Who You Are

As a child, I played the viola and cello for two years each. I hated both, went through four or five teachers, and quit. I never practiced and was dreadfully untalented.


Before that though, I started playing the piano, at age six, and it changed me. My teacher gave me challenges, she taught me to enjoy practicing and learning new songs and techniques. Piano stuck with me forever, it was always a friend I could turn to, and later became my avenue for learning to write my own music to express myself even better... but this isn't really a story about my love for the piano.


A few weeks before starting 9th grade, I had a recurring thought. I wondered if I could still play the viola at all. My younger sister still played it and it piqued my curiosity to the point where I actually pulled it out and began to play.



It was woeful.



The worst playing I've ever heard.


I was actually quite embarrassed. I didn't remember ANYTHING. Not from 4 years of string playing.

I set out to re-learn. I pulled out the beginning method books and started from scratch. I practiced feverishly for hours and hours, developing skills quickly as I played along to my old Disney Viola CDs and emulated the sounds as best as I could.

I decided with my mom's help to join the school orchestra that year. I elected to (with the conductor's permission) jump to intermediate orchestra. 

The first day was terrifying. 

I was such a poser. Every student in the room seemed to be at least a year younger than me and had at least a whole year more playing experience than I had. They were confident with their music and I was quite apprehensive. My normally cheerful, outspoken personality turned quiet, shy, and nervous. I had been playing for only a few weeks.



I remember having to force myself to not collapse in, to sit straight, to not shrink into a tiny ball--huddled in the corner. I forced myself to stand with composure, to sit confidently, to look like I wasn't afraid. I forced myself not to grimace and shrivel when the conductor pulled out new music for us that I hadn't had any chance to practice and perfect yet in the safety of my home.



When the first playing test was announced, I think my pulse quickened to the point where I almost couldn't function and I almost fell out of my chair in shock and fear. I set my jaw toward success and during the next two weeks, leading up to the test, I practiced during every spare moment. I practiced beyond being able to get it all right, I practiced until I knew that I couldn't possibly get it wrong.

In class, my hands froze and my whole body shook when the teacher called my name to perform the part. I steeled my nerves, confidently shoved my viola under my chin, picked up my head and pronounced that I was ready. I played the piece, completely absorbed in it, eyes closed to all that was around me. I played it to perfection.

The director, knowing my background, and actually having been my cello teacher who told me to quit because I was so untalented in years past, was stunned. The whole class applauded and I felt strange as I seemed to return to humanity. The relief I felt in that moment is as of yet still unparalleled in my life.



A week later, the conductor made the seating assignments. I was made first chair violist.


I CANNOT TELL YOU THE FEAR AND THE CONFIDENCE that simultaneously coursed through my veins at that moment. There was also dread though, I didn't know what I was doing, I had some skills, but I had virtually no experience. I knew that I could continue to work hard and prepare songs in advance, but I stressed over the new songs that would be handed out in class, that I couldn't prepare before our first practices. Additionally, my little sister was in the class as a violist herself. She was a year younger than the majority, and had shown excellence enough to push her ahead thus far, but now she was out-shined by the sister who had just started. The sister who practiced originally on her viola, the sister who she was excited to teach.



I felt like a fake for so long after that. I felt like a phony every time I took my place at the head of the section. I was so unqualified, but I did my best, and I tried to show confidence enough in myself to be able to lead my section. By the end of the first semester, I was feeling good with my position, but then I was moved to the advanced orchestra. I was dropped right in with my peers who were my same age, had been playing for at least two and a half years, but many of them much longer, and they were playing songs that they had worked on for months already where I was very much behind. Once again I had to employ my tactics of faking ( but still really working) 'til I made it.



These days, I don't have the opportunity of an orchestra to play in and I don't practice my skills and drum techniques like I should and like I did then, I've got other focuses in my life, but I'm trying to apply the life skills that I learned through my sudden birth into the music world to build on the rest of my life.

We have to decide who we are; it's not a passive thing. We have to declare to ourselves, to choose who we really are, and then we have to set our actions and our work to reflect that. We have to be that in all that we are capable and work as hard as we can at truly attaining, owning, and becoming what we have decided we are and then once we achieve that, we have to reach beyond and become more.


