Ah Sunny Cali . . . .

After two years of marriage I just yesterday came to a huge epiphany about my dear husband.
First, some clarification.
When someone looks at me and says "I love you", immediately a smile spreads across my face, my heart fills up with warmth, I see stars, hear birds sing, laughter rings in my ears . . . every good and beautiful thing seems to come full force into the moment.
Love sponge that I am, how naive of me to assume every other living breathing thing would have the same reaction I experience, let alone my husband.

Yesterday, while driving with the windows rolled down, sunshine pouring onto our laps and the radio singing to us loud, I turned to him smiling and said out loud "Brent, I love you."
I waited for the pure joy to spread across his face.
Nothing.
Maybe a slight nod of the head.
Don't ask me why I hadn't noticed this any earlier - I suppose I was simply more aware in that moment. Out of curiosity, I prodded "why don't you react when I say that, like it's not a big deal?"
He looked at me with half a smile and said through a quick laugh "well, you're just telling me something that you feel - it has nothing to do with me."
WHAT?!
Suddenly my world warped. Expressing "I love you" meant no more to him than me saying "my favorite color is blue." Brent, King of the love language Affirmation, needed to hear specifics about him, not about me. Here I was, thinking that being loved by me would be seen as a privilege. Ha! How not true. How silly of me. Instead, what he wanted to hear is "Brent, you are the most athletic person I know." or "Brent, I appreciate so much right now how sensitive you are." Either or would be better than "I love you . . . and my favorite color is blue".
wow.
Just to make sure, I called the number two. Number two was number one until I, through marriage, bumped him to number two. But yesterday, to my complete shock, I realized number two, even with the lower rank, knows my husband better than I: "Dave, Dave. You will not believe what I just discovered about your brother" - I relay the conversation in great detail. He's laughing so hard he can hardly get it out, until finally he says "And what he would REALLY like to hear is that he is the best looking."
I turn to Brent in shock. "Brent you are very good looking" I try it out.
He beams.
Who. Knew.

Chew on this.

I have been shocked to find that against all my better judgement, I, yes I, am the most stereo typical pregnant person ever. I cry over stupid things. I throw up my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can not cook. If I finally cook, I can not eat it. Smells drive me crazy. If I don't eat all the time, I get more and more nauseous. Therefore I eat all the time.
I am trying desperately not to give into what I know will haunt me later, but the most ridiculous? The cravings. For those of you who know my eating habits, you will understand why this is something to blog about. It never fails to amaze me that all day I wish I could eat:
Cheese cake.
Cheese crust pizza.
Sour candies.
Gummy candies.
Jelly Bellies.
Pasta.
Potatoes with Sour Cream and Butter.
Guacamole.
White bread.
White bread with warm butter, honey, and cinnamon sugar.
Sweet Rolls. SWEET ROLLS! You have to be KIDDING me.
the only relief? Fruit. I still LOVE fruit.

AND, it makes me sick to even think about:
Lime Tortilla chips.
Dried Mangos.
Mexican Food.
Chicken.
Canned Soup.
Anything with garlic. It will send me out the door.
Anything with onions.
Lentils.
Salsa.

This is me we're talking about here. Can anyone picture me not liking dried mangos? sigh. It's shocking, I know. Please don't give me any of that "oh just eat it now, you're pregnant" or "maybe the baby needs cheese cake" crap. I will not give in! I need support here, not more devils in my head. I'm trying to stay a healthy person. The problem only escalated yesterday when we ripped up the kitchen to continue the remodel. Do you know how hard it is to be picky when you only have options of eating out and you are going to puke if you don't eat something NOW!? Oh heaven help me, this is complicated.

In the brain there are different lobes that are associated with different reactions to feelings. For example, when someone feels sad, more activation has been demonstrated in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the transverse temporal gyrus, and the superior temporal gyrus. I recently learned of a study done on both a group of Grad School students and Buddhist monks. After several wires were attached all over their bodies, they proceeded to show each group a video of a burn victim being treated by doctors carefully peeling off the layers of dead skin. To simplify the story, this particular study showed that when watching the video the Grad School students almost unanimously felt distress. However, the Tibetan Monks mirrored neurons of compassion. Think about the difference. Grad School, full of stressful situations that have us practicing distress - felt distress. Buddhist Monks - who have learned to meditate, practice calm, and train for mindfulness - felt compassion. Distress . . . compassion. We, meaning westerners like myself, usually respond to our own judgements, not another persons. However, the monks were able to feel the pain of the person in the video, instead of their own pain in watching it.

Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to practice calm. Ironic, it seemed, that this was the topic of conversation with my therapist this week as well. (yes, I go to therapy, I recommend it to everyone). Oh how often we are not aware of how we are feeling. Not just "I am feeling sad", but to know where we hold tension, how much of it, and how we respond to it as it builds. . . . Michelle says that meditation is the study of the awareness of our awareness. Again, I realize how I live in a culture that is trying, but I believe the majority (because I am so often one of them) is only really trying within walls that a society has built. Is it possible that in their effort to conform they are loosing some lessons worth learning? For example, my chiropractor (welcome to ALL the crazy stuff I do during the week :) ), who is LDS, says that some people in his ward really had difficulty with a lesson he gave on meditation. But isn't this a form of prayer? So in shunning something because it's not normal in Salt Lake, could they be giving up an eternal truth that is actually taught in the scriptures?

