(how can you not think about the sun on a day like today when your soul wants to burst out of your body because the sky is blue and the air is warm and you are alive?)
the golden summer
the sun kissed your shoulders
bronze--
freckles and gentle,
sloping and Real.
Like the edges
of an old film, grainy haze
of what once
was, immortalized.
silent, humming, perfect
before the days of HDTV
traffic and health
insurance.
the air was always sweet
those days of scorching bliss;
all the cares of
tomorrow
suspended on the
horizon.
Now is all we had.
Now is all we have.
Here, this air,
your breath,
this night of faith
knight of faith
the infinite whisper of
Yes--
of endless summer nights
barefoot, all leading to
this moment,
this place. this space
of possibility.
the days in the grass
have dimmed and gone,
but in the set of your jaw
i find
my golden summer.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
i have the craziest life of anyone, even oj simpson.
this is my family. ten children, one stepmom, one glenbron dad, one south african brother-in-law, and twelve signs that are supposed to read happy holidays but dont, not even close. this is from our photo shoot at thanksgiving time. at about this time during the photo shoot, glen bron farted. it reeked. sammy the three year old wanted to know who diarrheaed in their pants. he kept trying to take off his shirt. he loves to be nude. stepmom tiffany kept telling us to stop saying the word fart. we kept saying it. glen bron's head was turning red from laughing. ben was trying to eat his sign. eli didnt want to show his braces. eli was wearing a purple shirt that he says he got from a thrift store but actually ordered online. madison kept screaming she hated her letter. i wanted more pumpkin pie. it was some of the happiest moments of my life.
I'm grateful for old and new families, for the merging of worlds, for four people that fell in love, two of them twice (try and figure that one out), for madison writing I HATE GLENN signs all over the house when tiff-tiff and glen-bron were dating and then getting really excited about them getting married when she got to wear heels to the wedding, and for what glenbron calls the world's best emotional insurance, because you have 12 other people to call on when you need someone to love you. maybe one day i will post the whole ridiculous story of my life, but you wouldn't believe it anyway.
Monday, February 11, 2008
i believe in yes.
i love the word yes. si, oui, ja, in every language, in every country, out every person's mouth, i love it. it is my favorite word, it was my first word, it is, in my opinion, the best word: one syllable that packs an infinite world of possibilites within its three tiny letters. today i watched the music video that was made to obama's "yes we can" speech on you tube and i was reminded once again why i love yes. yes is much more than a word, much more than a way of confirming or affirming information, to me, it is a symbol of all that i believe in and all things i base my life on and everything beautiful and noble and worth fighting for in life. i hope that whether i die shot in the battlefield or i am killed by pneumonia at the age of 99, the last word uttered from my dying lips is yes, maybe even two or three or four times, maybe even sung out to the world in one final hallelujah to life. i believe in yes, and let me tell you why.
one time my little sister went on a river rafting trip. the company's slogan was printed on the back of all their rafting guides' t-shirts--"say yes to what is." i think some yoinky doinky river rafting company turned my life slogan into their motto for navigating the rapids. when I was 11 my dad told me "do something you are afraid of everyday", and though i promptly have ignored every other piece of advice he has ever given me, for some reason this thought stayed with me, and whether or not you believe it, i have. i said yes, and i continue saying yes, every single day, 11 years later. let me put that into perspective for you--that is 4015 times i have said yes, yes to what is and no to being crippled by my archenemy fear. it is looking at all of the embarrassment, all of the possibilites of failure, all of the apathy you have accumulated in your soul, and saying yes anyway. this advice has caused me to say yes to exposing my soul to a boy i loved that no longer loved me and straight up rejected me, this advice has caused me to say yes to living in rural mexico and eating beans three times a day and speaking a language that my brain caanot understand without desperate prayers and constant, complete attention, this advice has caused me to wear onesie pajamas in public even at the expense of my self respect, this advice has caused me to say yes to traveling and crying and dancing and being embarrassed and dying my hair pink and wearing my heart on my sleeve even when it is crushed over and over and telling people how I feel and putting everything on the line and facing my demons. Have I failed? So many times I cannot begin to think of them. but 11 years ago my dad told me to say yes to life, and I have. I believe in yes.
when i was in elementary school my mom started a nonprofit organization called Arroyo Vista Children's Theater. it was based on the idea that all children should have an experience that makes them feel special, that teaches them to believe in themselves. in one of the plays that i was in, jack and the beanstalk, one of the songs goes like this:
possibilities, i've got possibilities
shining deep in me
it may not show
but still i know
theres a star inside
waiting to break free.