But I really believe that our actions, thoughts, words, and opinions of ourselves are crucially important. We have to believe in who we are and that we are truly capable of it. It shapes our lives entirely as it fundamentally changes who we are. When we believe in ourselves, limits fall away.

Amy Cuddy, Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, TED talks

The Spirit of Adventure

When I was a little girl, I loved everything. 

The entire world was amazing to me. I think I may have been a better person then, albeit a person with less experience. 

I loved to explore. 

A couple weeks ago, I went caving with some friends on a date. We drove a couple hours down to this little city in the middle of nowhere, then past it--to its outskirts--and parked by a little hill. We got out, put on all of our gear, and started walking up the hill. It was steep. I looked at Abby, the other girl, and she looked at me, and we had a mutual understanding: this was going to be very exhausting and we were both totally out of shape. 

When we reached the top of the hill, there was a small, sunken in pile of rocks. In the middle was a hole, about two feet by two feet, maybe a little smaller, sideways. Kyle, my date, said "Alright! Here it is! Let's get in there!" as her date climbed into the earth, Abby looked at me and whispered, "I'm a little bit claustrophobic..." and I guess I was relieved. I had some reservations about crawling into the ground myself and it felt good to know that I wasn't the only one, although I worried about how she and I would fare underground. 

As sunlight was exchanged for headlamp light and shadows filled my range of vision, I watched the ground closely--all around me--and noticed very quickly how the shape of the passage would require us to crawl, maybe for a very long time. I also noticed the small passage just to my left that dropped away in slippery rock to a large and shadowy hole. This was the kind of adventure on which it was actually quite possible to die. 

Small passages lead to larger ones, then to crawlspaces, then to eight or ten foot tall rooms. The rock formations were amazing, though they were somewhat few and far between, with many chisel marks and broken rocks pealing their sad story of how miners had robbed the cave of its natural beauty years before.  

Timidly crawling gave way to diagonally walking, slowly transitioning to brazenly squirming, then to empowered leaping from stone to stone in the larger rooms. The cave became more familiar. The thought "I am inside the ground. I am underneath the Earth. This is all so wrong." was forced out by thoughts of "Look at this!" "Imagine how this came to be!" "Where does that passage lead?" 

When, after an hour and a half of crawling in hidden wonders, we once again returned to the surface, where the sun was shining, and light was easily taken for granted, I felt stronger, smarter, empowered. 

At about three years old, I was notorious for my adventurous nature. I ran out every day, multiple times a day, and crossed the parking lot of our townhouse complex, and played in the 'woods' across from our home. I searched for bugs and plants and ran my fingers along the tree bark and the moss, exploring everything and trying to get everything I possibly could out of this amazing piece of nature. I caught daddy long legs, held them in the palm of my hand, watching them walk around and spoke to them in whispers, imagining what they would say if they could talk back. Then of course, the neighbors would call my mother, threatening to call social services if they saw me out in the woods or walking through their section of the community lawn on my own again and my mother would find me, try to explain that I had to tell her when I wanted to go to these places and not sneak out, and take me back to our little house. 

I'm not as adventurous as I used to be, although I'm not sure that three year-old me would have liked the dark of that cave much at all... 

But then I think only of the words of one of my favorite childhood movies, Pocahontas, "To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing." 

I suppose the reason why I'm less adventurous is that I'm more responsible, have more knowledge of what the consequences may be, but every once in a while, it's important to take a risk, a true adventure, like when I climbed into that hole in the ground, in the top of a hill in central Utah nowhereness, looked at that terrifying drop away passage, and decided to keep going, though treading carefully. When we never let loose of the brain factor of life's adventures, they can never truly penetrate. our brain is preoccupied with thoughts of rationale and leaves little space for thoughts of wonder. 

Remember your inner child, who you once were, let them come exploring with you and allow yourself the experience of wondering about the beauty and vastness of nature rather than how you are going to get down from here. 

Motherhood: the power of love

  Mothers' Day is a time to celebrate not only our mothers, but all the women who have brought us to where we are now through  the mothering quality of nurturing.

