Skyeler's Musings

Oh, to be a Poet!

2009-01-13T00:03:00.001-08:00

Drama lends itself to music. And music to drama. Which is why I used to write such fantastic songs. And, also, alas, why can't seem to write much of consequence anymore. When your heart and emotions are yanked this way and that, it sets perfectly to music, where it can reach right into your core and twist and turn in melodic reverie. But the subtle, the sublime, the quietly profound - these things are for poetry. These things set on a page in metaphor and silently enter the mind and heart of the reader, resulting, at best, in a whispered sigh of understanding and reverence. Not dancing. That's for music. And drama.

But my life now, and my struggles, and my realizations, my hopes, my heart's most fervent reachings, nowadays, are subtle, sublime, and quietly profound. And a poet, I am not.

I used to fancy myself a poet. When I was in the 4th grade. I even wrote a book of poetry and submitted it to a contest. I won. I was sent to the regional competition, and won again. I think I got a certificate with my name on it in calligraphy and a golden seal. And a coupon to the local bookstore for anything I wanted. Oh, I knew then that I was a poet for sure! When the famous author, Ivy Ruckman, came to our school... you know, Ivy Ruckman? Who wrote The Night of the Twisters? What, you've never heard of it? hm. how strange ["published" and "famous" are synonymous in the mind of a 4th grader]... anyway, when the famous author, Ivy Ruckman, came to our school for an assembly, I got to talk to her, and she signed my book, and also a little blank book for writing in, which subsequently became too precious to write in, as it was signed by a famous author and I didn't want to profane its pages with such amateur writings as my experiments. I wanted to save it for when I wrote really good stuff. Then I would write it in there. I would save it for something special.

I still have it. Still blank, but for Ivy Ruckman's autograph, wishing me good luck in my future writing career. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end. I don't think I attempted to make any of my writings public after that. I kept trying to write something really good first. In the 5th grade we started writing "essays," and I was good at those, and forgot about the juvenile poetry I'd loved so much.

By high school, I had started to write poetry again. I was, after all, a die-hard fan of The Cure, and I was moody and melancholy and tormented and fifteen. What better time to lament the bitterness of life? But I don't think my childhood talent carried over into adult-ish writing. In the 4th grade the pinnacle of my aspirations looked something like Shel Silverstein. I was good at rhyming, at silly puns, at frivolity in words. Trying to write like Robert Smith was another thing altogether, and so I never showed my poems to anyone I respected.

Soon, I got into songwriting. It was perfect for me. I was, in fact, better at writing music than the lyrics that went with it, but was a decent lyric writer nonetheless. Lyric writing is, after all, really the perfect balance between Shel Silverstein and Robert Smith. You have to rhyme, you have to express complex concepts in words that fit just so, but you have to be serious too. You have to have real pain and anguish behind what you're saying.

Lyrics would never play out without the music. It pains me to look at my lyrics instead of listen to them. It's not poetry (and don't get me wrong, poetry doesn't play well with music, in my opinion. It's painful to listen to songs that were written on the page before in the head. Just my 2 cents). Poetry is its own beast. Its own talent.

But I wish I could write it now. I wish there were a way to beautifully and artistically express my inner life, the things I'm learning, the things I yearn for, the things I think about, the things I love.

My life has become a poem, not a song. And in some ways, it's trapped, with no way to get out.

Should Be Famous

2008-09-08T15:01:00.001-07:00

So, I haven't done a lot of music publicly in the last couple years (between Seville's birth and Jared's health, it's been a bit much to handle). And of course, the question I get asked most often these days - probably other than "how's it goin'?" and "paper or plastic?" - is something along the lines of "when are you gonna start playing again?" Well... the short answer to that is "maybe soon maybe I think." The real answer to that is long and complicated, and better saved for another post.

But in the meantime I have joined a fun little project as a co-host on the new Should Be Famous podcast. You should check it out. It's a little show where we three hosts (my brother Clayton, a guy named Chris, and I), find what we consider to be good music by people who are not professional musicians - basically, people like us. People who are busy doing real-life kinds of things -- like, say, working a real job, raising children, stuff like that -- but they have some talent or some luck or, in any case, some song that is really worth hearing. But because they're not promoting it, it will never get picked up by a label or a radio station and YOU would never get to hear it. Our quest is to find those songs.

So check out the podcast. The webpage is here: www.shouldbefamous.com or you can subscribe at iTunes directly by clicking HERE.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. If you know of a great song by a non-professional musician, please let us know. We are finding them almost entirely by word of mouth.

Reunion '08

2008-06-09T00:12:00.000-07:00

We've added some faces, and lost some (or at least they aren't here to join us), but I still probably never feel as happy, comfortable, and loved as when we oldies are all together. Thanks for coming over, guys. It was a sweet, if brief, reunion of souls.

Speaking of Death

2008-02-07T14:45:00.001-08:00

A close friend of mine just lost a family member. Which causes me to think about my own experience with death.

When I was in high school, a close childhood friend was killed in a car accident. Her name was Jenny. She had lots of billowy, curly, long, blonde hair. She was famous for it. And she was cute. Mild mannered. Chronically likeable. Popular enough to be liked by everyone but not popular enough to draw any jealous enemies. She was the first friend I had in a new town. We were 5.

I remember her coming to my house and us playing in the yard, on the tire swing. I remember her telling me about the people in the Caldecott Tunnel accident, how it was so hot that they melted in there. I was new to the bay area, and didn't really know about the Caldecott Tunnel. I remember driving through it later, looking at the scorched and blackened walls and ceiling, thinking of what Jenny had said, imagining people melting. It was always eerie to me after that. Even by high school, when we would all compete to see who could hold their breath all the way through, I would anticipate the trip, wondering whether we would drive through the burned tunnel with the ghosts of the melted people, or one of the other two tunnels.

By junior high we would talk on the phone for hours, sometimes until we fell asleep and the phone would sit next to me on the pillow, a soft white-noise traveling from her bedroom to mine, until one of us woke up and called across the line to wake the other and hang up the phone. We'd gossip about our mutual friends, as pre-pubescent girls are wont to do. I remember when she got in a fight with her best friend, telling me all about it. I was friends with both, and tried to be neutral.

We'd grown apart in the years of high school. I started running around with a different crowd, and felt myself to be too busy for my previous, wholesome circle. The last time we talked was in the hallway between classes, "Wait. Stop and talk to me. You never talk to me." She had said, in a friendly, chiding manner. "I know, my next class is all the way in D hall" I responded, more as an excuse for my neglect than anything. "We never hang out anymore. We should hang out sometime." She said. I made some indication of intention to call and hang out. I remember thinking at the time that we probably wouldn't. We'd just see each other at random stuff we both ended up at. But I also remember being flattered that she still cared enough about my friendship to try and sustain it.

Soon after that I got a call from a mutual friend one night --a mutual friend who I thought was exaggerating and catastrophizing everything -- so when I learned Jenny had been in an accident, was in the hospital, and "might die," I pretty much wrote off the last part as unnecessary drama. But another mutual friend called a few minutes later, one who was decidedly more level-headed, and confirmed that it was really serious.

I wasn't sure what to do. We couldn't go to the hospital or anything, we just had to wait. I went in my room, on a sort of autopilot, and prayed for my friend, Jenny, that she would be ok. I remember getting the distinct impression that she would not be ok. Then the distinct impression that it was better this way, that for her to live would have meant incredible suffering and loss of capacity, a crippled life in many ways more painful than an early-aborted one. I felt a strange sense of peace.

Sure enough, about 10 minutes later I got another call. Jenny had died in surgery. They couldn't save her.

I didn't go to school for a couple of days. I remember walking to the swamp (now called "wetlands") near my house, finding groves of trees to hide in and cry. I looked in the water and counted crawdads. I passed time. I disappeared to the house of an older boy I was seeing in the next town, sat on his porch swing, stared into the distance, let him kiss me, laughed while he did. He asked why I was laughing and I couldn't explain.

I went to the school for an hour one day because there was a grief counselor coming for all of Jenny's friends. We met in a mysterious classroom I'd never seen before, in the administration building. A bunch of kids I'd never met before were there, along with people I knew to be her friends. Surely she had friends I didn't know, but it felt like some of them just wanted to get out of class, were just curious about what was going on. rubbernecking, essentially.

Various people talked about their feelings in the session. I remember the counselor kept urging us to set up a scholarship fund in her name. It started to annoy me. It almost seemed like she was more interested in the scholarship fund than helping us work through our grief. I remember thinking, "none of us have any money, lady. We're not trying to change the world. We're just trying to get our own lives back together." I can see why she suggested it now. Trying to get us involved in a productive way to express our grief. But I was already the president of the drama club, the junior publicity officer, the chairman of the Junior Prom, the lead in the school play, the volunteer coordinator for the battered women's shelter children's program, in the school chamber choir, and in a bunch of other clubs and organizations. I wasn't interested in taking on a new project, just managing the ones I already had on my plate.

By the time the funeral rolled around, I had cried enough tears that I was ready to stop. It was an open-casket funeral, and my first time seeing a body. Her famous, long, curly blonde locks had been shaven from her head, apparently in a last-ditch effort to drain the fluid from her brain. Her head was covered with a blue and white polka-dot scarf that didn't match her dress. Her lips were sewn together funny, so that she didn't look like herself. Her face was swollen, there were bruises here and there that the mortician had attempted to cover up, her chin sagged in a way that only the dead could have. I remember looking at her body thinking, "that is not my friend. Jenny is not in there." It was the single best moment of the grieving process for me, and I understood then why people do open caskets.

My friends were nervous to go look at her. I took a couple of them in, one by one, to look at the body. They cried, as I hadn't.

I noticed on the program that one of the pall-bearers was Jenny's cousin, a boy named Michael who was our age, and had been my first reciprocated love-interest as a pre-teen. We had met at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk on a youth trip while he was visiting Jenny one summer. We wrote letters back and forth for a while. She told me he liked me, which was virtually inconceivable to me, and endlessly exciting. He lived far away, though, and I never saw him again. I tried to recognize him among the boys and men carrying the casket, but couldn't tell which one he was. He probably wouldn't have recognized me either. I thought about asking around to find him later, but it somehow seemed inappropriate, under the circumstances. What was I going to say to him? "Remember me? Do you still want to hook it up? I can drive now." Now I sort of wish I had found him, expressed my condolences or something. But at the time I couldn't think very far beyond the fact that we'd once had a frivolous flame.

I cried again at Jenny's funeral, and it was the last time I cried for her. I was amazingly efficient at dealing with my grief all in a few days' time. Disturbingly efficient, I felt. I was over being sad, but not over being guilty. I felt guilty for not calling her. I thought I was somehow responsible. She'd just asked me to call and hang out. If I had called her, we probably would have hung out that night, and it never would have happened. It was all my fault.

I've since gotten over this illusion -- I think most people close to her experienced feeling like they were supposed to have intervened that night somehow. But remnants of guilt lingered for a long long time. I felt guilty for not being a better friend over the years. Guilty for drifting away in recent times. Guilty for not stopping to talk to her in the hallway that last time, or any other day before that. I felt guilty for underappreciating her friendship. For taking her for granted. For not thanking her for being my friend when I was the new kid, desperately needing acceptance. I felt guilty for still being here, not nearly as good a person as she, while she was gone. I'm not sure I don't still feel remnants of some of these things.

I remember seeing Jenny's sister sometimes after the accident. I never knew what to say. About a year later she said something about how it's still really hard, but the family knows Jenny is in a better place. I remember thinking that I simply couldn't fathom living the horror they lived through -- so much so that I preferred not to think about it.

Since Jenny's death I've lost a few grandparents, none of whom I was extremely close to. I cried then for my parents, more than anything. My paternal grandfather's funeral was almost a celebratory family reunion for me, greeting cousins I hadn't seen in many years but had loved as a child. My boyfriend once lost his brother. A casual friend died of cancer in my early 20s. Another killed in a car accident in my late 20s. But at 33, Jenny remains my closest brush with death. It was so long ago now that I feel like I don't remember what it's like. I'm left only with impressions and vague memories. When I see someone lose someone close, I am devastated for them, realizing that I cannot imagine what it's like.

Memory is kind, like that. It edits out the parts you can't live with forever, and leaves you with a general idea of what went on. Memory is a lot like a PG movie, actually. It suggests the horrible and evil things that happen so that you get the point, but it doesn't leave you with the shocking anguish and detail that you experience at the time. This is my sole comfort when I think about the fact that someday I will lose someone really close to me. I can't imagine going through it. I can only imagine the other side, and suppose that as life moves on, the shock will remain behind me, with only the flavor of that time lingering throughout my future. Enough to give me the experience to build on, not enough to drag me down.

Family Dinner

2008-01-12T00:04:00.000-08:00

Invited by Sunstone to muse on a theme, I'm taking a crack at it. Any thoughts on the writing or strengths or weaknesses of the following are welcome:

In my college years, I came home for Thanksgiving one fall along with all my siblings. As my older brother asked for the stuffing, he was reminded that there were onions in it, and so he wouldn’t like it (he was famously opposed to onions in his food as a child). He persisted in asking, eventually blurting in a frustrated tone, “I like onions now, okay? That was, like, ten years ago! People change! I... LIKE... ONIONS... NOW!” It was clear that he'd tried to communicate this before, but old habits die hard, and the reputation seemed to follow him anyway. His outburst was funny and awkward and surprising, but we finally passed him the plate.

It reminded me how hard it is to change when those around you expect you to stay the same. That same weekend I noticed the difficulty of acting like an adult around my family. To this day, when we get together, all the siblings seem to revert to certain childhood roles and habits. In many ways it’s tons of fun, but I’m also often turned off by my own tendency to be funny, flippant, and bossy around my family. I act the same way I did when I was 17, despite the fact that I don’t act that way as an independent adult. When I'm with the whole family I cannot seem to stop myself, even though I recognize it happening.

This, to me, gets at the heart of the purpose of forgiveness. The Sunday-School-vogue it seems is to talk about the real purpose of forgiveness being for you, the forgiver: to free you of the burden of a grudge or ill-will. But I think this happy byproduct is really secondary to the real point. As with most of Jesus Christ’s teachings, our first and foremost concern is that of others, not the self. The most important reason for forgiveness is not so that we can continue our happy-go-lucky lives unfettered by the burdens of the local sinner, but so that he can. My own experience in something as simple as a family gathering is evidence that it’s extremely difficult to behave differently than expected by those around you. Despite moments of enlightenment, it’s very hard not to believe the subtle and unspoken suggestions by others about who you are, what you are worth, and what you will become. It’s one of the reasons “bad” kids sometimes stay bad, criminals often stay criminals, abused children frequently grow up to choose abuse.

Jesus Christ knows that if he wants his lost sheep back, he needs all of us. He needs us to expect the best of each other, to honor the divinity in each other, to treat each other as though we’ve already moved on from our hang-ups. He needs us to keep passing that plate of onioney goodness, even if we think it will be refused. Because people change. And it’s our job to not only let them, but to pave their way by treating them as though they already have. He needs us to forgive.

Away with Word Verification!!

2007-12-22T00:49:00.000-08:00

Like most people, when I first started this blog I would get comments like this:

"Hey I like your blog. Check mine out at www.Isellworthlessherbalremediesforimpotence.blogspot.com."

...or some such thing. Thus, I turned on the word verification feature to weed out those annoyances. Since I've had a child, though, I've noticed how much effort it takes to type (usually one-handed). It makes me do more one-word comments. And more importantly, if there's word verification, sometimes I have foregone commenting altogether. Not on purpose really -- I just don't have the time.

So for the sake of single-handed moms everywhere, I'm getting rid of word verification! No more! It's been off for several weeks now, and I've had no solicitous comments. I think since it's not a new blog, it's no longer necessary. Anyway, I invite anyone else to try it, and let me know how it goes. Just curious if this is something we only need at the beginning when you can look up new blogs. Or if you're inclined to leave it, just enjoy the word-verification-free commenting on my blog. Feel the freedom? Can you taste it? It just makes you want to comment like crazy, don't it?

Bucking the Trends

2007-12-03T13:47:00.001-08:00

It seems like all the rage lately to go retro with our communication and/or take a sabbatical from blogging. I have a few good friends who are either taking breaks from their blogs or re-evaluating the blog's value and place and how personal one should be, etc. It's understandable, really. You can absolutely bear your soul to the world (literally) and think that everyone is going to come read and post all kinds of supportive comments and stuff... and then maybe nobody does. When Jared & I first started posting about cancer we had something like 450 hits a week. As the drama leveled out, most of those have moved on with their lives and we get just a few comments here and there now (maybe we've failed to capture the imaginations of our family and friends, but how entertaining do we have to make our lives sound to keep our friends interested?)

When we all started blogging, I hated it. I didn't have time to keep up and felt like I was on the outs if I hadn't read every word of every friend's blog (and people were posting lengthy ruminations daily, it seemed). Now, though, I really love blogging (possibly partially due to my using a reader now). It's a way to keep in touch at our own pace, on our own time, however much we're able, however personal we do or don't want to be. But I, too, struggle with having multiple blogs with various levels of vulnerability, etc. And recently, one of the sabbatical-taking friends and I started emailing -- actually e-mailing personal messages -- and I realized that I was able to say things I never would have written here. At least initially.

So in an attempt to revitalize the personal nature of this blog, I'm posting an excerpt of my email to her, responding to how I'm feeling about things and if I'm doing okay with everything going on in my life:

I'm really doing pretty well with things. Jared's on the mend and things are returning to normal, so I'm just trying to catch up on stuff and figure out what Normal Life With Baby is really supposed to be like. I'm looking forward to holidays and trying not to get carried away with all the things I think I'm going to be able to do. In fact, if anything, I'm feeling a little like I've missed something here. People have sent me books, articles, essays, etc written by people who had cancer, or were close to someone who did, writing all about What They Learned or How They Changed or How Their Outlook On Life Is Altered. They talk big. They talk like cancer was this big epiphany which caused them to question everything and turned their world upside down and helped them find God and caused all kinds of personal growth and made them start foundations to help starving babies and made them realize How Alive They Really Are and brought them peace within their souls and goodwill toward all men and world peace and stuff. Me? I'm just kinda trying to hold my marriage together and make sure I feed my baby enough. Cancer was hard. IS hard. still. Right now I'm in the aftermath, and there's a lot more cleaning up to do than I thought there would be -- probably because I didn't experience this life-changing catharsis all these more noble cancer-surviving families did. I'm not sure I'm emerging a better person. If anything, I'm emerging a little bedraggled and beat up and cynical and desperate to reclaim an innocence I think I may have lost -- but I'm holding out hope.

So... you know... other than feeling a little inadequate, life is pretty good these days.

If you still read this blog, I'd love to know...

Speaking of that last post...

2007-11-17T15:32:00.000-08:00

It's a sucky position to be in, hoping someone else will be more kind than you have been, throwing your conscience at the mercy of the rest of humanity.

It occurs to me that different people can think very different things of us based on the moment they interface with us. One time I was driving Jared home from a doctor's appointment. Mind you, this particular appointment is every two weeks, we have to drive across town during rush-hour, and I have to drive because he's doped up on all kinds of drugs. The appointment itself is only for a shot, and takes less than five minutes, but it takes an hour and a half of driving to get there and back. In crappy traffic. I hate it. It drives me crazy. I have a sick husband and an impatient baby in the car and I just want everyone to get out of my way so I can get home already!