We spent this weekend at a beautiful cabin isolated between drifts of snow and pines. The rooms were full of patterns of light, music and good books. Saturday morning everyone else bundled up and went out on the snowmobiles, and I found myself and this baby inside of me alone for the day. (Tadaa! This was also my sneaky plan - to reveal that I'm pregnant in the middle of a post, so only those who really read will know . . . he he). For the first few minutes I panicked - all this time and so little to do?! Stripped of laptop, no violin in sight, not even a cell phone to keep me busy. It dawned on me that this is what people pay for: spending thousands of dollars for someone to provide isolation so they can "retreat" from the world for a spell. And here I had it - all to myself. However, I am a product of my society.
And so, yesterday I determined it is time to begin a quest to understand my own reactions and responses well enough that I can alter them and elevate myself to become a better person. By repeating any one activity we build up pathways in our brain that grow stronger and stronger, until they become easy for us to repeat - making the strongest pathways the ones we fall back on for snap decisions, first impressions, and quick reactions. Therefore, by practicing calm, by stopping. feeling. listening. surrendering. I am literally changing my nervous system: working methodically to rise above what I have done before, which is, without going into the gory details, responding in ways I often later wish I hadn't. I am hoping by practicing calm to learn to build a better self. Because, in the end, is this not how God is? He is, because of the understanding he holds, love. Therefore, if I can but stop, learn to listen and understand, I too will be love.

Craig says that "so so many of our actions are conditioned responses."
I found out today that he resigned from being director last night. There really aren't enough words for this . . . the loss everyone will suffer with him not there. He is the light and the life behind the music . . . his words, his stories, his musical richness is just not comparable. What will we do without him to greet us with love as we sing praises?
Sigh.
Change is hard. But I guess the only way to break free of the conditioning is to be okay with change, and let our minds open.

What I would do for my own Norwegian Maid. :)

AH. Skiing. Tis the season to pack the boots and poles, adorn the helmets and ipods and let go of everything but the hill, your line, and the beat in your ear. I ski fast. I love the wind whipping past me and my edges cutting into the snow. I don't have flawless technique, as Brent will tell you smiling, but I ski fast anyway because there is something very dangerous about skiing fast, and if you ski carefully you end up looking like an idiot. It's a thrill usually needed in my life of discipline. Who doesn't need a little danger in their lives?

Balance

It's amazing how often I come back to the thought that life is best lived when we are in balance.
The holiday season was overwhelming. Someone told me once that December for musicians is like unto April for Accountants. November 10th began for me the work hours of 6:30 am - 11 pm . . . day in and day out for two months. It didn't take long and I was sick, and then cutting things out right and left to try and free up time, until I was left with not much more than a cold and long hours. Not surprisingly, all things cut out were things that were there to make me happy: Body and Soul workouts, riding horses, practicing, hanging out with Brent. It became awful, and I spent the first week of the new year trying to resurface from the over-exhausted, over-strained plague. Luckily I can learn from it and hopefully not get myself in the same pickle next year.
Now, as I get back into the better swing of things - going to the gym, taking time to have dinner with Brent, practicing - I am reminded of how much happier I am when I can balance my life and feel like there is time to breathe.
So - here's yet another post about staying in control of our lives and taking time for ourselves because it happens to make life that much more fulfilling.

sigh

I bought this book December 24th. I finished it December 24th.
I bought the next one December 26th. I finished it December 26th.
I bought the third one December 31st, and yes, finished it December 31st.
Too much time on my hands? Kind of . . . . but not really. I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day in bed, with no one bothering me, and not a single concern on my mind - except that the book would end.
Now, lest I be assumed as one of the masses: This is a simple read, a perfect holiday-lounge-about-the-house read. It isn't good writing. There are no metaphors, no deep insights, no beautiful language that inspires you to underline and jot down notes in the column like so many of the beautiful classics. But it is wonderfully romantic, and so easy, and so much fun. . . . and Edward. My heavens - Edward.

"There are years that ask questions, and years that answer"
- Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton

What do you do when you don't understand . . . . but wait, and hope the answer will one day unfold itself, bringing a balm to the pain that sits like a white noise inside of you?

Winter

Brent brought me flowers. For no reason, other than it is the dead of winter and sometimes we all need a little more Spring time in our snow. He is sweet like that.

