. There is a little red ring around each of my eyes that has been there since December. I’ve been to the eye doc inside his Walmart cubicle three or four times, but the red ring is still there. I wear thick black glasses every day. Maybe I am hiding. But I am seeing—I’m blind as a bat without those lenses, you know. Plus the Walmart eye guy creeps me out.

2. A couple weeks ago we went to the Tulip Festival, me and my mom. We whirled and ran all around with our winter jackets and our souls on fire—I LOVE THIS WOMAN. She fills me up whole. We talked about the temple, addiction, God, marriage, getting a job after 23 years of full-time motherhood. My mom is so dang comfortable with who she is, she simultaneously gives other people permission just to be comfortable. And who else can do that for you? She hates shopping and her makeup bag consists of three or four tubes, the same kinds as always. She always looks fabulous. My mother lives alone now, with four other boy-men, and doesn’t complain. She just sets boundaries. She is assertive and never overbearing. She is so down to earth and sensible I wonder often how she birthed a wild-child crazy woman like me. I sure miss her a lot.

3. We painted everything white on Saturday—front door cabinets closet doors. EEEEEEEEEEEEEk I love paint with a fervor undying.

4. I started a little writing group. It was very scary because I didn’t know if any of them would want to commit to it and it was a big idea brewing inside my head. But we make each other feel safe and we take risks. And we write! It’s amazing! Something about just scribbling away with people you know will care about you no matter if your writing is dirt or gold is so freeing and just absolutely thrilling. Tuesday nights give me jitters of creativity bugs, flying around in my area like uncaged birds. I have a very firm testimony about creating. It’s the lifeblood of us, even though it’s hard to pay attention sometimes. It’s easier not to create, because we’re functioning well enough in the world as is, working our day jobs and watching TV and getting worked up talking pop culture every once in a while. And adding one more thing to that overflowing plate sounds like an emotional explosion. Plus writing makes everything more complicated, at first, and who in the planet wants that? No. My life is worth complicating to get lifted. I re-decide this fact every time I pick up my pen and paper.

5. I am going to be a real biker person. I’m getting a bike soon. Jared’s is in Florida in the mail. Then we’re gonna bike all over this state, pro, yo.

6. I bake stuff this summer. Yesterday I baked lemon almond pull-aparts and homemade wheat bread. Two days before that: magic coconut squares. Two days before that: brownies with nutmeg and banana and raspberry-chocolate frosting. Four days before that: oatmeal raspberry bars. I’m feeling like I should get into cooking instead of baking. But alas! No I will not until I am good and ready BECAUSE:

6a. Intuitive Eating. Is a book that every woman should read up and down and all over. BECAUSE IT IS REVOLUTIONARY THAT IS WHY! Here’s what you do: you give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Whatever you want, whenever you want. You don’t feel guilty when you’re hungry. You don’t put off eating as long as possible. You don’t tell yourself you don’t deserve to eat this or that because you didn’t exercise. (And now that I’m enumerating these unwritten rules of womanhood, how silly do they seem? Sometimes, I want to quit this whole female world because it is just downright weird.) You listen to your body and you don’t keep eating when you’re already full because you know that you can eat again whenever you want! And never, never do you go on a diet. You just listen to yourself and eat normally. Eat when hungry. Stop when full. No scales or calorie counting or points or grams of what-the-freak ever. YOU JUST EAT. So right now, when I’m baking up a storm, I’m just experimenting with my unconditional permission to eat. I don’t restrict foods and I don’t label foods ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ I focus on how each food makes me feel, and I eat whatever sounds good right that minute. I eat mindfully and taste my food so that I don’t eat a ton and then feel overstuffed and uncomfortable and grumpy and mean.

Gracious, I can’t even talk about it any more because I’m just getting too worked up because I am just frustrated that nobody ever told me that this was an option. that JUST EATING was an option. Here goes: EATING IS AN OPTION. Let yourself be free. The end.

7. I hate tangled sheets almost as much as I hate cold feet and, ironically, socks.

I needed to say all that. kthanksbye.

P.S., C.S.

2011-05-10T20:44:00.001-07:00

“You never know how much you believe anything until its truth or its falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you...only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.”

C.S. Lewis said that.

I feel you, C.S.

You know what you’re talking about, that’s for sure. Because I believe in a lot of things—the essential nature of the family, of music education in public schools, and in God. But which of these have I tested to the limit prescribed by my dear friend C.S. Lewis? Which of these have I made a matter of life and death, or has circumstance dictated I do such?

And, on which of my beliefs am I willing to take a real risk?

In those unbearable life moments of grief and pain and pressure when no choice seems possible, let alone beneficial, what belief is the one I will choose as my lifeline to uphold me through the treachery?

It is God. I am young and sometimes I kid myself and think my life has been hard—it hasn’t. Especially in relation to many, many others. But my willingness to sacrifice for God has shown up—and yes, the truth or falsehood of it has been both a literal and emotional matter of life and death.

There have been times when my prayers have been met with aching silence. I have cried on my knees and wondered if the God I thought I loved so well knew me at all. Some of these times I have anguished for hours over whatever problem was present, some times I have given up in my own disappointment and crawled under the covers.

In Alma 18 Ammon asks King Lamoni, “What wilt thou that I should do for thee, O king?” and the king doesn’t answer him for an hour because he doesn’t know what to say. Then, Ammon asks: “What desirest thou of me?” And again, the king doesn’t answer him. This is when Ammon gets filled with the Spirit and is able to read Lamoni’s thoughts and talk to him about it.

Ammon didn’t know how long that hour was going to last. If I were him, I would have been shifting and pacing all over the place in that tension. It’s only when Ammon asks again that he gets filled with the Spirit. Only when he exerted the faith to put forth another effort after waiting so long.

So sometimes I’m Ammon, and instead of waiting and patiently exerting more faith and effort, I just bang on God’s door and try to convince Him to answer.

A girl bore her testimony in my new ward on Sunday and she was talking about dressing her 18 month old son. She said, "I just looked at him and said, ‘Ryan! We do this every day. This would be so much easier if you wouldn’t fight me on it!’ And I just thought, ‘Wow. God is just right in my face here!’ How often is He trying to say to me, ‘This would be so much easier if you wouldn’t fight me.’”

P.S., C.S. Lewis: I love you.

Sunburns and Miracles.

2011-04-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting sunburnt and happy while Jared builds a couch in the other room.

(We had to dismantle it in order to get it out of the room it was in, in order to fit in our brand spankin’ new sectional which is actually not brand new, but from the KSL classifieds.)

I’m sitting sunburnt and happy because we just whirled home from a 5 day eating excursion to California. Boy oh boy did we eat. And it was delicious. Oh how my heart longs for a delicious sushi joint here that has happy hour every day, and for a pizza place which sells gigantic gooey cookies in silver tins with ice cream heaped atop (so impeccable they have their own name, the glamorous pizookie), and for my mother in-law’s Martha Stewart-worthy lemon bars to magically appear on my counter. Yes, this was a very delicious trip indeed.

The sunburn came from falling asleep in the heavenly weather—imagine my dismay when I stepped outside this morning to SNOW. I hate that trick Utah plays every year. Quite nasty of it to always do that.

Pre-sunburn and pre-eating excursion, I was standing pale and unhappy at the globs of paint on our bathroom wall. Obnoxious Easter egg lilac. Crappy brownish pink. We finally decided on a glorious purple that is divine, and makes my bathrooming far more pleasant these days.

Our free time is spent at Lowe’s, dreaming about wood flooring and sconces and white doors. (You had better go kiss your white doors on the lips, for you are a lucky duck. We’ve had about enough of our poop brown ones.)

So that was April. Oh, and finals. Oh, and my best friend turned 22 and blessed her baby on the same day. Oh, and our ward is now on hold on account of realigning the boundaries of the whole world. Oh, and A MIRACE FROM GOD THAT I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT RIGHT NOW.

We filed our taxes and those jokesters rejected them. THREE times. So we were flailing around, trying to figure out how to make them accept our filing thing so we could get our return so we could pay Jared’s tuition on time. Turns out the only way to make them accept the thing was to mail it in regular, like, with stamps and things of that nature. But snail mail means snail pace moolah—too late to pay tuition at all.

On this night that this is all hitting the fan, I am very whining and poo-pooing everything thinking about all the grimy possibilities to make this summer happen while I go in to brush my teeth in a huff.

AND THAT’S WHEN GOD WORKED A MIRACLE.

Jared called me into the big room. “Hey, babe, I think you should come in here.”

“Ughhh, whaaat.” (I wish there were an accurate way to type what I said. It was so self-pitying and moanful and type cannot express.)

We looked at his financial aid and there, on the screen, was sitting more than enough money for his tuition. From those same federal jokesters and I wanted to wrap them all in a loving embrace I tell you! Because guess what now we didn’t even need that silly tax return because his tuition was already paid for!

I am just letting you know that God is for real.

He knows what’s up and He works miracles for us. Sometimes we notice because we’re already in so much need, and sometimes I think He does it just for the fun of it, like someone ding-dong ditcing cookies on your doorstep.

He ding-dong ditched a thousand dollars on my doorstep this time. Gosh, I can’t wait to see what He does next.

But God is not a vending machine. He didn’t give us that miracle because we earned it with obedience wages or something. We do the very very best we can and He accepts our meager offerings every time. He never rolls His eyes at our embarrassing attempts to give to Him. He blesses us so profusely that we don’t even have room to receive all the good stuff He’s got for us—we just can’t think of it in an “I-do-this-I-get-that” kind of way. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to people who are making really dumb choices. Here’s what I know: when I choose to make my life good and I put every effort in to being as good as I can, He helps me with all kinds of miracles. Miracles like this one, yeah, but ALSO THE MIRACLE OF KNOWING HE IS THERE.

The point is, miracles can happen in any circumstance. And they do! Oh, my, they do!

My quest is just keeping my eyes peeled.

Sappy workout music.

2011-03-25T16:03:00.001-07:00

When I run, I don’t pick pump-you-up music. I select the sappiest, most orchestrated inspirational nostalgic music on my ‘pod; because, to me, running has become this crazy yogic body-mind-soul thing that has to be an experience.

It started evolving that way when running was essential to my functioning about this time last year when I was broken up with Jared who I am now married to.

I would run creepily in his parking lot every single day and listen to the same John Mayer song. Over and over, for as long as I would run. Every day I would ask God if I could please just take back this thing I had done and knock on his door and beg him to take me back, sweaty and red-faced and nose-dripping in my electric blue shorts. And every day, God would gently let me know to please not do that.

After this, I would come home and whip out my scrips and journ and read and ponder and write my life with pens I had spent far too long picking out at the bookstore. I filled up two or three journals that month.

I wrote in my journal the day we went to the Festival of Colors together. He had tried so desperately to get people to come with us and they all backed out. We were going alone. I wrote about how I was excited and afraid and I just didn’t know what was going to happen but I felt so good but I really hoped I wouldn’t do something impulsive and terrible that I wouldn’t be able to back up like kiss him.

Which is precisely what I did.

See, now it’s hard to remember all the detailing, but I had all these reservations about wanting to spend eternity with this man. On this day, the Festival day—I still wasn’t sure. I still had a lot of journal pages filled up with question marks and affirmations all rolled up in one giant mothball. I desperately didn’t want to show my longing and feeling for him without being able to stand up for permanent and say YES I AM COMMITTED NOW.

But before the kissing business happened,

I got into the car I’d gotten into at least a million times before—red mazda which I still wouldn’t recognize except on account of the orange coconut car freshener on the mirror. Back then, it was peachypeach. I slid into the passenger seat and back into the life of Jared Schultz and as I watched him eat his peanut butter and banana sandwich it felt so wrong not to be holding his hand.

I sat on mine to constrain myself.

We were so distracted that instead of going to Spanish Fork we went to Springville, and ended up at a very lovely garage sale at which point Jared bought several Navajo pictures with cheap goldy frames for $.25 and a Michael Jackson holographic card thing and injured himself on a pogo stick contraption. I just felt awkward and antsy and clammy but giddy all rolled up in another giant mothball.

So when we were sitting in the car waiting to go to this chalk-throwing fest, I thought that kissing him would be the last thing I’d do. I thought sitting on my hands was working very nicely. And then we told each other honestly that we were just so dang glad to be together again. His blue eyes melted my mothball into a puddle and I got all weak in the knees for serious.

(ALRIGHT. It’s all very sappy and soggy. You love it.)

And my face flushed with seven different kinds of heat and before my brain knew it I just kissed him. He held me and it felt so good. Have you had holding like this? The kind that makes you feel contained in a wonderful bubble of nothing but validation and happiness? It still feels that way when this man hugs me.

…………………………………………………………………………

Last night he held me in bed and said, “I can’t believe we’re married!”

I say this sentence at least every other day. There is no way I could ever convince myself that God does not work miracles. The evidence just sits right in front of my face every single day! Sometimes, even, this evidence kisses me. And, do you know? It feels just as fabulous as it did that day in March last year.

I’m gonna keep my sappy workout music.

Is the world just falling down around my ankles or what?

2011-03-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

While people in Japan are suffering on the tailwinds of a tsunami and on the brink of a nuclear crisis, the kid in my adolescent development class was praying for the basketball team to play well in their first March Madness game.

I didn’t say amen.

I wish it was that simple to show my non-support for all the other things that are exploding in the world.

While Women’s Services is providing incredible events like ones with Alex Boye that bring tears to your eyes and change your life, the BYU homepage sports this newsworthy bit: “Vote for Your Favorite Jimmer Signs”—which is great news, because we don’t have enough people running around campus wearing his T-shirt or his jersey or his face.

No complaints about basketball. No complaints about Jimmer. No complaints that we rally around great talent and great fun.

Just a complaint that we do it at the expense of greater things.

Did you see the Daily Universe front page all about planning your wedding? Have you seen the insane amount of blogs that have thousands of followers for no reason other than that they post other people’s pretty pictures full of anorexic models draped in .2 oz of fabric? Have you been irked by the number of things/groups/companies/people trying to get you to “like” them on facebook?

Have you been annoyed at the amount of time-wasting crap for which we pay hundreds of dollars to spend our precious mortal probation in isolation?

Me too.

No complaints about weddings, pretty pictures, blogs, or technology. Just an aching for depth.

For reading real books, not electronic ones. I don’t care how lightweight it is.

For spending real time with your loved ones, not something with an ‘i’ in front of it.

For good old fashioned fun without a TV.

Without Jimmer.

For bodies that run and bike and camp and vacation and canoe!

Without a couch.

For soulful singing that’s going to happen behind Dance Ensemble tonight and tomorrow night, if you want to come hear me. I’ve got something to say.

boxes.

2011-03-04T13:23:00.001-08:00

On Thursday nights we stay with my Grandpa. We drive over in our pajamas and pillows and sweatpants, and there he is on the couch with the TV blaring, wearing no pants (He hates wearing pants, and when you’re 93 you can do whatever you want about pants. Finally.)

We say hello and he always calls me Brooke Darling. We help him to his walker. Then we fill up two liter pop bottles with hot water to go in Grandpa’s bed. He’s had hot bottles in his bed for as long as I can remember—even on the one night in the summer when I was nine and my family spent the night and the house was so boiling hot we all woke up and put cold, wet rags on our foreheads. Grandpa and Grandma snoozed away with the covers pulled up to their chins and the hot bottles cozying up their legs.

After the hot bottles are done we sleep while Grandpa sleeps, with a little camera by our bed so we can see if he needs anything. He doesn’t, usually. I think he just likes knowing we’re there. We listen to him talk in his sleep, occasionally snore. Then, we wake up and go to our regular lives.