So this one time I was taking backroads (read: through town, stopping at every traffic light on every block) and this guy started crossing the street when the hand was flashing -- you know: the hand that means "if you're not already walking, don't start now because the light is about to turn." He even had a limp, so he was going slow and was not very far when my light turned, and I had to wait for him. I revved my engine a little in my impatience. Jared had enough wits about him to wave at the guy and tell him, "you're ok!" through the window before he turned and chastised me, "what the heck are you doing?! Why'd you go and do that?" I mean, he was right. I'm revving my engine at some poor guy with a limp because I don't want to wait a few more seconds?! People in cars can be so lazy and inconsiderate (I learned this during my bike-commuter days).

I felt bad about the pedestrian incident, and resolved not to be so lame. So later in that same drive I was at another intersection and I merrily waited for some folks to cross. A couple with a stroller was lagging behind, but I gave them that little "go ahead" wave you give, and they gratefully went ahead.

The limping guy probably thinks I'm a complete b****. The stroller couple think I'm a really nice person. And I'm sure this pattern appears elsewhere in my associations. Some people observe me doing really stupid and inconsiderate things. Others see me doing only really great, nice, kind things. Jared sees it all, like in that drive, and everything probably cancels itself out.

But I wish Jared (and everyone else) could see me as my newly resolved considerate-to-pedestrians driver. It's bites, kinda, that my past has to haunt me like that.

I think this is one of the most important and overlooked purposes of the principle of forgiveness. Yes, you free yourself of a grudge. Yes, you shouldn't judge others. But I think the real reason we need to forgive each other is to give each other the benefit of the doubt when we make positive changes in our lives. It's hard to feel like a truly considerate driver with Jared in the car if I know he's thinking to himself, "she's just doing that because she feels bad about being a jerk earlier." If I could find a way to wipe his memory and/or judgment, I could decide that "from here on out, I'm going to be considerate to pedestrians." And I could really be that, and own it, and be proud of it.

To the Little Old Man in the Shiny Red Car

2007-11-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry! I'm sorry I honked at you! It's just... I had to slam on my brakes when you turned into my lane. You were tentative and... well... slow, and you probably weren't sure which lane you were supposed to be in because you were straddling both of them for a bit, weaving back and forth. Maybe it was a borrowed car and you were not really comfortable driving it. Maybe you don't drive very often. But I didn't think of that at the time.

See, we were in Lake Oswego, and the red car... well... it doesn't look like a little-old-man-car. I thought for all the world that you were some high-maintenance, self-centered, Lake-Oswegan, middle-aged woman holding her cell phone in the bejeweled fingers of one hand and the steering wheel in the other, oblivious to the rest of the world, not taking the mental energy to consider the other drivers around her. When I passed you and turned to give you a dirty look, it was only then I realized that you were just a sweet little old guy driving an uncharacteristically showy vehicle, and you were probably intimidated enough by the road and all the whipper-snappers around you before I had to go and do something so rude as to honk at you. You probably could have done without that. But I couldn't say so. There's no opposite of "the finger" really. So I'm sorry. And I can only hope someone else was more kind.

An Open Letter to The Tomato (pronounced "Teh-MAH'-tow" of course)

2007-11-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Tomato,

I'm sorry. I know, I've been distant. It's been a while now. We used to be so close, you and I. I loved the way you were simultaneously tart, sweet, and savory. I loved your lush, red, meaty flesh, jewel-like and glistening. You added moisture and zing to an otherwise unexciting sandwich. You added vibrant color to a drab salad. You added the feeling of freshness to an overcooked taco. There was really nothing I felt couldn't be improved upon by the addition of you.

But then I was pregnant for a while. Your once-luscious flesh felt mealy and tepid. Your skin seemed too thin and sinewy - always rolling up and getting in the way, or preventing my teeth from breaking through and thus causing them to mash you rather than achieve a tidy bite. Your watery insides seemed too leaky, making your neighbors soggy. And then there are those squishy little jelly-covered seeds, squirreling around in my mouth or crawling through my pasta like weevils. Your once-beloved flavor became all wrong, a zest out of place on an otherwise comfortable grilled cheese, a fruit flavor among vegetables (you have masqueraded to many as a vegetable; I knew the truth, but loved you anyway). I began to favor the firmer and more subtle avacado, the zesty red pepper, the crisp romaine.

I thought it didn't mean anything, my cheating, at first, and assumed it wouldn't last long. When no longer pregnant I figured I just needed time alone. It was winter, after all, and you really were mealy and flavorless, a sawdusty February version of your July self. I anticipated summer, planted you in May, waited anxiously for the day when I could harvest you from my own garden, taste the gloriousness that I remembered from two summers previous, and re-ignite our old love and passion, for a second honeymoon together.

It just didn't happen the way I imagined. I tried. I really did. Early Girl, Willamette, Yellow Pear. I made a valiant attempt with my previous favorite, the Cherokee Purple. Beautiful, but the same spark just wasn't there. I had a wild but short fling with the Brandywine. I even entertained the Striped Roman and a yellow heirloom. For a short while I thought it was happening. But really, I was fooling myself. A few of you fell to the ground, uneaten, sometimes. I shamefully secreted you to the compost bin, and felt guilty.

Today I was in the grocery store and there you were looking up at me as you always have. I regarded you for a moment, remembering that I had none of you at home. You have long been a constant staple in my kitchen; I would never be without you or you without me. But... looking at you and considering today, I decided to face the truth: I have no need of you right now. I just... I'm focusing on other things in my palette. I just need some space. I think... I think... I think I've fallen out of love with you. So here's to hoping someday things will turn around for us. But for now...

...Goodbye...

Wildest Dreams II

2007-10-17T01:12:00.000-07:00

It's funny. The last post has generated perhaps more personal conversations than any other. Some people commented online, others talked to me on the phone or in person. I've just had so many followup thoughts and input and fallout that I decided I need to do an actual followup post, in order to continue the thought experiment. And please note, this is a thought experiment for me. I wasn't writing things that I believe are irrefutably true. I am just experimenting with ideas and saying things out loud to see if they feel right or ring true to me. Or lead me closer to understanding something. (note: this post incorporates lots of semi-organized thoughts and it's pretty long. If you're not that interested, it's cool)

Disclaimer: I do need to clarify that this thought experiment is not necessarily about my prevailing and dominant feelings. It is only one part of me that is rolling eyes over the Wildest Dreams list. Another, very conscious part of me is saying "Go Moonsoul!!" In fact, I would say the eye-rolling didn't even really kick in until a list was requested of ME. So this has nothing to do with whether she can get that 2 million dollars or not. Like I said in my last post, I've actually seen pretty amazing accomplishments out of her, and I doubt her nothing.

I'm amazed at how many people identified with me on one level or another. Honestly, I thought some people would think I was being pretty lame. Instead, I've had a number of people almost thanking me for posting.

Since I posted I've realized this is far from a new issue for me. If anyone remembers the monologue entitled "Grown Up" from my CD Release concert (I'm sure you don't, but I do), it is a discussion about Dreams vs. Reality, in which I assert that I'm not giving up on my dreams. That was 5 years ago! In fact, that same monologue was also inspired by MoonSoul, when I barely knew her (Wow, Moonsoul. Way to inspire). Anyway, I was struggling with these issues back then too. Also, if you look at my post just a couple before this where I talk about there being a time and a season for all things, you can see that I'm dealing with these things there too. One of the thoughts I've had since posting is, "for heaven's sake, Skye, sort it out and get over it already!" Am I seriously going to be hung up on this one issue forever? (you know people who have a pet issue, and it bugs them their whole lives it seems? Like my mother. She is constantly saying, "this year I'm going to try and not schedule myself so much so I have some time for myself." or, "I just need to learn to do things for myself once in a while." She may make progress, but she still says that year after year after year. Anyway, I kind of want to learn my thingy and move on.)

After many thoughts and conversations, here is the stuff which I think is closest to the truth:

As I said, I've apparently been wrestling with this issue for years. In one way I think I should make a decision about how to live my life and move on, as I said above. But I also realize that we daily make decisions about what to do with our time and what goals to pursue. I can't expect, especially now that I have a child, to make one decision to doggedly follow a pursuit and just do that forever, not taking into consideration the feelings of others or repercussions to my family. I have to constantly be taking the temperature of things and adjusting accordingly. Maybe this is why I still and will continue to struggle with this idea. In order to not let go of dreams I have to do a constant balancing act. Like many things, I believe it is in managing the paradox that you find true happiness and self – in this case, a balance of selflessness and selfishness. So how could I really expect to just move on without constantly thinking about this issue and trying to figure out the right balance? I don't want to be lazy about it. I don't want to lose myself in mothering and wife-ing. Nor do I want to give up any of my relationship with my child or husband in my pursuit of self-fulfillment. So.

And as for my sensitivity, there's that recent post about there being a time and a season for all things. In that post I was reminding myself that I had done many great things for myself, and now I am entering a time in my life where I will - yes - give up on certain of those dreams for a time. As a friend told me on the phone this week, "you're the classic over-achiever. You don't feel good about yourself unless you're doing a million things," which is true. Some people need encouragement to get off their duffs and DO something with themselves. But some people don't need that, and maybe, in fact, need the opposite: reminding that it's ok to not do everything in the world you're capable of. So it's something I try to remind myself of, in order to not be so selfish all the time (another of my constant battles).

The Times and Seasons post was an effort to let go of some personal expectations and close a chapter of my life for a time, in order to do other things. But I can't pretend that is easy or painless for me. It's actually quite difficult, even though it's what I really want. The Wildest Dreams list, I think, opened a freshly closed wound, in a way. I know it wasn't meant in any way that should have done that, but nevertheless, when I think of my wildest dreams, I AM thinking of things I have chosen to leave by the wayside for now. And so somewhere deep inside I couldn't bring myself to write them down. It would have been like that scene in Harry Potter, where he writes "I must not tell lies" and it cuts into his skin each time. I could just imagine cutting into my heart with every line item that I know I won’t pursue right now.

So now I’ve decided that what I've learned from this is that I really DO need to write a list of dreams – but a NEW list. In my adjusting of my expectations, I need to not just leave my previous dreams by the wayside, but to also find new things to focus on that really excite me. You know: instead of switching from a positive to a negative focus, switch to another positive focus.

So here’s my first draft, in no particular order:

I teach my children to love music.
My children are happy
My children and husband feel loved by me
My children have faith in the world and people around them.
My children grow up to be well-adjusted adults who know how to have joy in their lives.
Jared becomes cancer-free and stays that way for the rest of his life.
Eventually we are able to buy life insurance
I keep a clean house
I become a great gourmet cook.
I become a great cook of healthy food.
I learn to really support my husband in what he wants to do
I am one of those people who is always willing to serve
People trust me with their feelings.
I make a difference in my community -- at church and other places -- by helping where I can, and being a person people admire
I become a journalist or writer
I find a fabulous collaborative music project to embark upon, and have tons of fun doing it.
I help Amy Pixton market her TyBooks and she makes millions of dollars on them.
I help Clayton with his CD and it becomes the most popular hymn CD among LDS people and seals his music career
I have an annual reunion with my beloved roommates from my pre-marriage days
Jared and I invest in real estate and become independently wealthy
I lose my pregnant weight and become a "hot mom"
I get 8 hours of sleep almost every night
I learn to love Jared the way he wants and deserves to be loved.
I learn to really commune with God
I learn to act consciously, and not reactively, more often

Wildest Dreams

2007-09-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently sent me an email about her "Wildest Dreams." In it she detailed all the things that she wants to happen in her life, much of it "wild" indeed, and unlikely to ever come to pass. But her enthusiasm is genuine, and I must admit that I've seen this friend accomplish many things that I thought were unrealistic and unlikely to happen at the outset. It's amazing, actually. She asked me to write my own list of wildest dreams and send it to her. And I can't bring myself to do it.

I've been somewhat surprised by my reaction to this email. I find myself rolling my inner eyes. "all that 'magic' ... and all that crazy 'creating my life' stuff... It doesn't measure up to reality. It just sometimes gets old" another friend told her. And I was surprised to find myself identifying with the friend, though I would never want to admit it.

Well, here I am, admitting it, I guess. My inner cynic is affecting this exchange too much to ignore. I don't consider myself cynical at all. In fact, I think this friend wouldn't probably say that I have inspired her significantly (which I don't say to flatter myself -- though I would be flattered -- but because I think it's relevant to the thought). Despite my personality of idealism, next to my friend, I am a complete nay-sayer at this moment. Have I always been? Is this a recent development? What is it about this that bothers me?

I don't know. So in order to sort through my psyche, I've decided to engage in a thought-experiment about it. I'm going to brainstorm and explore possibilities, none or all of which may be true.

here we go.

Why don't I want to write a list of my wildest dreams and pursue them? Possible reasons:

Disillusionment: I've already tried following my wildest dreams. I believed in myself every bit. I enlisted lots of people to help out. I worked my a** off. And I was really really good at what I did. It didn't work out. Not because I'm not good enough or didn't work hard enough or anything. Sometimes the stars just don't line up right. I mean, when you're following something that isn't likely to happen, it's entirely possible that it won't happen, right? So what's the big deal. Still, now I am struggling with what to do with those dreams. I haven't played a gig since Seville was born, over 8 months. I'm not ready to say I've quit, but I don't have tons of enthusiasm to keep going. It seems like it might be more peaceful for my life to just admit that, hey, sometimes dreams don't come true. But is also feels like a colossal waste to stop. Partly because it's like letting go of a long-term boyfriend whom you have invested so much in, and partly just because I really believe I have something great to share with the world. A world that will never hear it.

New Perspective: My perspective on fantasy and romance has changed, generally. I am a big believer now that life is beautiful, romantic, and miraculous just as it is, even without all kinds of drama and fantasy involved. I think too many people are looking for drama and fantasy, and I think they hold their own happiness hostage by being unable to accept the beauty that is their life, the blessing that is their circumstances, the joy that is that guy/girl who isn't perfect, but would make a great companion. (disclaimer: the friend in question is absolutely not guilty of this, for those who know who I mean). I'm not sure that coming up with a bunch of far-fetched "dreams" is going to improve my quality of life. Rather, I prefer to rejoice in what I have, am, live. I really feel strongly about this, as it's something I've learned mostly in the past couple of years. There is much excitement in pursuing bigger and better and more and different. But there is much peace in being still and loving what you have.

Competition: I am a competitive woman by nature. I have tried for years to calm down my competitive side, but sometimes it surfaces. For example, I almost always have to fight feelings of resentment if I hear of another female folk-singer having success at all. Silly, I know. And embarrassing. But if I'm going to be totally honest about myself here, I have to admit that. So maybe part of me simply resents my friend for doing what I am not: following unrealistic dreams. And for accomplishing what I am not: seeing some of those dreams become reality.

Overwhelmed: I am a bit overwhelmed these days. I have a husband with cancer, a baby who is struggling with eating and waking me up for hours at night, I'm sleep deprived, fat, tired, squeezing a budget, and generally exhausted and overwhelmed all the time. In some ways I think it's just that the idea that I should be trying to do any more than I'm already doing just makes me want to smash some china and cry. I would be happy right now if I could get dinner on the table each night and have clean clothes once in a while. Let alone following some "wildest dreams" nonsense. Maybe the idealist in me is just really struggling with the reality that I live, and the fact that day-to-day life is consuming every ounce of my energy, leaving nothing surplus for the fun and exciting stuff.

Gratitude: Maybe I don't want to have wild dreams anymore. Maybe I just want to be happy with what I have.

That's all I am coming up with for now. Maybe I'll wake up in the middle of the night and think of something else, but for now I guess I'll sit with those thoughts. And see if they lead me anywhere.

Nekkid

2007-08-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

Recently one of my brothers was on his way to an ultimate frisbee game straight from work. He passes my house on the way, and often stops here to change. I was talking to him on the phone and he said he might just skip it tonight: he had just looked in his trunk and only had his shoes, but no shorts.

"Jaaaared!" I called across the house. "Do you have any shorts Bryce can wear for ultimate frisbee?" Jared did, of course, and I offered them to Bryce so he could still play.

He still hesitated, "I mean, I don't have a shirt either."

"I'm sure Jared has a t-shirt you can wear. Heck, I have a t-shirt you can wear. Come over!" I protested.

"Well... uh... it gets worse than that." At which point I had to snicker. No, actually, I laughed out loud. Then I said, "I could ask the question, but I'm not sure if you would even want to borrow any... thing else." He confirmed.

This caused me to wonder. I personally have either loaned or borrowed skivvies from a girlfriend or sister in need in the past. And I know that other women do this too, if need be. Not that it's probably anybody's favorite thing, but it's not that big of a deal either. We have washing machines, after all. Men, on the other hand, I think would generally rather die a slow, painful death than share anything that intimate.

When we were backpacking last May, the subject of sleeping naked came up. I asked Jared if he would ever borrow another guy's sleeping bag if he knew the guy had slept in it naked. "Never in a thousand million years" was his response. Which is funny to me. I mean, I understand, but it still makes me laugh. Men are so phobic about contact with other men.

Death Cab for Cutie has a song about "brothers in a hotel bed," their point being that two men in a bed will sleep stiff as boards and as far away from each other as possible. Me an' the girls? We just cuddle up together. It seems healthy and good, to me, to get physical attention and affection outside of sexual relationships. Sometimes I wonder if men and women are different this way because for men, physicality is inherently sexual, and so no contact is without connotations, or whether our culture so teases "sissy-boys" that men have become paranoid about what would otherwise be a healthy way for them to experience physical touch. Are men so sexual because it's the only kind of contact society allows them? Or does society only allow it because men are, truly, just more sexual about contact?

hmmm....

For All Things a Time and a Season

2007-08-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

With marriage and having a baby comes a new lifestyle. I made all sorts of vows to be the kind of parent who wouldn't slow down, who wouldn't make others bend to my children's "naptimes," who would still travel, still go backpacking, still be hot, still gig on the weekends, still do many amazing things.

But my ideas about that are changing (as usually happens when you predict what kind of person you will be in a situation you really know nothing about). Yes, I could be all those things. But at what cost? Am I really more concerned about my seeing Machu Picchu or about Seville's happiness and well being.

There is a time and a season for all things, and I'm starting to realize that my life will be fuller, happier, more peaceful, more loving, more fulfilling if I simply accept that the time for certain things has passed, and a new time has come. A time for certain self-less sacrifices. But they aren't really sacrifices as much as I thought. What you gain is far more enlivening than world travel.

I am grateful, at this time, that I lived a pretty full single life (and childless married life). I can say I did lots of things. I have:

Been to London, Paris, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Alaska, New York
Backpacked a fair amount in Southern Utah and the Northwest
Been sent boxed roses
Been taken to the Opera
Gone on a date to Pier 49 and Ghirardelli Square, having ridden a train, a trolley, a limo, and a car all in one evening.
Stayed up and watched the sunrise with a boyfriend
Been kissed on the beach
Dated a man almost 20 years my senior
Dated a younger man
Competed in a Latin Dancing competition
Won a snowboarding contest
Owned a surfboard, a windsurfer, rock climbing gear, snowboarding gear
Stayed up until after 4 am with beloved girlfriends talking about men
Had a long-distance relationship
Played a regular ladies-night gig at a club downtown
Become intimately acquainted with the sweat-lodge, the pipe ceremony, and the Peyote Ceremony
Dated college athletes
Dated college drop-outs
Loved a man with long hair
Been taken on a trip to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival
Gone mountain-biking on Bainbridge Island
Had a broken heart
Broken some hearts (oops.)
Had real girlfriends
Rafted the Paquare River
Climbed Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood
Fit into size 6 shiny red pleather pants, and looked good (6 is pretty skinny if you're 5'10")
Had a raging New Years Eve party at my house
Had a record/production deal and a manager for my music
Sung the national anthem at an NBA game
Played the Crystal Ballroom, the Rose Festival, MusicFest Northwest, Been on a "Tour"
Had a drink bought for me by an Oscar-nominated movie star
Got a college degree
Been camping in Alaska

For these things I have to thank Dale, Mike, Eric, John, Clif, Jared, Emily, Lumina, Michelle, Aimee, Andy, my Dad, Lisa, Jeremy, my Mom, Alex, Graham Greene, Arlin, Fernando, Mitchell, Dave, Tara, Sam, and myself.

