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.