Ever since my grandma died he’s been gathering the house into boxes. The old books, blueprints, model airplanes, and a bunch of one-of-a-kind things, like the chair massage pad, his American flag robe, and his collection of baseball hats. Probably he would call them caps?

My Grandpa loves the city of Kanab. He aches to live there. So he’s going to. For two months at least, and then, who knows.

It feels very sad to see all the boxes. It feels so arbitrary and cold—my grandparents and all their stuff breathed life into that house. Grandma’s chair by the bay window is gone. Grandpa’s plans to save the political universe are stashed away.

Unknowingly, we compass ourselves around things that seem very permanent, like our families and how they act. Like where our grandparents live and the things we will see when we visit. Like the family reunions that happen once every three years. Like the way the sun is supposed to rise in the morning.

The boxes just make me feel like the proverbial rug of stability is yanking itself out from under me.

getting your act together.

2011-02-18T15:16:00.001-08:00

Women’s Chorus has been a drag lately. Sister Applonie has been barking at us about our intonation, our blend (for good reason), and I’ve been standing there with my arms crossed uppit-ily blocking everyone and why can’t all these people just get their act together.

Today, we sang Psalm 96, arranged by a young composer man who I assume went to BYU at some point and dreamed of being associated with Jean Applonie like every other reasonable human being does at one point or another. It was hard to learn. Because it changes meter, like, every other measure. For serious. Today we sang it all the way through, and there in the Madsen Recital Hall where I have stood every day, being uppity and arms-crossed, I bawled.

Music making me cry is no new sitch. There was a magical period where it happened literally every single day. But today, my barriers to God got broken down. They were ashes at my feet and I just kicked them behind me, away out into the air and down to the center of the earth to be absorbed by boiling bubbles of magna.

And He was there inside me. He was enveloping me in familiar wooshes of chills and wonder and beauty and just shouting in the most loving way: I’M HERE! EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE OKAY! DIDN’T YOU KNOW I WOULD COME BACK LIKE THIS?

Maybe I didn’t tell you,

I’ve been in a rut lately. I’ve been a rolling snowball of negative karma shwooshing through every element of my life. I’ve been selfish and sniveling and pretty rotten all around—so today, this song was nothing short of a miracle for my soul.

Just don’t stop doing the things you know are good for you. Not just like eating your veggies and sleeping, but the things you know are vital to your vitals. Writing. Reading wonderful words. Listening to the loveliest, most beautiful music. Uplifting yourself.

Choosing to wake up every day inspired.

So even when these things seem blank and bland, keep raising your hand to participate. Uncross your arms, and God will be there one day.

Then you feel sheepish for not trusting that He would infuse Himself into your life strong and big again.

Today, I’m choosing to be inspired.

the empty chair

2011-02-07T16:14:00.001-08:00

I felt inspired to write today,

until I remembered that my grandma died last week and my words are all stuck up, globbed in grief and steeped in sorrow, like all the composite bad stuff of my life got conglomerated into one big ball and broken open by this event.

I’m still going to try to get something out, because all this stuff is important right now. Not in five years when all of it is past, but right smack dab in the middle of things when tears are fresh.

Her 90th birthday would have been in just a week. She was so frail and old and really, we all told ourselves that death for this woman would have been a blessing a long time ago.

So why doesn’t that make things easy?

She had a stroke on Monday morning: bleeding into her brain, not a candidate for surgery. 30% of people with this type of stroke? They die within a couple weeks. 40%, within three months. But that’s just normal-person statistic; not 90-year-old-my-grandmother statistic.

“I can’t think of anyone on this earth more precious than her,” my mom said. It’s true; this lady was full of sugar but genuinely sweet compliments every time you saw her—a hundred rounds of “I love you!” and, “you’re marvelous!” Every time I would wake up with her in the night and help her to the bathroom, seven exclamations of, “you’re wonderful!” would spill from her mouth.

We passed the people in scrubs, the gift shop where you can buy stuffed animals and balloons, the hallways with giant posters of friendly looking doctor men.

And there she was, in the hospital, dying in the arms of those children she raised—the last of which, my dear mother.

By the time we made it, she was already gone; we were too late.

Seeing her body, I felt so immediately that she wasn’t there anymore. It was so arbitrary—a cheek, a shoulder, a mouth—not my grandma. I had this wonderful image of her as a younger woman—her spirit gliding and hopping around the room; I felt so happy that she was free!! The wounds and hard things of life wouldn’t hold her for one second longer. If air could be classified like this, the air in that hospital room was peaceful. It was sad. The air was heavy but it knew what had just happened, in all the glory of the reality of the Plan of Salvation.

Inside the air filled with all those things, my brother and I talked to her. We talked to the spirit we knew was close as we held the empty body, both sobbing and hugging our mother, who now has no mother of her own in this world.

Grandma, do you remember the time you made the kids walk all the way to Ream’s when milk was on sale? Dad asks.

We laugh through our crying because when I was four and Garrett was six and Grandma was seventy something she babysat us and we walked what felt like eighteen hundred miles to the grocery store and fumbled back with jugs of on-sale milk. She was not one of those plump, baking grandmas who sits around all day. She knew about sales and coupons and hard work and sewing and God and raising twelve kids. She knew about walking when you had no car and getting through tough times. She was strong and smart but kept her sweetness all the time.

We said our goodbyes and there was hugging that was essential for healing, crying that was essential for understanding.

Together—me, my brother, my dad, my mom and my husband—we walked out of the room forever,

past the mortician and the white boards with bright dry-erase marker.

On the way out there was a picture of a house and a porch and a chair—an empty chair. It felt perfect to accompany that moment.

You go, grandma. You can get off your porch and leave your house and go home.

Her dementia was severe and getting worse; she was adamant the last time I was there that she had to wake up and get ready for school. She’d wash her face at least four times a night because she couldn’t remember that she’d already done it. She’s slept with two liter pop bottles filled with water in her bed for as long as I can remember, and ate brown rice for breakfast every day for probably all of those ninety years.

All of that seems like such a distant memory, faded into some fabric—mashed up with all the other things I knew of this incredible lady.

I want to know her for real.

I want to know her independent of life in an old, decaying body, laced with the frailties of mortality.

I want to know that gliding, hopping spirit.

It’s so indescribably wonderful to know I will.

Because someday I, too, will be a hopping spirit inside an old, decaying body. I’m excited for the day to come—the day when I get to get up out of my porch chair, too!

and go home.

Surprise, surprise!

2011-01-27T16:09:00.001-08:00

Remember the surprise that was happening yesterday?

Me too.

After gospel choir he picks me up and we kiss because we love each other a lot. I put on the iPod, he drives. We bypass the game traffic and soon, we’re on a foggy road that feels like it’s suspended in midair—I love this road, because, we went on part of our honeymoon to the place it leads to.

“Park City!” I shout.

This surprise is my 8-month-early birthday present.

YEah.

We wind up the road and wind up at Park City High school, where we take a bus that is free to a part of Main Street I’ve never seen before. The cold is biting my face and feet off but I’m giddy and 14. Or 5.

I really, really love surprises.

Especially ones as well kept as this one.

But we’ve brought my expired license (agh!) and get to ride the bus back to our car and get my paper one that’s real and come back to wait in line.

It’s just starting to dawn on me that I need to be 21 to go into this place and there are sketchy peeps creepin all around, smoking and swearing.

I’m still 14 slash 5 though, so I don’t mind. Jared makes me take off my glasses so I can’t see the posters as we approach. The guy ID-ing me asks me all this questions because he thinks my picture doesn’t look like me. Silly man!

I realize: this is a bar.

We get up to the front (YES, THE FRONT. JUST REMEMBER THAT WE ARE IN THE FRONT ABOUT TO SEE SOMETHING THAT I LOVE EXTREMELY DEARLY) and stare at the empty stage to wait. 10 minutes, 20 minutes.

A girl behind me shouts out the name of my surprise: “I just can’t believe I’m here,” she gushes, “seeing LAURYN HILL!”

asdfjasfjdalfjd are you kidding me is this for realnoitcan’t be i just adfjajdiwi? i just screamed and shouted and thrust myself into jared’s arms and then i prompty burst into tears.

Those people didn’t care because they were already drunk, drunk, drunk.

See, Lauryn Hill is my favorite artist in ALL of time and space, tied with Aretha Franklin. Possibly a titch ahead.

FAVORITE. Okay so I guessed it was a concert and I was trying to think of anyone and everyone it could possibly be but not once did this lady cross my mind—maybe because, oh, she hasn’t come out with new music in like 10 years and she’s dropped off the face of the music planet.

BUT SHE WAS THERE LAST NIGHT. IN THAT BAR. AND SO WAS I.

Well, she wasn’t there for a while.

Three hours, to be exact. Three hours of standing in the squished crowd and enduring the security guard who was at least 7 feet tall and whose ponytail kept whipping me in the face. Also I was forced to touch his bum more times than I would like to count. Three hours of watching people whose lives I know absolutely nothing about drink themselves slamming drunk, plaster themselves all over any other person they could find. Three hours of waitresses in the most ridiculous getups waddle (it’s the only means of transportation when your skirt is skin tight and your heels are a hundred inches high) back and forth with shots of STUFF. Three hours of asking the security man, PLEASE WHEN DOES IT START? he had no idea every single time.

But after those three hours, SHE WAS THERE. In this ludicrous fur coat and seventy other layers and twenty five bangles on each arm and gargantuan earrings and Native American makeup. She was there! And she SANG! And she was amazing.

It was so amazing. I wanted more singing from her and less noise from the band and drunk folks but I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and didn’t even sing along.

See, I can describe what happened up until then. But when she started singing I just have to stop because I can’t put words to it other than AMAZING.

It was amazing.

We arrive home at three in the morning and I missed a bit of class but srsly? Once in a lifetime thing here. And that man, that beautiful, gorgeous man who made it happen? Well, dontcha know, he’s my husband. And we are married to each other and it is incredible because that’s who he is.

Gosh. What an adventure for a random Wednesday night in January.

I love Lauryn Hill.

I love my husband for taking me to her.

WHAAAAT is my life? Wonderful.

still fighting it.

2011-01-20T16:02:00.001-08:00

How did I ever get by? Leaning into the wind, letting life take me where it wished? Now I feel this incredible sense of HUGEness—a strength. Not a bitter, battling the-world-is-out-to-get-me, but a simple knowledge that I will not be that person again. I will not be wishy-washy again.

I know what I want out of this life partially because I feel divinely encouraged…even commanded. Hey, Brooke: thou shalt not hide.

Letting myself be known means fighting against the natural current that would push me aside, leave a flaky facade devoid of soul. (And we know how I feel about that.)

The fighting mentality comes out unnecessarily, despite effort to let it be when that’s the right answer.

……………………………………………………………

December 15, 2010

I went through all this trouble to find a pen, tonight, so, this better be good.

My how I overuse commas.

Maybe I’m afraid to write what I want to say tonight. I think, I will get over it. I think I will get over it. I probably will.

So what’s the point of writing it down, giving a name to the faceless monster?

It does feel good to write again, to feel my hand cramp up again. It’s like, Natalie Goldberg says, meeting a very old, pleasant friend. Sometimes she is crinkled and lined and very old for real. Mostly, though, she’s slippery and mysterious and without form. Does she sing, dance? I only picture her simply existing. Taking up space, but with purpose. She still walks and runs and rollumps.

Rollumps. Wow.

It’s been far too long since I have let myself get lost in paper and ink. Far too long, even, since I have let myself get lost in iPod music, regular music, Brooke music—not drilling classical into my sullied brains for [an apparently insufficient number of] hours.

Why are there always slits of complete insanity in your otherwise perfectly fabricated, sewed-up life? They keep rearing their heads, teasing, taunting scratching at the door as if to say, Look what I can do!

Slits of complete insanity.

………………………………………………………………………………

People are so good at helping other people.

2011-01-05T15:18:00.001-08:00

Just look here and you will know.

I sent one nice man an email and he posted it on his famous blog! I love him forever for this! He is my hero and I will kiss his feet if I ever meet him. Bob, you are an angel. You made me gasp out in a grateful cry because through this little thing you did for me I knew God was watching over my efforts to spread His love.

Wow.

Big stuff for 2011.

2010-12-29T15:33:00.001-08:00

I have refused New Year’s Resolutions for the past years because I discovered I was a failure at them and so I stopped. No strings attached. Nobody really bugged me about it, actually. I still achieved stuff, but felt a lot lot better when I didn’t pressurize it by labeling it NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS.

This year I am brimming with them. Not the usual, either. No feelings of I-should-do-this-because-other-people-do-it. No obligations. Things I actually want to do, inherently. I am motivated by my own plain desire and nothing else—which is totally new. I'm going to share a couple big ones with you.

-Write every day. I gave myself like 8000 outs for this desire last semester. A big honking one with a neon sign was called musiceducationschool.Other ones crept up under various pseudonyms but it was all the same omnipresent umbrella covering the fear of not being good enough. If I wrote more it would mean I had to face more. It would mean I would want to share more but I might be afraid somebody wouldn’t get it and they’d think I was nuts.

A great part about this is that if it doesn’t happen with shining perfection I am not going to feel bad. I am only going to feel bad if I abandon it because of that fear.

-Give my will completely to God—changing my plans if necessary. I feel like this is incredibly important but my heart and mind are fuzzy about exactly why—probably because I can’t tell the future and my little self can’t perceive what God has in store for my life. Change what plans, precisely? If He would tell me that I could prepare myself…

This is a process I have to re-do a whole bunch of times in my life: demonstrate a willingness to give up my plans before I see what God is planning. Feel upset and confused when my plans actually do have to be changed. Discover what He had planned was way better. Thank profusely for not going through with my proposed plan. Determine to remember this feeling. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Being a human is frustrating more often than I’d like to admit.

Mistaken

2010-12-28T08:16:00.001-08:00

Making mistakes is a beautiful process. It allows a something new to come forth altogether, when otherwise it would have been boring, glossy perfection. Who wants double helpings of that?

Making mistakes means you know you’re human. You know you’re alive, and it’s all the sudden, sometimes, because you’re smacked between the eyes with it. Now, those eyes are forced to focused. Does a mistake mean you have to correct? Most often, yessir. It does. It means apologizing or getting down on your hands and knees to look for the thing you lost—friendship ties, or that coin…

Making mistakes is wonderful because someone else sees your vulnerabilities wide out and splayed, and you have to grapple with that. You have to turn it over in your hands and decide if you’re going to try to bury it or display it on a silver pedestel. Make that a gold pedestal. I thought I was a good speller. PSH.

Making mistakes means you have flesh, blood, guts—and that you use those things poorly at times. At times, you suck at something. You break your promise you mess up your cake you bake something disgusting you hurt someone’s feelings. Without these things you’d be a robot. And you’d still suck. Because you wouldn’t be able to feel anything and nobody wants double helpings of that, either.

Making mistakes happens in tandem with eating, drinking, making merry. You get carried away in how great you are at something and then you mess it up. I think it’s God’s way of reminding me, helloooo, you need Me.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Lately my life has been magnificent. More magnificent than it has been in a long time—I keep waiting for the bomb to blow. Things can’t possibly continue like this, so blissful and fairytale ish; surely I’ve missed something…something I messed up a long time ago should come back to punch me in the face, right? Some problem has to bubble to the top very soon, because life is just too good to be true…

Walking on eggshells makes it hard to enjoy the scenery.

Then my Wise Voice pipes up. Don’t paralyze yourself with fear of the unknown. You already know that makes you only feel dumpy when you should just be relishing and enjoying the wonderment of your current state. Just go forward.