Can I really complain at this point? I don't think so.

What have you done that you can check off your list?

Surgery Day

2007-07-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

I think there must be a requirement that anesthesiologists are funny. I've never met an anesthesiologist that wasn't joking around while going through all the pre-op questions. Even Jared's college-buddy -- from whom I've never had anesthesia personally, but who is, in fact, an anesthesiologist -- is a really funny guy. Maybe it's somehow the professional version of your friendly neighborhood dealer. You go to him for your happy fix, and he is all casual and relaxed and funny and personable making you feel all relaxed about the drugs you're taking, like it's the most normal thing in the world.

***

Various nurses, doctors, and other personnel explain the procedure to us. They'll make an incision above Jared's sternum, in his neck, reach down and around from there, blah blah blah, take out a chunk of the tumor. The pathologist will take it away and biopsy it on the spot. If he has enough, he'll tell them they're o.k. to sew Jared back up. If not, he comes for another piece and tries again. Jared gets tubes down his trachea and such, but he won't remember them. He'll wake up, drink some apple juice, eat a cracker, pee, and go home. If all goes well.

***

Sitting in the pre-op area, Jared's veins are being pumped with saline solution. Measurements on the bag are in increments reading 1 through 9. 1 through 9 whats? Not milliliters. Not ounces. "Probably cc's" says Jared.

"Oh yeah," I say. "cc's." I think about that. "What are cc's anyway?" Jared shrugs. Some word they use on E.R., which is the only reason we thought of it.

***

A song comes on the speakers -- apparently they pipe music into the pre-op area, for the nurses or to calm the patients, I don't know --it's that old Paul Young song from the 80's: "every time you go away/ you take a piece of me with you."

"You should sing this song to the pathologist," I say to Jared. He laughs.

"No. I'm probably not even going to see the pathologist."

"The surgeon then! I dare you!" I probe. Jared refuses, but we chuckle at the thought. Later, after the surgeon has talked to us and is walking out of our stall, I almost sing it through the curtain, but I don't.

***

My cell phone is ringing off the hook. I know people are trying to be supportive, but for some reason I feel annoyed. That makes no sense. I guess because I can't answer my phone in the hospital, and I'd have to leave this waiting room, which I'm afraid to do, so I feel all conflicted and torn because I want to talk to people, but I can't, and I just have to keep turning my ringer off and apologize to whoever is there. I wish I could instant message everyone.

***

The waiting room is in the center of the hospital. It's small. It has other people in it sitting in chairs, reading magazines, in various stages of stress and worry, it's over air-conditioned, the television is on, the newspaper sits on the coffee table untouched, the plants are fake. Everyone here has either a furrowed brow or a blank stare; it feels like they're all smoking, but they're not.

Outside it's 75 degrees and sunny and beautiful. I go out and try to find a place to sit on the hospital grounds, but there's only a smokers' bench, complete with Smoker. I find a bus-stop across the parking lot, where I pretend that every bus that comes just isn't my bus. I stay there as long as I possibly can without feeling like I might miss the surgeon who will look for me in the waiting room -- and in the waiting room only. I call Emily Potter and say things I've been meaning to say, ask things I've been meaning to ask. I relish the diversion. 45 minutes later I know I have to get back, and in the cruelest real-life-soap-opera-to-be-continued way I have to cut off our conversation.

***

Any minute now he'll come in here and tell me Jared's diagnosis. Will he have a prognosis too? I don't know. I doubt it. Why do so many medical terms end it "nosis"?

***

He came. No diagnosis yet. I guess the pathologist feels confident he has enough tissue, but is still "cooking" as the surgeon called it. It looks consistent with lymphoma. Maybe we can get preliminary information by Friday. Probably no final diagnosis until Tuesday. Drat! I was totally expecting to know today.

***

Jared's Mom keeps calling. She's his mom. She wants to know. I have to tell her... what? That I know nothing? Yes. I have to tell her that. She's his Mom. But I don't feel like talking to anyone. Anyone but this blog. ...Hello blog. How are you? Fine, you say? Very good. Oh, me? Why, how kind of you to ask. I'm fine too. Actually, I've been better, but I'm getting by...

***

All my friends are at a barbecue, watching a movie on an outdoor screen. My baby is with them. I keep forgetting that we can't just go over there when we're done here at the hospital. If there were longer to wait, I'd go over there by myself. Jared would want me to. But I never know when they'll come. And besides, what kind of a perverse wife goes and barbecues with her friends while her husband is having surgery next to his heart?

***

I was thinking, "hospitals have cafeterias," so I'd be fine for food. But I'm afraid to leave this little waiting room! What if they come for me while I'm gone? What if I trade a rubbery grilled cheese and room-temperature pickle for my chance to see Jared again? And if I missed them, what would I do? It's 7:30pm and all the personnel desks are empty. The waiting room desk, the information desk, the admitting desk, the day surgery desk. An occasional nurse with a clipboard walks by. Men of non-European descent wearing scrubs are pushing carts around the hallways bearing various items -- towels, blankets, linens, laundry, files, cleaning supplies, body parts for all I know.

I get a text-message that my baby is finally eating (she had been refusing before -- apparently she's become a breast-milk snob. She won't drink formula, and now I guess she won't drink frozen breast-milk either. Only the best and freshest for baby. She takes after her food-snob mother, I guess). Anyway, I'm relieved. And I wish I was eating.

***

My Mom calls. She's been out of town, hard to reach, and it's good to hear from her. I give her the update.

She has this habit of cutting off conversations before I'm ready to go. She's not unnatural about it or anything. I think she must just feel that the conversation is over, I've given her all the information I'm going to, and so she says something like, "I'll be keeping you in my thoughts," and suddenly she's saying goodbye. And while I'm always a little taken aback, and I often want to say, "wait, I wasn't done talking to you!" I don't really know what else I would say. If she were to say, "Oh, I'm sorry, what else did you want to talk about?" I would have to think about it and say, "I guess... nothing." And that would be the truth. I think the thing is sometimes you just want to talk to your Mom. Sometimes you just want to feel like she's paying attention to you and she's there, and it doesn't matter what you say. And so once the substance of our conversation is finished, I really have no logical reason to keep her on the phone, except that I don't want to hang up.

***

A man and a woman just walked past. I heard them before I could see them. She was saying, "Oh my God," quavery, under her breath. When I saw her she was crying, her hand was over her mouth, she looked shell-shocked. The man's arm was around her shoulders as he walked her toward the exit.

Reality Check: I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo grateful that Jared's cancer is a treatable one. Highly treatable -- assuming it's what we think it is. It's easy to think of all this as so dramatic painful scary awful, to expect people to pity us, to pity ourselves. But, really, this is not so bad as all that. There are far worse things that could happen. I'm so glad that my surgeon came and told me that everything went fine, that it looks like lymphoma, that I'll see Jared in an hour or so and then we'll go home and soon we'll arrange treatment. I'm so glad I'm not the lady crying down the hallway with my hand over my mouth and "Oh, my God" echoing through my head, anointing my trembling lips.

***

It's waaaaay past the time I expected to get to see Jared again. The anesthesiologist said he's as healthy a person as he ever sees, so he expected things to go smoothly, and quickly. We're not past the normal-sick-old person timeline. But I didn't expect the normal-sick-old timeline. Where are they? He's... fine... right?

***

They forgot about me!

A guy in scrubs just came in asking for someone else (who wasn't here). I said I wasn't Tina, but did he know anything about a Jared E****? "The the guy with the biopsy?" he asked, pointing to his neck where they cut Jared open. "Yeah," I replied. Turns out Jared had been in a regular room for some time. He asked when his wife could come in, and they said any time, but no one notified his wife. grrrrrrr....

***

I got pulled over on the way home. Figures. Apparently making a quick divert action to the exit to avoid piling up traffic is not really considered safe. But talk about having the ultimate sob story! "My husband has cancer and I just picked him up from the hospital and we need to get his medicine right away, officer!" Naw. I didn't really say all that. But I did mention the hospital and pharmacy part, and he could see that Jared wasn't looking too hot. He didn't even check my license and registration. Just told me to be careful and sent me on my way.

***

I get a call on my way home from one of my best friends. She was going to bring us dinner tomorrow night. Apparently she went to the doctor today and found out she's dilated to a four (she's pregnant). They put her on the strictest of bed rest. She has 7 month old twins. She's only 19 weeks along, which means she'll be in bed until October and can't take care of her babies. Her husband goes to work every day at 4am. How on earth is she going to manage? Can you even hire help at 4am? I started making all sorts of statements about going over all the time, and she had to remind me that I, myself, have a sick husband and I'll probably be needing to prepare for the long haul and take care of him. Oh yeah. I forgot.

Drama all around.

People with Babies, Pregnant Friends, Parent-friends, Grandparents, etc...

2007-07-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

Time for my personal soapbox of... Products I Would Endorse For Free Because They're The Best and Everyone Should Know About Them. Up first....

TyBooks!

These are the coolest coolest things! They are indestructible baby books that feel like paper, but can be chewed and crinkled so babies love to play with them! Seville has had a prototype for a few weeks and they're her favorite thing. My sister-in-law just launched the company this week and they have some introductory prices at www.TyBookInc.com. They are well worth the price. Here are excerpts of their announcement:

Anybody who's ever watched a baby knows what will happen with anything he gets his little hands on--he'll put it straight to his mouth! Books are no exception. In fact, paper seems to be a favorite material for chewing, crinkling, crunching, wrinkling, sucking on, and playing with. Unfortunately, paper books (even board books) can get soggy and come apart, not only destroying the book but becoming a potential choking hazard for baby. Don't you wish you could let your precious little one delight in exploring books the way she'd like?

Now you can!

TyBook introduces a revolutionary new baby book invented by a mother of triplets who wanted to share books with her babies, hassle-free. They are water-proof, tear-resistant, and baby-durable, making them the perfect books for babies who "read" with their little hands and mouths.

Tear-resistant - can hold up to baby's tugging and pulling (see "Dare to Tear")
Waterproof - can be chewed and sucked on
Simple stitch binding allows them to slide easily into a diaper bag
Easy-clean with water and soap if needed
Great baby-shower gifts!
Age-appropriate, wordless pictures to encourage dialogic reading
Featuring illustrations by artist, Kaaren Pixton
Meets ASTM safety standards

Grown Up II

2007-07-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight I read, in response to a lamentation about "growing up" (excerpts):

"Where childhood is simple multiple-choice, adulthood is an open-ended essay question. Where childhood is your heart soaring at the site of the City's skyline, adulthood is being initiated into the architect's secret and building skyscrapers of your own. Where childhood is staring in gape-mouthed wonder at the magic of the world, adulthood is the opportunity to see your enchantment, your candleglow reflected in someone else's eyes.

Childhood is a wonderful time for discovering this life. If you play it right, though, adulthood is an even better time for taking life and creating of it whatever you will. For the living, adulthood isn't forgetting the magic of childhood... it's making it yours."

~name withheld for now

I was thinking about Vermont Villa and Seville Seraglio, the two houses I lived in during what I consider The Best Years of My Life, the most internally refining of times, the renaissance of my soul. I was thinking about the women I lived with, who reached deeper than had any man (much to my surprise and despite my resistance), woke me to the possibilities, unearthed the truest and most pure from within, loved me into being.

Several months after living together at Vermont Villa, we moved to the new house, Seville Seraglio. While I have the fondest memories of both places, their essence was each different, and after I got married and we all went our separate ways, I often thought of the move to Seville as the beginning of the end.

Distanced, now, by three years, a husband, a baby, a cat, and more outward concerns than The Great "I" that consumed most of my thoughts back then, I remember things differently, and I think the above quote gives voice to what I now see as the real difference between the two places.

Our time at Vermont was innocent and pure and exciting. Our love and discovery was so new and fun. It was the gape-mouthed-wonder days for the four of us. But with the move we took things to a new level. I have long melded the two houses together in my mind, but I realized only tonight that all the "Performance Art Nights," all the reaching to new forms of expression, all of our sharing our passion and experiences with other friends happened only in Seville. Vermont was the magic of childhood and discovery, and Seville was truly making the magic ours.

The grown-up experience of bearing our souls to others came with some pitfalls. We could probably all four say that there were things we didn't do right, or well, or with the purest of intentions or the purest of love. Or maybe I am just speaking for myself. In any case, it was imperfect. I'm not even sure we could have made it last together, had I not married and left anyway.

BUT, this is the thing... all of my most most most fond memories happened at Seville. The most edifying things we did together happened at Seville. The things I grew the most from happened at Seville. Our souls found expression in art and performance and friends and novels and music... at Seville. Seville was not just the feeling and experience of soul and passion, it was the actual embodiment and incarnation of it.

And now it's to another level, isn't it girls? Korea, India, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake, Boston. They are all recipients of our original lessons as goddesslings. Let's not forget. It's so easy to forget. Let's not forget.

Disaster Strikes

2007-06-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Seville was napping and I was fertilizing my roses. I use an organic fish fertilizer, which is essentially a bottle of pureed, rotten fish-parts. The stuff is rank. My mom and I have joked many a-time about how you can still smell it on your hands 3 days after using it. You water it down to a tablespoon or so per gallon of water, and it just reeks -- and YOU reek if you touch even the watered-down version, no matter how many times you wash your hands.

So, anyway, I'm wandering around my yard fertilizing and decide to cut through my house instead of going around the side. I walk in my front door, and SWOOSH, the bottle slips out of my hands, hits the floor, goes CRACK, splits open, and dead rotten pureed fish splatters and oozes out into a big puddle all through my entryway. "CRAP!" I shouted. This is the concentrated stuff, not the watered down version that makes your hands smell for merely 3 days. I ran like the wind downstairs to fetch every towel I could find that I would mind throwing away. After wiping up as much as I could with raggy towels (while trying not to vomit from the stench), my definition of "what kind of towel I don't mind throwing away" changed, and I grabbed just about any absorbent object I could find to get this stuff OUT OF MY HOUSE! After wiping, washing, scrubbing, mopping, spraying, washing, scrub-brushing, fingernail in the crevices-ing, washing, mopping, deoderizing, etc, you could still hardly breath to save your life if standing in the entry. Even Richard Parker (my cat) stopped dead in his tracks when attempting to cross the threshold. He paced back and forth for a while before he gave up and went downstairs.

This is my ultimate fear in life: having a weird, smelly house. You ever go to someone's house and it smells funny? And of course, you never say anything. But I always think, "Man, I'd hate it if my house smelled weird." One of the main reasons I don't want a dog is that (forgive me, my dog-owning friends) dog-owning houses almost always smell like dog. Even very classy, very clean dog houses smell like dog. I know you just get used to it, but I abhor the idea or having a house that smells gross to outsiders. And here I have managed to make my house smell like dead, rotten fish. Good one, Skye.

I ended up calling an industrial-cleaning supply company and buying this crazy enzyme/deodorizer that eats any human or animal matter (vomit, poop, urine, blood, rotten flesh) and I've used it 50 million times in different concentrations on the area. After which I showered using every soap I could find, and then put every smelly lotion in my possession on my body. I still gagged when smelling my hands last night.

But I think I may have got it out of the entryway, believe it or not. At least I can't smell it now. But I'm afraid that maybe I just got used to it throughout the afternoon. So, here is my charge to all of my in-town friends:

When you come over pleeeeeease tell me if my house smells weird! It's the only way I'll ever know for sure.

Keeping Up With Skye (& Seville & Jared)

2007-06-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

My blog has a new feature! Now you don't have to go to both my personal and family blog to see what's new. You can just look at the "Skye's Family Blog Posts" widget over there on the right. If there's one you haven't seen, you can click on it. -->

Thus I intend to stop double-posting stuff. Family stuff goes there. Personal stuff goes here. All accessible from one big happy webpage. :)

Anonymous Comments

2007-06-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I get an anonymous comment to one of my blog posts. And I see them on my friends' posts too. They are almost always negative, and very often -- or am I biased? -- grammatically incorrect, conceptually unclear, and misspelled. Okay, that part might be my imposing an overly-critical eye to people who won't fess up to who they are. But, seriously, I get annoyed. In a way I totally understand people wanting to be anonymous when they are going to say something negative. But, hey, I put myself on a limb to be personal here. If I didn't ever say anything frighteningly honest it wouldn't be interesting to read. And if you aren't willing to sign your name to something you say, maybe you shouldn't say it.

The creepy part is this: there is a limited circle of people who check and comment on my blog. Every time I get a negative "anonymous" comment, I naturally assume it's from some schmoe who just happened to stumble across my post. But in all likelihood it's actually one of my friends, whom I would never suspect could be so vitriolic. So every time it happens I invariably end up thinking about each of my friends in my mind wondering, "could it be him?" That's the part that sucks. I don't like imagining my friends saying those things. And I don't feel like I can ask any of my friends this lest I offend them (I'd be less than excited if one of my friends thought I had done it) (Except maybe not James. But I don't think James would ever feel the need to hide behind an "anonymous" tag, even if he were going to say something opinionated and un-p.c. In fact, I can only imagine James using the "anonymous" tag if he were going to say something that was p.c., boring, unremarkable and totally inoffensive.)

So... I have to assume it's strangers. Strangers who never post on my blog otherwise. Strangers who.... wait! Strangers are reading my blog? Now that's creepy.

ooooh! ooooh! I just had the creepiest thought of all! Maybe it's my husband, who never comments on here. I don't even know if he reads this. hmmmmm....

How does anyone else feel about anonymous posters. Does it bug other people too? Obviously, I "allow anonymous comments," so I think there's a place for them. But... I guess it seems like sometimes people feel that common decency isn't required if no one knows who you are. This just highlights the value, to me, of real interpersonal relationships.

Jared and I were talking the other day and I lamented that I didn't live in my childhood "hometown." I never run into high-school friends and have no around who has known me longer than about a decade. He was like, "you would want that?" We then speculated on what it must be like for some people we know who are grown up and married but attending their parents' church congregation. We both agreed we would hate it and we feel sorry for them. But it also makes me wonder if there isn't something valuable about a life-long community that we're getting away from now in our post-modernist, detached, individualistic culture. People used to grow up in a town from birth to death. People knew each other and watched each other move through phases of their lives. And along with that, people had to be careful with other people. People had to be careful of what other people thought of them. People were less inclined to go offending their neighbors unless it was for a cause they believed in. People cared about honor, responsibility, community, integrity. Sure, some of that was because of others and not from within, but does that matter so much? Isn't that how we learn?

These days everyone can hide behind something -- telephones, computers, other obligations. Everyone can move around and discard people and friendships when they're used up. Even marriages get discarded more often than not now. As if hiding behind a screen-name isn't enough, we can now hide behind an "anonymous" tag. And thus with the freedom of our newfound alienation we are alienating ourselves from each other. Is the freedom and individuality worth the cost?