Mother Teresa (from deadline.com)

There are many vibrant examples of strong and faithful women of faith inside and outside of any particular church. My grandmother was particularly fond of mother Teresa.   Mother Teresa was a Catholic woman, driven to aid those in need by her love of Christ. She truly lived her faith and acted on what she knew on a minute to minute basis. She sought out the poor, the lost, and the needy and she brought to them a resting place and a knowledge of the very real love of God.  

One of my favorite examples of a woman of faith is Ruth. When everything possible went wrong and her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law died, she chose to stay with Naomi, her old and now destitue mother-in-law. Ruth accepted Naomi's faith and stayed with her, relying completely on the counsel she recieved through revelation from Naomi. Sariah, Lehi's wife in the book of Mormon, was similarly faithful; as was Esther. All of these faithful women let everything go to follow the revelations sent from the Lord. They not only left their homes, but went forward into  a completely unpredictable future, seemingly foolish to the eyes of men.  

But a woman does not have to search out the slums of India or gather wheat to support her mother-in-law, or cross the ocean to find a new continent, or speak out in the threat of annihilation in order be considered strong and faithful. She must only follow what she knows to be true and to be tender and caring.  

Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson shared her mother's story in the general women's broadcast of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; she grew up in an inactive member family, but week after week, she would walk herself to her primary meetings and attend church alone because of the nurturing care of her leaders. She knew that they loved her and as Elder Richard G. Scott said in LDS General Conference, the most powerful base from which one can influence another is love.

They have to know and feel that you love them... And that's what the errand of angels is all about.  

We've all heard the song.  

"the errand of angels is given to women; and this is a gift that as sisters, we claim: to do whatsoever is gentle and human, to cheer and to bless in humanity's name."  

In the Family Proclamation to the World,  we find a similar statement regarding the role of women as nurturers. So if love is the most powerful base of influence, a faithful mother truly has more influence than that of any office,  and she has love. She is a nurturer.  

When I ponder upon the meaning of the term 'nurturer', my thoughts go back to my great, great aunt, Ila. Anyone who ever met Ila will tell you that they were definitely her favorite relative, and that she was the sweetest woman you'll ever find. I remember visiting her apartment with my mother. She always had some apple treat baking in the oven, and you were always welcomed in he door with a spirit of love. She cared about you. She wanted to hear all about you and your life. She was a nurturer and a true disciple of Christ.  

There are so many generations of people before us and they brought us to where we are now.  

In certain family lines, there

is a rich heritage of Latter-day Saint faith in my family. Micah Martine Katrine Margrethe Pedersen,  or Martina-as she was more commonly known-is my 5th great grandmother. She was quite the woman. She and her husband were converted to the LDS church in Denmark and had a little girl, but when it came time to leave for America, to follow the saints, his faith ran out and he left her. She crossed the plains, was abandoned by her next husband and her third husband decided she should send her children away, so she went out on her own and raised many wonderful children-from which I descend. She brought that branch of my family into the gospel light and kept them strong in their knowledge through loving faith and prayer. I owe quite a lot to her and to her strength.

As we look into the past, into our heritage, whatever it may be, we can only be strengthened by knowing more about those who came before us. We can learn from their stories and their examples. I've always known and been taught by my own mother that years and generatons don't matter, your innumerable grandmothers (and grandfathers) love you and care about you very much. They have passed from this life, but that only can make them feel closer to you, because now they know you and can watch over you.  

'Lois'

I've had a wonderful privilege recently of meeting a new friend.

She was unlike any I'd ever had before.

We'll call her Lois, just because I can and because she means so much to me.


Lois was a very sweet older lady who lived in my neighborhood.  I was invited to start serving her a few months ago and she has forever changed me for it.

The first time I went to visit her, I was quite  terrified. I like to do things very subtly--breaking it in slowly. Pretty much with anything: get a new favorite shirt? try to wear it not very often and gradually ease into wearing it all the time. New favorite song? at first play it just occasionally until everyone else gets used to it, then start blasting it non-stop. Make a new friend? start off by talking to them when you see them and eventually you can just text them at any time of day...

Going to see Lois was not subtle.

She'd lived nearby for a long while and I'd never spoken to her... she pretty much just kept to herself and it wasn't like she was around my age or I saw her anywhere but in church...