RUN FORWARD! Let the wind whip you in the face as you go,

because this is your time to laugh, dance, build up, to embrace, to speak.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

(Selections from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8—one of the most comforting, poignant passages of scripture.)

Hymn Singing

2010-12-27T11:55:00.001-08:00

Leading the music in church is frustrating.

Half the people are not singing.

The other half are not watching you.

I think Christ often feels this way, offering the Atonement, guiding us with perfection—and we’re either not singing or not watching.

Some people don’t think singing the hymns is important. They don’t think uniting their voice with 300 other voices to sing praise to the God who made them is an essential part of their worship. “That’s why we don’t just have church alone in our house!” Mom exclaimed. “It’s a uniting experience.”

Not for the teenage boys who sit with arms crossed, it’s not. They are some of the ones who look at me. Defiance. It’s pointless for them. Pouting is pointless. Open your mouth! I want to make an announcement over the pulpit. Or, rather, a shoutment over the pulpit: God doesn’t care if you can’t sing a thing. He accepts our measly offerings all the time—awkward lessons taught, stumbling prayers uttered—from a pure heart, He accepts these. God doesn’t care if you are embarrassed or tired or (what are the excuses? I don’t even know); He cares that you love Him and that you’re sitting in that pew because darnit, you want to be better this week and you want to be closer to Him. So yeah, it makes total sense that He would exempt you from singing out to thank Him and commit yourself to be more like Him. It makes sense, He wouldn’t want that. He only wants perfect offerings.

If you understood, you would sing. It would not matter if you couldn’t hit a note. You would offer up that prayer. You would say amen to all the other people praying with you at the very same time. You would give a little of yourself and feel the swelling that comes from feeling that connection, like, Yeah. We all believe this together. We believe in the Christmas songs we’re singing, even if it’s December 26th. We believe in the Savior who atoned for us, who we will now remember with loving hearts and determination to do better. If you understood, you would feel that.

………………………………………………………………………

In your quiet moments, what do you admit to yourself about knowing God?
Or, do we give up our quiet moments to avoid knowing what we would admit?

Why are you afraid to let this thing be out in the open air—to write it down or say it out loud? If it became your truth, would you just have to do too many hard things? How long will we trap ourselves in the petty webs we weave—pride, grudges, refusing to let go?

We’re very good at hiding in the tangles.

cub scout, cub scout

2010-12-27T11:36:00.001-08:00

The single-mindedness of kids continues to floor me. Brennon gets on these stints of obsession—it’s quite amazing, really.

Right now, it’s Cub Scouts; he eats, breathes, and drinks it.

Example#1: An inexplicable need to wear his entire scouting uniform every time he works on scouts. Which was daily, until…

Example#2: Mother had to mandate that he put the scout book away until after Christmas. Stop achieving, child.

Example#3: Telling his friend Ethan that he couldn’t play after school (3:00) because he had to get ready for pack meeting (6:00). Devout.

Example#4: The title of the scout master in the ward has been shortened to “Master.” This yields sentences like, “You did a great job on your talk, Master!” Et cetera.

The boys worry that he will be one of those nerds at scout camp with no friends, but I relish in his joys.

the nonstop sink.

2010-12-15T12:36:00.001-08:00

I’ve had stuff and words swimming in my mind all day.

Today, I saw:

A boy with faded purple hair, like he wanted to get back blonde but ran out of bleach; a boy with one painted fingernail—one of those metallic-y light pearl colors, as if he thought he could get away with it; a boy in a suit pick of a glob of snow in his bare hands and rub it all over them; two girls with really cool watches (I’ve been in search!); an old friend who would have been happy to talk had she seen me, but for some reason I just walked by; a friend of Jared’s from home who looked and me and talked to me but didn’t really see me—didn’t recognize me, I guess; a girl who smelled like stale cheese and faded laundry; a boy who had a laugh like a vampire, or possibly a vampirical Santa Claus; and, three girls who washed their hands in the sink that wouldn’t stop running, but did nothing about it. I probably wouldn’t have done something about it, either, girls. Except that today is a stuff-and-words-swimming-around day, and this mindset makes me do weird things like feel obligated to fix the sink but undesirous (and I know that’s not a word, whatever.) to talk to a friend.

I didn’t really do anything miraculous about the nonstop sink—just told someone else to call a custodian.

We watched The Devil Wears Prada last night. You know the part where Andy answers her cell phone a million times instead of being with her dad, her friends, her boyfriend? Nate (boyfriend) says something to her: “The person whose phone calls you always take—that’s the relationship you’re in. I hope you two are very happy together.”

And it got me thinking, maybe I take stupid people’s calls too often. Like maybe Weird Sadness With No Name starts vibrating in my pocket and I interrupt my otherwise joyous existence to take the call. Or when Irritated For No Reason jingle jangles, I stop everything: SO SORRY! I HAVE TO GET THIS!

And WHY?

Last night I answered those calls, automatically, seamlessly, almost by accident, and decided to write. Something surfaced that I had no idea I was still problematizing (again, not a word! I KNOW!). I wrote a simple page about the crap and felt better. In trying to transfer those mysterious, wispy feelings to somewhere outside of my brain they were transformed, clarified, deepened—I got to the bottom of it. I got to write in clear words for only me to see. It felt good, like how you feel after you’ve thrown up when you’re terribly sick. Sorry to be gross.

My finals are all through and I’m about to be extremely un-busy for the next few weeks. My crazed mind knows this is coming and is starting to throw a fit, curl up in a little ball, beg, no, no, please! I don’t want to face all my demons! It worked very well focusing only on music, which you would think is emotionally revealing and all but it’s easier to hide inside it than anything else.

It’s easier to hide than anything else.

And yet you have to emerge, purple hair or no, and decide if you’re going to really see people, or just notice their stale cheesy smell.

Gospel Choir Backin Up Alex Boye. Yeha.

2010-12-14T11:47:00.001-08:00

This weekend we got to sing backup for none other than Alex Boye at the half time show for the BYU basketball game. Here’s the youtube video:

Oh, what’s that? You want to join the gospel choir and wear these awesome robes? Yeah, okay. You can. Open rehearsals begin Wednesday JANUARY 5th and will be weekly from 6-7 pm. 3250 Wilkinson Student Center, BYU. Anyone is welcome!

Our next gig: the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in the WSC Ballroom. It’s gonna be amaaaazing!

geese and swans

2010-12-10T10:32:00.001-08:00

Today is a big day.

I know because I had nightmares about it.

Nightmares that I wasn’t dressed right, I hadn’t warmed up, people were performing and scrambling and instruments that begin with vio scattered everywhere. Wood, with swirls, to let out sound.

But I don’t play the violin, really.

I have words to forget. an accompanist to get out of sync with. Ribs to collapse, words to make elisions from, (“NO! IT’S NOT SWANSNOW! IT’S SWANS NOW!) At this point, I don’t particularly care if more geese than swans now live or swansnow—sounds like that ice cream brand, which seems far better than sloshing nervous sludge around in my stomach for the next two hours. Also at this point I don’t particularly care if all the voice faculty thinks my Italian is awful or my vowels are too pure. I just want it to be over.

I just want it to be over.

Turkish Innards

2010-11-23T09:25:00.001-08:00

I’m not a sickly person.

Here I sit, though, sniffly, throat-hurty, body-achy…and, sickly.

But I am not too sick to drive to sunny weather to be with my wonderous new family for THANKSGIVING.

(Would it be totally blasphemous beyond all reason to change up Thanksgiving dinner in my home when I’m grown up and have babies to feed it to? I would just like to include foods I am actually extremely thankful for. And the thought of cooking a raw turkey (with it’s pinkish grayish legs still attached and innards to remove) all by myself makes me want to upchuck.)

Ahem.

But I truly love Thanksgiving. What I love even more is non schoolwork. A full night of sleep or a NAP! Food not cooked by me. A new family totally different from mine. Wow.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, life! I like you, despite your turkish innards.

The Security of Stuff.

2010-11-10T15:22:00.001-08:00

What if I didn’t sit nestled between my bookbag and purse and coat—because I didn’t have them? What if we didn’t have possessions at all, not for poverty but because we didn’t believe in them? Because we didn’t care for them? We didn’t care to lug wallets or coats around? Don’t get this wrong: I love words and music and have great desires to have them in my hands, hanging from my shoulders, dangling from my elbows.

But do you sometimes long to break free from the security of your stuff? Do you sometimes wish to be ripped away from your money, your major, your identifying clothes, just to see, peek, if there’s anything left? To prove that there is?

Can any of us stand alone? I heave a great sigh and wonder, what help do I need to get out of my nest of bag, purse, and coat? We fear that sweet love will flee our sides, leave our lips chapped and hearts thirsty for sharing, soul kind.

But really, can I afford to cradle myself in crap? Can I afford to hide behind my metallic curtains, scarf, earbuds, kitchen bar with papers strewn…?

When I am a Teacher.

2010-11-10T15:06:00.001-08:00

I opened the bag to find, to my dismay, I had only bought yellow ones. Yellow, on a day when you feel like blue, is insulting and ghastly.

I’m going to be a music teacher. I don’t want to just teach my children. I want heaps and busloads of kids with freshly sharpened pencils and newly bought notebooks (be they yellow or blue), kids who know me only as Mrs. Schultz. Or perhaps I’ll let them call me Mama Schultz, or Madame.

I won’t decorate my room with the same old boring posters of sunsets and gag-me pseudo-inspiring phrases. No, in my room there will be shelves of books (on every topic) and music, fine art and truly inspiring things. Things, words, I mean, to help my pupils see that yes, yes, they, too, are human beings with things to contribute; ideas to bring to fruition; imaginations to let loose; art to create.

This isn’t about winning at festivals or going on tour or having fun together. This is about being an excellent musician, developing and working at a skill that will follow you around the rest of your life, begging to be released—it will only benefit and enrich your existence upon this earth. It’s about connecting with yourself—your body, your emotions, your inner life.

The more you learn about being a human being, the more you can teach others how to be better humans. Humans who are more emotionally intelligent, more compassionate, more connective and kind, more aware of some grandiose big picture of how everything links up. For this end, music is the vehicle I choose. I’m gonna get to it.

I believe in God.

2010-11-09T15:35:00.001-08:00

I called this blog freedom because i wanted it.
I think we all still have to struggle and fight for it at a lot of different points in life.
but the truth sets you free.
the truth is that God is real. The truth is that I love Him. The truth is that his words ring inside me and give me strength and I KNOW that they are true.
I've never been very into the whole sharing my religion via the blogosphere/facebook/whatever. at least not as blanket-statementy as, "I'm a Mormon, and you should be one too! Here's how to figure out how to get in on the goodness." nah. never for me. But I know stuff and I've always wanted to share it. I've wanted to share it in other ways, through example and talking with people who are my friends.
But strangers, I want you to know, too, that I love the Lord. I love Him and that drives me to serve him and believe him, to study His words and sing His praises and do the work I feel He has given me.

Why religion is such a foreign, hot-bubbling unpredictable topic now is so odd to me. People will think you slightly off. They will think you a little crazy, well-intentioned but whimsical at best. Writing about those tender beliefs has taken on this curtain of absolute severity and lashing out and biting back.

So, what I don't want this to be:
an argument/discussion.
a voicing of opinions, and "that is great that religion works for you."
a hard-hearted profession of my beliefs presented in a condescending way
a wishy-washy feel-good warm-fuzzies manifesto.

what I want it to be:
an explanation of the reason why I feel peace, happiness, and contentment in my daily life.
a declaration of what I simply know to be true, universally--not just for me or for the 13 million other members of my church, but for every person who has ever and will ever live on this earth.

I know that God lives. I know that He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to live and die for us and atone for, pay for, experience our sins and griefs and hurts and frustrations. I know that He knows all, and that we are His children. I know that He is literally our Father, and that He is mindful of us.

He is my joy. I know that all good things in my life come from Him, and that the things that are hard shape me for my best good and happiness. I know that I can pray and God will hear me and answer me.
These are not small words for me. These sentences come from me with a lifetime of thinking, exploring, asking, experimenting. I don't say that to try to convince. Many people search their whole lives for truth like I have found.
I just gotta tell you.
I know God is real.
I know He is my God.
I believe in a God who gives His children the best things; a God who has all power to make heaven and earth and ME, and worlds without number and the smallest opportunities for my growth; a God who knows my potential and helps me break the limitations I put on myself; a God who is aware of all of His children everywhere, all the time.

I believe in a God who loves His children and has given them guidelines to live by for their best happiness. Yes, these include things that are increasingly unpopular and old-fashioned; they include things that are sometimes hard or out of my way, but they are the best. Not just sometimes, or most of the time—EVERY time. That evidence is too overwhelming for me to ignore it.

I cannot ignore the God who made me, loved me into an incredible family, incredible opportunities, incredible satisfaction and purpose in this mortal world. I won’t turn my back on Him. I won’t deny Him. But even if I did, do you know?

He would still love me. He would still cradle me in His vast, tender arms and take care of me.

I believe in God, because He is real and I cannot pretend I don’t know it.

The truth is that God loved you into existence, too. The truth is that you are His child and you will be whether you believe in Him or ignore Him or even hate Him. The truth is: He will love you unconditionally. He will always take care of you. Those hard things in your life? They’re real, too. But His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches.

He is amazing—and He is waiting, with outstretched arms to whisper these truths to your heart as He has to mine.

Honest Tuesday

2010-10-05T20:18:00.001-07:00

So this isn’t really lifeonthebeech anymore, is it?

I’m trying, folks.

I am changing.

Isn’t it always true? Why does it have to be hard and painful sometimes? Why do I want to just keep on complaining?

Honest: Music is all that’s on my mind. When I go to write, it’s all that comes. But I am awful at describing it. I just want to make you all listen! So that’s why I’ve been quiet.

More honest: That and a hundred hundred more reasons that are too personal.

Let it be, let it be.

More honest: I don’t have time or energy to write anything I’m remotely happy with. I complain pretty much every day.

But, some easy listening for you: OUR MARRIED BLOG. Yep. It’s (almost) like a normal married person blog. Like, here are pictures of what we do with little descriptions, the little goings on, fluff fluff fluff.

So, yeah. I’m letting it be.

Morning.

2010-09-10T09:40:00.001-07:00

I woke up bouncy this morning.

I popped out of bed this morning. This morning, I took an invigorating shower with an amazing loofah. This morning, I wrote the word loofah because I like it so much.

This morning I observed by myself, my first official music class. It felt really good to be there, official, this morning, and have the teacher say, “these guys sitting down here are BYU students—they’re going to be music teachers.”

After my eyes adjusted to the dark I felt happy about leaving the house at 7:05 am. I felt alright that I hadn’t totally finished my homework. I felt alright about taking two peaches but no sandwich (lately, a sudden LOATHING of sandwiches has come over me.) Our house is freshly painted and our bed has pillows on it.

I looked at my husband pulling his belt through the loops. “Dang, boy, you fine!!” And we did a little dance. Sometimes I resent the “my husband is so great I’m going to blah about it all the time” syndrome. But I’ve caught it, peeps. He is so good looking and so supportive (remember, we’re leaving the house at 7:05 am) and such an incredible leader of our home and he makes me a better person and cuddles me and cradles me and lets me fall asleep while he fills out my FAFSA. We’ve been learning about how Langer says humans have troves of knowledge—actual knowledge, not just feeling—that don’t even lend themselves to words. That’s how it is for me with my sweet husband. We have bunches of knowledge about, for, of each other—this wimpy paragraph? It doesn’t make you understand.