my mom taught me, and all of the thousands of children ever involved in AV children's theater, to say yes to their possibilities. she taught them to say yes to the world around them. she taught them to say to being all they can be. she taught them to dig inside of themselves and find the hidden courage, the hidden heart, the hidden crevices of themselves that whispered of greatness. she believed in yes. i believe in yes.
one time my roomates and i were trying to figure out how to express our joy because a boy monica liked asked her out. we were so overcome with joy that i just exploded with an enormous yes. and thus the yes dance was born, in which you just let go--you run into the street and you scream yes with all of you have, with all your heart, with all the joy you have inside, at any time of day or night, over and over again so the whole world knows. its an expression of pure yes--the yes dance has been done at some of the happiest moments of my life, moments when i let go of everything and just yes all with my might. maybe it sounds silly, but youve probably never tried it cause it feels like the best thing you've ever done to your body. it is pure freedom, it is leaving behind fear, self doubt, uncertainty, and self respect, and yessing your way through the street. for my birthday a couple of years ago monica made me a pair of sweats with yesss written across the butt in reminder of our tradition, and everytime i wear them (though they now only say essss because the y mysteriously disappeared), my belief system is scribbled across my booty. i believe in sweats with slogans on the butt. i believe in yes.
when my mom died, i didnt know if i could continue onward. This was a time in life when I felt crippled, unsure, unready to move on. then I remembered my mom directing her last play for her nonprofit organization, 98 pounds and on enormous amounts of chemotherapy, making her final mark on that last 100 children just a few short months before she died. she said yes, even when her body said no. she believed more in what she was doing than in letting herself stay in bed, than in wallowing in her pain. she was there when those children performed, 4 feet tall and brimming with possibilities, singing out to the world that she had taught them to believe in yes. every sunday she would have me put on her makeup because she was in too much pain to do it herself, ask me to do her hair and get her dressed, even when her body was ravaged with tumors, so she could go to church. she said yes to God, to life, and to spreading yes, even when life told her no. after she died, when i felt unable to move on, i remembered that, and i said yes. yes i will take all i learned from my mom and my dad and elementary school and from everyone that has ever said yes, martin luther king jr, gandhi, rosa parks, joseph smith, barbara mehner, jesus christ, ponyboy curtis, joan of arc, and i will say yes too. so instead of giving up, letting my mom's death tell me no, i said yes. i believe in yes.
ee cummings summed up everything i believe about yes in my favorite poem that i wear in a locket around my neck to remind me of the power of yes:
love is a place
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
yes is a world, a world we should all believe in. i believe in ee, and i believe in yes.
today i watched the music video of obama's yes we can speech and cried:
We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
after being disillusioned for years with politics and forgetting that change can occur and that perhaps there are still people out there that want to make a positive change, this speech/music video reminded me of why i believe in yes. yes we can, america. yes we can, world. we can hope, we can believe, we can affect positive change to help the world. i believe in yes, obama.
i like to imagine the yes that has not happened yet but hopefully one day will. when i am longer a me but a we, when i can say yes to the end of being alone and yes to giving all i have to someone else so we can serve and love and laugh together and hopefully make the world a little better. when i say yes to a silly boy asking silly me to get married and we have silly children and together we teach them how to say yes, a family that begins with a simple yes, a union that says yes to love and laughter and candy and poetry and beauty spreading yes to the far corners of the earth. sometimes i think this is the most important yes of all, perhaps the yes that all yesses lead to, the world of all worlds. future man i will one day love (once i get over all of these commitment issues and grow up a bit), i believe in yes.
yes is my favorite word, and world. yes is my religion. yes is in my blood, and i hope i always say yes, because saying yes means saying no to fear, self doubt, mediocracy, apathy, indifference, and all other things that leave us paralyzed. i challenge you all to say yes, to dance yes, to sing yes, to breathe yes, to allow others to say yes because you say yes in all you do. say yes for all the others that have said yes throughout history, that are saying yes througout the world, for all those joining together their voices in a hallelujah chorus of yesses that is connecting hearts to all who ever said, is saying, or will say yes. say yes to yes. yes we can, yes is a world, yes to life, yes to possibilities, yes to love. i believe in yes. i think you should too.