So going to her house all of the sudden-- and knowing that I would be doing this same thing every week was a bit of a scare. This was going to be a very conspicuous change.


I knocked on the door with a plate of cookies in hand and my mind whizzing with all my doubts pertaining to what I was doing there and was unexpected, but welcomed inside the very first time. I didn't even end up talking to her at all that day, just her daughter. And it wasn't a short conversation either.

When I came back the next week they were even more surprised to see me, but I kept coming back, and every time I did, I seemed to love it more.

I made her all sorts of things and brought them over to her. I started talking with her more and more, now that I could better understand her.

And then one day I came to her house to discover that her life would soon be drawing to a close. I had come with my viola to play for her and I was so glad that I did. Playing hymns by request wasn't my best performance ever, but it was one of the sweetest. She would smile as I played and tell me how it reminded her of her family growing up, or after she was married with her dad always playing his violin, or her husband who also played.


Music has a way of bonding people, of healing people, of communicating with souls.

That night was very special to me, and when I left, I felt so wonderful from it that I went to play for a couple of my other neighbors as well.


but her favorite song was stuck in my head the whole time...

So when I got home and had some time alone, I sat at the table with her on my mind and this song filling every moment. I decided that I needed to write her the song that she given me.

It took me hours and hours and I'm still nowhere near being done with it, but I polished up a version and went to play it for her. She could no longer speak to me or smile, but I knew she was listening, and I felt her sweetness throughout the room.


This woman was a very unlikely friend of mine.

We would have appeared to have had nothing in common at all, but I have somehow become her friend and she taught me so much.

With her, it was easy to see how faith tied into every day life. She trusted God more than anyone I think I've ever met.



I've always believed that friendship goes a long way and that we learn some of the most important things from the people we meet, but Lois was a special friend. She taught me how to love people I didn't really know, just by being herself.

Proverbs 27:17
 17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Life. It's Much Better When You Live It.

So! If you have looked around here much recently, I obviously have had a problem with keeping things fresh.

Those posts from before were once beautiful or funny and now they've wilted, died, and are now decomposing. They're in need of replacement.

I've gotten very much sucked into the minute and meaningless details of my life over the past...         forever and I wish to repent.


Dull Monotony.

Life can become very gray if we let it. It becomes insanely uninteresting and extremely tedious.

"I have to take a shower now? Didn't I just do that yesterday?"

"What? Food? Didn't I just eat this a few hours ago?"

"Time for bed again!?!"

These are the thoughts that beplague the bored and tired mind.
Life is so much better if we just look up every once in a while.

So Keep Your Head Up.

Feel the wind on your face every once in a while, take a deep breath.

This is life worth living.

Live a little Thoreau, make intentional actions. Make your life an adventure. 

Life is an open box of crayons, so why choose to use only gray?

Recently, I've had an epiphany, my life has turned around... Again!


I have a whole lot going on, and I moved and I have 4 AP classes that demand a certifiably insane amount of my time, but these are all lame excuses!

A life not lived is no life at all. Take a little time to make a difference for someone else, or to see the beauty of the world around you! Stretch your arms and BREATHE!

Nothing can stop you from feeling free and being yourself!--nothing but YOU, that is...

That's right, you can make your own life seem pointless. You can get yourself focused on the teeny, tiny, pointless things that will only ever matter now...

(of course, you still have to work and live in the now, and it is the now that takes you to your future, so you really do need to get focused on the details, yes, if you want to move on successfully, but that's not what your life should be all about, silly!



and now I'm going to try to stop throwing out these one line motivational quotes... we'll see how well that goes...

The problem is, when you get sucked into the monotony, the creativity is bleached out of you. nay, it flees from the very presence of such notions of tediosity. 

I have had so little worth writing about because all I ever do is school, homework, and practicing. DON'T DO THAT TO YOURSELF! IT'S STUPID! 



I then had this great epiphany and I reached out and stretched and I BROKE FREE!!!

and life had meaning again. I was going to give people cookies and staying to talk for hours and hours, I was walking down the sidewalk singing with a grin on my face, I was happy!