We all have what Langer calls an inner life. (I love her. I lover her.) The inner life is the stuff you were thinking as you walked to school today. Was it words? It could have been. Nevertheless, it was knowledge. And what do we have that teaches people to pay attention to their inner lives? School doesn’t do that. What do we give developing citizens (kids) that teaches them to be emotionally intelligent? Music. Experiences. Even this is beyond my verbal capacity to explain.

It’s cool to have someone say what I’ve felt my whole life about music. That it has inexplicable power over people because it addresses that inner life that other stuff doesn’t.

So, back to this morning: husband. belt loops. 7:05. He is amazing and now you know why I cannot describe it.

Okay, summary if you’ve been skimming: I suddenly hate sandwiches, my husband is hot, and I’m going to be a music teacher because of things I can’t describe and I accept that.

Brooke Schultz here.

2010-09-03T12:19:00.001-07:00

Brooke Schultz here, just to say some words to you.

Marriage. Awesome. Totes recommend it.

Honeymoon. Amazing. After cooking and steaming in the Puerta Vallarta sun for seven days, I felt completely unprepared to face fall in Utah. Goodbye beach, resort, incredible shower. Goodbye taxi drivers and rain storms. I will sincerely miss you mucho.

Condo. Messy. Neighbors. Smoky. Bed. Awesome. House. Home. We have an instrument nook; I have a multiplicity of cookbooks and no oven racks; I feel like all I want to do is be a prim housewife and cook and clean all day; what the heck. Maybe just for a couple of days, eh.

School. WOW. Trying as hard as I can to have a good attitude about my 2 credit class including 3 hours of class time and 9 hours of practice per week, my other 2 credit class 6 hrs of practice per week. Some days my attitude is better than others. I have a feeling there won’t be much blogging this semester.

I have never prayed so much in my life—that’s partly why I know this is the right major for me. It requires so, so much humility, strength, growth, energy—all of which I personally do not have enough of. So I pray a lot. Sometimes my prayers are just please, please, please. I think God understands.

Also: Women’s Chorus. Cool, huh? I’m excited. Some days I have to readjust my attitude about that, too—1 credit and 5 hours of class time per week. Plus performances every month. I figure, with all this practice and homework, I am going to be AMAZING at what I do, right? Right.

Gospel Choir. WANT IT. Time doesn’t really want me to have it so much, though. I really want to plug through and do it because it is my love. I will keep you posted.

Husband. Hot. Every time I see him I am just like “WHAT! THIS IS AWESOME!”

AND IT IS AWESOME. Our lives are awesome, people. No matter what, they are.

Last thing: be on the lookout for our married blog. heh. so like, when we have babies and stuff they can have their cutie little faces all over that thing.

buying the yogurt!

2010-08-11T15:36:00.001-07:00

okay okay i have one minute.

one minute to tell you.

that this week is SO crazy.

i had a meltdown yesterday. i was crying and then i started laughing. and then these things combined to just create BROOKE ACTING LIKE A TWO YEAR OLD.

so jared laughed and i got upset. (but it was terribly, terribly funny. he is in for a lot more laughter of this sort.)

and then he was amazing, as usual.

and then, as usual, he comforted and soothed me and told me i am wonderful and WE HAVE THREE DAYS AND THEN WE’RE GOING TO BE MARRIED FOREVER.

and then we went and ate free frozen yogurt samples, and bought no frozen yogurt.

IN THREE DAYS, I’M BUYIN THE YOGURT.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

nine days of thinking.

2010-08-05T15:30:00.001-07:00

I’ve been MIA. I’ve been anxiously engaged. (har, har.) I’m getting married in NINE FREAKING DAYS, let’s be real. I don’t have time to blabber all over the internet.

But today I need it.

Hello.

I am thinking about a hundred and fifteen hundred things. I’m thinking about our amazing condo that we are going to live in and it is going to be our house. I am thinking about the wonderful experience that I had last night going through the temple with so many people I love and care for so much. I’m thinking about maturity. I’m thinking about other people. I’m thinking about girls who are so obsessed with image that they spend their whole blogs and facebooks and lives cluttering their world and minds with pictures that prove that they matter because they are pretty or they dress well. I feel sad about that. Not because I am high and mighty and I have never thought the dreadful thought that maybe my only worth is in my body or my looks and I have to make those things perfect to be worthy of love. No, I just feel sad that they don’t have the perspective to realize, even in theory, that those things are not real. They are not lasting.

I work to be comfortable in my own skin, every day. Every day I wake up and make choices about how I will treat this body I have been given.

Lately, we’re friends. I’m going to work to keep it that way.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I’m thinking about change and leaving your family, and how your parents raise you up to be and think all of these things and still be your own person. How your parents cradle you and nurture you and how you still need your mom to hold you a lot a lot, even at 20 years old. I’m thinking about how the other weekend when I was perched on the edge of my couch waiting for my bridal shower, Father of the Bride was on and I cried like a little baby. I’m thinking about how God knows what we need and how He knows that marriage for Brooke Beecher at this exact time is the path of most growth and He has orchestrated it. I know that.

I’m thinking about teaching my babies so many important things—I’ve started a list. It includes things like, teach them about tact and honesty. Teach them; they are going to fall in love with something—a culture, instrument, plants or science or math. Teach them to nurture this love and not hide it for anything. I’m thinking about how teaching fits in with my life, as a mother, as a wife. How music fits in. I don’t know.

Marriage means a lot of stuff, especially for a girl. I’m just thinking about all of it—playing images and scenes in my mind, getting excited and being unsure in the same moment. It’s all good.

I’m thinking about Katie Harris and what an amazing missionary she is going to be in the TEMPLE SQUARE mission! I’m thinking about all my girls and how I love them, how we will always cherish each other no matter the stage of life we are experiencing.

I love God. He is real. This is what I know. He will take care of me. My life is not good because of luck, or because I have done one single thing to merit it turning out that way. It is good because He has given it to me. It is good because He knows me and knows what to place in my life for happiness.

In nine days, I won’t just enter into a marriage. I’m going to do the most important thing of my entire existence. I am going to enter the greatest practicum of Godhood, the refiner’s fire. I’m going to get to start facing life with my sweetheart in all it has to offer and bring, in love and safety.

The magnitude makes me cry with reverence, awe, wonder. We are going to take care of each other. I know I don’t even understand a sliver of what is to come, and I am grateful for the small glimpse I am given.

My brain is jigggggling

2010-07-15T16:14:00.001-07:00

1. My brain is jiggling. Does this ever happen to anyone else? Serious—like when you get a twitch in your eye except it is inside my head, and very very odd.

2. OKAY. I’m a glee fan. FINE.

3. Being a glee fan has made me realize that not everyone gets chills when they listen to amazing music. Not that they don’t still enjoy it, but whoa. Didn’t know that. It’s part of the magic of music for me, the electricity it literally sends, the goosebumps it lends. HA! TOLD YOU MY BRAIN IS JIGGLING.

4. OKAY. Here are some engagement pictures. I know, I know.

5. less than a month. no home yet. it’s cool. i’ve got a DRESS. Which I ordered from China for very very ridiculously cheap and everyone told me not to and it is AMAZING. Would totes recommend it to anyone. also a kitchen table and maybe jared is going to build us a bed? yes please. bed please.

BACK TO ENGAGEMENT PICTURES. wooooo.

jolt

2010-06-29T16:57:00.001-07:00

I was jolted awake from the very middle of an awful dream a few nights ago by my alarm. 5:34. At 5:33, I was doing important soul work about stuff that my subconscious apparently hasn’t resolved. I was about to confront the monster; it walked toward me. I braced myself. The alarm shook me out so harshly that I gasped as I shot up in bed.

Last night before I went to sleep I determined to finish the dream. What do I want to say? I wrote it all down. I wrote about bitterness, strong statements, naivete, taking advantage of other people.

Then I wrote about forgiveness.

It surprised me; I still need to forgive? I thought this was in the pile of “issues processed.” But here it comes back, floating in wet, misty black clouds behind turned backs and frustration.

Maybe some things we deal with in some form for our whole lives, and only the perfection of the Atonement resolves them to completion.

I slept the whole night and didn’t finish it. The monster didn’t show up in any of my subconscious streams.

Forgiveness.

We can forgive, but some things? We can’t ever forget. That’s what I mean by the Atonement resolving these things to completion—you can finally forget. And it’s a good thing, like how memories of pricking your finger on an oven wire rack remind you about oven mitts, in the future. Growth comes of it.

You still don’t ever forget.

pseudokids

2010-06-29T16:41:00.001-07:00

there was a picture in the mass of moving this round that had no frame and just lots of blue electric tape on the back trying to be a makeshift holder.

julie newman gave that picture to us from her house a really, really long time ago. i remember the negotiation that wasn’t really like a negotiation. she showed it to us. they nonchalantly talked about like, fifty bucks, whatever. julie newman was always excited to see me and always called me things like dollface and honey, but in a way that was not like usual and condescending but so sweetly endearing. she gave me a hair clip with italy on the back and a bear that smelled like lavender when you put it in the microwave.

she came to the wedding and she said she was proud of me, but didn’t know if she had a right to be. OF COURSE YOU DO!! i tell her this and it comes from a place of reality. she has no idea how often i wear that hair clip.

she talks about how her sons are doing a different life route than my brothers, how they are marines and away from her. she says all this with smiles and faith. she has a blonde streak in the front and i love her for coming here to be with our family on this big day after so long away. it doesn’t matter how many months it’s been since she’s talked to my mom on the phone, how many years of height growth she’s missed from cameron and eric—she is in our lives and she has a right to feel proud of the good things we do. we are her pseudo-kids.

every grown up should have a pseudo-kid. someone else’s child they have a big hand in nurturing and loving and bringing up. a kid who came over every other day to get snacks out of your ample sweets cupboard, billowing with folds of plastic orange reeses wrappers and blue crinkles of chips ahoy. or a kid like i was to julie newman where we only visited her every so often, but i would just sit quietly and listen to her energy while she told mom about the latest. i never was big into playing as a child. i wanted to sit and listen to grown up talk more, i guess.

every kid should have a pseudo-parent, too. kids need lots of good adults who can also spoil their dinner, and give them presents their parents would never think of. hug them ridiculously tight and shower them with cheek smooches even if the boys squirm away.

i’m thinking lately about being a pseudo-parent. taking in the neighbor kids and kissing their cheeks raw. julie newman always kisses our cheeks. i liked that.

i liked that.

big numbers about lovin a boy i’m gonna marry.

2010-06-11T15:09:00.001-07:00

Hey Jrad boy.
I love you.

I love you times a thousand.
I love you times the speed of light with a cherry on top.
I love you shouted a hundred times over the intercom of the biggest intercom in the world.
I love you enough to fill up that one 600 million dollar screen on that one football field.
I love you every breath you take SQUARED.
I love you with enough fervor to start a religion.
I love you plain and simple, like sharing a bowl of Raisin Bran.
I love you a kajillion laps around the Atlantic Ocean.
I love you the amount of seventy million times seven kernels of popcorn--POPPED. (That makes it bigger).
I love you NINE days a week. Take that, Paul McCartney.
I love you sung by multitude choirs of angels all day and all night for a ridiculously long period of time.
I love you up to the clouds and back down to the worms in the dirt and all the animals that live in between.
I love you as wide as the ocean and as high as the sky.
I love you the amount of dollars it takes to give every person in the world three thousand times the amount of dollars it takes to do Oprah's hair every day.
I love you as much as all the animals, vegetables, and minerals in the world. I imagine this is a lot.

It is a lot.

Some of these things I read and I’m like, how can that possibly be real? How can I possibly really feel that? But I totally do. Totally.

I can’t wait to marry you, fiancé.

the engagement.

2010-05-28T15:38:00.001-07:00

I’m ENGAGED!!!!

and here to tell you

the whole amazing

story

about this boy that I am head over heels madly

in love with. and also, I am going to be in love with him

for my whole entire lifetime,

OKAY?!

okay.

There’s a ring on my finger. It means eternity. Real alive eternity with this person who is the most, the very most

incredible person I have ever known.

Jared Schultz? He’s magnetic. When you first meet him, you see those blue eyes and they melt you. You look inside his eyes and see such goodness, humility, and all the things your heart desperately wants to be. Then he will smile at you, with his perfectly formed teeth. That smile comes easy, stays long, doesn’t tire. He will ask you about yourself and put you at ease. He will be genuinely interested. You can tell that he cares about you. His heart is so big and good. He lets me be me, and plus better. The feelings we have shared

Jared boy, he is love. I get to be the recipient of a good chunk of that, and I am so, so…just grateful. These feelings for this person are the biggest and deepest I’ve ever had.

Nothing is ever going to keep us apart. Not time, space,

or death.

I am the luckiest human. I get to marry him for all of time and all of ETERNITY on AUGUST 14th.

People are really confused about love. Some cynics, some dreamy and blind sap-a-holics. And some of them think love just stops with you and your spouse, if you ever get that lucky. But I have news! My marriage is going to last for all of eternity. The love I have for Jared is going to be perpetuated and multiplied in our experiences together, and, too, in little Jareds running around! AH, what more good could I do for the world??!

My choice in this man is as perfect as I could ever dream. If I could have crafted him myself from the ground up, every feature and weakness and preference—I would have picked the exact nature of Jared Schultz. God is incredible, you guys. He has this amazing way of bringing the people most perfect for our growth into our lives and creating experiences to create these fiery feelings of adoration and appreciation for these people.

So, wanna hear the proposal story?

Garrett’s open house was the night before and the whole time? Jared and me being just ever so slightly pouty. Watching the gifts being opened with crossed arms. Every person who walks through our door is asking me: are you next? we heard there might be another wedding this summer. rumors. can i meet him? do i need to interview him? And I want to find some ring pop and throw it on my left hand and just tell everyone that I KNOW WE ARE GETTING MARRIED but we haven’t talked all the details so…

and I just have to keep smiling annoyingly and mysteriously.

Sunday. Is he gonna ask me? I am dropping hints like crazy. IMPATIENT. I’ve been waiting forever for this. But he’s casual, and like, hey, let’s go play piano. Okay. I’m trudging around talking to Kaylie and whining about how I just want to be engaged and balahaskjd whine whine. I come back into the room and he asks me to play a song. I start playing and after a while I realize a few of the keys are stopped.

Weird, I think in my mind.

Whoa, what do you think is happening?

This happens every so often, I tell him. Sometimes the keys just get stuck.

I pound down on the broken keys, with, um, great force. Jared lets out a little gasp.

Well, we should see what’s wrong in there!

Nah, it’s okay. It happens all the time.

No, really, you should come here.

He opens the piano, and inside is a ring box.

((seriously, my first thought: that’s weird that someone’s ring box is sitting in there!))

Next thing I know that ring box is open and it’s for ME!

He asked, and I said YES.

Now, we’re engaged.

cool, huh?

:) :) :)

SNEEZE

2010-05-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

a million little posts with sentence fragments clutter up this space. snippets of conversation i overhear that i mean to expound upon, you know, profoundly or whatever. snipped off thoughts because there's no time to sit and stew and package it up tight and brightly.

writer's block of sorts,
where only a little gush comes out
like a giant sneeze
instead of a runny nose.

my brother got married this weekend and i wrote a measly paragraph about it.
a measly little snotty sneeze.
the rest i wrote about was deep deciding and delicate stuff. ME STUFF. i've got to get my life in a straight line so i can breathe and write about the huge events. not just the huge things.

mom's lungs were congested with crud all weekend
every boy coughed in the night.
i ran through music theory for hours and hours
and my alarm didn't go off this morning.

