the eye of a needle.

today i am inspired to write by brandi carlile.
i can share the song with you, but it won't penetrate your heart quite like it's piercing mine right now. you can still listen if you wanna.

i feel like this whole birth and becoming a mother deal is exactly like passing through the eye of a needle. isn't as easy as it sounds.
but people do this all the time. birth babies and become mothers for the first time.
and people say, congratulations! how exciting!
but i am swimming in it. overwhelmed and totally unsure of myself. and people say, you'll figure it out.
but i have a hard time feeling good about that when a child, a precious little human soul, is affected by my every mistake. a sweet little girl i love enough to drown in, and it's inevitable: i'm going to hurt her. things i do and say are going to damage her little self. i'm going to be bad at being a mom sometimes. probably a lot of times.
and yes. she'll get over it. she'll be bouncy and resilient and the love i'll shower on her will mean so much more and hopefully she'll remember the wonderful things i'm good at in motherworld and not the faults i have and fear.

but i am really tired of people acting like it's not a big deal.
the epitome of the "it is what it is" attitude. you do your best and blah blah. they probably say that because they figure i don't want to hear their advice. and, really, i don't--i just want someone to take my face in their hands and tell me that it's the hardest thing in the world and tell about the nights up crying and frustrated and the most beautiful moments of the multitude of shared love and knowledge between a mother and her baby.

i am looking around with such sure knowing that my best is so painfully not enough. why is no one else bothered by that?
i know God is looking out for us, and will help me care for her and love her and make my efforts so much more than they could be. and still, my efforts alone will not be as whole as i wish them to be. i will lose my patience and scream into a pillow and break down crying and accidentally wake her up and squeeze her hand too hard and act differently than i tell her to and want to tear out my hair.

and all anyone can say is, you'll figure it out.
yes.
i will.
i just wish there was a way to figure it out before her life is on the line. before her pristine self becomes my trial-and-error zone. i don't want to litter on her. i want to preserve her perfection.

graduate.d.

Once, I graduated from college. I celebrated (cautiously) a few months early, and so when I really did it, when I really stepped off BYU campus for the last time as a student, it didn't feel big like that. I was just trying to get to Christmas.

After graduation I had nightmares for months that I'd forgotten some logistical detail and didn't really have a degree. There was something more I had to do, a hidden hoop I somehow didn't know I had to jump through. Like how I forgot to get a tassel and Jared handmade me one on the morning of the graduation ceremony. It was perfect--my husband bailing me out for a detail I've overlooked, again.

I have no idea what the future holds for me, what exactly I'm meant to do in the world with my music and my voice and my words and my photographs. But I know, for sure, that I was meant to get the degree I got, with all the blood, sweat and tears. It stretched me wide open and God knew I'd need it.

Now there's a baby girl kicking inside me and I want her to know what her momma did. That her momma loved this thing fierce but somehow the love got away, and even when it did she kept moving through. I want her to know that even if the love never comes back I'll still be proud and not regret. That even if I never sing much or direct much I'll know those hours I poured into that piece of paper were where my heart needed to get jostled around and molded into the one that can love her fierce.

I can't leave these people out. They listened to me cry and lament first about how I did't know what I was going to do with my life. Then they listened to me cry about how heartbreaking it was not to get in, and then, to more crying about how hard it was once I got in. Still more crying when I lost the love that kept me up at night scribbling down teaching techniques and instead was up late imagining photographs. They invested in me and believed in me and told me I could do it and they really believed I could. Mom especially was on the other end of a lot of tear-soaked phone lines and I am so thankful for her grace, for her perfect and tender handling of all my emotions through all of school. Words are really wimpy in trying to say all that my blessed parents did and gave and were so that I could live the dream and go to college. Whow. What can you even say about the people who give you everything and still hold you up and tell you all the wonderful things about yourself that you can't see. This love is big.

God does amazing things with my life when I let him in.

Kick and Quiet.

Today the sun was out and I looked out the window all day, feeling inspired and readyready to photograph the whole earth.
I went shopping for springy clothes only to come back with all the dark and black things that were on sale. It's okay. I needed maternity things.
I'm ready to have this baby so I can shop in the regular section again. That seems like a dumb reason to want her here.

She is a girl baby.
She likes grapefruit in the morning and then applesauce, then other fruity things, then sometimes nothing else sounds good but she is still hungry.
She goes KICKKICKKICKKICK really big and then gets quiet for a while. Kind of like her momma goes:a flurry of stuff and then nothing. It's quiet that fills up your whole world if you let it. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it is like drowning.

I'm going to be a substitute teacher.
Gulp.
It makes my heart hurt and my head ache to think about it.
But I do what God tells me and He always sends me what I need.
He told me: I'm gonna send good things to you.
I believe Him.
I'm working on the part of me that's kicking hard against believing. There's a lot of room for doubt when your proof pool is a lot shallower than it once was. My faith is spread thin these days and I'm trying to nurture it, bulk it up and make the ends meet. I'm trying to remember that my faith doesn't need to be tied to specific results and is about trusting His will and giving mine up even when it seems so incredibly easy and perfect.
It's really scary to keep jumping into the pitch black dark.
It's good practice to keep jumping.