one time my little sister went on a river rafting trip. the company's slogan was printed on the back of all their rafting guides' t-shirts--"say yes to what is." i think some yoinky doinky river rafting company turned my life slogan into their motto for navigating the rapids. when I was 11 my dad told me "do something you are afraid of everyday", and though i promptly have ignored every other piece of advice he has ever given me, for some reason this thought stayed with me, and whether or not you believe it, i have. i said yes, and i continue saying yes, every single day, 11 years later. let me put that into perspective for you--that is 4015 times i have said yes, yes to what is and no to being crippled by my archenemy fear. it is looking at all of the embarrassment, all of the possibilites of failure, all of the apathy you have accumulated in your soul, and saying yes anyway. this advice has caused me to say yes to exposing my soul to a boy i loved that no longer loved me and straight up rejected me, this advice has caused me to say yes to living in rural mexico and eating beans three times a day and speaking a language that my brain caanot understand without desperate prayers and constant, complete attention, this advice has caused me to wear onesie pajamas in public even at the expense of my self respect, this advice has caused me to say yes to traveling and crying and dancing and being embarrassed and dying my hair pink and wearing my heart on my sleeve even when it is crushed over and over and telling people how I feel and putting everything on the line and facing my demons. Have I failed? So many times I cannot begin to think of them. but 11 years ago my dad told me to say yes to life, and I have. I believe in yes.
when i was in elementary school my mom started a nonprofit organization called Arroyo Vista Children's Theater. it was based on the idea that all children should have an experience that makes them feel special, that teaches them to believe in themselves. in one of the plays that i was in, jack and the beanstalk, one of the songs goes like this:
possibilities, i've got possibilities
shining deep in me
it may not show
but still i know
theres a star inside
waiting to break free.
my mom taught me, and all of the thousands of children ever involved in AV children's theater, to say yes to their possibilities. she taught them to say yes to the world around them. she taught them to say to being all they can be. she taught them to dig inside of themselves and find the hidden courage, the hidden heart, the hidden crevices of themselves that whispered of greatness. she believed in yes. i believe in yes.
one time my roomates and i were trying to figure out how to express our joy because a boy monica liked asked her out. we were so overcome with joy that i just exploded with an enormous yes. and thus the yes dance was born, in which you just let go--you run into the street and you scream yes with all of you have, with all your heart, with all the joy you have inside, at any time of day or night, over and over again so the whole world knows. its an expression of pure yes--the yes dance has been done at some of the happiest moments of my life, moments when i let go of everything and just yes all with my might. maybe it sounds silly, but youve probably never tried it cause it feels like the best thing you've ever done to your body. it is pure freedom, it is leaving behind fear, self doubt, uncertainty, and self respect, and yessing your way through the street. for my birthday a couple of years ago monica made me a pair of sweats with yesss written across the butt in reminder of our tradition, and everytime i wear them (though they now only say essss because the y mysteriously disappeared), my belief system is scribbled across my booty. i believe in sweats with slogans on the butt. i believe in yes.
when my mom died, i didnt know if i could continue onward. This was a time in life when I felt crippled, unsure, unready to move on. then I remembered my mom directing her last play for her nonprofit organization, 98 pounds and on enormous amounts of chemotherapy, making her final mark on that last 100 children just a few short months before she died. she said yes, even when her body said no. she believed more in what she was doing than in letting herself stay in bed, than in wallowing in her pain. she was there when those children performed, 4 feet tall and brimming with possibilities, singing out to the world that she had taught them to believe in yes. every sunday she would have me put on her makeup because she was in too much pain to do it herself, ask me to do her hair and get her dressed, even when her body was ravaged with tumors, so she could go to church. she said yes to God, to life, and to spreading yes, even when life told her no. after she died, when i felt unable to move on, i remembered that, and i said yes. yes i will take all i learned from my mom and my dad and elementary school and from everyone that has ever said yes, martin luther king jr, gandhi, rosa parks, joseph smith, barbara mehner, jesus christ, ponyboy curtis, joan of arc, and i will say yes too. so instead of giving up, letting my mom's death tell me no, i said yes. i believe in yes.
ee cummings summed up everything i believe about yes in my favorite poem that i wear in a locket around my neck to remind me of the power of yes:
love is a place
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
yes is a world, a world we should all believe in. i believe in ee, and i believe in yes.