A Great Injustice

2007-05-31T14:34:00.001-07:00

I have to tell you something. This is the saddest thing, and I haven't wanted to admit it, but I've decided it's true. Here goes.... my baby doesn't like it when I sing. sigh. Oh, ok, maybe that's too general a statement. She likes it when I sing "horsey horsey" or "sleep tight, sand-man's a comin'" or anything else a'capella and sweet, baby-ish. But when I sing -- I mean really sing, I mean if my guitar or my piano is involved sing -- she starts to cry. I've been trying to gradually get her used to it, but she just doesn't like it. I think the power and resonance of my voice, at its most passionate (or even just kinda passionate) sounds too much like crying or yelling to her. Maybe it's just too loud (not that can't be it, because it's even if she's on the other side of the room). For whatever reason, it's too much for her.

This makes me so sad. I always imagined singing my heart out to my little girl, and I can't do it. I can't even sing in my own house. Not when she's awake because she cries. Not when she's asleep because it wakes her up. I can't sing. I have been silenced. Because there is nothing so unbearable as doing something that makes your baby look up at you with sweet, clear blue eyes; makes her face turn downward, her eyebrows furrow; makes her bottom lip start to quiver; makes her eyes start to glisten; makes her open her mouth and start to sob. I can't do it.

And so the musician's guitars sit in their hangers collecting dust. The piano languishes toward out-of-tune. My fingers become soft as the callouses heal. Songs remain unsung. Lullabies remain unwritten. My heart continues to bust its seams without expression.

This is so unfair.

Nature Baby

2007-05-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day, we took Seville backpacking. Here she is sleeping to the sound of birds chirping, bees buzzing, a brook babbling nearby, daddy in the background hangin' out at camp. So much fun. You can see the (short) photo album by clicking the image above. Or go see the (even shorter) run-down at my other blog.

Whaddya call it NOW?

2007-05-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

We've developed some names for some of Seville's special talents. My personal favorite:

The Snart.

I laugh every time she does it (that is... sneeze and fart simultaneously). I know, I'm so mature. There's also the "fough" and the "farcup" which happen less often, but are equally funny.

Speaking of bodily functions, what are we supposed to call the regular version now that we have a kid? I can't bring myself to refer to Seville as having "farted," nor can I abide the idea of a little child running around using that word. I mean, I've never even been really comfortable with it myself, for gosh sake.

When I was a kid, we called it a "bomb," a word that came from my mother's childhood in an English boarding school. It seemed totally normal to me all my life, but I realize it's weird to most Americans. And it certainly is weird to Jared. Other possibilities that hail from my British relatives include: "fluff" and "dust." I have stories of my stuffy English Grandmother turning up her royal nose and demanding, "did you dust?" (yes, royal. My English side is/was nobility, so imagine the scandal in a polite noble household.)

Jared suggested using "pass gas," but that's a) too cumbersome and, b) too adult/medical. It's like referring to poop as a bowel movement or sex as intercourse. Not things I'm going to have a child running around saying (I guess she hopefully won't be referring to sex for several years anyway. Especially since Jared says Seville's not allowed to date until she's 30 years old. still.)

Other rejects: Cut the Cheese (too adolescent), Break Wind (too... I dunno), and Barking Spiders (did anyone else use that one, or is that a Bryce Pixton Original?)

I've experimented with the word "toot" and it seems like the most likely champion. Even though I couldn't stand it as a kid when my friends called it that. It seems to fit a cute baby the best. Does anybody have any good suggestions?

The Great Northwest

2007-04-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

When I posted my pictures of Seville at a week old, I included a nursing picture. I thought it was a really sweet picture. Her head is covering anything "significant," and it's not like breastfeeding is sexual or pornographic anyway. I wanted to include that picture and memory in my collection of sweet moments. It is, afterall, what I spend a huge amount of time doing with her (about 8 hours a day at the time), and a significant part of the wondrous and beautiful miracle of motherhood. It's very goddess-like, being able to provide absolutely everything this little person needs, right from your own body.

Anyway, one of the responses I got was from my Manhattan-residing brother-in-law. "Aaugh! I didn't need to see that! You Westerners!" He didn't say this to me, of course, but I heard about it. It was all in good fun, and I laughed (nevertheless, it did contribute to the eventual removal of the photo from the online album).

The Northwest is a funny place. I'm proud of most things that are characteristic of Portland. For example, I recently learned that Portland has twice the number of women doing natural births than most other places. Bravo! (I was planning a natural birth, but had an emergency cesarean birth. I hope and pray I have no complications next time and can do it then). One can also note that the Northwest is particularly prone to cool outdoor activities. I mean, we have three R.E.I.s in the Portland Metro area alone. And our whole sense of fashion reflects our outdoorsiness. We don Keens and Merrels as everyday wear. Show up in all-black New York City in a fleece vest, Columbia Sportswear pants and Chaco sandals and you'd stick out like a sore thumb (sore from rockclimbing, probably. ha ha). In Portland people go to the theater in that kindof gettup.

The question on my mind is this: Am I at home in the northwest because my personality naturally leans toward these things? Or do I lean toward these things because I live in the northwest and am influenced by the sociopolitical mood here?

A couple weeks ago Jared and I went hiking in Forest Park -- a very Portland thing to do. While hiking we saw graffiti on one of the trail fences. Now, you see graffiti all over the country. But THIS graffiti said... get this... "Mother Earth Feeds You." --! This is what a good-for-nothing subversive outcast troublemaker in Portland graffitis. "Mother Earth Feeds You" (sucka). I can just see him in his bandana made of hemp, spray paint made of renewable recycled paint, and hiking boots, painting his message to the world. "That'll show them! Stick it to the man!!" he must have been saying to himself.

so funny.

I think the punk kid is influenced by living here. Here is someone who, if born and raised in L.A. would have written "Black Gangsta Disciple." This is the northwest's version of a punk kid.

What I Meant to Say Was...

2007-04-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

Paul and Dani's wedding: What a great and original celebration! Paul took the performance art we've all been playing with to the most extreme. The ultimate performance. Bravo, Paul and Dani. Bravo.

Singing at Paul and Dani's wedding I introduced my piece as it relates to "The Great Paradox" as they called their "performance." I fumbled over my introduction, unable to remember how I had worded it in my letter to them. I should have just read it, but there you go. Here it is, as originally written:

THE GREAT PARADOX

Love is a paradox indeed. It is both the time when you have to be the most honest with yourself, and yet the most willing to overlook reality in favor of a more hopeful and perfect view. It is a time for acknowledging harsh reality, yet for wearing rose-colored glasses. You must both love someone exactly as they are and also give them every benefit of the doubt, overlooking flaws in order to enable their growth toward something new. Love is both having absolute faith in the constancy of your partner, and also having enough faith to allow your partner to change and move through his or her own life and discovery. It is the paradox of two individual parts which are actually one unified whole. It is both embracing and letting go of someone at the same time. It is where you lose yourself to find yourself.

I chose to share my piece because the songs are about those things: The first about letting go of a fantasy in favor of a real person, and all the associated adjustments of the heart and mind. The second, about letting a real person be a fantasy, and allowing them to become something greater than they are. Sometimes relating to someone as they may potentially become is more honest than relating to them as they currently are – simply on a path toward a truer self.

It is in the juxtaposition of a deeply honest love and a forgiving ennabling love that makes us able to accomplish the greatest things. It is both humility and vision that I hope to convey.

I love you Paul and Dani! Have fun on your adventures together!

Here are the lyrics to the songs I sang:

Betrothed
by Skye Pixton
(see live video snippit from CD Release)

Walking away from
all the past lives that I’ve tried to lead
I’m walking away from
all the mistrials, all those memories

Taking a last walk
through my girlhood, through those moonlit streets
I’m taking the fast road
to the next world, to my destiny

Help me to be honest
about what I am
about what I feel
Help me to be honest
about what I need
about what is real

I know that some days
won’t be the bliss that I’ve always dreamed
and I know in some ways
you are bound to be disappointed in me

Take me as your angel
as your demon
if that’s what you need
take me as a stranger
as your best friend
anything, I can be

All of you and all of me
Nothing less will do
All my sorrows, all your dreams
Make one life of two

I’ve got a feeling
there is something that’s been on your mind
My head has been reeling
I’d be shocked if you didn’t need some time to think

an’ I’ve had my moments
I’ve had times when I thought that I couldn't breathe
well, please, love, just know that
if it’s part of you then it’s alright with me

Give me your rejoicings
all your sorrows
your fears and your shoes
Give me all your mornings/mournings
your tomorrows
anything that is you

Help me to be crazy
in the moments when logic
can’t stand
Help me to be graceful
in the moments when things don’t
go as planned
Help me to be honest
About what I need
about what I feel
Help me to be honest
About what is me
About what is real
What is real
What is real

You
By Skye Pixton

I stopped believing the world was crazy when I was in your arms
I met you and suddenly there was light behind the stars

with you there’s never any night
with you I’m alright
you know, somebody once told me if I hang on
There would be somebody someday
well I look into your eyes, and see the way

There was a time I was afraid to swim; now I’d sail the seven seas
and now I sometimes dare to hope for things I never thought could be

with you there’s never any night
with you I’m alright
you know, somebody once told me if I hang on
There would be somebody someday
well I look into your eyes, and see the way

I once believed in a thousand fables
they were lies
I used to wait for a guardian angel
that passed me by
But when you touch my face
I can have my dreams all over
And you give me faith
To know that I can start all over

and now I
Believe that I could walk on water
If I
tried I’d probably walk through these walls
You and I
together we could surely fly away

And when you think that your world’s gone crazy
I’ll be there
And when your walls seem to fall before you
I’ll be there
Just take my hand, my love, you know
I’ll be here

I could fly away with you.

Happy Easter from Seville!

2007-04-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

(I'm no Emily Saxey Neaman. But I thought Seville's new Bunny towel was pretty cute. Also, for those who don't know, I have some pics and video posted on our family blog at www.jaredandskye.blogspot.com. )

Being a New Mother

2007-02-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

today it took me all afternoon to eat a grapefruit.

Seville's First Week in the World

2007-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

I realized that I posted this album on my other blogspace, but not this one. Here is my little baby girl, her first seven days. I can't believe she'll be a month old in just another week!

Seville's First Week in the World

Baby Seville's Arrival

2007-01-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

More pictures than you ever wanted to see: click the album below.

Baby Seville's Arrival

Welcome to the World!

2007-01-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

January 17th, 2007, 10:02pm, arrived Seville Megan 6lbs 14oz, and very very cute. Mommy and Baby, just after birth. As Jared put it, it was a little more "adventurous" than we'd planned. She was born a little early by emergency c-section (no, this was not like E.R. with George Clooney-like doctors running down hallways calling other hot nurses to hurry up and save lives. Nevertheless, it had to happen pretty quickly -- a story I'll tell later)
1 Hour old.

Mommy looking at Baby

Little Seville sucks on Daddy's fingers.

Mommy & Baby day 2

Richard Parker investigates the Snow

2007-01-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

What is this stuff?

I think I'll just hang out here under this tree, thank you. I'm not sure what's going on around here.

After a while he disappeared. I could see his tracks, mostly next to the house where there wasn't much snow, from when he was nervous about walking in it.

Then I saw where he went. Apparently he discovered that snow is good for "pouncing," and ran all around the yard trying to chase birds (bad kitty!). I'm not sure if you can see it here very well, but my whole yard looks like one of those Family Circus cartoons with little dots wherever Richard Parker went. It's so funny.

... don't worry. Pretty soon we'll have a real baby and won't be weird "cat people" who think other people think their cat pictures are cute. I know you don't. I know to you-all Richard Parker just looks like every other cat in the world. But he's REALLY cute, I swear!

My Baby Shower

2007-01-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Tamara threw me the greatest baby shower yesterday! I am so overwhelmed by my friends' generosity and support. Thank you everyone!

So Tamara decided that instead of doing a bunch of cheesy shower games, we'd do something a little unconventional: Belly Painting! We had a theme of fruits and flowers: things that represent fertility and blooming into being. My mom painted my baby's head (upside down, hopefully she'll turn that way -- she's breech at the moment), and then everyone else contributed whatever they wanted.

I loved this! I love the idea of celebrating the big pregnant tummy with art.

The finished product!

My Body

2007-01-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

Here is me, two and a half years ago, just before I got married:

Here is me last week:

And the great thing about it? I feel more like a beautiful goddess now than ever.

I was actually a little shocked to come across that old picture of myself, because I remember how I "felt" about my body at the time. I felt hot n' all, but I remember being still self-conscious about various lumpy places and squishy places and feeling like I needed to get in better shape all the time. Weird to me, now, because I look at that picture and think, "Man! I was a hot little number!" I mean... I don't think I knew how hot I was, ever the self-critic (I think all girls are this way).

Last night I was at the Blazers/Celtics game and the blazer dancers were dancing in all their bare-midriffed glory. I couldn't take my eyes off their cute, flat, little navels. Having the hugest navel ever at the moment, complete with stretched and pregnant outtie, there is something magnetic to me about those tiny little adorned bellybuttons. And yet, I also couldn't help but notice the slight and subtle differences one between the other. Some girls had the teensiest bit of pooch, or a more curvy waist, or whatever. I remember when I was doing a lot of modern and jazz dance how much I would compare myself to other girls, and can only imagine it's the same for the Blazer Dancers. Every single one of these girls has an amazing figure, worthy of a magazine spread. And yet, I have no doubt that every single one of them likely stresses and frets about it all the time, looks at the others girls, laments the parts of her own body that are less perfect than the next girl.

We women are so hard on ourselves.

And I hope my little daughter will be immune to all this. But I know she won't be. And so I hope she is beautiful. But what if she's not? How can I teach her to be beautiful without patronizing her or feeding her lines? How can I be sensitive to the reality she would face but still bolster her own sense of herself? I know beauty has so much more to do with confidence and manner than with waist size and nose-profile, but I still know that those things are so real in a woman's world, they cannot be ignored or dismissed. As much as I feel like a goddess with my current body, I still cringe when I see pictures of myself over the holidays. I have that "pregnant-fat-face" thing that happens. And my "hips" are ginormous. And there are some things that are just hard to get over, even if you know it's all for a baby. If I can't get over this stuff, how can I teach a little girl to be immune?

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T10:50:00.000-08:00

3 Years Ago...

2006-11-25T23:10:00.000-08:00

I was single. I was the co-chair of a church Activities Committee. I was living in a house in Lake Oswego on Seville Street with my three goddess roommates. I was a paralegal. My life was more or less consumed with dancing salsa and swing. My superpsychojealousfreak boyfriend didn't like me to go dancing. Bless his heart, he tried to manage even though I would usually bail on him Friday nights about 10:30 or 11:00 to hit the dance floor (that part, I understand. It's the other stuff was nutty). Among other things, he also forbade me to talk too much to certain people. One person in particular, actually. There was this one guy at church who went to law school with one of Boyfriend's buddies, and Boyfriend thought that if I talked to Law-School-Guy that Buddy might hear about it and Boyfriend might be embarrassed or something. I don't know, I never quite followed the logic, but I tried to respect his feelings about it. Thing was, I happened to really like the guy he didn't want me talking to. Not in a sexual-attraction kind of way, but just in a he's-really-cool-I-like-talking-to-him kind of a way. Three years ago I remember talking to him and another guy briefly in the hallway one Sunday.

Anyway, Boyfriend and I broke up shortly (duh), and a few months later I did, in fact, become better friends with Law-School-Guy. We had lots in common. Our minds thought similarly, and he was fun to talk to. Our friendship steeped slowly, and became more and more intense as the next several months wore on.

I think it's so funny to imagine, now, what would have gone through my head then if I had known the future. What if I could go back and say to myself, "Hey self! By the way, three years from now you will be pregnant with Law-School-Guy's child. You will be living in a great old house in WestSlope with a beautiful backyard. You're working on remodeling your kitchen. Today the two of you picked out a light fixture and then raked leaves together off your front lawn. You have a kitten, and Law-School-Guy always cleans the litter box so you don't have to. He loves you and cares for you like you never imagined anyone would. And you love him in a way you never thought possible. And you're happy. And it's all with THIS guy! This one you just chatted with in the hall for 2 minutes. The one who can't laugh because of a scab on his lip from a basketball accident this week, which will become a scar, which will become one of your favorite features about him. And right now in the three years' future he's playing the piano in your living room with a fire burning and baby in your tummy and a cat sleeping at your feet."

HA! Would I have believed myself? I would surely have gawked and been shocked. The real question is.... would I have been happy to know that? I mean, there's a reason you don't know the future. If I knew I was going to marry Jared in advance, would we have had the magical and suspenseful union that we did, that created the spark, that made it all possible? Without uncertainty, would I have had the humility and ambition to love him? I'm not sure. And for all the frustration involved in not knowing the future, it sure seems it would have taken the fun out of it. I love Our Story. It's so full of each of us thinking various things and accidentally falling in love and not knowing what was going on. It's funny and suspenseful and torturous in a chick-flick kinda way. Without all that, what would it be like?

I'm glad we only live in one moment in time, and that we can only see one direction from there (backward). Whatever benefits knowing the future has to offer, they must certainly be outweighed by the adventure of finding your way.

And so I'm also glad, I guess, not to know what this child will bring to my life. It gives me the room to dream and hope and imagine things that may or may not ever be. It leaves room for surprises. And it spares me the pain, from this end at least, of many things that will inevitably come to pass, because those things are known only from the other side of time. And hopefully they are easily forgotten, just as the torment and sorrow and loneliness of so many lost loves has paled and softened with with time and with Jared and with my selective memory. And the joy and excitement and fun of the adventures is only magnified with each passing day, as events' significance is added to by their rippling and repeating effect over time. One special moment can remain just that and be forgotten. Or it can become a fond memory, a moment of enlightenment, a step forward, a tradition, a new beginning, a shared understanding, something that pops its head into the present over and over and adds to itself. Like that chat in the hallway that day. I can't think of it without smiling, remembering the brief and seemingly meaningless connection, which eventually contributed to the blossoming of the most beautiful and powerful thing I know: Us.

Things You Do Not Say to Your Pregnant Wife

2006-11-20T22:38:00.000-08:00

Which of the following is not an appropriate response to your pregnant wife's suggestion of "cuddling":

a) Why, yes, Honey. I'd love to cuddle with you.
b) In fact, why don't you come lie over here, and I'll massage your feet.
c) You have never been so beautiful as you are now. Can you sit closer to me so I can see and feel you better?
d) We can't cuddle on the couch. There's not room for both of us because you are like a Baluga Whale.

I've got money says any other reasonable human being who reads this blog will easily pick out the (in)appropriate answer.

Oh well, though. He made me laugh, which is sometimes the best thing to do of all.

Published!

2006-11-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

A piece of mine has been published in a real magazine! Hurrah! Sunstone Magazine's September 2006 issue includes a short memoir of mine in its "Touchstones" section (theme: Small Miracles). You can't see the text online, so I've pasted it below for those who don't have access to the magazine:

SMALL MIRACLES
by Skye Pixton Engstrom

When I was a little girl, my brother gave me two quarters so that I could use them to buy cotton candy at the fair the next day. I lived on a practical farm, and had never had cotton candy before (nor did it seem the type of thing my whole-grain mother was likely to buy me). I cherished those quarters with my stubby little four-year-old hands and heart in great anticipation.

It wasn’t long, of course, before I misplaced them, and was completely beside myself about it. I remembered a recent Primary lesson, that if I prayed in a private place, God would answer me. I went to the privatest place I knew – the small bathroom – and uttered my first little heartfelt prayer kneeling over the toilet.

After praying, I got up and wandered about wondering how God would tell me where the quarters were (my teacher hadn’t gotten to the part about how prayers are answered, and I didn’t know). Mind and heart open, within minutes I got a picture in my head, clear as day, of the quarters lying under the pillow on my bed. I went directly to the bed and looked under the pillow and, behold! Quarters.