ACHOO.

and this is why my life is magnificence after all.

2010-05-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

Jared: hey baby'
i love you
Sent at 2:40 PM on Monday
me: hey!
i love you right back, you know.
Sent at 2:41 PM on Monday
Jared: yeah, i know
and I love knowing that
Sent at 2:43 PM on Monday
me: :)
you make my life bright.
Sent at 2:44 PM on Monday
Jared: you do the same and you also make my future look bright
me: hah.
nice one.
do i get to see you soon, darling?
Jared: yeah, i'm working on something right now
me: okay.
you work on that thing
oh my gosh, i love you.
it hits me like a tidal wave like 2360 times a day
that is a lot of times per day, schultz.
Sent at 2:47 PM on Monday
Jared: and guess what, I'm totally okay with that
me: YEAH YOU BEST BE
Sent at 2:49 PM on Monday
Jared: well I've been thinking about you all day
me: my hands just flew to my cheeks in a big grin
you love me too, boyfrien?
Sent at 2:54 PM on Monday
Jared: sure do
me: i can't wait to see you, sweetheart.
i need your upliftment
and your beauty
Jared: you doing okay?
i want you to be happy so I will come right away
ff;lsdkjfa;sdlfja;lsdkjfa
me: yeah, yeah. just another blah music theory day
you can finish what you're working on!
Jared: nah, ill do it later
see you in like ten
Sent at 2:58 PM on Monday

I shower for leisure.

2010-05-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

i picked off all my makeup SLASH cried it all off
woke up at 5 am.
not in that order.
i haven't blogged lately because i don't want this to be a pity party.
but i gotta describe.
rushes of chills every day tell me things are going to be fine like i always know they will be.
but i have no time to run for 20 or 30 minutes, let alone my hour soul-searching journeys.
showering has now become a leisure activity.
crying in front of a professor, especially one who wrote your textbook for your dictation class and also a hymn is a very embarrassing, frustrating experience that decided to send itself to me today.
another girl cried in sight singing and her face flushed red and humiliated the whole 50 minutes. I wanted to kick over my music stand and wrap her up in a big sweatshirt hug.
this deal is a little rough sometimes. allows for not a lick of humanity. (people who do well in the music school? they don't eat. they don't sleep. they don't have friends or boys they are in love with.)

but i'm telling kaylie, i feel so blessed! my life is so incredible for so many kazillions of reasons and these things pale in light of what they could be, in light of what they have been. of course i'll take these issues over high school time any any day.
tired of having to spend my time with all my own stuff. all my own homework, all my own food, all my own thoughts. want to reach out and do so much and soul search and jam and play and have not the time nor the energy.
can i just keep praying harder and pushing myself harder and not adjusting? or is Heaven telling me I need to cool down and I'm not willing to listen because I have my own agenda?
That's the million dollar humility question, isn't it?

a dove chocolate wrapper message.

2010-05-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

dull throbs in the bottom of my pelvis and right side of my head remind me that i need to take care of myself.
i like this idea of taking care of myself far more than i like that self-improvement stuff that just ends up mashing me into infectious ground meat,
and just because i want to be a meatball?
no.
i am a steak. or maybe a whole chicken, alive and bach-bach-baching. i am something weird, something a whole lot of people can't and won't understand, because they are not paying attention. that's fine--there are so very many times when i don't pay attention, when i don't pause to GET someone else.

but i'm just done molding, shaping, nipping, tucking, primping, flumping around like a blob. God needs me to be big like i already am, and not a blob. i already am big and formed like He wanted.
i already am enough.
the challenge is not, actually, to push yourself to be MORE than you are.
just to be who you really are already.

that sounds a little like those cheesy sentences printed on the insides of Dove chocolate wrappers.
i've learned,though, that cheesy things lose their scoff factor when they find a reason to wiggle into your life and materialize in your heart and become your truth.

Faith on your hands

2010-04-19T13:04:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I was homeless for a few hours.

We packed up all my life in little boxes and filled the van with my bulletin boards and that one picture that has no frame and was once in my bedroom when i had a flowery bed. my books are thrown together with my blow dryer. i’m wearing nasty flip flops and a gross outfit that is called moving out outfit. my life is mostly up in the air but the remains are in a suitcase and take the form of shorts and floaty shirts.

the van is filled, and two girls desperate to sell their contracts are giving me awesome deals. i’m standing on the street by the van and we’re just going to pick right this minute where the contents of this car and my life for the next four months are going.

what a cool feeling. like you’re standing at that diverging point in the woods robert frost knows about. you, in your own small way. blinking into the sun having no idea where you’re going, and being totally free to decide.

but i can’t really revel in it too long because i have to make a decision, like the stuff is in the van and dad is waitin for the word, sweaty and ready to get back home, you know!

eenie meenie miny mo, it comes down to this. (mom’s suggestion. genius. YES!, I say. Eenie meenie miny mo always helps me know which option i really want anyway!)

MO! I land on the wrong one.

But these paths are looking pretty much the same amount of appealing and I feel like it doesn’t matter much anymore. I’ve already lost robert frost’s glittering mind, somewhere on the trek down university avenue. all i can think about is how dad is ready to go and i have to choose something hurry up choose your life.

Mom is amazing again and we pray together, she is supporting me and I am never going to give this woman up i tell you. I say the words of the right choice as soon as we say amen without even thinking, and i feel like i should tip my hat and stroll back inside the cramped van beside the floor lamp and have some epic music to play as i continue my journey.

we pop back in the car and i say out loud to these apartments, sorry, you didn’t get choosed. i think inside about having faith and developing it and how God is always helping me in these crazy things.

God helps us make decisions always that are important even if we feel silly for the way the end up happening. duh i should have known forever ago where i was living for spring. and i just wrote down random numbers from that gigantic board full of reduced prices and exclamation points. but He knows me, and I am making my efforts to know Him so help is near and always, i have decided, always,

I JUST WANT TO LIVE WITH FAITH ON MY HANDS.

I got out of bed and wrote this by light of my cell phone it was so important.

I just want to live with faith on my hands.

no blood and no glory and only faith and belief. it’s a beautiful armor and glitterier than robert frost.

i just sing to the people running around studying.

2010-04-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

the books breathe out the reasons why
and why not
the weight is lifted for a while
and i feel those chills i love
i jump up and down, from note to note and sing to float
my eyes cram and squish down, makeup running in and out
i love, and leap,
and the ncmo-is-abuse poster is generating hate
i love, i love, and leap around
hug tight
but read articles and wonder life away
just LIVE
is my challenge of late.
when the uncertainties creep up like sinewy black bats
i shoof them away and spell out to myself
just LIVE!
when the analyzations make my mind cloudy and foggy and all things otherwise crappy
i just say, SUN, come on in,
I'm going to LIVE.

i'm going to california in four days. flying by the seat of my pants.
SMILEY FACE SUNSHINE BEACH BOYFRIEN FIVE YEARS OLD SLASSSH ADULT.
studying it out in your mind doesn't mean your life has to consist of hermitcrabbing.
soul searching with just a pen and paper.
there are times for this necessity, every day.

but your whole life needs to be full of vitality, so you've got to accept that and put down your notebook and run outside with your cutoffs
sit down in the grass while people are hurriedly studying for finals and their whole lives are on the line and you, you
SING.
gospel songs about how God is good and how He will take care of you.
If you just LIVE, He will be in it!
didn't you know this all along? don't be paralyzed. LIVE! sing out on that grass for all to hear. are you going to do that crazy high part? yeah, yeah you are.
your fear has gone, hasn't it?
and how did you do that?
you just DID it, instead of thinking about doing it and writing about doing it forever and ever.

Throw off your disgustingly heavy winter jacket and hop and skip around in your new sunshine.

explanation for a little minute.

2010-04-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

other people blog about their husbands and their children, their new house and their sightseeing on their trips and their new job and their giveaways of their flowery headbands.
these are all very nice things.
but i personally in my own brain and life do not want to blog about them.
partially because i don't have them, but also partially because i feel like when i do my blog will still be about writing what's in my heart which usually never consists of anything logical like, here's a picture of us at the grocery store! here's a picture of what we ate for dinner! here's a million pictures of our wrinkly ugly bulldog and two lines of type and a million comments about how pretty i am! (okay, this is not included in the "these-are-all-very-nice-things" sentence.)

not that i don't enjoy reading this type. if i care about you, i very much love to stay informed about the ins and outs of your life and what you wore to macey's. serious.

but i'm not going to do that here. i'm going to let whatever comes out come out, whether it's in cryptic code prose whatever or lists or (occasional) full sentences.
my purpose is not to sell my awesome handmade products, or anyone else's. my purpose is not even to keep you updated on the happenings big or small of my life, although those present themselves within the needlework. my purpose is to express myself.
even if that's cliche or whatever you want to call it.

just so that you are knowing. k? cool.

Nachitos?

2010-04-13T14:20:00.001-07:00

I’ve long been inspired by the reflections on Denny’s by this girl; in truth, I think of her every time I pass the establishment on the corner of University. She seems to own Denny’s, in a way. It’s her place, with her memories. No use trying to catch up. I feel tool-ish going there sometimes. And have I ever had a legit menu item, probably no, but.

But we wanted to get away from our people-filled apartments so late at night and in a debate about the limited options, we ended up below the bright red sign with the rain and the mostly empty parking lot.

A transvestite was our waiterperson.

This is real.

My, how confused we were! We were elbowing the laughter out of each other like a couple of middle school kids until we were sure this waiterpersonofunknowngender was out of earshot.

“Man or woman?”

“No idea. Seriously, there is no indication. A man? Trying. To. Be. A. Woman.”

“Your team!!”

hmpf.

This waiterperson had to come back 16 times before we knew what we wanted to order because of this necessary exploration of gender. This waiterperson should have been more patient and known that Denny’s folk are far too fascinating to be buried in the menu right off the bat; you have to have an experience first.

The hot chocolate and hilariously greasy nachitos appeared and we didn’t talk much, but people-watched. Kids came with their textbooks to study with Moons Over My Hammy; two girls snuggled too close; a couple of guys who weren’t talking to each other maybe just came because they have no wives, and were legitimately hungry; two women made us giggle when they swore and talked loud;

and then, us, sitting side by side, with our nachitos and whip cream-ed hot chocolate.

iloveaboy. he is not a transvestite. he does not swear. he does not snuggle too close to me. because that is impossible.

we talked late into the night as the rain fell down the car windows.

silence

2010-04-09T15:49:00.001-07:00

"If we were not so single minded
about keeping our lives moving
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death."

makeshift journ

2010-04-06T18:25:00.001-07:00

I’m feeling a whole lot of feedback from Heaven about my life. Can you tell that?

One time last week I dropped a Book of Mormon on a stranger’s doorstep while I was running. It was crazy and felt ridiculous at first but I felt to do it and so I did.

One time a few weeks ago I felt like it was really important to call up this boy that hasn’t been in my life for real since I was 17 and talk to him all important-like. I got in his car having no idea what to say. And I said mush for a long time before I figured out why I was there. We talked about HIS important stuff and it was one of those moments where you feel so validated by the whole world because the risk you took was helpful to someone else. I felt so hugely to bring him back into my sphere for one reason at first. It wasn’t the right reason. But I figured it out, and finally, FINALLY, I can fully let the particles of that part of my life fall in the right place.

It felt good to let it go.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Sandwiched between two date nights, I didn’t feel awk. I just ate my bad-breath imparting vegetable crackers and wrote in the failing light of the De Jong, ready to scribble down observations about conducting. Concerts like this make me feel stuffy and penguinesque when I’m not a part of them. Like I wanna run up and do something loud like bang on the piano and shout gibberish.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

MAN MY LIFE IS NUTS!

I’ve written variations on this phrase no less than 16 times per week in my makeshift journ.

I also write to myself in that place.

You create your own awesomeness. Raise your hand and be in charge of your life. Make it what you want. It’ll go.

Alma 26:16—“Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will praise God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.”

I’ll keep trying to express how amazing He is making my life.

Turn The Page

2010-04-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

the thing i love most about every day is the sky.
i crane my neck and allow holes in my eyes to look at the sun, if it's peeking itself out.

i want to invite it to stay, even if it hurts.

the sky was all things i am today: gray cloudy, puffy cloudy, bright blue and clear---ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
and then there was the breathtaking part
that was in the west and the little mountains in that distance were snowy on top but i didn't mind because the shine was falling down on them and
it reminded me of highways on the way to california
in december

people who see me walking when i'm wrapped up in the sky think i am totally, totally weird. but maybe it makes them look up for a minute, and think, yeah, i guess that is cool.
oh, yeah, i guess that is cool.
i guess it is cool that we really, really care about each other. that we just wanna understand.
i forgot what it's like to talk on the phone but it feels good even if it's different.

and with the sky it feels like heaven is close, even if it's just a bunch of clouds.
"keep being open, but don't freak out if you feel like nothing is coming," i wrote to myself.
i give myself a lot of advice lately. we're all learning inside this one body together.

the sky had to drain itself out these past few days and i hated it. looking up at wispy stretches of gray nimbus clouds is not inspiring and i was upset.
but we all have to do our soul work, no matter how unglamorous.
even if i forget my so few school assignments. even if i want to pop away on a rainbow colored magic school bus.
i have to deal with drainage.

"don't get puffed up so you're impenetrable," i wrote to myself. "drain all that excess water out of you and let God fill you up."
it always comes around back to this same circle of things. we all have our own circle of things that need repeat processing, digesting, draining.
but the sky teaches me that's a good thing. it eventually has to rain.

.........……………………..
Brennon: "I just really want someone to snuggle with."
Me: "Well, me and mom will be available to snuggle soon."
B: "Nooo, like, at night while I'm going to sleep and stuff in my bed."
Mom: "Well, you'll have to wait until you're married for that."
B: "uggh, I KNOW. it's just such a long time! I can't wait for that."

Forecast: Wind. What will happen? Turn the page.
---> Blow, wind, blow!
Sometimes the wind is very light. This is called a breeze. Sometimes there is a strong wind. This is called a gust. Sometimes the wind is so strong that it lifts up houses! That kind of wind is called a tornado.
---> I will fly a kite. My hair will blow. I will watch the trees blow.

But don't worry, because this page, in the corner, says:

Forecast: Sun.

What will happen?

Turn the page.

Strawberries

2010-03-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

Strawberries. Mom loved them so, and we would go to a patch and pick them fresh from nice old people whose lives were the land.
The drive to the small town with lots of fields and all kinds of people was enthralling. We listened to the radio and I looked out the window, past the fields--could I see for miles, yeah. It might be a little chilly when we first got there--just the remainder of spring transitioning to summer through the night, in dew.

Now I sit here, perched on concrete, facing the hill where no bikes are allowed. Jack is playing in my ears for the first time in a long time, and my legs are grateful to be bare. Concrete is cold through my coral shorts, but this is a time where it all feels like fresh water instead of sandpaper and sledgehammers.

Sometimes we loved going to pick strawberries. Sometimes it caught us completely off guard--they went into season in early June, and fresh dumped out of school we didn't always know what we wanted. Maybe we wanted to just sit in our pajamas and watch cartoons all day instead of havin an experience. But we didn’t really want that—you get that part, right?

There was an unwritten rule about how many you could eat on the spot; we all remembered the time toddler curly-headed Cameron had the runs for days after raspberry picking.

Now I sit here and squint up at sun. You know, all these things leave their residue in our lives in some way. A tangible way, I believe. Because when you see your mom with strawberries now, you think of the patch and those nice old people with leathery skin, how many of their strawberries you popped in your mouth to reward yourself for being out in the dirt and crouched down close, soiling your shorts and breaking a sweat.