today i watched the music video of obama's yes we can speech and cried:
We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
after being disillusioned for years with politics and forgetting that change can occur and that perhaps there are still people out there that want to make a positive change, this speech/music video reminded me of why i believe in yes. yes we can, america. yes we can, world. we can hope, we can believe, we can affect positive change to help the world. i believe in yes, obama.
i like to imagine the yes that has not happened yet but hopefully one day will. when i am longer a me but a we, when i can say yes to the end of being alone and yes to giving all i have to someone else so we can serve and love and laugh together and hopefully make the world a little better. when i say yes to a silly boy asking silly me to get married and we have silly children and together we teach them how to say yes, a family that begins with a simple yes, a union that says yes to love and laughter and candy and poetry and beauty spreading yes to the far corners of the earth. sometimes i think this is the most important yes of all, perhaps the yes that all yesses lead to, the world of all worlds. future man i will one day love (once i get over all of these commitment issues and grow up a bit), i believe in yes.
yes is my favorite word, and world. yes is my religion. yes is in my blood, and i hope i always say yes, because saying yes means saying no to fear, self doubt, mediocracy, apathy, indifference, and all other things that leave us paralyzed. i challenge you all to say yes, to dance yes, to sing yes, to breathe yes, to allow others to say yes because you say yes in all you do. say yes for all the others that have said yes throughout history, that are saying yes througout the world, for all those joining together their voices in a hallelujah chorus of yesses that is connecting hearts to all who ever said, is saying, or will say yes. say yes to yes. yes we can, yes is a world, yes to life, yes to possibilities, yes to love. i believe in yes. i think you should too.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
lent.
for lent this year, i decided to give up common sense. didi, my little sister, is giving up self esteem. eric, my long-limbed friend, is giving up his virginity. My roommate katherine and her boyfriend, matt, are giving up gender. i feel good about these decisions for lent. i think these are all manageable goals, and i think if we work hard enough, we can achieve them. dedication is key, and staying out of tempting situations is a must. for example, i need to stay away from planners, career counselors, mathematicians, and any sort of parental figure. instead, i need to hang out at pool bars, focus on immediate gratification, and work on thinking only of myself and my carnal desires. its all about how much you want it, thats the thing. you have to keep your eye on the prize and not let small speed bumps along the way deter you from reaching your dreams. i challenge you all to reach for the gold. if you shoot for the moon, even if you fail you'll land among the stars. im a star, are you?
Friday, February 1, 2008
i love surprise people.
its 10 32 am and im semi asleep on megan allens couch while she gently slumbers next to me and we have matching christmas pajama sets on and i am contemplating in my head what it is that all of my friends have in common (side note: she just lifted her head and mumbled something unintelligible that sounded like grumblegrumblewhyareyouawakegrumblegrumble and then promptly went back to a gentle slumber). if you know me, this is a much more difficult question than you may think at first glance. one time father mehner attempted to have a surprise birthday for me at the ripe age of 16 and invite my friends, and it was a disaster to the 8476th degree. lets just say the array of people present included players of pokemon, the comedy sportz team, several pleather sporting cheerleaders, mormons, atheists, pre-teens and sweet bros. the segregation was heavy, and martin luther king jr would have been disappointed. in terms of my very successful dating career, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the characters i date, ranging from the most typical member of society to convicted felons with serious personality disorders. when didi and i go down the dating line up, it results in mass amounts of giggling and didi asking this question--"who the h are you ever going to marry!?". evidently, i have absolutely no "type". the question that remains is complex: what is it that causes me to create deep friendships with all of these diverse types? and why is funfetti cake so delicious at 10:48 am? (fourth slice in the last 32 hours, but i grooved and did some deep knee bends to stronger by kanye so i deserve it.)
i think part of it is that i have 74 personalities, so each one matches up with a different person. being the schizophrenic i am, i can easily morph into whoever i am with and discuss (or at least fake discuss) whatever topic it is that interests them (music, literary theory, skateboarding, cheez-its.) beyond my multi-pronged identity issues, i have realized what it is that i gravitate toward in all of these peoples is one beautiful enduring theme: they are surprises. wonderful, fantastic, expectation defying, surprise grab bags of human beings. when i am in a judgemental and generalizing mood, i like to separate provoian society into four categories: bros/hoes, indie rock, normal, and intellectuals. what i like about my friends is that though they may look like they fit into one of these categories, they are a surprise on the inside, like the time kevin yackle and i decided it would be funny to dip tomatoes in chocolate and pretend like they were chocolate covered strawberries. now that was a surprise. take for example, megan, who is now cleaning the kitchen in booty shorts. she loves juicy coutour, cheetah is a daily part of her wardrobe, and she completely defies all stereotypes of a normal bro/hoe because she cares deeply about the world, has the wittiest sense of humour known to man, and loves men with clear braces. she defies every expectation you would have for a platinum haired, perfectly tanned, jewel wearing woman. she is a Surprise with a capital S, and a Surprise that keeps on giving.