I realize that it would be easy to explain away the spiritual significance of that event: I mean, maybe I just needed some focus and time to remember where I had put them. And it would be easy to think that I self-manufactured the idea that God had answered me, simply because I wanted it so bad. But almost all of my “spiritual experiences” to date are similarly simple: a feeling of peace, quiet assurances, wind at the right moment on a mountaintop, a bird stopping by for a significant moment – things that are unmiraculous and known only to me. Does my wanting the experience somehow create and therefore invalidate it? Our commonly used definition of faith (“things hoped for but not seen”) inherently implies, by the word “hope,” an actual desire, not just willingness. So the very ingredients of faith make it easy to dismiss.

I don’t remember the cotton candy I bought with the quarters anymore, nor do I remember the fair. But I have never forgotten my first answer to my first prayer. And while sometimes I think it’s a silly story – why would God answer such a trivial and insignificant request? – I also realize that the desires of our hearts, however simple, are of great interest to God. He lost nothing by reaching out to a four-year-old girl, in a four-year-old mindset, with four-year-old desires. He gained a lifelong friend in me. -|||-

A Story and a Brief Thanks: about 3 or 4 years ago Emily, Lumina, Michelle and I wrote "titles" on paper and stuck them on our bedroom doors. You know, like whatever you might put under your name on a business card: "Skye Pixton: songwriter, paralegal, salsa dancer," etc... I think we each boldly put at least one thing that we weren't really qualified to put there, but wished we were and hoped someday maybe we would be. I put "writer." And that month I started experimenting with writing occasional memoirs. I'm pretty sure every one of us has accomplished our title we weren't qualified for by now. Emily has a CD. Lumina is an art teacher. I can't say I know a ton about Michelle's doings at the moment, but I know we've all changed and grown and progressed in ways we probably thought nearly impossible at the time. Thanks, girls, for encouraging me!

Hawaii Sunset

2006-11-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

Originally uploaded by skyepixie.

Our first evening in Hawaii last week. To see more pics, click the link.

I Have Sunburned my Bellybutton

2006-11-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

Seriously. At 6 months pregnant, I have developed somewhat of an “outtie” . It’s not outrageously out yet, and it depends on how I’m sitting or standing and what time of day it is. And thus, it would never occur to me to put sunblock on my bellybutton. My sunblock application techniques, developed over the last couple of decades, involves rubbing lotion in a circular motion around my tummy, never paying heed to the little hole in the center which has not seen the sun in as many years.

It was a shock, seeing my bellybutton again for the first time. I remember the day I looked in the mirror and could see into my bellybutton hole and the light from the lamp was actually shining on the crumpled bit of skin at the back. "Holy cow," I thought. Before then, I’d always had to reach in and stretch it or poke q-tips in there in order to ascertain what was going on. Suddenly one day I could just SEE it.

And NOW that little soft fleshy piece of crumpled skin is beginning to turn inside out and poke out sometimes. Apparently when I’m on the beach it pokes out, because I have an excruciating sunburn on the tip of it. Remember: this piece of my body hasn’t seen the sun in a score or so. And then I went and thrust it into the tropical Hawaii sun as if it’s been hardened and calloused like the rest of me. Unfortunately, it responded like baby skin. Now everywhere I go, my shirt painfully rubs against it, causing my hand to reach down and try to press it back into the hole from whence it came.

And as such, I have developed a sort of obsession with my bellybutton. It’s so SOFT! It’s so squishy and tender and cute, like a baby-something, and unlike anything else on my body. It’s maybe closest to an earlobe (a part I have also long had an obsession with), but even then there’s no contest. Touching it is like touching – I don’t know – but it’s like there’s really really soft baby skin over just air or just water or just feathers or jello or clouds or something. I feel like I have to touch it carefully how I would touch a baby bird, or a delicate flower petal, or how you would touch a tomato seed without it slipping from under your finger.

I understand now why you don’t want to sunburn babies. Their skin is probably all tender like that, having never seen the sun EVER, not even 20 years ago.

Learning to put sunblock on my bellybutton falls into the category of the many things about pregnancy that you find in no book. Or if it is in books, you don’t understand what the heck they’re talking about until it happens to you. So here’s my list of advice and warnings for pregnant women-to-be of things your pregnancy book won't tell you:

Put sunblock on your bellybutton.
Everybody knows that pregnant women have to pee a lot, but they don’t tell you that sometimes you have to pee but you don’t really. Like the equivalent of dry-heaving when you have the flu, sometimes you really think you have to go but there ain’t nothing in there.
It is entirely possible that all children will suddenly become annoying and unbearable to you. I assume this goes away when you give birth to your own, but I have yet to find out.
When “morning sickness” (a.k.a. every-minute-of-every-day sickness) finally “goes away” it morphs into this other thing: if you don’t eat for more than 90 minutes or so, you get this feeling like your intestines are eating themselves, and you must put food in them before you are consumed from the inside out.
You might turn into a total sex-hound, and your husband might find he has to hide at certain times of the day to avoid you ravishing him senseless all the time.
You’ll probably start to bump into people and furniture and corners, because you used to be able to squeeze through any teensy space by turning your svelt little body sideways and mincing a flirty “excuse me” through the aisle. I have bumped so many people with my stomach and knocked so many chairs over and stepped on so many feet losing my balance because I forget that my profile is no longer my slimmest dimension.
For some reason, lots of other women feel compelled to warn you about the horrors of birth by sharing their horrible birth stories. (Why they think I want to hear this is beyond me. I’m ALREADY pregnant people! There’s no way out of it. If you wanted to scare me out of having a baby it’s too late. Now you’re just giving me unnecessary anxiety.) (As if I don’t already have enough of it).
The stuff our mothers were told to do and not to do while pregnant was a bunch of wacko advice that’s all been debunked by now. Don’t trust your mother’s generation when they give you advice and do’s and don’t’s about pregnancy. (Also, this tells me that probably half of what doctors advise now will eventually be proved unnecessary, stupid, or harmful, so I can’t stress about it too much. Still… it’s not like I’m gonna go eating mercury-burgers or anything).
You might get cellulite on the FRONT of your thighs. The FRONT, people! (I know this makes you think I’m one of those fat pregnant ladies, but I’m really not. I look mostly normal. Not that being a fat pregnant lady is bad. I personally don’t understand how anyone could possibly “control” their weight while pregnant, given the host of nutrients we’re supposed to get daily (which is impossible without eating like a horse), and the fact that you are SO hungry all the time and you’re not supposed to diet or deprive yourself of food and you’re supposed to “listen to your body” – which is probably telling you to eat chocolate and pasta like there’s no tomorrow. Here’s to fat pregnant girls!)
Trying to sleep with a baby in your tummy is like trying to sleep with a 15-pound bowling ball strapped to you. Only all your skin is around it, so it will painfully yank all your organs wherever it goes. Unless, of course, you lie on your back and balance it on top of yourself cutting off your circulation, your air supply, and any space that previously existed in your bladder. Not to mention how it throws you off balance in your day-to-day operations.
Whatever ideas you had about being the hard-core, bike-riding, backpacking, super-productive pregnant lady were likely wrong.

…more to come as I think of them…

Death By Spider

2006-09-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

Jared wants me to get counseling of sorts for my arachnaphobia. I’m not opposed to the idea, inherently. I’m just opposed to those immersion methods that I’m afraid is what they’ll really do to me even if they say they wont – the one where they lock me in a small closet full of tons of big hairy spiders, Indiana-Jones-style. I swear, I will actually go into cardiac arrest.

Anyway, this counseling idea all came about because of a recent spider-incident in my new house. We just bought this house built in 1940, and it comes with all the associated pestilence of old houses with crawl spaces, attics, plaster walls, and old inbred species of dark black insects who've evolved with the house. See, there’s this picture rail along the top of the wall with a very small gap between it and the ceiling, so you can put picture hangers in it without damaging the plaster. The problem is that this is really actually a spider rail. They live in there, in the gap. Or in the walls, I’m not sure. Jared says the gap goes through to the inside of the wall, and the spiders live in there, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Regardless, I’m amazed at the size of spider that can come out of this tiny slit.

Mind you, I’ve calmly handled quite a few spider-findings to date. I’ve informed Jared, in a soft and controlled voice, that there’s a spider in such and such a place, and I measuredly leave the area while he takes care of it. A couple of times I’ve even got the spider killer spray and poisoned the dickens out of them myself, much to my own fear and trembling, but nevertheless it took care of them.

A couple of weeks ago, however, a spider appeared that could not be reckoned with by me. No sir, this thing was huge. I still don’t know how it got out of that rail, it’s legs alone were so beefy and black and muscular that it seemed they would get stuck coming through. It was morning; I was home alone. I quickly determined that this was beyond me, and called Jared. He told me to deal with it myself, gave me some instruction and advice. I got closer to it and felt my stomach turn, my face burn hot, and my hands go numb. Nope. I couldn’t do it. It was overhead. If I tried to spray it, it would fall down, right on top of me, and he was so burly that the poison might not kill him anyway. If I tried to crush him with a broom/towel/duct-tape apparatus, I would hear him crunch, which I can’t handle, or else I’d miss or only injure him and he’d run around and I’d end up smashing all the lamps and pictures and wilt into a crying mess afraid of the house for two weeks. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.

I called my brother. He would come, but he’s 30 minutes away. “There’s no way it’s not going to move for 30 minutes. Can you maybe get a broom?” The same things Jared said, only Jared said 15 minutes. I figured Bryce was right, but Jared might be wrong. Maybe. It hadn’t moved for the last 10, had it? So I called Jared back. While on the phone, it began to move, and panic overcame me. “Oh damn, it’s moving! It’s movingitsmoving! Oh damn oh damnohdamnohdamn...” I was getting shaky and I thought I was going to throw up. Jared could hear it in my voice. “Okay, okay, I’m coming!” click.

I’ll spare you the description of the next 15 minutes of horror (it was eventful and terrible). Suffice it to say that Jared arrived in time, took care of it and I collapsed into a sobbing, quivering thing. That night, Jared vowed, he would caulk all the openings in that damn picture rail.

Since this incident (or maybe before, I don’t know), Jared has decided that if he had to place bets on how I would die, it would be on: Death By Spider. Spider in a car, to be specific. That’s what he thinks. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, and if I don’t get this under control, I’m going to kill myself. Scarily, he’s probably right. I’ve almost killed myself already at least once in my driving career because of a spider in a car (saved by my passengers who yanked me out from in front of the oncoming semi in the lane where I’d run to get away from the spider after screeching to a halt on the freeway). I’ve also jumped into dangerous cold-water rapids, out of cars onto shoulders, leapt backward down stairs, and a host of other stupid things because of the irrationality of this phobia.

But it seems such an insurmountable task to get over it. I mean, there’s nothing rational about it. It’s not like some therapist in a tie is going to be able to logically tell me why I shouldn’t be afraid of spiders. I KNOW! I get it. I got all that. I’m bigger than it. It’s more scared of me. It’s probably harmless. Blah blah blah. Phobias are not driven by any rational part of the mind. No matter how many times I tell myself a spider is harmless, I still experience a primal, uncontrollable terror when caught with one.

If only they could all be bees. For some reason, I have a deep affinity for bees. Since I was a child, other kids crouching in the corner afraid of the bee on the floor, I walked up, coaxed him onto my hand, took him outside to a flower, “go, little bee!” I love bees. They could sting me and I wouldn’t care. I mean, it hurts a little, so what. They love flowers and sunshine. Not deep, dark, dank, secret, evil places. Like spiders. And like that place in my mind that holds onto my fear.

25 years later...

2006-09-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

July 16, 2006
I woke up last Sunday morning to four ladies in the living room, all in pajamas and blankets, all behaving like 13-year-olds. But they are all in their 50's.

See, I was in Seattle for my sister-in-law's wedding, and my mother-in-law, of course, was frantic putting it on. A few days before the wedding, her three best friends came into town (no short trip). They stayed the whole time, cleaned, helped, arranged. But mostly they talked, laughed, teased, told stories. They loved and supported this old friend of theirs through her daughter's wedding. I got up on Sunday to find them all in their pajamas and blankets in the living room talking and shreiking so loud it rang through the house. They told stories about each other, made fun, laughed, went on girly tirades, accused each other of all kinds of funny stuff. It was hilarious. And it reminded me so much of me and my best girlfriends, and I longed for them so much.

How cool is it, that this woman, in her 50's, is still so close to the girlfriends of her youth? She bore and raised children on the same block as some of these friends -- at the same age or younger than I am now. I saw the Emily, Lumina, and Michelle of her life rally around her, in the most beautiful ceremony of women and women's love I have almost ever seen. And I bet most people didn't notice a thing, or think about how special it was.

When we have big events in our lives, all my dearest friends, will we rally around each other and come to each others' sides, even across long distances? Will we come together in a circle of women (or friends), and be the love and support we have been to each other in our youth and vibrance? I know I have experienced this kind of love and support from you. I was surprised, somehow, to see it surface in someone's life who is in stages so much later than mine. It's given me a new appreciation of you my friends, and rekindled my desire for us to be forever a circle of love for each other.

I love you all. I hope you will call me when your children marry and you could use an extra cook, or musician, or flower arranger, or... friend.

Love SUV II

2006-07-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

My pregnancy book tells me to be sure and tell my partner that I need extra attention and love right now, and to tell him why (basically because I'm pregnant and have hormones and sickness and lots of needs and I guess all women want extra love and attention. Apparently. Duh.).

So I dutifully explain this to Jared. He laughs. "I don't need a book to tell me that!" he scoffs.

I gape at him and try to act offended. He rubs my foot in damage-control mode. "Like it's not obvious," he says. "You're my little love-SUV," he references our recent conversation about my inefficient love-mileage.

And we've joked these last few nights that he's recently hitched a trailer onto his love-SUV and so the SUV needs more gas than ever. And he can't exactly just unhitch the trailer, so he's just gonna have to keep giving it extra gas. It's his fault there's a trailer there, after all.

I remind him about the trailer.

"Humpf." he responds. "This is not just a trailer. In the last few weeks you've gone from being an SUV to being a three hundred thousand dollar Italian sports car."

"But isn't that the car of your dreams?"

"They don't get miles to the gallon, they get gallons to the mile," he quips.

Humpf. He's right, I think. I don't have a lot to offer him these days. I'm too sick to do any cleaning, I definitely can't cook anything (I would have to smell it), I hardly work, I can't seem to bring myself to take care of any household stuff, and I mostly just demand his attention when he gets home.

But I handle like a dream where it counts. I'll have remind him of that later...

"Sixth Sense of Humor"

2006-06-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

...This is the name of my next album. Or maybe "Souled Out" (man, I must have a thing with puns). Or maybe I'll come up with something new, who knows. I can't ever decide.

In any case, this all came about because Jared and I were reminiscing about songs and bands we both liked in high school (we wish we'd met back then, when we had similar tastes in tunes)(except that would have been bad because I would NEVER have dated a junior high baby when I was in high school. eewww!). Anyway, we found a ring tone online for Depeche Mode's "Blasphemous Rumors," and I related a story about when I was fifteen, spending the summer in Germany, and I translated the lyrics for a german girl. I honestly thought ol' Dave Gahan was saying "I think that God's got a sixth sense of humor/and when I die/I expect to find Him laughing." To me, this was a very optimistic and happy song, the point being that life is happy, and humorous, and when we die, we will find that all things are not only happy, but also joyful and funny and we and God will laugh about it all together.

I still prefer this interpretation.

Nevertheless, I am aware now, in my jaded and cynical grown-up state that Dave Gahan meant no such thing. And it reminded me of how many times I've wanted to make a list of all the songs I and others misheard the lyrics to. I can't remember very many at the moment, but I can remember some of my favorite examples from childhood:

Mary Had a Little Lamb: "whose fleas were white as snow" (cute little snowy white fleas, they were)
The Pledge of Allegiance: "and to the republic, for witches' stands, one nation, under God...." (I'm imaging a bunch of witches in pointy hats at their stands selling witchery, not unlike lemonade, or advice from Lucy in Peanuts)
Angels We Have Heard on High: "Gloria! In egg shells is day! Oh! Gloria...." (makes sense, right? I mean, we associate religious holidays with eggs, so why shouldn't we be singing about the day dawning out of an egg? It would tie the whole mystery together.)(I can't take credit for this one. It was my sister Kyrstyn who was shocked to learn that in excelsis deo is a real latin term meaning some thing or other)
Love One Another (the children's Sunday School Song): "By this shalmeno/ye are my disciples" (What's a shalmeno? I often wondered. I figured it was some thing you got when you were older if you were one of Jesus' disciples, and you showed it to people as proof.)

I can't seem to think of any pop songs at the moment, but I know that they abound. If I think of any I'll post them, but I'm curious if anyone else out there has good examples? Maybe it'll jog my memory.

Jared Thinks I'm Hot

2006-05-23T00:36:00.000-07:00

And, bless his heart, he tells me this often. But there are two kinds of hot (especially when we are in bed):

There is the "I want to touch your body" kind of hot, and then there's the "I don't want to touch your body, keep it away from me, stay on your side of the bed, I like my sheets cold!" kind of hot. I often don't know which one he means. I know, I know... you'd think it would be obvious to me, his wife. But Jared is a subtle guy. He would tell me that I'm attractive or that he wants to get it on in the same dry manner that he would tell me that he wants me to stay on my side of the bed so he can sleep without my body heat disturbing his cool slumber.

...men...

Sunday School Drivel

2006-05-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

I have one of those "Dust-Off" cans of aerosol spray for cleaning electronics. It's on my desk. Sometimes, when I'm on the phone, I sit there and aerosol everything in sight... my keyboard, my calculator, computer speakers, remote control, stapler, tape-dispenser, anything else lying around.

When I do this, I feel totally OCD. But I can't do something audio without something visual to entertain me. I can't pay attention in church these days for that reason either. I've been in primary for the last year, and before that I always had one of those "busy" callings that meant you never actually sat for 3 hours of church. How do people do it? One hour of Sacrament meeting is about all I can take. By Sunday School, I'm not just doodling, I'm doodling and thinking of something other than what's going on around me.

Speaking of Sunday School... I agreed to attend a "member missionary" class last Sunday. Jared assured me the idea of this class was to teach about the new "Preach My Gospel" missionary guide, not to lean on us to get our non-member friends involved. When the teacher started, he whipped out the Preach My Gospel guide, and started talking about agency, and how our mission is to preach His gospel, not to force or pressure our friends into the church. He talked about how people all have their agency, and our measure of success in sharing the gospel should not be based on whether they accept.

"Harrah!" I was thinking. "Jared was right, they really ARE teaching abouthe Preach my Gospel book." (It's really cool, by the way. They really have changed the way they want us to think about preaching the gospel).

The teacher then proceeded to tell us how to set a date and have a goal that by that date we'll have a friend prepared to take the missionary discussions. (!) "Did you READ the book?!" I'm thinking. "Did you HEAR what YOU just said? Cuz you're totally contradicting yourself."

The poor leaders of the church are trying to get the members to get away from a numbers and goal-oriented way of pressuring people into sharing and accepting the gospel, to start following the spirit instead of some numbers-goal or word-for-word "lesson." And here my ward is NOT getting the point. They are just manipulating the new program into the old one with different words.