Concrete chills my lower half. I pause the nostalgic tunes. It's time to put the pen down and go up the hill--I have someone to run into.

ALL CAPS

2010-03-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

IT'S TIME TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS AND TALK ABOUT THE THINGS I LOVE.

1. BREAKFAST. It is sooooo delicious. Whatever it is. I love breakfast. This is going to probably shock my parents out of their skins, but I discovered: I am a morning person. Which brings me to #2...

2. RUNNING IN THE MORNING IN THE SUNSHINE WHEN IT'S JUST PEEKING UP OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND ALL IS RIGHT IN THE WORLD. I literally walked outside and started giggling. I even love my legs being so sore. I love getting sweaty and disgusting. I love going places. And I can go anywhere!!

3. THIS SONG. Never thought I would convert, but it's just good to bang your head and whip your hair around. you can do that too, if you want.

4. MY MOM. We talk about birth. We talk about Jared. We talk about salads. She listens a lot; I talk a lot. She tells me I am important and I believe her.

5. GENERAL CONFERENCE. This week is going by very slowly for more reasons than one.

6. LEARNIN ABOUT STUFF. I've been learning SO much, you guys. It's boggling my own self. Me and my journ and my stack of books and scriptures and music to listen to and mom to talk to--we have been learnin. God says, bust yourself open so you can be planted upon. I'm going to teach you things you didn't know you needed to learn, but you will look back and be so grateful.
Isn't that the way it always is in our lives?
YES.

NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS ABOUT THE THINGS YOU LOVE.
GO.

Wimpy Paper

2010-03-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

it's very important for me to be wild
to be able to be wild.
i mentor a girl in middle school, here in provo.
the people like to title the girls we hang out with "at-risk."
but aren't we all at risk, people?
anyway.
we do journal writing together every week, ten minutes. i say, don't think. just go. write about whatever you want. vomit in ink.
she looks at me and shifts uncomfortably. bites her lip.

the other week she proudly presented me with a list of topics to write about.
"you can add topics, too," she says. "just nothing about the future."
i look in her big eyes and i wonder where the fear keeps on coming from. she is opening to me more, when we can just talk alone. she enjoys simple things, like good music and painting her nails. i forgot how much i had in common with fourteen year olds.

i try to tell her to just keep her pen moving, even if she wants to write blah blah blah, just keep the hand going.
she looks up and shifts uncomfortably. a spurt of a little laugh to ease the tension.
in our ten minutes she usually gets out about a half a page--she is thinkin.

my pages have scribbles and things scrawled big
pigs and penguins and flying and free.
i wish someone would have opened this world to me when i was fourteen. let me have a space to do whatever i wanted with no rules and my own big decisions.
it's important for me to allow myself to be wild, even
if it is just on a piece of wimpy paper.

soul tickling

2010-03-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

The pandora radio station: traditional gospel.
I can hardly sit still in the no-shh zone.

I just keep coming back to we are all human beings.
we are all part of it, with or without eyes or limbs or with or without even caring to be part of it.

you cannot escape your importance. i want to teach everyone that their life is really, really, important, i wrote the other day.
that's why i want to teach.

our lives are so uniquely our own it blows my mind.
who am i? am i the gospel music i love, my moldy apartment with the ceiling caved in, my middle-class family born of so much love, my intense religion, or my crumbling black flats with ruffles on the toes?
our lives are so uniquely our own, do you know?
even though there are probably a couple hundred people in this library at this point, none of them have ever been wearing these coral shorts sitting in this seat. none of them have sore legs from running forever today exactly where i ran, down 500 west and back round university avenue, and none of them have a boy on facebook looking over at them typing away on this blog.

we are our own.
but then! in the same moment, you've got to raise your hand as part of the human family and be connected.
"just keep an open heart," the sunday school teacher keeps saying. "open your heart." i write it down every time.

why do people like motivational speakers? they get us out of ourselves and make us feel those warm fuzzies tickling our souls, to say, hey, yes, those thoughts you've been thinking about how we should all care about each other, those are right. that's how it's supposed to be.
and then you get to do whatever that means for you.
what does it mean for you?
does it mean you run around campus with your iPod blaring jazzy piano and you skip around and smile as you try to take off your jacket to bask in the sunshiney deliciousness and then one bud falls out of one ear and you just laugh, out loud, for everyone to hear? does it mean you shout big and loud because that's what you feel to do in that moment? does it mean you just wave at everyone you pass? does it mean you make a brave phone call you were scared to dial?
please, do it.
whatever it means, just do it.
put down your freakin chemistry book.
close your facebook tab.
be a person.

the water and the sand

2010-03-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

No, this is important. I've got to speak.
I've got to say it hurts. I've got to say it's okay that it hurts. And things I've never ever before felt or experienced are hitting me in the face. Sometimes in a good way, like fresh water. Sometimes like sandpaper, or a sledgehammer. But it's important, because both of those change me.

Change.
The spring time is making me feel the change more. But it's also nostalgic, and I remember so fondly what I was up to last spring time. The sun rises up, I run, run, run, run. Electric blue shorts for today. To all nostalgic places, as if I'll run smack dab into the missing piece inside one of those memories and be ready and different and change. I will be change. My legs are asking me where we're going. I don't know, I tell them. We're going to be change. We can't stay here long.

1. I listen to the same music I listened to all through Disneyworld. Air conditioning shoofing over us as we find the condo, safe from the humidity. i think in time with Warwick Avenue in the backseat.
2.The sun blasts through the trees and up through the pavement and I was walking to work, wearing the same perfume, newly cutoff nice pants to be thready shorts, and wet curly hair.
1. The waves roll in and out, it's sticky and salty and sandy. I'm ready to go back to Enclave 304. Itchy for someone. Garrett is home.
He's not getting married yet, no, it's only been a week.

Sometimes it's like my eyes don't recognize me. Sometimes it's like I'm not really moving my body, and I just end up places without actually walking there. Sometimes it's like I'm writing the same two sentences over and over again, but they are the complete opposite of each other. Sometimes it's like I'm fresh out of a dryer womb, where I was so warm but so curled up; being slopped out I'm awkward and cold and don't know how to use my limbs.

Now is my time to run, I keep thinking. Lots of parts of me have no freakin idea how. My muscles are weak from lack of use and they don't even know where to go.
But all of these things are just important.

That's what I have to say. It's just all important. I'm growing and learning so much stuff--however anguishing the accompaniment of this chunk of my life.

Yesterday church made me giggly again for the first time in so, so long. I whooped and could hardly sit still during the closing prayer for glee, and it felt good to be jubilant about the gospel even when my life is turned inside out and the guts are being whipped around in the tornado. It's a good thing I've long since accepted my calling in life as an emotional nut job--I don't even notice people being weirded out by me feelin the Spirit with jubilation and laughing instead of tear drops sometimes. It felt good to be in the sunshine, walking and talking out loud to myself and God. I tell Him everything all the time now. This is important.

Do you get it? It's just all important. This time is important. I've got to stretch so wide it busts me open so I can be fertile for seeds to be planted. I've got to blast myself open over again each day instead of trying to crap my way through a temporarily easier road to avoid pain because when I'm blasted open is when I'm listening most closely. It's when I can hear most clearly.
I'm being slapped in the face with sledgehammer, sandpaper, and fresh water and being told to PAY ATTENTION.
I'm gonna do it.

Plunge.

2010-03-17T16:48:00.001-07:00

CHILLS like crazy: "O the greatness of the mercy of our God, the Holy One of Israel!"
--2 Nephi 9:19.

His mercy has kept me alive.
I come to Him as a sniffling child with nothing really to offer, just needin, and He is so quick to scoop me up into His ever loving arms. Knowing His nature comforts me. It comforts me to know that He is all powerful, all knowing, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Literally and figuratively all that I need and want.
He is in every crack and crevice of my life that I will allow Him to enter into. He asks of me: perfect faith. Whole submission of my intentions, timetable, my life; a complete willingness, and belief that because all flesh is in His hand and the world is His that He will cradle me, mold me, and craft me into an instrument of His greatest joy. I would be crazy to want anything other than this.

He has painted my life such a vibrant color already! He has accessorized my existence with the most exquisite, meaningful elements with so much depth and inherent loveliness. He has filled my life with beauty, with things to send my heart reeling and my mind pondering. He has given me a special spirit sensitive to these things. I will never slice this piece out of my life any more than I will slice a piece of myself out of my soul.

I can't even describe this feeling. It's impossible. I see all these really specific elements in my head that feel weird to even write as part of The Vision called What I Want.

But the maroon curtain is liftin and God is sayin okay, you take a look. What about this piece? What about gospel music, education, New Orleans Jazz and all that feelin' it bubblin over excitement? New York City? And I shout out YES! YES!
He gives voice to what I had no idea I wanted to say. He gives vision to elements I didn't know I wanted.
And I'm feelin that that sentence is absolutely appylin to what I'm goin through now.

Gosh, He loves me. This is what the Spirit feels like: enlightenment. joy. peace. catchin a glimpse of The Vision.

He blesses me so abundantly. Especially, I think, when whatever He's givin me doesn't look like a blessing at all. It looks like a heap of dirt to my poor eyesight and I just say, what? I didn't order this! But I can't see, can't see that it's really the food my soul is starving for, the food I need so desperately to live. My challenge is to take the first bite, and then another, and another, until I slide the platter away and discover to my amazement that I am so completely, totally FULL.

Sometimes this process takes a really, really long time. I know it'll take that for me. But you know, I catch the glimpses, and I keep askin. I keep praying and learning.
I feel in the depths of humility; and simultaneously like I'm staring up with wide eyes at an expansive sky of my potential, how much God loves me and the evidence of His hand working in my small life. He spares me so much heartache and guides me by the hand in those times when I need heartache to grow. He is a perfect, just God who never gives more than I can bear and has orchestrated an incredible path of the maximum growth and good from my experiences.

All this will never cease to amaze me and bring me to my knees in awe and overwhelmed gratitude. I think one day He will help me understand all the way like I want to.

I love Him. I trust Him.

Every day I'm pluggin my nose and diving in all over again.
I wake up and take the plunge.

His mercy has kept me alive.

inkly thoughts

2010-03-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

that pen i bought that was thick ran out of ink already.
it got plum tuckered out, too.
it got tired of writing the same words over and over, like, it's going to be okay, your life will be good and full of joy you will be led to a path of joy all things will work together for your good you can be happy now you are strong and big

it's okay. i don't need you to say anything back if you don't know what the heck i talk about any time here. that is alright. i just need you to listen. is that okay?
i'm practicing being brave and listening to all of the insides of me.
i'm practicing just acting when those inklings come. not waiting like, hey, is that You? i just do it. i just turn off my iPod for the last half of my run because i thought it might be good to listen. the next day i run all iPod-less and hear the thump of my heavy footsteps and my labored breathing. things get ugly. i am so ugly when i run. my nose gets snotty. my eyes get watery and bawly. my face gets read and drippy and sweaty. and maybe i didn't feel anything huge or mondo because i'm iPodless but i responded, and i'm practicing that being the important part.

but that pen gave me pages and pages of quoted stuff with exclamation points that meant my heart was leaping all around in its cage, even if i sat there studying and thinking and pondering so long that my butt fell asleep. (has that ever happened to you? it is very odd.)
pages and pages like HEY, what about this? I want to think about THIS more. It means a lot to me. it means a lot of soul work.

i have a lot of opportunities. to brush my teeth bloody, organize my desk, do the dishes a hundred times. lay things down and get lots of sleep. slosh around. i'm trying to practice being nice to myself and not beating myself up about feeling certain ways, like a bag of bricks or oozy tar.
but it's all okay.

drumroll.

2010-03-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I GOT IN!!

You are now reading the blog of the newestly accepted SECONDARY CHORAL MUSIC EDUCATION MAJOR AT BYU!
Yeah. that's right.
OH MY GOSH, I cannot even describe my glee and joy and incredible feelings of general awesomeness in print.
Thank you all for your support, for believing in me, and for celebrating with me!

I know this is a huge blessing from Heaven--God knows what we need, people. He knows it so much better than we will ever know it. He gives us exactly what that is. I am so grateful to know that He is real, that He is loving and merciful, and that the hard things of life eventually work together for our good.
ASDFKASDJFLASDFJASDFJalsfjdal;skfjd;alfja;lsfjkasd;lfjk;sldfjk;sldfjka;sdlfjk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bytheway.

2010-03-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

by the way,
the interview and the audition and the crazy crazy portfolio went well. they functioned long enough to make it into their hands and i hope their hearts and their blood and souls enough, at least, to PICK ME.
AND one of the adjudicators mentioned me by name to my voice teacher! WOOP WOOP!
a snoopy boy next to me reads over my shoulder. hey, dude. that's right. i'm applying to something hard. i'm a big person or whatever.

i find out in a couple weeks.

never you mind

2010-03-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

It's an attempt to solve the complex emotional DEALIOS inside with washing the dishes.
The soap bleeds over my fingers and I wipe every surface, sweep, trash, a little rearranging of the paintbrushes-and-fake-flowers in vase.
I purse my lips and even scrub out the trash can.
Slap the magnet on the dishwasher
CLEAN
no
DIRTY
((empty))

it's all there in the kitchen.
so she says she doesn't want this anymore, been thinking, and i don't think i'm gonna go to LA anymore.
i remember all of it.
CLEAN
no
DIRTY

actually, empty.
i chose to put all the dishes back in the cupboard. never very neatly--and i always stuff my clothes in my drawers. i cannot remember the last time i folded.
but i remember all of IT. Steer clear of burnup in your atmosphere. Because I'd die if...
So I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore.
Sing it, John.
Me and you.
You fit nicely inside the silver box that holds the time and has 3/4 battery, 2403 songs, or whatever. pictures too. the oldest, grossest, grayest-used-to-be-white headphones still crawl out.

"i just never got around to it." i hate logistics.

The streetlights say nevermind, nevermind, and the canyon lines say nevermind,
and the sunset says we see this all the time
nevermind,
never you mind.

power heels volume 2

2010-02-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

my pointy patent heels are strewn on the plasticky mat thing and i FREAK out about the last time i came here to write about this particular subject because it did not go well.
i just ate an apple the size of my face.
which was a poor decision because i forgot that apples make me burp and then what the heck what if i burp while i'm singing se tu m'ami or something? or while i'm introducing myself? hi, i'm brooke, and you rejected me last time, so this time i will belch for you.
pleasant.

and i keep wondering if my tights are restricting the proper flow of air to my lower costals. and i hate not knowing how to spell costals. well whatever.

but not nervous, just anxious.

you know when you have lots of pressure on you, like this five minutes will determine your whole destiny? yeah. well. i don't know if you've ever experienced that before, but how could you NOT be wondering about every little detail and what if your cardigan sleeves are too short for proper hand expression?
five minutes, that's all you get. and it has to be perfection.
but you can't stop being a human for that space of time, so, you could actually screw it all up.
but then you take a deep breath and remember mom talking about the olympics, and how the gold medalist wasn't nervous because his coach just told him to do his job.
just do your job.
sing with love, she said.
i love HER.

maybe some more deep breathing will help my body understand how huge that apple was. sorry, stomach. you have to calm down for this.
after 2:47 pm when you walk out of that room you can start freaking out, intestines. you can say what the heck was that massive green thing you put inside me? or you can say, brooke, you do not know anything why did you put tights over the top of me? or you can say, i hate you. full reign and permission, but please, please, just hold off?

there's a lot of pleading that goes into these five minutes. seven months worth.
but my personal morning devo was about FAITH today.
and here i am.
and here i go.