Expressin the Good News

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day.
This day always means a lot to me. You can read more about why.

........
Just being here tonight is bringing back all kinds of memories for me, and I'm feeling all kinds of things about soulful communication of God's love and joyful communication of the gospel. I'm feelin the joy of the time I spent coaxing and nurturing that joy and soul in regular people who weren't sure if they had it in them to be loud or even confident in expressing the good news with groove. They'd look around, like, whoa. This feels gooooood. Is it okay for me to feel this good moving and shaking and shouting with love in music even though I'm white/inexperienced/not a singer/shy? I loved smiling, reassuringly, and letting them know that we are all entitled to groove and joy, that our message transcends all kinds of boundaries. Just because we're white and don't have the history, the generations of water under the bridge--this doesn't mean we're not allowed to love music or culture or a new way to express how we feel about God and the human family.

I'm here, in the Wilk Ballroom, feeling how big it is that musicians practice and have oodles of background and built-up love and history that they bring to the music. The audience has no idea, really. We're edified, we feel good--but we have no idea.This is what I miss about performing.

I saw BYU Singers on the program and I gotta admit I was disappointed. And a little infuriated at first. I was all attitude, like, ohhh please, Martin woulda hated this coiffed-to-perfection-choral-boringness with exaggerated diction and an impeccable blend. His legacy was about doing what you believed in the best way you knew how, with or without a fancy degree or special training. He would scoff at this singing that's so manicured and refined, and who in the world thought up this silly idea to have them here! They don't know a thing about this culture or this people or the way music is supposed to be.

But then in the middle of my attitude I remembered what I just thought about being allowed to love things that you don't have any ownership in. And I remembered what Cathy the speaker challenged us to do when walking down the street: saying in our minds to each person, you matter. She challenged us to see the likeness of God in all of His children. I typed that in my phone because I forgot my journ.
 Then I felt sheepish for not wanting to let it go the other way. For wanting to reject the BYU Singers' offering because it was different than mine would have been. So maybe the people in BYU Singers didn't get it, like I was puttin on them. But maybe they did, and they made something to honor Dr. King that was equally as important as my gritty soulful somethin would have been.

I think Martin Luther King Jr. would have been pleased that a group of white classically trained singing kids were honoring him, even if in a form he didn't love as much. Maybe some of those Singers people caught a glimpse of how inadequate their offering was and felt humbled by all they have to learn. But I caught that glimpse about my own offerings of song and love and worship, and felt humbled. And I still felt good and light walking out of there.

And I still want to go to a meeting in our church where I can sing and shout and praise the Lord with all the volume and vigor I feel like. Right now I do that by myself, and I feel lifted.

It.

We find out what kind of baby Baby Schultz is tomorrow.
It's better than Christmas.
I have no preference because it already is what it is and I just want a baby I can stop calling 'It' and give this child a name.
I'm freaking out inside.
I'm freaking out inside.

little one.

This is the baby that is growing inside of me. It will be here on April 28th, they say.
I have a lot to say about it. I've been writing about it a lot, snippets and snaps of thought before it felt safe and right to tell the world. I want to let you in on those letters to my Little One, even though they are up and down and all over the place. This whole deal is crazy, full of so many emotions and thoughts. I'm moving through all of them.
..................

Hi little baby.
Pregnancy test says you're here, inside my belly, growing away. I love you, but I'm just having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that you're real. After I sat in this same spot and wrote how deflated I was that you weren't, yet. And now two pink lines are saying yes, you're pregnant. It's such a strange feeling--I expected to be elated, but it's so surreal I don't know what to think. I'm excited, though. I think I'll be more excited when the doctor says for sure, it's happening, you're due on may or june.

I just want you to be here so I can meet you. but when you come, we'll live in a different house in a different city. I'm just antsy for you, and at the same time overwhelmed because i have no idea what to do with you. I'm afraid of small things like i won't feed you enough, whatever. but you are going to be my baby, the baby i made with the man i love the most, and then we will take care of you. we love you, little one.

i'm here again, and today is a day after yesterday. i feel intense and sad and tears are comin outta my eyes. maybe for the love i have for little one, or maybe for the things i don't know how to feel yet because it's only been two days but it feels like a freakin eternity. and will i let little one say freakin?

i have a lot of questions and no one to ask them to.
i don't know what i'm afraid of.
not knowing what i'm doing, needing so very much help?
it's day 2 of officially knowing and i feel helpless. it's already hard to bend over and i already feel uncomfortable. maybe i'm making that up, huh, little one? but you're in there, in a teeny tiny form, right?

it leaves me feeling pretty alone in the world, this whole pregnancy thing. needing people to help me out, wanting advice and the nitty gritty of their experiences, and feeling like i can't tell them because for some reason i'm not allowed.
................