It's so typical and so disappointing. I used to be really frustrated with how slow change is in the church. I mean, I still am. But I guess I used to blame it on the "church leaders." Ha! Now I wonder who I was thinking were the "church leaders." I mean, there are lots of different levels of that, from The Big Guy himself, to prophets and apostles, all the way down to Bishops and Relief Society Presidents and even teachers and committee chairmen. We're all leaders at some point. Most of the change in church culture is slow because We The People are dense and set in our ways. We misinterpret the wishes of the higher-ups and can't bring ourselves to accept their humble advice. And then we can't bring ourselves to accept it as ADVICE! We run around acting as if everything any leader ever said is doctrine now (as if prophets haven't been contradicting themselves for YEARS on the finer points).

When we can settle down and realize that Christ's central message is THE message, that everything else is probably subjective or unknown, when we can be tolerant of each other, including our "leaders," when we can humble ourselves enough to take each other with a grain of salt... then I think we're onto something.

Why the church ain't workin' for singles

2006-05-05T02:39:00.000-07:00

(Personal discretion advised: it's very late at night and I might sound overly honest, opinionated, and ungraceful)

Several of my friends who are single all seem to have this constant battle raging in them: “Is the church right? Is it true? It’s so lame sometimes! Sometimes I can’t stand being associated with a lame church. Ugh.” etc.

Welcome to the club.

I suspect that the church is better and easier for married people, and here’s why: Married people learn a thing or two from marriage. They learn to roll their eyes and step forward when things happen that they don’t like. They learn to choose their battles. They learn that there is no such thing as perfect synchronicity in a relationship that is ever changing, because the people involved are ever changing. They learn that some things take a lifetime to reconcile, and they learn that some things just have to be let go. They learn that you can live with things you disdain, and that sacrifice is worth the reward. They learn that relationships have ups and downs, and that the downs don’t make the relationship “not right.”

I suspect some of my single friends have a hard time with the church for the same reason they can’t settle on a love partner: they have this idealized vision of what it should be like. The church should always be right, and true, and well behaved, and inspired. Any flaw is fatal (since the “right” church couldn’t have any flaws. That would make it not “right,” right?).

Sound familiar? It does to me. My idea of romance a few years ago is nothing like what I understand it to be now. I look back and laugh at myself then. What I truly, honestly believed to be romantic seems superficial and hollow to me, like the candy coating on an empty possibility. True romance is so much deeper and more fulfilling than I ever could have imagined then. And yet it is so much less... perfect.

I had to go through a major transformation of my expectations to be prepared for the step of marriage in my life. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I “settled;” Jared is more perfect for me than I could have made up had I tried, but I certainly did have to adjust my vision of what I wanted for my future an awful lot to be open to the idea of him. Thank God.

And yet there are things I can’t stand about living with my lover, things that I might have considered “deal breakers” at one time. They seem so silly to me now. The power and joy that we share by committing to each other in order to accomplish great things together renders my adolescent vision irrelevant and childish.

People who are single, and roughly my age, have lived with the church long enough to get past the honeymoon phase. No longer attending EFY in the summers and finished with their BYU glory days, they are beginning to see how much of a hassle real church commitment is. They begin to see all the shortcomings of the organization, and the places where they disagree with the doctrine, and the proverbial dirty socks lying around the house. Without the benefit of marriage experience, I suspect they continue to wish for a honeymoon-like relationship with the church.

My relationship with the church, on the other hand, is not unlike the one I have with my husband. It is imperfect. It goes up and down. The church does stuff I can’t stand all the time, and sometimes I want it to go away, or I want to leave. Sometimes I roll my eyes and move on. Sometimes I vent at my girlfriends about it. I choose my battles. Some things about it will take a lifetime to reconcile. And some things never will, and I’ll just have to let them go...

Nevertheless, I love the church. Only with it, through it, and by it can I accomplish the dreams closest to my heart.

Even if sometimes it annoys me.

Matches! Matches! Come get yer matches!

2006-04-17T00:09:00.000-07:00

So I was reading an article the other day about the Duke Lacrosse team rape allegations. Like all such stories, it is sordid and confusing and sad and horrible. Whether it’s true or not, the details are nevertheless disturbing and disheartening – partially because they very well could be true. They’re not so fantastical that no one believes it could happen.

And while I was reading this story on CNN.com there was a sidebar ad flashing away at me. It happened to be an advertisement for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition: photo after photo of sexy, scantily clad women in sweaty, oiled come-hitherness. One after another they were displayed in rotation, all in different positions, with different swatches of fabric covering different essential spots, leaving not much to imagination (and yet directing that imagination with suggestive poses and facial expressions). You all know which ads I mean. They could be for a singles dating site, Victoria’s Secret, whatever. They’re all the same.

Meanwhile, I’m reading a wretched story about the forcible choking and rape of a stripper by five college athletes in a bathroom. It was like, “HERE’S SOME VISUAL AID TO THE HORRIBLE STORY YOU’RE READING!” or, “MAYBE THE VICTIM LOOKED LIKE THIS! SEE MORE PICTURES!” or “WANT TO FEEL THE SAME DETACHED LUSTFUL FEELINGS AS THE RAPISTS? HERE ARE SOME FACELESS WOMEN WHO WILL ALSO SELL THEMSELVES FOR SEX, NOT UNLIKE THE VICTIM IN THE STORY!”

Doesn’t anybody at CNN.com pay attention to which ads accompany which stories? It was like reading a story about a drive-by shooting opposite a gun advertisement. Or an alcohol poisoning death with a liquor commercial on the side. The juxtaposition of the stripper/rape story and the swimsuit/porn ad was a sad commentary on modern American culture.

“PLAY WITH FIRE!” we say, “COME GET YOUR FIRE HERE! IT’S FUN, AND OH SO AMUSING!” But when somebody actually gets burned we act amazed, offended, scandalized. We talk about the burn victim as someone who is shameful, stupid, and a bad person. In the name of free speech and free all-kinds-of-stuff we allow morally reprehensible things to actually be marketed to the general public. In fact, we’ve changed our definition of what is moral by saying that as long as you don’t hurt anybody else you can do anything you want. But the line is so fine! I’m not sticking up for criminals here, but doesn’t it bother anybody else that we can sell sex and chastise the consumer of it in the same breath?

The alleged victim in the story was a stripper -- hired, legally I believe, by the athletes. No one seems to be saying you shouldn’t hire strippers, or that you shouldn’t be a stripper. They’re just saying… don’t let that lead to anything.

um... Hello? Are we daft, or what?

A Sunday Night Chat

2006-04-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

"Is there, like, a leak in your love tank?"

My husband, Jared, and I recently read "The Five Love Languages: How to Express Hearfelt Commitment to your Mate." For those unfamiliar with the tenets of its philosophy, it analogizes that everybody has a "love tank." Our job as a romantic partner is to learn how our mate best feels loved, and become proficient enough in that "language" to be able to keep their love tank full, which keeps them happy. Once you know your "languages," the book suggests that you check in with each other at night and ask, "on a scale of 1-10 how full is your love tank today?"

"A leak?" I respond. We're lying on the couch together. His goal tonight is to "dote" on me, and he's doing his best to follow my very specific instructions (I wrote a song about that, by the way. I should post the lyrics sometime).

"Yeah," He explains. "Not like the regular diminishing of the love tank. I mean a steady stream of it just... being gone. Like, I keep putting love in your tank and... like, is there love in there that doesn't ever get used? That just... gets wasted?"

I furrow my brow. "No, I don't have a leak," I say, formulating my defense. "I just... I have a lot of love-needs. I use a lot of resources. I'm a high consumer of love because I have so much going on." Yeah, that's it, I'm thinking. "Your love doesn't go to waste, I use it all."

"So... you just get really bad love-mileage. You're like the SUV of love vehicles." We laugh. "My little love-SUV," he croons. mmm. We lay cheek to cheek on the couch, me in misty-eyed contentment and bliss.

"So...[pause]... can I trade you in for a hybrid sometime? .... ow! ow! I was kidding! I was KIDDING!!"

This was our conversation tonight. I think we're making progress.

Midnight, Here I Come

2006-03-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, late at night, I indulge in sadness.

If I can manage to so much as break a tear, I can prime the pump and bring forth a wellspring of deep sorrow, covered by time and inhibitions and daylight and more important things. I can reach deep into my soul and spirit and find remnants of lost pain, grief, fear, longing, fury, disappointment, anger, loss, defeat. It bubbles up and flows for me in the darkest hours of the night, and I can almost savor its sweetness. It's hard to turn off once it starts, except for falling asleep.

This cleansing, this ritual, this purging of negative feelings... it is the hope that tomorrow I will feel clean and fresh and new and happy.

And then tomorrow comes. And sometimes, to be totally honest, I just feel dumb. What the heck was I crying about, anyway? Am I really cleaning out the corners of my battered soul, preparing for a brighter tomorrow? Or is it possible, just maybe, that late at night I just feel emotional and worn down and... I'm just making some of it up? Am I really so sad about all these things? If I cry them out will they be done, or is it possible that I could cry about them any old night because the sadness just exists there in me?

Maybe I need to embrace the sadness and live with it, rather than always trying to "cry it out." And maybe, if that's the case, crying about it over and over late at night is nothing but simply indulgence. It's not cleansing or purging, but just... entertaining. And if so, is that bad? Well... I want to say no. But poor Jared! How many nights does he have to hold me while I'm crying, asking me what I'm crying about to my "I don't know." If I don't know, is it doing me any good?

Can you tell Jared's out of town? I've posted, like, four times in twenty four hours.

2006-03-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, okay!

2006-03-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

I give up! I'm joining the crowd. I'm going with the flow. I'm on the bandwagon. I'm on myspace.

I've been made fun of, cajoled, harassed, and questioned enough. Okay I believe you all! I should be on myspace. And now I am. :)

Are any of you on myspace? I feel kinda lonely there so far.

If you are on myspace, add me as a friend (lest I look like a hermit to people who visit).
If you are on myspace, use my tunes on your profile! Yeah!
If you are on myspace, listen to music, comment on it, tell friends.
If you are not on myspace, maybe you'd enjoy checking it out and listening to the audio-stream.

myspace.com/skyepixton

Really, thanks, all you who love me, (ahem. Tamara) for making me do it.

Ouch. My Heart

2006-03-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Kaaren, Clayton and triplets
Originally uploaded by tompixton.

I just made the mistake of looking at pictures of my nieces and nephew that moved to Kansas a couple of months ago. I miss them so much. I am so afraid they will grow up not knowing who I am. I know they will. There's no way around it. I love their little souls. I miss them like you wouldn't believe.

Never look at pictures of babies in the middle of the night.

sniff.

I met my husband last night.

2006-03-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

It was weird. There we were at the Belle & Sebastien concert. I have never listened to Belle & Sebastien until three days ago. Jared's childhood buddy was coming to town for the concert, and so Jared scrambled to find tickets to the sold out show. Then he went and bought the album, since he didn't have the new one.

I've long known that Jared is into indie rock. I'm a folk-singer. And, strangely, I really like pop-punk radio-ready music. That and alternative. And jazz. And techno. And anyway, indie rock is good too, but I've never really had a "thing" for it. In fact, I don't like a lot of indie rock. It's too... indie... for me. I like the convention of the ABABCB song structure. I like 1/4/5 major chords paired with melodic harmonies and driving choruses. I like to be able to tell which instrument is which and have a clear identification of what I'm listening to.

Things I don't like: voices that are bad, people who can't sing and think it's cute, lots of distortion so you can't distinguish a melody, too much dissonance at one time, bangy crashy abrasive sounds, weird formless songs, long rants on a theme in the middle of a tune that don't match. Anyway. Indie is hit and miss for me.
Love: Death Cab for Cutie.
Hate: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

So anyway, I didn't expect much of the concert for myself. But here's my dilemma: "Jared wants to do something fun together and I don't? That can't happen!! So, yeah, I'm going to the concert. I'm gonna like it too. I'm gonna dance. I'm gonna listen to B&S on my ipod until I've force-fed myself into liking it."

But little did I know what I would really get at the Roseland that night.

There we were, surrounded by a sold-out theater of other Belle & Sebastien enthusiasts. Here's this kinda geeky band onstage, the lead singer all twiggy limbs and unassuming charisma. I looked around at the audience and saw a sea of thrifted button-up shirts, plastic-rimmed glasses, short messy hair. Guys like Jared. Hundreds of them! They all looked up at the stage with spacey and contented looks on their faces. They bobbed to the music. They swayed. Not a foot left its spot on the floor all night. It was like watching a gentle breeze come over a wheat-field. Only the wheat is geeks in glasses and cool shoes. All night! It was so funny! (in a good way, of course. Cool geeks, of course. You know what I mean. The kind of endearing sexy geeks you see on, like, "Friends").

Jared stood next to me and beamed like I'd never seen, his little head bobbing up and down to the music, his ears carefully protected by Leight Sleepers (TM) earrplugs. Suddenly, it clicked. This is Jared's tribe! These are his people! All this time, I've been trying to figure out what makes Jared tick. Who is Jared? I mean, it's not like he's a misfit or anything, and obviously I know him really well. But he does remain somewhat of an enigma to me. Especially among my friends. But those are my friends, from my tribe. So there I was visiting his world, and it suddenly all made sense. Uuuuoh! Jared is one of these people!

And now, of course, I can't really tell you what I actually learned about Jared (wouldn't that be convenient). But by the nature of the thing, it's something you'd have to be there to understand. It's like when I traveled to England with my mother. Having experienced British culture for just three weeks, I felt like I understood so much about her. So much of her personality traits came from her upbringing there, and I always just thought they were unique to her. All Brits love to to garden, value aesthetics and high culture, enjoy a good tea-time, and believe in ettiquette (to name a few things). My mom is partially a product of this, and so my trip helped me to understand her in a different way. Last night I saw where Jared came from. Not his family or his home town, but his "tribe" that he himself chose to be a part of. I saw his heart. I watched him experience something native to him, not trying to fit into me.

And the concert really good too. Now I genuinely like the band. Thanks, Belle & Sebastien.

Mantras for Marriage

2006-03-15T18:14:00.000-08:00

"CONFLICT ALERT! CONFLICT ALERT!"

This is what we're supposed to say when we sense an argument coming on from now on. The other night it was about whether the original words to the song are "popcorn popping right before my eyes!" or "blossoms popping right before my eyes!"

This little spiff, believe it or not, got rather heated. So, we decided that desperate times call for desperate measures (or stupid people call for stupid solutions). Since neither of us seems to inherently have the maturity in the moment to recognize that we're not mad about the issue at hand, but rather about things like being respected, feeling heard, etc., we developed this mantra, which we're supposed to recite together after either of us has sounded the "conflict alarm."

"Honey I love you.
Your opinion is valuable to me and I respect your experience and feelings.
It is OK if you don't agree with me.
If one of us is swayed in our opinion, I will be gracious, and not boastful."

Pretty good, huh? The funny thing is, neither of us ever actually calls the other one "Honey," so I'm sensing the possibility for sarcasm right away. Also, I guess we'll just have to see if it works at all. I mean, I'm never thinking "uh oh, I sense a conflict coming on. I'd better lovingly point it out." No. I'm always just thinking things like, "I"m SO right here! Oh! Oh! That was the stupidest point ever! Doesn't he see the flaw in his reasoning? Wait. Let ME tell you how it is, buddy!" (or something like that).

I have faith in Jared though. He'll sound the alarm. He's good at being mature. Even when I'm not.

No. Seriously. I jest. We can quip about who is more mature. But the truth of the matter is... the words "popcorn popping right before my eyes" are just better, even if they're not the ones in the children's hymnal! I mean the whole point of the song is the metaphor, right? If you have to spell it out for the idiot children who don't understand the whole blossoms-look-kinda-like-popcorn concept, then it ruins the poetry of the song! What kind of morons would change the words?! Morons who don't understand and appreciate artistry, that's who! Morons who are out to destroy all that is good and beautiful in the world! Morons who might be right historically, but that doesn't make them right artistically! That's who! So there. hmph.

"Sunday Night" at Skye's

2006-03-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

Talking to Emily Potter on the phone (she's the litle blue glow behind our feet.

Feet (in order of appearance, I think): Skye, Emily, Keith, Kaarina, Bryce, Audrey (Jared & James were also in the room somewhere)

Two Kinds of People in the World:

2006-03-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

I had an email snafoo yesterday. I am the administrator for an email list of over 500 people. I am very conscientious about keeping email addresses private and not spamming people.

BUT nevertheless, my server changed some settings as part of an "update" which overrode the protection that allows only me to post. Thus a family message about prayer accidentally got sent to all my music fans and list-ers.

I was embarassed, but also sortof chuckled that of course it would be an email about prayer. I don't mind my fans knowing that I'm spiritual, but I am very wary of being pigeon-holed as some religious or christian artist. Anyway, I didn't expect much response, but I have got a few emails, and they are either:

"TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST! I DON'T WANT PERSONAL EMAIL AND YOU'RE CLEARLY A BAD PERSON FOR FORCING THIS FAMILY DISCUSSION ON UNSUSPECTING LIST SUBSCRIBERS LIKE ME!"

(or something to that effect)

or else:

"Ha ha. No problem. We could all be thinking about prayer a little more anyway. :)"

Am I crazy to think that the polarized responses have to do with the religious nature of the email? It was pretty innocuous. Just a comment about the value of family prayer: it being nice to see each other once a day, whether we had prayed or not.

It's a good thing that a few people responded with the "How funny. I feel blessed to know you" style email, because I was getting really depressed and feeling personally wounded by those who were so vitriolic about wanting off the list over ONE little mistake (that wasn't my fault, I might add).

Anyway. Religious or not, I guess some people just get their panties in a wad over little things, and others are more relaxed and roll with it. And it seems like the difference between those types of people, in this instance at least, also corresponds to their spiritual openness. I'm sure that is not a P.C. thing to say. But I'm just sayin'.

My Favorite Person Today:

2006-03-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

is this beautiful girl right here! She's my baby sister, Kyrstyn. This picture was taken last Saturday, while she was dressed and made-up for a show with one of her groups "The March Fourth Marching Band." (It's a really cool group. You can see pictures of their anniversary show that my Dad took by clicking HERE.)

Anyway, she also played with me on Monday night at The Edgefield. She's an amazing musician and an amazing person with such a beautiful soul!

In my large family, I'm the oldest daughter and she is the youngest. I was paid $5 to potty-train her years ago. I babysat at times. I taught her to burb and remember her first steps. As as older sibling, often you never have a chance to get to know your younger siblings like adults. But I've been blessed to have Kyrstyn near me and in my life the last couple of years and it's such a JOY! I mean, she's the coolest! I would never have known, had I not spent some time with her recently, how very extremely awesomely amazingly deeply rad she is! I am so honored to be not only her friend, but also her blood relative. If you dont' know Kyrstyn, you should. I am so lucky.

Ah, Modern Chivalry!

2006-03-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

What do we do, in the modern world of today, about holding doors open for people and walking through them? I don't mean any old time. I always appreciate a man holding a door open for me. I'll always walk through it and thank him.

But.... these rules were invented before the modern phonomenon of the "double-doors."

Almost every LDS church building has them. Most office buildings have them now too, including the one I work in. So I encounter this dilemma often.

The first set of doors is no problem: walk through it, say thank you. But two steps later I find myself staring at a second set of doors, and I'm thinking, "um... okay, he's behind me now because he just opened the first doors. What do I do now? Do I wait for him to come through and get these doors for me too?" Pros & Cons:

Pro: it acknowledges his chivalry and my gratitude for it.
Con: I risk looking like a snobby woman who expects every man to open every door for her.
Con: It's akward, standing there waiting while he shuffles by. I even have to step aside to make room like we're sharing a phone booth.
Pro: it's a nod to old tradition and chivalrous ways, which I like.
Con: I risk looking like a weak sniveling woman who thinks she might faint any moment or who wants to be dependent on a man. blech.