WHEN YOU INVOLVE OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE IMPROVING THEIRS, YOUR OWN LIFE MULTIPLIES LIKE BUNNIES IN HAPPINESS.

Arizona

I haven't posted consistently for a long while, but it's okay, because I have plenty of excuses.

One of those excuses happens to be the desolate desert chunk of gravel and sand we call

ARIZONA

Yes, I did a stint as an Arizonan... Arizonian? Arizonanian? (who really cares anyway?).

How was it, you might ask?

It was enlightening, it changed and broadened my privileged perspective. It is also incredibly ugly and bland ... and hot... and dry... and a totally useless place to live--I mean who moves to Arizona for any reason other than 80 degree winters? (I'm so sorry to you Arizona love people...).

I'm also allergic to the air there, so that was lovely.

And the crazy dry air gave me frequent nose bleeds, which was even lovelier.

And it meant I slept on an air mattress for 5 months ish...

Beautiful, eh? But the sky was never that blue...

But Let's Skip to the HIGHLIGHTS!!!

• I had plenty of time to focus solely on my music. *Angelic sounds of praising at such great news*

• I met some amazing people

• I spent more time with my Family

We'll go into more detail in just a moment, but I just have to point out that yes, despite the horribly impurgable smell that still persists in every washable thing I have and the annoying constant cold and the aching back and the unceasingly frequent road trips....

It was still a SPECTACULAR EXPERIENCE.

I learned to play Guitar AGAIN! and this time I learned a lot more than I have ever before, I got much better.

I also worked on piano sight-reading, and I found a spectacular arrangement that I'll mention in a minute.

All of my friends from Utah totally dropped off the face of the planet for a few months there, except sometimes when I'd come back to visit *thanks, guys*

I made friends with some AMAZING people there though.

Random people that I had met once or twice would drop by my house or call me and invite me to come do something with them starting the very first week.

The people there that I met were so much more genuine than anyone else I'd ever met before. They were willing to call you up whenever just to talk to you or to spend time with you.

and on my last week there, my extra fabulous friend, Leanne, took me paddle boarding with another girl we knew.

Firstly-it was SOOOO fun.

but this other girl said to me that day something that changed my whiny stupid moaning perception completely:

"We were thinking about how this must have been the best few months of your life!"

I was more than slightly caught off guard.

It had been horrible. I had written 20 unanswered letters. My friends seemed to have forgotten me. I had to do all of my classes online. I spent most of my time in my bedroom. We didn't even have any real furniture, it was like we'd been camping inside a house...

I responded quickly with a questioning rebuttal:

"My grandpa died."

but that one line this girl said stuck in me.

EVERYONE had reached out to help me. EVERYONE had served me. I'd met so many great people who were willing to drop everything to spend time with me because it was a limited resource. These people considered themselves to be my good friends, yet I regarded them simply as acquaintances I'd met who I would soon be leaving forever.

I had been so rude to them. I would always talk wistfully about my "real" friends in Utah (just saying things like "oh ya, one time, my best friends and I..."). These people were real friends too. They had been there for me when I really needed someone. They had served me right and left and tried to make my life as much fun as possible, and I had totally ignored it. I'd been too busy whining and complaining and feeling sorry for myself.

And that really turned around my experience.

It really added new meaning to a piano solo I'd been working on for almost the whole trip towards perfecting...

"Have I Done Any Good?"

An excellent question to keep ourselves on track.

This song set the tone for me about half way through, but it didn't mean nearly as much to me until this dear friend's comment.

I'd been trying to see what I could do to make other people happy, which I was just doing at activities I was invited to, trying to make everyone feel included, working hard for my Secretary position in my Laurel Class Presidency...

and then that comment.

And I realized all that I had taken for granted that they had gone out of their way to do things for me...

And so now this becomes my mantra for my return home.

I will use what they've taught me to do the same for others.

I started a little bit, but then I had to leave for girls' camp and now I have such a huge, nasty, probably-infected, gaping hole in my lip (the grandmother of all canker sores) that I literally can't even talk because it's too irritating. (don't worry, I'm going to get it checked out by the doctor or maybe dentist tomorrow morning [because it just keeps getting bigger])

SO! My dear friends, the 12 of you who might actually ever read this, please help me find ways to serve you and to be able to spend more time with you.