I feel so tired, and it's 8:34. Pregnancy brain is setting in, I'm making this up, and i'm trying to think of all the outlandish things i could crave in the next 9 months.
is this real?
i want to get it, but i just don't, right now.
i can't be pregnant--i'm just brooke.
old people get pregnant, mommy-ish people, mature people, bookish clairish kaylieish people. not free spirits trying to find their place in the world.
.................

I need to say things.
Things about this unborn baby, so teeny tiny, growing inside me every day. Every day I wonder if something will go horribly wrong. I try to have faith that it won't--but in the same breath, I don't expect that it will be all just fine.
I guess I could have the same fear about Jared dying or getting into an accident or something, but I think about how vulnerable this little body is, nested inside mine, hardly anyone even knowing about its existence yet, and I want to give my whole heart and blood and brain to this baby to have, to use, to live!
Oh how I want my baby to live! To live so full and long and happy and free, to enjoy so many rich experiences and the feeling of sand and the taste of homemade meals, the heartache of loss but only a little, and I want to protect this little one from any danger or pain and keep it tucked safely inside me forever.

It's hard, every day, for me to think about Little One not being completely safe. Being so vulnerable to any small thing that could go wrong. It's hard for me to think of not being able to make sure Little One is completely safe. So I guess I avoid, and nurture myself in the belief that this can't be quite real yet. Because I have no way of knowing if my little baby's heart has already stopped beating, or if it will stop tomorrow, or if it will somehow have something horrible happen to it, for no apparent reason or for something I could control.

.................
We walked together and imagined you wrapped up on my torso, little one. We imagined pushing you in a stroller, in one of those backpack things on dad's back.
Your dad loves you so much, little one. He rubs my belly twenty times a day and talks to you. You're only three inches long and one ounce, but OH MY GOSH HOW WE LOVE YOU!
Your dad and I look at each other with love deeper than we ever thought possible because you're coming into our lives. We don't know if you're a boy or a girl baby yet, what your name will be, or for sure where we'll be living when you'll be born. But we know we love you fierce, and we'd do anything for you.
Like throwing up a delicious breakfast this morning. Thanks for letting me get through most of life normally, though, sweetheart.

Your dad is so anxious for you, and so am I! April 28 seems like it will never come. But we're already a family. We're already growing close, getting to know you in the smallest ways. Sometimes I think I feel you, even though the internet says I'm not supposed to yet. We insert you wherever we are: snuggling with us in bed, lying on a blanket in your pajamas, getting ready for a bath. Grandma Schultz already bought you a toy--so many people are so thrilled that you're coming into our lives! It's beautiful to see how this cycle works: parents have empty houses but get fresh new little souls to love, and we start the journey.
..............
This is today, November 4th, 2012.

Little One!
1. I'm obsessed with hooded towels for your bath time.
2. I love going to stores and feeling all the fuzzy soft clothes and imagining you in them. We decided whatever you are for Halloween next year, when you are 6 months old, it has to be fuzzy.
3. You're not a fan of dessert, like your Uncle Cameron.
4. You love and have always loved: raspberries, eggs, bacon, cheese, and hamburgers. Mom's eating all kinds of things she never loved before cause your growing self wants them.
5. You are growing very slowly. I am so anxious for you! Come faster!

Creating Yourself.

My twenty-third birthday was this week.
I spent the actual day, September the sixth, teaching high school kids, singing in a choir that's inspiring me more than ever, even though it's my third or fourth semester there. We're singin' Order My Steps, and it's bringing back all kinds of gospel choir memories. It's all I can do not to bust out in soulful line of run-filled praise every time--which urge I promptly satisfy on my drive home, don't you worry. I think of Lyndsi Shae and Claire and Niecie, havin' my back at every rehearsal and going out on every 'express-yourself-and-sing-praise!' limb I directed. I remember Niecie telling me that Order My Steps was like her mantra on her mission, and she asked God for it often, that it was important to her. I remember what a difference I made to people directing that choir.

But I don't direct gospel choir now. It's my birthday. I savor a simple sandwich from Zupa's and people-watch. I walk outside into the dropping rain and see the first full double rainbow I've ever seen in my life, and it's the kind you can see from edge to edge, the way you draw all rainbows as a kindergartener. I smile and say aloud, "Thank you! Happy birthday to me from God!"

It was.
For my birthday, I sang, I taught, I pondered--perfectly reminiscent of the woman I see myself becoming. I'm feeling pretty proud of her.

Don't worry--there was plenty of partying and loving from a few fabulous people on different days. But the exact day I turned twenty-three, I felt more myself than I've ever felt. That's part of my life mission, and it feels good to know that even if I'm not sure how teaching or singing or photographing or writing totally fit in my whole world for my whole life, these things make me feel more like myself.

There's a quote in the office of the room I teach in every day:
life isn't about finding yourself. it's about creating yourself.
I feel that.