"Or do I walk through like the capable, self-actualized woman that I am?" Pros & Cons:

Pro: less akward.
Pro: I get to keep moving.
Pro: demonstrates (as I said) that I am a capable woman and doesn't make me look weak.
Con: Totally flies in the face of what he just did: "thanks, but no thanks, buddy. I can handle this myself, as you can see."
Con: Doesn't this seem like the haughty woman just trampling on the polite men, whooshing by, flipping her hair behind her, and now I'm ahead of him in line, for the elevator, the DMV, the food, whatever else.
Con: How rude! Shouldn't I, like, open the door for him now or something?

"Which brings up a whole new option. Do I return the favor?"

Pro: Seems polite, on its face. He scratched my back, now I scratch his.
Con: Weird! Girls don't open doors for guys. It might make him uncomfortable or make him feel, again, like I'm spurning his gesture.
Con: That's really beyond the line, don't you think? Now I'm acting like he needs the door opened for him (he surely does not). But wait, isn't that what men think about women? I mean, I don't need the door opened for me either, but I appreciate it. But it's just weird the other way around!

I CAN'T WIN!

And then there are the variables: sometimes it's my dad or my brother, sometimes it's my husband, sometimes a stranger, sometimes another woman. AAAAAaaaurgh!

Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have The Answer?

The End of an Era

2006-03-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finally said goodbye to my driving-love of the last ten years. My Rossinante, a.k.a. African Queenie, a.k.a. 1987 Subaru Wagon.

Two very nice men with mustaches checked her out, drove her around, asked me about all her problems (she has many), and gave me few dollars cash to take her off my hands.

I'll never forget all the beautiful trips we took, the sunsets, the beaches, the forbidden logging roads, the snowy mountain passes, the nights asleep (or not) in the back, the times stuck on the side of the road, the campsites no one else could get to or else no one else dared, the boyfriends that came and went, the endless visits to Les Schwabb, the cases and cases of oil, the new sports we undertook together, rescuing friends and family across icy roads when they were stuck with their two-wheel-drive woosie cars, the adventure and spirit and determined life we led...

...until the introduction of the newer, younger, less scratched-up, shinier, upgraded model.

I feel I've betrayed Rossinante in a way. Will Jared one day go for a newer model when I don't work as well anymore and am kindof an eyesore?

I teared up sitting behind the wheel for the last time to say goodbye. She has seen me through almost my entire single life. She could tell you more about me than probably any human being. (Is it weird that I have such affection for an inanimate object? Well, she' not inanimate. She took me all kinds of wonderful places. But still...)

Oh well. She'll always be remembered with love and fondess in my heart. Goodbye Rossie. Love, Skye

Where's my dinner, woman!

2006-02-15T21:22:00.001-08:00

Is it true that the expectation of something does not negate the joy in its fulfillment?

Jared & I have been reading the infamous love languages book. His primary language is "acts of service," and no matter how many times I press him, he still says he feels loved when I do things like... oh, say... do the dishes, clean up the house, take out the garbage, make him dinner, vaccuum the living room..."

Are you serious? This is so unromantic. I mean, those are things I have to do all the time ANYway. So how does he get "I do this cuz I love him" from what may very well just be "this kitchen is gross. I've gotta do something about it."

Anyway, my biggest fear with "learning his dialect" is that if I make him dinner every night, that he'll come to expect dinner every night, and then it will be a requirement of our relationship, rather than an expression of heartfelt love. If he comes home and I haven't made him dinner, maybe he'll start calling me "woman" and take off his shirt to reveal a wife-beater underneath. Then he'll grab a beer and watch some tv.

No, seriously. I could lovingly make dinner every night, but I can't fathom that the warm fuzzies wouldn't eventually wear off for him. What happens when expectations become entrenched in our every day lives? Wouldn't we have to run faster and faster to keep up? Like developing a tolerance for our favorite drug?

Jared begs to differ.

Okay, and I have to admit... even though I expect flowers and chocolate on Valentine's Day, I don't like them any less from year to year (although I'm only on year #2. Ask me in 2057 and see what I say then.) (j/k). And even though I expect a kiss goodbye each morning, I only look forward to it more and more and revel in the moment more and more as time goes by. It's like expecting presents on Christmas. Who gets tired of presents? Not me! Hmmmm. Could he be right about wifely, domestic service too?

Trying to grasp someone else's love language is a challenge (if it doesn't involve presents, candlelight, or snowboarding anyway). But I guess no matter what floats your boat, there's something to being able to expect it to happen. I mean, not just that expecting isn't bad, but that it's actually good.

Expectation is part of the foundation of trust - a crucial element in a loving relationship. Why would we hook up with people if we didn't come to expect that they would provide the things we need to feel loved?

...From All My Labours

2006-02-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

“People shouldn’t work on days like this,” I told my Dad/Boss.

I had walked out the door that morning to beautiful streaming sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky!

In Portland? In February?!

We had just ended a record-long streak of straight rain and gray. I don’t think I’d seen the sun since November. My heart instantly grew three sizes.

I took in the sunshine for a moment. My very first flowers were blooming (there was actually a bumble bee in one of them), I could hear a mess of birds chirping in the tree nearby, the breeze blew slightly. Aaaaah! I rejoiced for a moment. Then I sighed, walked to my car, and drove to work.

“The city should totally shut down, really," I continued. "We have Snow-days... we should have SUN-days!”

oh. wait.

“...and on the seventh day thou shalt rest...” (Exodus 23:12, King James Translation)

There is actually a commandment that we stop working and enjoy life once in a while. Crazy.

Crazier still, is that pretty much everything God has told us is designed to help us enjoy life and have joy. Immature, adolescent, defiant godlings that we are, we’ve twisted most of our Creator’s direction into guilt-provoking prohibitions. Pity.

Well, I for one am going to have joy. I’m taking the whole day off in two days!! Oh, wait. That’s Sunday. Well, I take every Sunday off! Ha!

Praise God!

7-Grain Soul

2006-02-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

When I was little, my mommy didn't love me. How did I know? My Adam's all-natural, no-sugar-added peanut butter told me so. While other kids were eating gloriously white Wonderbread, Skippy, and Smuckers sandwiches for lunch, followed by fruit snacks, Capri Sun, and Oreo Cookies, I was muscling down my homemade-whole-wheat bread sandwiches with that Adam’s no-sugar peanut butter and homemade jam, followed by an apple, water from the fountain, and – if I was lucky – an orange-rind-pumpkin-whole-wheat dessert thing that my Mom thought she could pass off as a cookie.

My fellow geek-friends soon discovered that they could bribe me to do humiliating things in exchange for a morsel of their marvelously saccharine fruit rollup. Half the time they didn’t want it anyway (I never understood this), and would just have a little fun watching me bark like a dog, or whatever cruel prank they dreamed up this time. Luckily, they were not very creative, and I don’t think the other kids ever noticed my desperate antics. Not that it helped my popularity any.

Nevertheless... childhood scarred me. And as an adult, I defiantly and enthusiastically buy Skippy peanut butter now. It’s one of the beautiful things about adulthood. We responsible people working the daily grind often lament the loss of the old days, when we had no responsibilities and knew nothing of the pain and suffering in the world. In this moment, though, I choose to rejoice in my adulthood! Finally! I can eat what I want! I can go where I want! I can do what I want! Remember how we used to think we couldn’t wait to grow up and not have parents telling us what to do all the time? Remember that cruelty really did exist in the world, among our own name-calling peers? Remember that summers were actually boring as often as they were fun? I do. Childhood was great. But adulthood is also Great. I mean, hey! I get to eat Skippy now.
I just at a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, and oh, the bliss!

Truthfully, most of my tastes were eventually brow-beaten to match my mother’s in the end. Or else I’ve returned to them after briefly experimenting with the dark side of refined foods and transfats (so unfair, to call foods “refined” which are actually evil, menacing fragments of real food which coat your intestines, stay beyond their welcome, and make you fat). Nowadays I buy the wholest-wheatest bread I can find. I prefer all-natural ingredients. I am actually grossed out by fatty, ready-made, boxed or frozen entrees. I love fresh fruit and vegetables. I’m a huge fan of broccoli. And I make almost everything from scratch if I possibly can. Very like my mother. It’s only on a few points that I’ve diverted, like the peanut butter.

It is our privilege as adults to decide which of our parents’ values to adopt, whether it be religion, child-rearing, marriage, moral values, habits, etc. I would say my food preferences somewhat follow my more important life choices so far. In the areas of morals and values, mostly I’ve come to agree with what my parents taught me. I diverge here and there (but then, as an adult I also know now that they don’t even agree on everything. Go figure). But I generally subscribe to the same whole-grain-whole-life religion they do. In the end I married a man my mother actually approved of. My political and social opinions are, well, sort of the same as my folks’. Overall, I can’t complain. I’m really grateful to my parents for teaching me good values and helping me develop an early taste for goodness, honesty, joy, God, love, gratitude, the outdoors, personal accomplishment, and natural foods.

Here we go again...

2006-01-21T21:45:00.000-08:00

Every year, in January, I have an emotional - what would you call it - upheaval, breakdown, rebirth, journey, catharsis, transcendent experience, purging, cleansing, any of the above. For some reason, each year I experience the reinvention of self. It's a painful process, but one from which I always emerge.

This always happens in December and January. Is it the weather? Is it the New Year? The aftermath of the holidays in general? Is it my birthday (tomorrow)? Is it the alignment of the stars and planets? Is it my tarot and numerology (which does, by the way, indicate I should have a rebirth every year around early January. crazy stuff.).

Does anyone else have a regular, predictable schedule upon which they do these things? It seems so transendent, so spiritual, so left-brained and personal to be tied to something like a "schedule," which is the opposite of all things "feeling" to my mind.

In any case...

like the phoenix, this year too I will rise from the ash, having cried my tears of redemption and having sung my heart to pieces.

Fun-oholism.

2006-01-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

My mother-in-law and I were talking about our husbands over the New Year. They share a penchant for "accomplishing things" and both seem to lead purpose-driven lives.

"Scott just likes the satisfaction of having done something productive" she said.

"Oh, I know! Jared is the same way!" I empathized. I quipped about how Jared prefers to spend Saturdays doing stuff around the house over snowboarding or something mindlessly fun and adventurous. He likes to feel like he accomplished something that day, or else he can't even really have fun. He has to earn his fun, I guess (in contrast, I always feel I already deserve it).

Jared and his father both have a very strong sense of responsibility. They have integrity in their actions, whether to their employers, to church callings, to neighbors, to conscience, to family. It's a good thing for us, to have married honorable men; my mother-in-law and I agreed.

"It's not like he actually likes working, he just has a really strong sense of responsibility, and he gets satisfaction from fulfilling his duties. He's not a workaholic or anything."

I nodded my head. But I was thinking... "is there any difference?" I've always thought of a workaholic as someone who actually enjoys work more than liesure (what a freak). I've thought of workaholism as a distant disease of some weird people who are strange, antisocial, backward, money-driven, home-wrecking, and aloof.

But wait... like I said, is there any difference between him and the "purpose-driven" guy? Lots of people find their work satisfying or meaningful. If someone enjoys the satisfaction of completing work projects enough that they choose that over liesure or family time, then isn't that the same thing as liking work more than fun? Is workaholism anything other than a simple matter of where and how some people choose to spend their time, whatever their reasons for their choice?

Jared & I had a conversation on our drive up to Seattle about whether you can truly learn to like anything, if it's something that you have to do. He says that you can. He concedes that most people feel that some parts of life are unenjoyable, but we tolerate them because we know we will gain satisfaction from the end result. Simply put: any sacrifice we make is for something we believe to be better. (This is how I feel about life. I don't like every piece of living, but I choose my activities according to my view of what will bring me the most happiness in the future. duh.).

Jared, on the other hand, thinks that he is different from most people because he actually likes to do everything he has to do. Or at least he tries. The knowledge that he will gain satisfaction in the end gives him a certain amount of enjoyment in the actual act of whatever it is, even previous to the desireable end-result.

"What about wiping your butt?" I retorted (pardon me, for this). "Surely we all derive satisfaction from having a clean butt, but it doesn't mean you actually enjoy the act of wiping the poo off of it." (... I won't keep going down this road, for your sake, it was funny and inappropriate and we made many analogous points that you don't want to hear about. )

In any case, the conversation ultimately supports my secret theory... that Jared is a workoholic waiting to happen. Kinda like a genetic alcoholic who hasn't yet really had a lot of alcohol. But already Jared has worked some days I wouldn't have and expressed that he actually likes working. Uh oh. I like my job too, but, I would sure go snowboarding before I would draft an estate plan.

Don't tell him I'm thinking about this. For one thing, it's pure speculation. He's actually a really fun guy at the moment. And it's not like I don't want him to like his job. We all have days we'd rather be at the office than puttering around the house. But for another, I don't want to perpetuate this phenomenon that keeps happening: if he takes time to spend with family (me), it's because he wants to make me happy, not because he wants the time (or so it sometimes feels).

Maybe I'm just a funoholic paranoid of the opposition. That's entirely possible. I've actually been quoted in the Salsa dance community: one dancer was asking about my work and I said, "I don't have time for a full-time job." I was serious (I had a lot going on, with music and other stuff). But he laughed and laughed, and then said his goal was to someday be like me.

Why can't we all aspire to someday be like me?

My Sacrament

2006-01-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

I cannot really pray in the belly of a church, walls made by the hands of men, surrounded by white-costumed, noose-necked 12-year-old boys marching to the beat of The Drum.

Give me the sky, and the wind, mountains, bees and birdsong. With wild grasses in my fingers, there I find my maker, and weep in sweet loving arms.

"That seems backward, dont'cha think?"

2005-12-30T23:31:00.000-08:00

My childhood teddy bear has recently made a come-back in my life. For the first time in years I am attached to having him available and on my bed at night. I never had him around when I was single, and Jared pointed out that it seems counterintuitive that after I got married I would reinstate the teddy bear (I do, after all, have a man always in my bed available for the hugging now). I wondered about this for a few minutes and decided...

When you're single, lying lonely in bed, you can muster a vague hope of the un-found lover, the distant and mythical soul-mate, he who would would put his arms around you in this moment, if only he knew who and where you were. "Ah, someday..." and you can hold out hope and make the universe seem smaller, more intimate, more loving, like the universe is smirking at its secret for you and thinking to itself, "oh, just you wait little one, just you wait to see what I have got in store for you! you're gonna love it! oooh, I can't wait! But shhhh... just sleep now."

On the other hand, there is no loneliness like that when your lover is asleep next to you, and you're heart aches for his loving arms. There are no tears like those rolling silently down your cheeks into the still darkness, hitting the pillow unheard, unwiped away, their sobbs swallowed and silenced. There is no ache like the ache of someone only inches away. When you know the universe holds no secret answer to your heart's cry, there is no loneliness like that.

Enter Teddy.

Searching for a Christmas Tree is like dating

2005-12-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

As Jared & I tramped through the mud & rain to find a tree a couple weeks ago, it occurred to me how much this was just like my dating life. The process went something like this:

At the beginning we were wandering around just browsing, not really lingering on anything until we'd taken general stock of what was out there. After a while we started stopping to really take a look. "How 'bout this one?" we'd shout to the other. We'd check it out, talk about the pro's and con's, and move on, figuring "there must be something better out there." And we kept doing this for a while.

The more trees we considered and rejected, the more I started taking note of 'where that last one was' so that I could come back to it if I couldn't find better. In fact, I was starting to wonder if a better tree really did exist or not. At least maybe not in this lot, but heavens I can't look at every single tree in every single lot! Should I go somewhere else? No, no, no, Skye, don't be silly. These are good trees. Great trees. I'm just being unrealistic about my expectations. Maybe I should settle for this one right here before it starts getting dark? Or how 'bout this one?

Time passes, we're getting tired and wet and cold and getting cranky, and all the Christmas trees are starting to look like lopsided rejects. Apparently all the other people looking that season cut down most of the good ones. In fact, every time we did find one we liked it was 'marked' as pre-paid. Figures. We tramped across acres of trees it seems. I was starting to feel discouraged. I hadn't seen anything as good as some of the first ones I saw, and I kinda wanted to go back to them. But they were a long way away by now, and someone might have already taken them. And furthermore, I just felt like we needed a fresh tree... one that didn't have so much baggage (could I really take a tree Jared already said he didn't like, knowing he's just trying to appease me? Would I really be satisfied with one I had previously rejected?)

Starting to feel discouraged, we were entering a new area when Jared said to me, "We're gonna find our tree here. I can tell. I can feel it." And I started to believe him. I too felt that we would diligently search and suddenly a light would shine forth and there would be Our Tree, perfect in every way. I had a renewed hope, and vigor, and purpose in my quest. On some level, I knew that it wasn't so much that there was a perfect tree here now, but that I was tired of looking, and by now I realized the perfect tree doesn't exist. I needed to find a tree that is perfect for me, beautiful in its irregularities and flaws and organic nature. It just needs to fit in my living room and hold my ornaments and smell Christmassy and I need to like it a lot. It's ok if it has a bare spot or a little lopsidedness. Totally symmetrical trees don't exist (unless they're fake).

Sure enough, several minutes later, we courted a little Noble Fir and everything seemed to fall into place. It turned out to be Our Tree. And it was perfect: the right size, the right fullness, the right type. We cut it down in the rain and hail and carted it off home, decorated it, and proceeded to love it with all our might... which did make it, indeed, the most perfect and beautiful Christmas Tree we could have hoped for.

The Fine Line Between True Feelings and True Love

2005-11-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes our conversations have long pauses between speaking. At first, I took his silence for pouting or being quietly mad; for that's how I felt when I was silent, which wasn't very often really (me? silent?). But now we both pause similarly when having certain kinds of conversations. Long, quiet moments where we carefully and thoughtfully consider what we are about to say, before we say it. It is understood that the pauses are a matter of care for each other, gentleness with each other's feelings, sensitivity to our friendship, and a genuine desire for honesty and truth rather than reactionary feelings.

Guaging the pause is always delicate. Too short and I might say something rash. Too long and it can be misinterpreted, or else I lose my chance to respond because he will take another moment to clarify or expound.

The scriptures talk, at one point, about "reproving betimes with sharpness" -- a weird, almost non-sensical statement, which really means: "say it now, don't wait, deal with things in the moment or else they'll spin out of control." And I've found it so true, yet so hard to adhere to. I am so wary of saying something I'll regret in the future. I so much want to be careful. And yet, if I say nothing, but harbor ill feelings, they only make it worse later.

I have to be honest with myself: am I afraid of speaking my mind now because I might be hurtful, or do I mostly just not want to be wrong? Many times, I mostly just don't want to be wrong. My genuine desire to say something true gets twisted into feeling the need to be right. It's fine to want truth, except that sometimes you have to express the possibly-wrong thing you're feeling in order to find the truth. Sometimes only by inviting another person's point of view can you even begin to see it. Sometimes you need to humility to go out on a limb and say how you feel, only to discover your own selfishness, pride, egotism, and lack of love for another.

I hate being wrong. But I hate being unloving more. But some days I can't be everything that I want to be. Some days I wake up sad or selfish or depressed or indifferent or preoccupied and on those days sometimes I can't find the fine line between true feelings and true love.

...pant pant pant. It's over. And boy do I feel happy now!