" after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, i would ask if all is done? behold, i say unto you nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save." --3 Nephi 31:19

Candyfreak

2010-02-11T11:47:00.001-08:00

I love candy.

I love it!

Just ask Jared. I am constantly yelping out “I want CAAAAAAAANDY!”, asking him if he has any candy, or does he want to go get me some candy, or can we go on a trip to buy some candy at the store.

For some reason being with him fills me with an inexplicable desire to just eat candy. Go figure.

Note: this obsession with candy is about CHOCOLATE candy only. No nasty mints or air heads or nerds or whatever fake crap you want to throw in my face. Such junk should not even classify as candy. Okay. you may proceed.

I especially love mini candy. I have a thing against actual candy BARS—probably because my female mind has been trained to stay away from them at all cost. Empty calories and sugar and processed, ick!

But brightly wrapped, mini, FUN SIZE, melty, now that is a shimmering beacon of LOVE. I love candy.

So when I found out there was a memoir about candy, I was very happy and inspired and I felt like fluffy nougat inside, because someone was talking about something I love.

Just read this quote.

“And if it seems, at times, that I am playing off my obsession with candy as something frivolous/heartwarming, this is, like most of our routines, just a way of obscuring its darker associations.”

-Steve Almond, Candyfreak; A Journey Through The Chocolate Underbelly of America

Wow. Once I can afford rent I want to buy that book.

But! Maybe I will just buy candy.

This is It.

2010-02-11T11:18:00.001-08:00

This application, this calling in life, this is my chance to be Michael Jackson.
He just says how he wants it to be—he has that inexplicable crystal clear vision. And this is his whole LIFE. This is what he comes home to at night—what he eats, breathes and sleeps. The Vision.
This is it.
Wow, sweet that I get to be MJ, huh.
And he loves it. He worships it. For the fans, for the sake of creating something incredible. To change people. To be wonderful.

Music is the constant surging power in my life, the driving force that pushes me or helps me be still or makes me dance or sing. But it is always the HEIGHT, the breadth and depth of every element of my life. For some, music is an added adornment, for special occasions—like powdered sugar. But for me, no. It is the lifeblood. This is it.

Music always gives back. It gives me everything, absolutely everything I need, and it's inside my own self—bubbling up through my blood, surging in the membranes of my cells, rattling my bones and flooding out through every pore, the little hairs on the back of my neck and my ear lobes and kneecaps and pinky toenails.

It is all inside me, and then, when I let it go, it is all around me. The sparks encase me in a bubble of the fountain of everything wonderful. It is so dynamic and vibrant and living; I feel I can for sure reach out and touch. I grab hold and we fly away...

Every time I walk into a room to play the piano and sing, I quote Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans: "Mmm, this is mah sanctuary," he says.

I say those words out loud, so they can bounce back and reverberate in me. I sit down and feel literal chills coursing through me—every time.

These things are the most real and resonant to my heart. I really know them. I really feel them. I'm kind of amazed by that.

It’s called AGHHHHHGGH.

2010-02-09T13:57:00.001-08:00

My life is an explosion.

It is a huge, big, fat, combustible mass of music education and a boyfriend and fireworks and stress and rent checks.

It makes me want to plop down really hard every time I sit and be like, “Agggggghhhh.” AGHHHHH. AGHHHHHHHHGHGGG.

It makes me want to collapse my insides, fold them down like an accordion and put my head in my hands and say “UGHHHHHH.” UGGGGHHHHGGGGH.

BANG.

…………..!!?!!????explode.

I will stop this complaint as is, to spare you the melodrama.

a liquid blanket

2010-01-26T11:51:00.001-08:00

Everything I know about coffee is the SMELL.

The smell, Tully’s Cafe, Starbuck’s, some breakfast place, it didn’t matter; they all meant Seattle. I always wondered what it would be like to drink the stuff—to differentiate FRENCH ROAST from CINNAMON VANILLA—and would I take it with cream and two sugars or milk or hot and black and strong?

Coffee was like a world I had stuck my head into, with the remainder of my body dangling out the back, head immersed only in SMELL.

Business people drank coffee. So did homeless people. So did my best friend Natalie’s parents—I would poke the bags of beans in their freezer when we were getting fudge bars, just to see if a poke could release that aroma. An aroma spicy, warm, comforting and unique like nothing else I’d ever set my nose to.

Instant cool, too. Cool and collected inside a space with windows to look out on the dribbling gray outside; a space where you can pick up the recommended Tuesdays with Morrie, or pitter away on your laptop, and you and your extra tall mocha latte with no whipped cream are safe.

This is comforting stuff, safety. Like for three dollars you can get security in a styrofoam cup. No wonder people shell out for it.

Like swallowing a liquid blanket.

(but hey. I don’t want to drink coffee. just to let you know. the smell is all I need.)

It’s REAL, yo. Dreams and all that stuff.

2010-01-25T16:03:00.001-08:00

Why haven’t I written about that day yet?

It doesn’t feel like it happened.

It feels like a dream, I still wake up pinching myself.

Plus it’s easy to write about one emotion, one snippet of time, the smell of coffee, the hole in my sweater.

It’s harder to write about it when your whole life peaks at this one moment and you feel like, YES, yes, this is IT! This is what I want my life to be from here on out! Don’t let me out of here.

Sheer happiness. How do you put words to that? It’s disbelief, for me.

January 18, 2010

I cannot believe I am here at this moment. Here, at the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., about to direct a gospel choir full of people. A gospel choir that is mine. Like, I’m the director. Officially.

Heaven has opened its arms and enveloped me in this incredible, amazing gift. Here, Brooke, here is your dream. Hold it and hug it and love it for a few seconds and then you can give it away to this audience. And there will be leftovers, you know.

I look up at the lights to try to pierce through to the sky for just a second to say, Thank You.

It really is a dream.

Martin Luther King had a dream, too. He dreamt of the fulfillment of the pledge of allegiance. Liberty and justice for all.

I want to make people free, too. What do you want the audience to get from our performance? I asked them to write it. A moment of escape, I wrote. Freedom.

It was freedom, being up there. No nerves. We all just felt it. The audience shouted out their love to us. And now we’re a big deal and they want us all over the place. February 20th, UVU. Black History Month, the Terrace. Motown Dance. Genesis fireside.

Join in.

Rehearsals, 7-8pm, every Thursday, room 3250 WSC.

I’m going to be there, you know, because, well, I’m the director.

Swallowing the whole world

2010-01-11T11:48:00.001-08:00

A great majority of our lives are spent discovering who and what we are NOT. We feel great satisfaction in stripping this crap away—layers of an onion or a parfait, and at the end we discover roots that make us cry or berries or yogurt that could be confused with pig fat and our lives have meaning because we have all the sudden brushed off our hands the sheet rock of the excruciating work of discovering the core of ourselves.

Sometimes, we forget, what we got; who we are, and who we are not. There is so much more in love than black and white… (AMOS LEE)

When we uncover a shred of the black or the white we sit back with beads of sweat dripping down the rocking chair. At this point, one of two things happens:

1. We feel content, for the moment, and can gulp a glass of water and doze off, or, 2. We feel ravenous and feverish with a beastly desire to swallow the whole world so we can know all the shades of gray, too.

Usually, my discoveries take the form of the latter—and I’m okay with that.

Santa’s OJ

2010-01-11T11:34:00.001-08:00

Every year seems the biggest of my life.

Just when I am sure my life can expand no wider, each year gets huger and more expansive and crazy and FULL of STUFF—and for all the times I am sure the seams are about to bust the stretch and let me grow up and out and more. Looking back I am mouth hung open in wide disbelief like WHOA—nu uh. This is my life? Get out of town.

2009 brought me a brother home from Japan, another couple roommates to tell stories about, another bout of darker hair, an empty room for the first time in my college life, and a violin to learn to play. 2009 meant I am a legit college person—JUNIOR year.

2009 was the year I fell in love.

Oh, and signed up for my first real boyfriend.

This was the year, too, that I started to (gasp) like kissing.

In 2009 I stayed the summer in Provo, and moved out of a castle and into a mothball potato bug love house. I got rejected from my program of choice, to come back to his office a few weeks later and try my hand at humility and real search for improvement. In 2009 I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on voice lessons and tuition and books and sidewalk chalk. In 2009 I started writing for real, trusting the value of my own words and aching for time to get them down. I picked off and reapplied probably POUNDS of mascara and cried off more. I read some life changing books and jammed on the piano in various classrooms and auditoriums. I learned about even more pain, things like abuse and rape and sexual assault and eating disorders—for someone who refuses to watch the news, this was a series of cold wind slaps in the face with a couple nights crying about why, why do people do these things to each other—but like all other painful things, these facts have taken their proper place in my mind and I am better for the knowing.

I experienced some of the most excruciating emotional pain of my life and the most exquisite joy, found in loving another human being.

Every year of my life holds so much—I’m still young enough to where each year is a bulging velvet bag, Santa style—spilling out with memories and little treasures of knowledge gleaned in classrooms and office desks and toys I’ve discovered like reading inspiring words and stalking photography blogs and going to Disneyworld. These things will flow to the new and up and coming years of my life—a steady stream of fresh-squeezed orange juice whose recipe is still under construction.

My life can sometimes be broken up this simply, into year-size stockings; but they’re all overflowing with the zesty orange juice of the vitality and flux of life. I don’t try to contain these juices. Bring it on.

I Remember...

2010-01-11T10:37:00.001-08:00

I remember reading Writing Down the Bones in the back of our minivan without seats surrounded by all my possessions inside suitcases but mostly big black garbage bags and bawling when Kaylie finally called; I missed her extra, and plus, at the beginning of every semester I feel like my life is falling apart.
These things I say I thrive on, like change and leaving and stuff, there's a reason why people hate them.

.........

I remember sitting in the interview with Dr. B and Miss Applonie turquoise glasses woman. I remember waiting outside the room for a lifetime and a few minutes, with the girl with the orangey fleshly nylons. Pink power suit, too. Did she get in, I wonder?
The office was small--keyboard, pictures everywhere, a desk. This is where some other music dude spends most of his life, and here some of the most defining moments of my life thus far have taken place. And I don't need to say I remember; forgetting is improbable.

.........

I remember the movie "The Blind Side." I remember applesauce and seeing Katie in a sports bra, watching her wave a spoon around as she ate yogurt after a run. I remember runs along the Provo river trail and the one time I floated down the Provo river with Trevor Witham. I remember when and why I got my iPod and a time when I listened to each song on it. I remember typing for hours and walking through hallways and looking at books at Barnes and Noble and wondering what coffee tastes like. I remember Mista EEEn, his spirit and wishing I was magically in love with him and then the point when I realized I didn't want that at all.

I remember wanting a red coat. I remember getting my first pair of round, light tan glasses. I remember jeans and worries about being fat and haircuts to my chin, mistakes I made over and over again. I remember birthday cards and feeling bad for throwing them away. I remember a Saturday closet-cleanout, bawling because I had to unclutter my junk that somehow meant so much to me. I remember making lists of wacky colors and emailing them to my cousin. I remember pain.

........

I remember Celine Dion. Listening when no one else was the right person to talk to. Back when cd players were it and I had a floral bedspread. I was trying to figure out what my life was and tackling big questions already, nine or ten years old. I was lying on the floral bedspread at the time when everything in my room got washed gold by the drooping sun. It would get lazier; the room would get brassier, and Celine Dion sang loud in my ears.

.........

I remember Mrs. Amatangelo, who had fake-dyed mousey brown hair that looked like a horse hair wig and enormous glasses. She wore frumpy teacher dresses to look the part; she put me on time out. I've always very sincerely believed that she permanently damaged me because I was such an impressionable kindergartner.

.........

Summer meant delicious food: fruit, and gourmet salads! My mother was always an expert at salad making. It took me years to realize I was allowed to and wanted to take two or three hefty tong-fulls. The gold time was salad time sometimes, as well as Celine time. We'd sit around the same table we have now, and shut the blinds--I always wanted to keep them open. Yes, I remember SALAD.

.........

Rain holds a lot for me. The rain was falling hard and collecting in little pools in Lakeland Hills park. Who was I with? A blonde girl. We weren't very good friends. But we splashed in the collections of sky water and felt on top of the world...
until our socks got soaked. But we, or I, rather, still puddle stomped when the rain fell other times. Like times of confessions, barefoot. Times of summer's steamy rainfalls and times of wintery chilly pools, barefoot and no. Rain holds a lot for everyone, I think.

a middle aged shack--resolutionless.

2010-01-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

I don't make New Year's resolutions for a lot of reasons. I don't want to set myself up for failure. I don't want to acknowledge my faults at that level. I don't want to be stuffy and cliche. I need stuff that bleeds.
I feel like I need to make a getaway. I want to be a middle aged woman, wrinkled and looking out at the sea from a shack she's made herself.
But if I did make resolutions they would be these.
stand up taller. be more honest about my feelings in certain situations. trust myself more. pick up yoga. go days without makeup and feel more confident.
see. faults. you see them.
I've never REALLY actually seriously considered things like not getting out of bed for a day or REALLY eating cereal for every meal or following a fad diet.
But sometimes I still sell out.

just a big ol game.

2010-01-04T15:59:00.001-08:00

I forgot my notebook/I hate typing/I hate computers/my eye hurts/I woke up thrilled today/I had revelations as I walked to campus/

Jared asked me today if this sweater was new—I said, no, I just never wear it

Because it’s pink?

Yes. Pink requires me feeling a very certain way.

What’s that?

Really happy and comfortable with myself, I said.

Revelations about gospel choir and marvelous medleys/do I have pink eye, maybe? HAH./ beach time in california—want/the name ‘joss’/ the name noah and how the two couples both want it/well, whatever/practicing was not torture today/lifeisjustabigolgammme to me.

life is just a big ol game to me.

the bottom of the cereal bowl

2009-12-23T07:48:00.001-08:00

Ah, a fresh page.

A fresh page to say whatever I want about whatever topic I want and I can say it however long or short or BIG I want.

I took a drink of the milk left in my cereal bowl without thinking; I haven’t done this for a very long period.

It all started back when mom decided to read about a hundred nutrition books and found out that milk and dairy and meat were all offenders. I bought in at once, but never gave up cereal, because the alternative was oatmeal and I hate that pig slop. Once I scafed the offenders out of my diet I felt healthier and all the promises rang true and my life was marvelous.

But now, you know, slowly out of convenience, these have crept back in. On a smaller scale, but it still comes back, and before you know it

I’M DRINKING THE MILK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CEREAL BOWL.

Once you pop the fun don’t stop;

If we let ourselves go for even a moment, the fabric

and all hell breaks loose. The buildup is slow, but then the dam breaks and the floodgates open.

It seems too late at this point.

But I start each day with a fresh bowl of cereal, a new piece of fabric and a new pair of gates. I always still have a choice.

This seems the theme of my lately life—choosing. It’s called control on my more cynical days, and the loathsome, romantic burden of deciding on my less pragmatic days. But I keep revolving around this inescapable, wonderful ability and responsibility to choose.

Pieces

2009-12-22T14:51:00.001-08:00

I don’t have the crutch of that little red wir-o bound book to type from today.

Today, I don’t have anything to copy to ON-LINE from my own handwriting and ink and paper that I bought for two-dollars-ninety-eight-cents [before tax].

I just have my bubbling thoughts inside my own little head to translate directly.