Because, as the song says, "have I cheered up the sad, or made someone feel glad? If not I have failed indeed."

Read the whole song here

https://www.lds.org/music/text/hymns/have-i-done-any-good?lang=eng

Picture: http://www.hikemore.com/indepth/Grand-Canyon/Saguaro-Cactus-Grand-Canyon.htm

I was BORN to Be BLONDE.

Yes, not only have I chosen to divulge to the internet my super common name, but now I'm also telling the whole world that I'm a blondie. How unique.

So you might just be wondering right now why I'm choosing this particular moment to come out of the closet as pertaining to my golden locks.

I promise you'll understand soon... If you can understand my peculiar vernacular at all.

If you ask Google for a definition to the word 'prom' you will find a similar result to this:

prom

präm

noun

informal

1. 1.

   NORTH AMERICAN

   a formal dance, especially one held by a class in high school or college at the end of a year.
2. 2.

   BRITISH

   short for promenade (sense 1 of the noun).

But I think that prom has a very important third definition that needs to be widely known...

So below, you will find my additional definition to prom.

prom

präm

    3. Crazy Squirrel

        a context in which the confusing of two people is extremely socially unacceptable.

Have I piqued your interest yet? Are you intrigued?

[story telling voice comes from out of the bowels of my being, where it normally dwells whenever I'm not telling a story-- which makes it more of a hotel than a home.]


AHEM.
PROM

As I mentioned before, I haven't spent all of my time 'in Arizona' in Arizona. I've spent it in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Washington DC.

So it should come of little surprise to you that I happened to be back in Utah for the weekend of my High School Prom.

A few of my friends knew I would be back, and it also happened to be the weekend of the anniversary of my birth.

So I got asked!
via this picture, over a text message...


The text said something to the effect of "What if you found this on your doorstep?"

I wasn't sure if they were just asking my opinion as to what kind of reaction they would get or if they were actually asking me to prom.



Some Key Information as Background:
[I received this text from a contact on my phone named 'Tanner'.

Because of a number of reasons you probably wouldn't care to hear, including that I know a good number of Tanners and that only about half of them went to my school, I assumed very quickly that this was one particular Tanner.]

You might be able to see where this story is headed by now.

Of course, I clarified with the sender that they were, in fact, asking me to prom, and then I asked for an address.

I just happened to have approximately 350 tootsie roll wrappers, most of which were folded very carefully into tiny little sailor paper hats. Don't ask why, just know that I have one crafty sister.

SO! I take these hats and I make a cute little response package, one of them saying on the inside "Go to prom with you? Tanner Asdf? Aye, aye toots."

I decorated the package very nicely, addressing Tanner Asdf by name a good number of times, as that's the way I speak, constantly calling peoples' names, to keep their focus or something, I don't know why...

A few days later, I receive a text message from Tanner Jkl;, my buddy listed only as 'Tanner' in my phone contacts, sometimes better known as "thief" by those who have read previous entries here, asking me why I had sent a package for Tanner Asdf to his--Tanner Jkl;'s house. Obviously, I had mixed up their addresses. I tried to explain this to the inquiring Tanner, but then he asked why I ever needed to send the other Tanner a package anyway.

My answer was more complicated than it needed to be, but I briefly explained that the Tanner in question had asked me to prom.

Tanner Jkl; informed me that he had actually been the asker.

Boy, did I feel sheepish.

AND I LAUGHED SOOOOO HARD.

I couldn't control it. It was one of the dumbest things I'd ever done, and the stupidity of it was cracking me up.

So for anyone who didn't follow that, I thought that I'd been asked by one Tanner, so I answered him with a yes, but then I'd actually been asked by another Tanner, but still sent the response to his house, just with the wrong last name all over it.

And of course the two of them were sitting together watching a movie while I figured this out.

So they opened the package together.

I told the Tanner who'd actually asked me to just cross out the other last name wherever it appeared, and replace it with his own.

And then I finally understood that random R.It was an indicator to the boy's actual last name.



Good heavens to Betsy, I was born to be blonde.








But all this aside,

Prom was super fun and I had a great time with some of the best friends ever, and we laughed plenty. And then some more.