2005-11-22T01:02:00.000-08:00

Click Here to see about my CD Release. I was terrified! I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life, including my wedding day. And it went great... such satisfaction :)

If you can't win an argument on the merits of your position, win it on grammar.

2005-11-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

"I am an innocent bystander" Jared said. "I'm just cooking the chicken. You bought it."

"You're supporting the inhumane treatment of chickens just as much as I am," I argued. I had bought the cheapest chicken available at Winco the day before, and I almost felt guilty, since in order to produce them for so cheap, the chickens surely must be mistreated and abused at some mass chicken-plant somewhere. I had admitted as much to Jared, saying we were supporting the industry, which started the discussion.

I continued... "I merely bought chickens that were already killed. It's not like I'm the one who abused them. Someone else would have bought these chickens if I hadn't."

"Well, I'm just preventing waste," he responded. "If I didn't cook these poor dead chickens, no one would, since you already bought them. It is true that if you hadn't bought them, someone else still might have bought these very chicken breasts. BUT, since you did buy them, more chickens have to be abused and killed to fill the demand, since you supported the cheap, abusive, chicken trade. If you hadn't bought these chickens, less chickens would have...."

"fewer chickens" I humphed. pause....

Jared rolled his eyes, "well, you can say 'less' chickens or 'fewer' chickens, but either way..."

"No you can't say 'less chickens,' that's grammaticlly incorrect! You can only say 'fewer chickens' since the chickens are quantifiable. Now, if you wanted to say 'less chickEN' then that's fine, but inasmuch as you're talking about multiple chickens, and you can count them, it's 'fewer'"

ha. take that, Jared.

I win now, right?

Walk in the Woods... I mean Swamp

2005-11-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I didn't feel so good, so I went for a liesurely walk instead of my usual (up & down up & down the biggest hill I could find within 5 minutes of my house). I also wanted to stay in the sunshine, so I walked past the library and along the railroad tracks.

Behind my house is a swamp, and through the swamp runs fanno creek. It's all fenced off, and no one really goes in there. What I found was that behind the swamp is a lot more. A Big field and trees and lots of other cool open beautiful space. I walked around and around, took pictures of all the pretty things.

Swamps are somehow scary to me. Are they to all people? It started getting dark, but even in the daylight there's something eerie about the stillness, the silence, the deadness, andyet lurking life in a swamp. The fact that you can't easily get from point A to point B, the fact that you're never sure if your foot will hit ground or water under the thick reeds, the fact that you occassionally hear another creature, but never see it. The strange sense and smell of living decay.

When I was little we lived near a swamp. It was THE place for adventure and bravery, among Pixton kids. I had lots of scary experiences there, that threatened my life(in my childhood view). Snakes, frogs, half-eaten birds and animals, "nearly" drowning, and other stuff like that. Maybe I'm only uneasy in the swamp because that was how I felt as a child. But somehow I think almost any sensitive person would feel that way... if caught exploring there alone, no one knowing where you are, the sun fixin' to set.

I tried to get back. I didn't know if I could cross the swamp/creek, but I wanted to try. There must be a fallen log somewhere. It was getting dark. I knew Coyotes lived back there and surely other stuff. I was getting caught on brambles, tripping in holes and marshy mushy ground. I found all things mysterious and beautiful and scary. Finally I found (miraculously) a fallen bridge. I was sure it was unsafe, but going back the way I came, alone, in the dark, was not safe either. Deep, muddy water swirled below. I said a silent prayer and stepped slowly and carefully along the teetering brace.

On the other side a man told me about the blue heron who lives nearby and introduced me to his dog. I felt I had just cheated death, or childhood, or both. And life was normal again already.

Emily's Book

2005-11-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

I'm reading it... to edit it of course. I just have the first 100 pages. It's amazing.

And I appear in it too, as a character, so that's fun. Or it was supposed to be. She gave me all the necessary disclaimers: "it's a character based on you, I can't represent you exactly, blah blah blah" ...I'm a songwriter. I know.

I was prepared for her embellishing her assessment of things maybe. But this may be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I got to the part where people in the ward asked her... "so, what's it like living with her?" and all the mean things people said about me behind my back. ...............i'm so crushed. i had no idea. i lay awake in bed last night for hours, tears welling up in my eyes. people i thought were my friends said those things about me?! people didn't like me? i must be so naive! i always imagine that everyone likes me. after all, i like everyone. there's hardly anyone i don't like, and i certainly don't say mean things about other people behind their backs! i just can hardly believe it. But i also know it's true. it makes sense. sometimes i sensed gossip or something-less-than-good-will from people. i never thought it was about me.

i don't really know how to take it. It reminds me of the 4th grade. I had long been the class geek. One time there was an obvious secret among my classmates, and it was obviously about me and Matt. I tried to listen to the whispers, the looks, the taunts, to figure out what it was about. They even invented a secret code-language. One day, my two best friends -- the other geeks in the school -- learned the language and began talking behind my back. I wasn't worried about it. Just flattered. I told them I knew what it was about kindof. They said, "oh, what?" I said that Matt liked me (I knew that he was planning to ask me to "go" with him). They laughed and laughed. Turns out Matt lost a bet with his best friend, and his punishment was to ask me to go with him. In that moment my little teachers-pet-smart-innocent-kid-who-played-with-ladybugs world was shattered. Instead of being the desirable person I thought I was, I was the lowest of the low. I was a PUNISHMENT for this kid. And everyone else thought it was hilarious. Even my best friends.

I had no friends that day.

Nor any day for a long time after.

Since adulthood I have considered myself lucky: popular and well-liked with lots of friends and amazing people in my life. Have I just spent my life thinking that was an isolated incident of childhood cruelty, when in fact, I have always been quietly despised and murmured against?

Do I have any friends now?

I dreamt last night that Jared left me. That I found a new boyfriend, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to call Jared and beg him to come back. I woke up and tried to put my arm around him, to remind myself that he was there and he pushed it away. I tried again, he pushed again, harder. Then he rolled and pushed my whole body away. ... I know he's asleep when he does this. I know he doesn't know he's doing it. But I also know I'm asleep when I have bad dreams. They don't hurt any less, they are no less scary. And his pushing me away is no less painful, in those moment, than if he looked me straight in the eye and did it on purpose.

I think the 4th-grader in me never really grew up, and I still fear nothing more than rejection.

2005-11-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the moon
on those harvest nights
hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the womb
at the beginning of our lives

and help me to find my soul this time
before I lose you, lose my mind
help me to find....

Stupid Wife Things

2005-11-01T10:43:00.000-08:00

Last night it rained all night like crazy. I drove Jared's car home from a party, for reasons not important here, and like the quintissential wife, I did a stupid-wife-thing and left the headlights on. I also didn't park it in the garage because I could see a bike encroaching on the car space (Jared's car is wider and harder to fit in the garage than mine, I didn't want to risk scratching it, and I was too lazy to get out and move the bike).

Why do wives always do stupid things? When I was single, I was brilliantly smart, and did everything in a self-actuating, independent and intelligent manner.

Now that I'm a wife, I do stupid wife-things.

So this morning Jared's car 1) wouldn't start, and 2) was flooded and soaking inside from the rain.

My fault. Well... the battery being dead is my fault. The flooding is an unrelated problem that coincided by coincidence (hey, those words are, like, the same word!), but it took us all morning to figure that out.

I'm secretly happy about the car problems because Jared was home for an extra couple hours morning. I love mornings with Jared. But I don't have the discipline to get up 2 hours earlier than I need to just to talk to him while he gets dressed and reads cnn.com.

Response to a family string about the lack of hearty discussions at church

2005-10-31T10:04:00.000-08:00

So... I've thought much about the lack of real searching and honest answers to tough questions in Sunday School. It used to frustrate me to death. I've mellowed out some, partly because of what Bryce was talking about. There are so many for whom those discussions aren't uplifting or productive.

To me, I've made a distinction between what is good Sunday School fodder, and what is not (maybe I'll change my mind later, but for now, I think of it this way). Sunday School has a particular purpose: to uplift, inspire, and motivate. Church is more or less a support group for people trying to live The Way. Thus, church meetings are really designed to be forums for encouraging each other and reminding us of the principles that will help us. Sunday School is for the kinds of things you can talk about over and over and over and they will continue to help people come to Christ.

Most of the tough questions don't really fall into this category. Of course, I personally feel a great need to address them, I think most people feel that way at some point in their lives, and I think they should not be candy-coated or pushed under the rug the way they often are in church meetings. But I also recognize that these are things that don't need to be brought up for me over and over and over, the way we do with Sunday School topics. Most of them are things that I can spend some time with, and more or less resolve for myself, and I don't need to keep harping on them. That considered, they really aren't good Sunday School topics. We don't need to spend our rotating, repeating schedule on difficult, controversial issues. Some questions need to be addressed once in a lifetime. Others recur, but on an individual's own time. These are questions that I need to investigate on my own and come to an understanding about, not subject all the other people at church to, who are there expressly for the purpose of being uplifted and
motivated.

Now, that said, I will say that I think Sunday School panders too much to the weak of faith at the expense of the faithful and searching members. If some people at church need gospel "milk," and so that's what we get -- all day, every day -- it leaves those of us who wish to grow starving and emaciated. We grow up mutants with no backbone because we've never been fed "meat," only to stumble later. There is so much more to this gospel than we are routinely taught. Many of the deeper questions are not controversial at all, just a little more esoteric. And as far as topics that ARE controversial, in my personal observation, we lose more people to the LACK of real, honest answers than we do to the inability to cope with reality and honesty. I personally think that "the truth will set you free": if someone cannot handle open dialogue about our faith, I think they are living in a kind of fear.

That's NOT to say though that everyone needs or wants to go there. Some people are just of a different constitution and those questions hold no interest or intrigue for them. Some people's faith is such that they can easily accept whatever is in our church's history and they don't really need to know the details. Kudos to them.

The biggest problem in my view is in lack of tolerance for each others' different styles of faithful searching. "Intellectuals" feel outcast by a heritage of conservatism in church, which treats questioners as if their desire to search means they lack faith. We are defensive and adamant in our insistence that honesty is desperately needed and those who refuse to look with open eyes are fearful. We are afraid for our children because we know that someday they'll grow up to realize they've been fed a line their whole lives, and how will they find the true answers to their questions if they cannot ask them in church? "Non-intellectuals" feel looked down upon by intellectual "snobs" who treat them as if they are lesser, not as intelligent, not as faithful, and inferior. Both of these are stereotypes, but there is truth to them. If we "intellectuals" can be more loving, tolerant, and understanding of those who do not wish to spend their church time investigating problems, I hope they will be more tolerant of those who need to ask those questions, and acknowledge that there are many ways to view the answers.

This is part of the reason I'm so pro-Sunstone these last couple weeks. If you don't know, I just went to a symposium in Seattle, and it was the most inspiring, enlivening, uplifting and motivating thing I've been to that I can remember. Much more so than a typical church-meeting for me. I want to shout from the rooftops "The Church is True!" and tell everyone I know! It's a forum for those who have faith but want to discuss deeper gospel ideas. There is a real need for this kind of thing, and I think everyone should know about it. There are people there to help you, if you have questions. Of course, because there are lots of ideas expressed, I doubt if anyone would agree with all of them. But that's part of the beauty of it: everyone understands that everyone else has different ideas... and that's OK! (an attitude we don't get at church). Thus we can talk honestly and openly about our feelings, our ideas, our concerns, and be uplifted by each other without judgment or "The Right" answer being shoved down our throats "because Joe-of-the-Brethren said so."

Anyway, those are my many thoughts. Be tolerant and careful of those who don't think the way you do. We all have different needs. And hope they will be tolerant of you. There are loving ways of suggesting alternate ways of viewing things in Sunday School, which let others know that there is more than one viewpoint, without suggesting other viewpoints are wrong or inferior. :)

Love, Skye

Guess Who! A bit I wrote for the ward newsletter.

2005-10-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

My visiting teachee is in charge of "Spotlight on the Family," a feature where they write about a family without disclosing who they are. People can guess who they think it is and next week the great secret is revealed! Anyway, her people fell through this week, so here I go to save the day:

Guess Who?:

He grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and escaped with just a few hippie-tendencies lasting into adulthood. She attended University of Oregon during her desperately-seeking-hippies phase. They may have been at a common singles dance in Eugene (we’ll see in the eternal replay), but certainly she wouldn’t have been interested in an 17-year old D.J. at the time (she was a ripe old 19) so their paths crossed unnoticed.

He later studied electrical engineering at BYU. She was concurrently at BYU, studying humanities. Engineers and artists don’t mix much, so again, their paths crossed unnoticed. They also both had college bands at BYU; his funk, hers folk. Again, no crossover.

After college, he pursued a law degree at Willamette University while she pursued a music career in Portland, Oregon. After exhausting the female resources in Salem, he began attending activities in Portland where she was living (getting warmer!). Her roommate had known him at BYU, and began inviting him around, and thus they finally met on the record. They became friends, albeit distant ones, both dating other people. They shared common interests like the outdoors and... well the outdoors... with a little music and art on the side.

One spring, when her ex-boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend announced they were dating, they became even better friends (ha! Take that, exes!). He invited her on a backpacking trip to Utah in order to hook her up with his college buddy who needed a girl. Success! She hooked up with the college buddy. So they became friends in order to talk about this college buddy. Soon it became very clear that she’d picked the wrong guy and after a month or so of secret longing and grueling silence, they confessed their undying love and affection for each other and fell kissing and weeping into each others arms (or... something like that). Then they called the friend with the (un)happy news.

He is currently a harried overworked associate at a Portland patent-law firm. She's an underpaid starving musician playing downtown clubs and haunts (she daylights as a paralegal so she can pretend to have a real job). They are happy to be in the Fanno Creek Ward, and they hope to wreak lots of havoc while they're here. The End.

Sunstone Weekend - "What? A whole bunch of free-thinking Mormons all in one place?"

2005-10-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended a Sunstone Symposium in Seattle. I've meant to go to one of these for years, but never managed it. It just didn't sound that sexy, even though I knew it was likely to be "intellectually stimulating."

Now I'm married, and "sexy" has taken on a whole new meaning :)

It was the sexiest thing ever. I think I've never been so inspired and enlightened and motivated as I was last weekend. Speakers tackled subjects like:

"Mormon Mantras: In eastern spiritual traditions, mantras are practiced to assist persons to overcome mindless, conditioned behavior and to align themselves with the divine. Do some Mormon cultural "mantras" - repetetive phrases and ideas that organize the internal lives of many latter day saints - serve the same liberating function? Or do they, at times, inhibit individual spiritual growth. Are there gospel mantras that could serve us better?"
"Mary Magdalene: Bride and Beloved: Reclaiming the Sacred Union in Christianity"

Oh, and so much more. The mission statement of the Sunstone Education Foundation is "Sponsor of Open Forums of Mormon Thought and Experience." How many times have I expressed frustration at how hard it is to find people willing to talk in an open and honest way about the church and its role in our lives! Here was a whole group of people coming together to do just that. I can't even begin to express how cool it was or try to say what was said. Everyone should go to their website and download the free podcasts of the symposium. (www.sunstoneonline.com).

I want to be the new generation. I have wanted to sponsor open thought. Now I've found an organization doing it, and I want to join.

I feel like I just found the church.

And I want to tell all my friends.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE! Come join us. ... and if you have questions that aren't answered in Sunday School, well, come to me, baby. I know who will answer them for ya!

Jared is Out of Town

2005-09-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

I've been married now for exactly one year, thirty days, six hours, and thirty six minutes. This is almost exactly thirteen months.

My husband is out of town on business for about four days. So far, he has been gone for two days, seven hours, twenty two minutes. I’ve slept alone in our house for two nights. I’ve eaten two breakfasts and three dinners alone. I’ve gone to church alone once, accepted one solo dinner invitation, come home after work to an empty house twice, felt midnight empty-house fear a couple of time, reached for him uselessly half-dreamy in bed three times, anxiously answered his calls six times, explained his absence to others eight times.

All this makes it sound so lonely. Do I miss him? Of course. Am I lonely?... well...hmmm...
Before he left I was positively distraught. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending four days without him. I was scared of the idea of so many hours alone. I just like his company. We don’t even have to be talking to each other or anything – in fact, I"m usually quite busy – but I just like knowing he’s there when I want him. And so the night before he left I was emotional, clingy and weepy. I wanted more and more kisses. I wanted to hold on tighter and tighter. I wanted to buy a last minute plane ticket to go with him. I never wanted to separate again.

And now that he’s gone... I really can’t say that it’s been miserable. I expected to be so forlorn and romantically sullen, longing, yearning for him. And I’m not. I’ve been married over a year now, does that mean something? We joked before he left about the honeymoon being over. We laughed, I said it would never be over. I’m only more in love with him now than I have ever been. Which is true. But here I am, not even lonely, even kindof enjoying the time to myself. I can get more done. I have time to contemplate. I have time to clean and run errands and don’t have someone second guessing anything I do or don’t do. I don’t have to make dinner for anybody. I can do things on my own schedule. I don’t have to go to bed at a particular time. The TV is off! I love it.

What does it mean, exactly, "the honeymoon being over" thing. I always assumed it was a bad thing, that it means that the problems and grief of marriage set in, that you get sick of each other, that you’re no longer "in love" the way you used to be. At least, I always assumed that’s what people generally mean when they use the term. I think generally they do.

But I’ve decided that what it really means for the honeymoon to be over is something different (and maybe people even mean this sometimes, and I just never understood before). It means not that you fall out of love, but that you move into the next phase of your love and your life together. At the beginning of marriage there is an important "honeymoon" phase that you spend really becoming part of each other and part of each other’s lives. You bond and grow closer and accommodate each other and become a team instead of two separate individuals. It’s romantic and cute. It’s the part of a relationship that we all look forward to... as adolescents at least. But this "honeymoon over" part... just might be even better. This, I think, is the part where you reaffirm and remember that you are an individual still. An individual who has covenanted to a partnership with another, and that by that partnership you accomplish things that you never could alone, but that the partnership is also completely dependent on your sovereignty and individuality. This is the part where you let go of fear, let go of uncertainty, let go of co-dependence and embrace inter-dependence. This is the part where you stand up and own your power. "This relationship works because it adds to my life, not because it takes away."

The fact that I’m not despondent without Jared made me a little nervous at first. I wondered if there was something wrong or that it was All Downhill From Here. And don’t get me wrong. Of course there will be moments, especially as his absence drags on, that I’ll really miss him, that I’ll want to tell him something, or ask him something, or feel his arms around me, or have his help.

But heavens, I’m not non-functional without him! My life was pretty damn good before Jared came along. I think that’s why he wanted me. And that hasn’t changed. I’m a happy and productive person. I have a happy life. Jared or no Jared. He makes it better, but he doesn’t make it. What a tragic mistake so many people make when looking for a spouse. They wait on their own lives because they want their spouse to be every part of it. But if you do this, you’ll be dependent on your spouse for happiness. Which, as the relationship matures, you’ll find a spouse cannot always provide. That’s a sure way to doom not only your own happiness, but your spouses (if I’ve learned anything, it’s that spouses feel guilty for needs they don’t fulfill. And guilt is depressing and discouraging. The fewer needs you saddle your spouse with, the happier you’ll both be.)

I’m looking forward to The End of The Honeymoon. I think the next phase will be the most beautiful and joyous: real depth of commitment, real love, real partnership, real romance. As a whole, self-actualized woman, I will embrace this man that I love, who loves me, and together we’ll blaze our future. Not one of fantasy, but one of real, actual, here-and-now life. One that we will not only dream of, but actually live, for the rest of our lives.