i am a big proponent of change in all of its various forms. i dye my hair approximately once a month because i get bored. i like it when people assume i am dumb and then i kick their a on tests. i try to get out of the country at least every six months. i LOVE when unexpected things happen, especially crisis situations. in light of all these fun facts, it is absolutely no surprise that i LOVE surprise people, and surround myself with them. In appearance, stature, intelligence level, culture, humour, hygiene habits, basically every way you can imagine, the people i am friends with have nothing in common. but they are all grab bags of goodies, gifts that keep on giving, surprise souls with nuggets of joy that are unexpected and oh so delightful. they are tricks of the best kind, constantly surprising me with interesting new talents, making me laugh because who would ever guess that my completely conservative looking and seemingly shy roommate katherine doesn't believe in gender, knows more about English than a lot of your professors, and loves to shimmy to mariah carey all i want for christmas is you. one day, when i acquire time and skillz and motivation to do this, i am going to take all of my surprise friends and put them in one room for 24 hours and let them all love each other. im sure it wouldnt happen in the first 16 hours, but i think as the lights got low and time kept tickin they would find that surprise people love other surprise people, and not to be fooled by the cheetah print, or by the extensive vocabulary, or by the sk8r boy persona. in the meantime, i challenge you all to suspend judgement for one day and go out and find a surprise person, and be surprised. you'll get addicted.
i think part of it is that i have 74 personalities, so each one matches up with a different person. being the schizophrenic i am, i can easily morph into whoever i am with and discuss (or at least fake discuss) whatever topic it is that interests them (music, literary theory, skateboarding, cheez-its.) beyond my multi-pronged identity issues, i have realized what it is that i gravitate toward in all of these peoples is one beautiful enduring theme: they are surprises. wonderful, fantastic, expectation defying, surprise grab bags of human beings. when i am in a judgemental and generalizing mood, i like to separate provoian society into four categories: bros/hoes, indie rock, normal, and intellectuals. what i like about my friends is that though they may look like they fit into one of these categories, they are a surprise on the inside, like the time kevin yackle and i decided it would be funny to dip tomatoes in chocolate and pretend like they were chocolate covered strawberries. now that was a surprise. take for example, megan, who is now cleaning the kitchen in booty shorts. she loves juicy coutour, cheetah is a daily part of her wardrobe, and she completely defies all stereotypes of a normal bro/hoe because she cares deeply about the world, has the wittiest sense of humour known to man, and loves men with clear braces. she defies every expectation you would have for a platinum haired, perfectly tanned, jewel wearing woman. she is a Surprise with a capital S, and a Surprise that keeps on giving.
i am a big proponent of change in all of its various forms. i dye my hair approximately once a month because i get bored. i like it when people assume i am dumb and then i kick their a on tests. i try to get out of the country at least every six months. i LOVE when unexpected things happen, especially crisis situations. in light of all these fun facts, it is absolutely no surprise that i LOVE surprise people, and surround myself with them. In appearance, stature, intelligence level, culture, humour, hygiene habits, basically every way you can imagine, the people i am friends with have nothing in common. but they are all grab bags of goodies, gifts that keep on giving, surprise souls with nuggets of joy that are unexpected and oh so delightful. they are tricks of the best kind, constantly surprising me with interesting new talents, making me laugh because who would ever guess that my completely conservative looking and seemingly shy roommate katherine doesn't believe in gender, knows more about English than a lot of your professors, and loves to shimmy to mariah carey all i want for christmas is you. one day, when i acquire time and skillz and motivation to do this, i am going to take all of my surprise friends and put them in one room for 24 hours and let them all love each other. im sure it wouldnt happen in the first 16 hours, but i think as the lights got low and time kept tickin they would find that surprise people love other surprise people, and not to be fooled by the cheetah print, or by the extensive vocabulary, or by the sk8r boy persona. in the meantime, i challenge you all to suspend judgement for one day and go out and find a surprise person, and be surprised. you'll get addicted.
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