It Started Out as a Feeling...

Songs currently on my list of amazing:
"The Call" --Regina Spektor
"People Get Ready" --Eva Cassidy
"Hallelujah" --many versions, Wainwright, Buckley, that four-part stunner with Kurt Nilsen
"Danny Boy" --just not the Elvis version
"Turn My Head" --Live
"1234" --Feist (okay, maybe I'm mostly stunned by the video)
"Violet Hill" --Coldplay
"Take It Easy" --Eagles
"Man of La Mancha" --Linda Eder (that parakeet note is ridiculous)
"Short Skirt Long Jacket" --Cake. It's just classic
"My Life Be Like" --Gritz. Nothing like some Christian rap
"Grace Kelly"/ "Love Today" --Mika
"More Than a Memory" --Garth Brooks
"Georgia On My Mind" --Ella Fitzgerald
"Montagues and Capulets" --Prokofiev
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" --favorite versions: Eva Cassidy, Aselin Debison (she sings Kamakawiwo'ole's version)
"Can't Hurry Love" --Dixie Chicks (it brings me joy)
"Supermassive Black Hole" --Muse. A little creepy, but also a little fabulous
"Slide" --GooGoo Dolls. My love for this song runs long and deep
"Lipgloss" --Lil' Mama. I know, I know--but the girl can actually rap fast
"Acoustic #3" --Goo Goo Dolls
"Question" --Old 97's
"He Thinks He'll Keep Her" --Mary Chapin Carpenter
"Everything" --Michael Bublé
"Way I Am" --Ingrid Michaelson
"LA Song" --Beth Hart (edited)
"I Know Him So Well" --from Chess
"Someone Else's Story" --from Chess
"Someone You Used to Know" --KokoKaina (?)
"Blue in Green" --Miles Davis
"Any Day Now" --Missy Higgins
"Your Love is My Love" --Whitney Houston. Yep, that's right
"Sorry" --Paul Jacobsen
"Long Last Love" --Frank Sinatra
"You Belong to Me" --Lifehouse version, Dean Martin is good too
"Believe" --Josh Groban
"America" --Josh Groban version (but many thanks to Simon and Garfunkel)
"What's It to You" --Clay Walker. I miss this kind of country
"Nothin' Bout Love Makes Sense" --LeAnn Rimes
"Sunrise" --Norah Jones
Lots of songs from Disney's "Hercules"
"O Mio Babbino Caro" --from the soundtrack to A Room with a View
"Bring Him Home" --from Les Mis
"The Water is Wide "--Charlotte Church (but I think there are better versions out there)
"Rhapsody in Blue" --Gershwin
"Claire de Lune" --Debussy
"Out of My League" --Stephen Speaks (so tender!)
"Love Like This" --Natasha Bedingfield. Happy song
"Home to You" --Josh Kelley (not sure if this really garners a spot here, but...)
"So Close" --Jon McLaughlin. Sad, but lovely
"I Feel it All" --Feist
"Samson" --Regina Spektor

His father, singing

This is a poem by the Welsh poet, Leslie Norris. He has done two readings at BYU while I've been here. I missed the first one, but went and watched the DVD that was made of it. The second time I was able to be there to listen to him. His language is beautiful and sometimes when I'm reading or listening to it, my breath pauses and stills in my chest for a moment. The ultimate is listening to him reading his own poetry and hearing the lilt and plum-curled lift of his voice. I remember him reading a poem about Christ that was pretty daring and very contrary to the traditional (Christian) view of the Savior. I haven't been able to find that poem online, which means I'll probably have to buy some of his anthologies--which are super expensive. I should do something romantic like weave baskets from dental floss to pay for them. He died just recently. A great poet.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Leslie Norris.

His Father, Singing

My father sang for himself,
out of sadness and poverty;
perhaps from happiness,
but I'm not sure of that.

He sang in the garden,
quietly, a quiet voice
near his wallflowers
which of all plants

he loved most, calling them
gillyflowers, a name
learned from his mother.
His songs came from a time

before my time, his boy's
life among musical brothers,
keeping pigeons, red and blue
checkers, had a racing cycle

with bamboo wheels. More often
he sang the songs he'd learned,
still a boy, up to his knees
in French mud, those dying songs.

He sang for us once only,
our mother away from the house,
the lamp lit, and I reading,
seven years old, already bookish,

at the scrubbed table.
My brother cried from his crib
in the small bedroom, teething,
a peremptory squall, then a long

wail. My father lifted from
the sheets his peevish child,
red-faced, feverish, carried
him down in a wool shawl

and in the kitchen, holding
the child close, began to sing.
Quietly, of course, and swaying
rhythmically from foot to foot,

he rocked the sobbing boy.
I saw my brother's head,
his puckered face, fall
on my father's chest. His crying

died away, and I
read on. It was my father's
singing brought my head up.
His little wordless lullabies

had gone, and what he sang
above his baby's sleep
was never meant
for any infant's comfort.

He stood in the bleak kitchen,
the stern, young man, my father.
For the first time raised
his voice, in pain and anger

sang. I did not know his song
nor why he sang it. But stood
in fright, knowing it important,
and someone should be listening.

Disclaimer Regarding Peach Light

There are spelling errors in there that I am not going to fix. The time is messed up on this computer. Don't trust what it told you.