I don’t know why I never do this anymore. I guess I’ve just gotten used to the flow of my hand with ink on paper inside red, jotted quick in between classes, cross-leg-seated on a brown suede couch, or scribbling in the dark when I can’t fall asleep for a churly mind.

Now there are none of those things present. I’m pretty still. I’m pretty steady. I don’t have anything clawing my mind or my fingers; nothing anxious to be released.

So this is what I have to say today.

Peace of mind.

It’s worth it.

It’s nice to be streaming from this place of relative rest, just for a few hours or even days, if I get lucky. Just a few days to think slow, eat a lot of sugar cookies, type slow, savor things like fudge and Art Tatum and a beautiful pearl necklace from the love of my life.

It’s nice to have room in my brain for dreams; I remember them a lot lately.

Last night: Kaylie and I weren’t close friends, she was telling me stuff I felt like I should already know about where she’d been--Garrett was mandating I do something or other--my apartment was in the back room of Jamba Juice, but looked exactly the same--Faith was asking me questions about Jared and I had a million answers.

My subconscious still has a lotta stuff to sort through.

Mushball Brooke

2009-12-22T14:47:00.001-08:00

I am lucky.

Not in the winning prizes or cakewalks or having the stars align every time I want something way, but in the way that helps me remember that it is not luck at all, but rather, some Higher Being watchin out for me. I’m glad, too, that “some Higher Being” isn’t all He is to me. Plus lots of caring people, lots of access to great beauty, and lots of privilege of circumstance I did not one thing to merit.

Christmas has been different to me this year. The smallest things have made me tear up; I think this is directly proportionate to the permission I have given myself to become a sentimental mushball on account of jrad.

Allowing myself to become a mushball has enriched my life greatly, I should let you know. If you are considering allowing yourself to accept the same fate, I am strongly in favor. This is a promise to love it if you would like to call me, if someone is asking you why the heck you are crying, and are you menstruating, or whatever insensitive question they could possibly pop along your journey of letting yourself become a mushball.

Mushball Brooke is also directly proportionate to Newfound Writer Brooke (I just erased ‘Wannabe’ out of that sentence because I am a writer because I write. That’s it). I’ve let myself free on a lot of accounts this year. Free in harmless, real-meaning-of-freedom categories. Thank you, Universe, for letting me be lucky enough to have time and space and support to try these things out.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I have been a bawlbag all holiday season. I have lost more water sitting at choir concerts or the ward Christmas program or thinking about the Christmas story than probably during the rest of the year combined. I’ve never been one of those people who always had to carry around those little mini-packs of tissues. I am beginning to believe this would be a wise practice.

I feel like I’ve arrived, finally, this year.

I’ve been able to internalize things. I’ve been able to let my tender emotions be totally pricked at Chopin and Wordsworth and Angels We Have Heard On High. This pattern I’ve allowed through the latter part of 2009 has seemed to culminate during Christmas and I don’t think it will ever be the same for me again; in a delightful way.

I have let myself finally paint Mary vivid in my mind—how we’re a lot the same, probably. I’ve let myself see every kid as a heaven-sent gem, for REAL. I’ve opened my mind to thinking that the birth of the Savior meant, too, His death and suffering. I’ve allowed myself to mull over these thoughts with no iPod buds in my ears. I’ve contemplated in depth and written, streams of consciousness and very personal thoughts—the kind you want to write in itty bitty writing because you’re still a little scared of them. I’ve let myself be okay blabbing to my mom forever about feelings and mental processes instead of doing my homework right away. All this makes me a better thinker,

and, too,

a better feeler.

I never knew this would be the result of writing and internalizing and talking and contemplating while walking home in the freezing icy bluster, starving and exhausted.

I think we often have no stinking idea what the results of our “starts” will be. I think that is a wonderful thing about living.

Luck really has nothing to do with it. It’s a lot of people working behind the scenes, and somehow I end up getting to be the one riding the wave.

17 of love

2009-12-16T16:04:00.001-08:00

LOVE:

1. Going home for play time and Christmas treat baking.

2. Making weird noises on the couch while studying.

2a. Trying to make Claire laugh

3. Snuggling and playing would you rather.

3a. I would rather have a jingling anklet than balloons tied to my wrists, fly than breathe underwater, and (the hardest one of all) LISTEN to music than create it (if I had to choose).

4. Michael Jackson.

5. Christmas tree in our very own apartment

5a. WITH PRESENTS!

6. Making grilled cheese for the boy I love.

7. Finishing up my music education class and having my professor tell me that I am wonderful.

8. Christmas cards

9. New socks

10. Time to read, FINALLY!

11. Several pink starbursts, thrown.

12. Taking pictures of my BROTHER GBEECH.

13. Smiling a big fat cheesy smile at myself after I brush my teeth—this is a habit.

14. Visiting teaching.

15. CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS

16. New Years with the hottest man alive.

17. Almost falling every time I walk due to shoes with no traction and the uncontrollable urge to travel by means of DANCING.

the room of requirement

2009-12-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

this life is a crazy little thing
that throws unordinary but BIG and crazy-to-only-you things
at you at seventy hundred miles an hour
and you cannot keep up with any of these things.
you are jelly that is spread really thin and you know this phenomenon, when jelly is trying to spread itself but IT ALWAYS CLUMPS UP ON ONE LITTLE PART OF THE BREAD.

there are requirements.
requirements to walk in the freezing, frigidly freeezing cold until your legs are numb.
but the moments right after your legs get numb and you stop for a stoplight or a patch of snow or black ice
you feel warm. you feel burning hot even, and although your legs can't feel a lot all you DO feel is warm.
but it's negative a million--you're really cold.

there are requirements.
requirements to get letters that add together to make numbers that determine your whole destiny and decide whether you'll get to translate your tears to a conducting pattern and eventually be the one up there telling your twohundredstudents what you feel about this thing you're about to do. numbers and letters and requirements and formulas decide what emotions you'll get to express and to how many people.
it all adds up right quick
and i feel in debt already.

choosing

2009-11-30T15:57:00.000-08:00

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver

i will do things that make me feel alive.
activities that remind me that i am a human,
living. that i breathe and eat and sleep, but that i'm more, too.
i'm more than an eating sleeping breathing thing.
i can think and believe and decide.
i can write things down and talk and sing with my voice.
i can smile and laugh until i throw up and i can paint and drive and spin around.
i can pick out gifts and dye my hair a weirdish color and take pictures.

i can start a gospel choir.
i can get into the music education program.
i can get married.
i can put my ctr ring on that finger often just to see what it feels like.
i can rip it right back off and determine NOT YET.
these things take work and planning and behind the scenes stuff.

but.
i can choose it if i want. i can choose.

Dear LJ

2009-11-23T15:57:00.001-08:00

Saturday, November 21, 2009

It’s early in the morning—far earlier than my alarm is set to ring, but I knew this would happen. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep when this day finally arrived. (“I feel like it’s mine, too,” I told her.) It’s one of those days with such long anticipation you’re sure that time will break its own rules and this day won’t ever actually come.

This epic changing day—my best friend kneels across the altar from her sweetheart, and I trust the care of this incredible woman to this incredible man, forever.

I feel like a parent, giving her away; in the same breath, a little child who has lost her mother. I guess that paradox is just called Best Friends.

Alright, alright—she’s not dying. But after all the times of being there for her when she said goodbye to Lj, it is my time to say a kind of goodbye while they experience the most wonderful hello. This hello holds the surety of a time with no more goodbye—instead, eternal union, everlasting love. This is the real deal.

I’m beginning to understand the smallest portion of the reason why this thing called love is the center of our whole existence.

LJ, you take care of her. I love this woman. You have to know this. You have to know how heaven sent she was to little uprooted me, sophomore year of high school. You have to know the light and the joy she has brought to my life; you have to know the depth and the breadth of this thing we’ve built, in the same time as you were building your love with her. She has been my exemplar, my silver lining, my closest friend and confidant. She means the world to me. I have felt these years that she is my other half. (in a girl way.)

I know you feel this way about her too. It’s finally time for my love to take its proper place—but you have to know, you have to know this one thing: In this union today, my love for her is my love for you, too. You two knit together create something so uniquely beautiful, for which I am grateful to have seen.

Please take care of my best friend, LJ. I know you will. I love you both more than words can say.

Thank you for being a man equal to the task.

All my love,

Brooke

Cocaine Rain

2009-11-13T16:03:00.001-08:00

I never thought I would like this type of music. ALT. ROCK.

I never thought I would want to give away my huge, passionate dream to be by some boy’s side.

I never thought I would fall in love now,

now when I need focus and reason and hard work more than ever in my life and I do not have them because when you’re in love your brain releases the same chemicals as when you are on cocaine.

birthdays come and the stakes get higher and higher

20 years old and not going anywhere but your arms

contriving every possible way to spend every possible moment there

i am ambitious i am a strong woman i am independent

but your voice

was the soundtrack of my summer

and your eyes

are the brightest of all the colors

don’t you know you’re unlike any other?

you’ll always be my thunder

so bring on the rain.

i think i can have both.

cocaine and music teacher fit together nicely, eh.

fragile

2009-11-10T16:02:00.001-08:00

I’m feeling weighty—death always does that to a living person.

You realize just how fragile life is, and that you’re ridiculous for fretting about your homework or your time or your absolutely disgusting fridge--because you’re still alive, breathing, able to do things and be places and experience the world and someone else is not.

The someone else you had a secret crush on at different points, the someone else who always intrigued you, the someone else who had a bull cut during the same time your older brother did—you’re older brother who is still here. Still living.

Family friends. We told our Dads’ mission stories together over the dinner table with peals of laughter—did your dad sometimes pray in Navajo as a surprise, too? You guys gave us that big clock up high in the living room for Christmas the other year. We played Apples to Apples together once for FHE. We went trick-or-treating together when we were little, and I remember you being a pumpkin the year after somebody in our family. Even after all of us kids started growing up and apart and feeling awkward there has still been the connection—history, memories, and our parents.

Drug overdose.

I stopped in the middle of Brigham Square, on the phone with Dad. He’s having lunch with Garrett to tell him how much he loves him, that we kids mean more to him than anything in the world, because one of his best friends lost one of his.

Tears are pooling in my eyes—my heart breaks for his family, for love that cannot change choices, love that cannot force a family to un-break, for hard things impossible to explain and sympathy, gut-wrenching sympathy.

These things come every now and again and knock on the door of my life, to remind me how blessed I am

how fragile, too

how our lives do not work out the way we plan

but that someday, I feel, I will be taught, and I will understand.

The Few, The Proud

2009-11-06T13:11:00.001-08:00

Sigh.
Well, here you are, the lucky few.
You've made the cut--congratulations.

[Pre]Maturity

2009-10-27T15:22:00.001-07:00

The first day of snow
came prematurely.
Not like frosting, dusting the tips of your eyelashes for sweet flirty blinking and thawing inside by the soft glow of warm, holiday love.
Not like chestnuts roasting on an open fire, the frightful weather Michael and Frank croon sweetly about, or lightly fleckling the front driveway the day after Christmas so you can't drudge to any store for sales or exchanges
but instead have to spend the whole day with cocoa and cider and board games and baking and late-coming cards.
No,
it came today, sleeting and cold and it changed colors on the way down,

white—> gray—> brown—> until it was just the color i know as wet.
two days before Halloween.
It came bearing no gifts, no sweet escape or play time or [snow]men or [snow] angels or sleds or pleasantly rosy cheeks.
It came swirling and menacing, threatening and gave red, bitten cheeks and cold, freezing cold---
The world was unprepared. No one's coat was thick enough, no one's gloves able to ward off the buzzing flakes—they may as well have had rocks in them, the flakes—they were so assaulting and insulting.
Maybe the sky got confused, and is as excited for Christmas as I am.
But like all things that come prematurely,
what should be beautiful and sweet is instead bothersome at best.
cold, biting,
bitterly disappointing,
and leaves one
completely empty.

p.s. I am still going private. This is your last and final chance to send me your email address : )

Freedom.

2009-10-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

I'm goin private.

I gotta explain.

I WANT all of you to read my words--it is oddly therapeutic to have some total strangers, barely acquaintances, and friends of friends or innocent google-rs reading them. To just feel like I’m getting STUFF out there. I have actually really enjoyed the fact that anyone can access my blog. I don’t find random readers creepy or odd, but rather very flattering.

However, there is a very small presence

of a very small one person

who has abused my openness.

I have to be rid of it,

completely.

I do not desire to live my life small, but rather to become big

and write with the whole world in my arms. (thanks, natalie goldberg)

To live open to everyone who wants. To give my words away to you, with no second thoughts, regrets.To hope that somehow, my words can help you

to feel something.

I do not desire to share my life behind the confines of a securely screwed-down computer screen,

for I itch for freedom more than anything else in this world.

But I suppose we all make choices that restrict our freedom, even if we do not realize it.

I’m still trying to pick up the pieces.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I just sat for a good five minutes pouting that I have to do this. to force your openness when I am so perfectly content with you being anonymously present. knowing that some of you will be too shy and too non-committal to say Yes, I read.

I suppose I will have to let go of my therapy and my small, itty bitty influence in your life—wherever that brain that reads this sentence is living.

Readers give these words life.

I don’t want to let go of that.

So please, please, PLEASE, send me your email addresses and continue to read,

if you so desire,

whoever you may be.

scribbled

2009-10-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

I LOVE JARED ANDREW SCHULTZ AND I NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW IT.
I AM NOT EVEN SORRY FOR THE SELF-INDULGENCE OR THE SLIGHT MIDDLE-SCHOOL LEVEL OF THIS DECLARATION,
because unlike my middle school loves scribbled all over my book covers this love is
REAL.

and I am happier than I have ever been.

I almost apologized that this post is probably going to come again and again in some form or another but no, no, no. I am not apologizing.

This man (and he is a MAN. which i love. a separate topic on which i could write a thesis) with his light eyes, his smile, his sensitivity, and his work ethic and his devotion to right things, is mine.

I itch for him to be MORE mine.
But I am content just to love him, LOVE LOVE LOVE like a little girl and like an 80 year old woman, all at once.

mildew

2009-09-22T16:11:00.001-07:00

sunday. 20. september. 2009.

moss green dress, coral belt, purple shoes, yellow earrings. blushed like crazy when ________________________________________!

didn’t expect that; not used to having incriminating things to fill in the blanks. nails cut too short, church too long—just a little. long enough for me to draw a flower in blue pen on my left thumbnail so mom thought i had a crushed finger. wanted to kiss the sparkling kitchen floors and the full, ample cupboards. delicious food and home, family, a thousand percent comfortable. me n gbeech jammed all the way back to ptown, christian rock and “ooohhh,” he said. “i’ve got the sickest gospel song for you.”

home to an empty, musty house. one day i think the mold will peel away the whole floor out from underneath us until there’s nothing left but a crumbly ball of green algae and potato bugs flailing—turned wrong side out, belly up.

the first day of fall

2009-09-22T16:05:00.001-07:00

the first day of fall

is the last day that i kiss the sky

and i don’t know any more of the lyrics.

i always get that one mixed up with

your voice

was the soundtrack of my summer

and you’re unlike any other

(or something like that).

certain people are probly ashamed of me right now.

i see you over there, sky. didn’t rise up pink today—instead, a cold, slatey blue. it was frigid out. cold enough to saw my hands off when i was doing something as innocent as changing the song on my iPod. cold enough to drive me inside to class earlier than i have ever been there before. “Cold enough to wear a pea coat?” asked the girl in my Spanish class. Cold enough to wear a coonskin cap—I hope Marsha Lewis sports it tonight.

Cold enough that my fingers have been chilled all day and they are struggling and done.