Provo in Peach Light

I was driving around Provo at a quarter after 3:00 this morning. The streets were as empty as Provo streets can be--dark lanes glowing in the peach colored light of lampposts. I don't know why people are the way they are. To understand someone we would have to live their lives, hear their stories, breathe their air. The thing is, sometimes I have enough trouble breathing my own air and living my own life and creating my own story. The more time passes, the more I hate those little sayings or assumptions that people make. (example: "look at how a boy treats his mother, because that is how he'll treat you," "you marry someone just like your father," "you can't love anyone until you love yourself," "love means never having to say your sorry"). Frankly, that all sounds like bull to me. My freshman year at BYU I had one of the greatest shocks in discovering that my life would not mirror my sisters' lives. And then there was everyone telling me that freshman year at college would be SO FUN and I would make TONS OF FRIENDS and I should just ENJOY EVERY MINUTE. That year had to be one of my worst years. I made few friends. I survived it, but I can't say I enjoyed all of it, or even most. The thing that I'm learning--or trying to learn--is that you can hear a million stories about what happened in other people's lives and you can hear someone else's rules for life and you can study the tundras in Alaska (do they even have tundras there? What is the exact definition of a tundra?)--but that doesn't mean it's going to have any bearing on your own life. Some advice is good and some applies, but most of the time you have to figure it out for yourself and head off to find a treasure using a map you drew yourself and will mostly like re-draw and erase a few times.

I wish they had Shari's in Utah. In Oregon they are liberally scattered about and they are open 24/7. This morning, if there had been a Shari's, I think I would stopped and had a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie. Because it's about time I ate strawberry-rhubarb pie at 3:00a.m. by myself in a low-class chain restaurant.

The Unknown Reader

Today my head is buzzing in an uncomfortable way. The heavy whisper of a headache is squeezed behind my right temple and pulsing colorfully (probably a lurid violet or orange). I feel it hammering its way into my skull. The cure would probably be two Advil and an hour and a half nap. But I’m at work. So, instead of sleeping and downing medication (which, now that I think of it, I know where some Advil is, so I will probably try and root that up in a minute), I will write this and try and figure out my schedule for the day and eat too much candy out of the candy drawer.

Alright, so here’s something odd: I know this couple that broke up recently. And on Facebook the guy keeps writing on his blog and updating his status and adding new quotes about love-gone-wrong,, etc. And I check his profile everyday to see how he is doing. I really don’t know him at all–but yet I care. I can’t explain that. Maybe it’s because this guy seems to lay his feeling out there for everyone to see. We all have these protective barricades we build around ourselves in which we try to convince other people--and consequently ourselves-- that we are okay, that no hit is too hard, that nothing penetrates or makes us weak. So I respect this guy for doing this. For feeling so publicly–even if it’s something I would never do. I know he does some of it to catch her eye–to make her see, probably in hopes of making her care again. I even tell Jordan about it and give her the update on his life and how he’s dealing with things. It’s ridiculous and I guess could be seen as mildly creepy–but I just care. So, let’s take a hopeful perspective on this, shall we (because I really prefer to not be thought of as a creepy person)? Maybe you think no one cares about your life or reads your blog or wonders how you’re doing, but you just might have your very own... me. Someone who does care and reads it all and thinks about you, even though they don’t know you well. Fancy that.

Maren

Maren is my eldest niece and she has bled on me twice in the last, hm, probably six weeks. Before that I’m sure I could count on one hand the number of times I’d gotten someone else’s blood on me. In fact, perhaps never before. I don’t remember why she was bleeding the first time. I think she fell off her bike and took a chunk out of her toe. In helping her, I got blood on my hands and on my pants. I love Maren, but she also frustrates me. She is seven years old and she is a manipulator. She is not good at hiding this and you can see her plots create themselves, unfold and infiltrate simply by watching her face. But getting her blood on me that first time felt sacred. And I loved her more that day than perhaps I had before.

This most recent time was a little different. It was on the fourth of July and I had gone running and was returning just a little before 6:30 p.m. It was hot. It had been a mediocre run, due mostly to the heat. I was walking around the cul-de-sac on which my sister’s house sits and as I came around for the last time, Maren appeared from a neighbor’s yard, hands cupped over her face, panic in her voice. She had a bloody nose. I picked her up, big though she is (long for her age, lean and with thick, honey colored hair) and started running towards her house. This is an act I find illogical. First off, she was walking just fine and could’ve made the trip herself. Secondly, carrying her was difficult and my running, though it could be called that, was slow. I was sweaty from my run and huffing from her weight. She cried that she didn’t want to get blood on her shirt. It was a white shirt that had been tie-dyed with blues and reds. There were already several large drops on it and on her capris. Her two hands, inadequately pressed against her face were sticky and stained, blood pouring over and through them. I told her she could put her face in my shirt and reassured her that I knew how to get blood out of clothes. We half waddled-half ran into the garage. I set her down and opened the door that led into the house. Despite my calling her to the bathroom, she walked into the kitchen where my mother took over with cold, wet wash cloths and a low tone of frenzy. With Maren’s blood dripping down my shirt, I went and stood before a mirror. When I was carrying her, she had cried in gasps and each gasp sent blood spraying. I had a thumb-sized dab of blood under my chin and blood splattered near the hollow of my throat and on my chin and on my lips.

What is it about having someone else’s blood on your skin that makes you pause? Again, it seemed holy. To have those red drops on my skin—on my neck and mouth. A kind of accidental sacrament. And I couldn’t say why, but having her blood on me made me love her more. She seems beautiful and graceful and I can’t help but believe that I have been given a gift. To have her bright and summer-sequined life splattered on the surface of mine. I used to be queasy around blood. I think I still am. But the blood of this little girl doesn’t make me queasy—that doesn’t even cross my mind. Instead I see her life--shocking and chaotic and unbelievable and beautiful and pure.