***
I remember years ago sitting on the floor of my bedroom, phone to my ear. I'm telling him how much I need color, smells, dirt. I'm starting to cry, telling him how I just hate the winter, the cold, and all that it represents. Now, so many years later, I have more insight and could tell you exactly why I was feeling so tied down and confused, but then summer twisted around like smoke inside of me, haunting me with it's memories. Horses. Sweat. Hot summer nights playing games under the stars. Summer means getting away - leaving this house that feels like a prison and running free, free, free, backpacking to places no one could find me if I didn't want them to. Clean air and the most liberating feelings of independence.
Lyrics catch up to me and I hear Counting Crows in my ear. "Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white."
I fall asleep wishing I wasn't here, in the winter, in my room, in High School.
The following day I make it to my room after school, breathing in sharply when I get there. Flowers. Every shape, color and size - not a square inch of my room isn't covered in flowers. They are draped over the computer, scattered over the bed, laying thick like carpet on the floor. I smile - a small note in his handwriting lays at my feet. "It looks like spring to me". And I laugh at what my dad's reaction will be when he sees that my boyfriend, who is in college, has broken (again) the rule of: No Boys In The Bedroom!
We dated for four years. Well, three, and wrote for one on his mission. Then he came home and left the Church. I fought to find common ground between dating and caring, and somehow in the middle of it all, we lost touch. I saw him with his fiance once. She stared at me because I'm something from his disconnected past. I stared at her because she was something from his future. Although I tried not to, I glanced at her ring and found myself trying to convince myself it wasn't supposed to be mine, anyway. Now they live happily in India, where he's studying at the University of Calcutta, and I'm married to the most wonderful person I can imagine being married to. And just like that there are two happy endings.
***

No wonder by the time life has wrinkled our skin and taken the color from our hair that we end up just talking talking talking about the people that used to be in our lives, the things that we have seen. "Oh yes, so and so. I knew her great Aunt Lucy. Good blood. There was this one time when . . . . . . . . "

There are days that I remember these things and my heart shutters because we were real. And those feelings were real. And even with how real it was, they could never be Brent. I mean that not so much in the cheesy way it sounds, but underneath that, in all that it really means. It's amazing - life and all of it's crazy tunnels that in the end have us standing with a past, with a future, with all these memories that determine our response to so many biases. I usually remember, smile and then say (sometimes out loud) "Wow. I really loved them." - stated, like a fact. Then I smile at how many beautiful people God allowed me to love, and give me love, so that I wouldn't wither and die until I found the one I would love for eternity.

Getting Bigger

I have a cousin who I often watch from a distance with fascination. She has long golden hair, a kind warm smile, and carries so much of a distinguished air about her that in a fairy tale she would without hesitation be royalty. I’ve known her my whole life, and she has always been this way. She was raised without money, but married into a lot of it – a result, I’m sure, of the natural regal manner that absolutely drips from her aura . . . . pristine, without a trace of arrogance.
Last week I saw her mother and commented to her about her daughters amazing demeanor. Without a moment of hesitation, she smiled and responded, “Well, she’s in control of her life.” – a response I haven’t been able to get out of my head. What does it take to stay in control of our lives? Why do I feel like we, especially as women, let ourselves loose control?
I was raised to believe that women who had interests beyond mothering, were falling short. A ‘good’ woman is one who only has her children in her life, beyond that everything is a distraction. I have grown far away from this mentality, believing now that women with their own strengths and interests can be the best mothers possible.
But even without kids, those strengths and interests alone can seem so time consuming and overwhelming. Life sometimes gets the better of me and three days into the week I feel like I have been running, running . . . running.
I have to believe that my cousin’s life is not any simpler than my own. Somehow she has learned to stay calm, even through hectic chaos. The line out of that cheesy Sunscreen song comes to mind:
“Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is about as affective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind – the kind of things that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”
This line catches my attention so much so that I stop for a moment, and remember.
A breath comes out of me when he says "you DON'T have control of the things that happen to you. You just don't." He's right. it’s not so much about controlling what happens to you, but controlling your inner quiet through it all. There is a billboard by my gym that says "I will choose the things over which I sweat." Every time I pass it, I think "It's true." We can control over what we worry. We can choose to stay centered and new like spring, even when life is busy. At least, we can as much as we can. After that, when the things that we never thought possible come at us, maybe we will be rested enough to "surrender to the pain" and come out on the other end alive, strong, and palpable.
Things will fall, no matter how we try to balance them perfectly above our heads. I think somehow the acceptance that we do not control the universe, or the people in it, gives us a peace that allows us to stay in control of our own calm. My therapist says that suffering is simply resistance to pain. So here’s to an effort to give in, admit we can’t do it all, give it our best and be satisfied with who we are.

working on the house - yes, I look like a bug.

stage two . . . coming along!

Before the fence. . .

This is Austin and Sadie, our Nephew and Niece who live across the street. Sadie is a goldfish, if you can't tell.. . and Austin is, well, the fisherman. How can you not love them?

10 New Things

Here's the cliff-notes update of our lives:
10. The house is still not remodeled, but hey, we're working at our own slow pace.
9. The fence in the backyard is coming along. Through the mud, snow, rain, what have you - Brent works on.
8. The new best TV show on: Chuck. I would be a great special agent.
7. It snowed again in slc last night - 3 inches on the ground.
6. Mesa is the still, by far, the best dog alive.
5. The best thing EVER is having the horses at the indoor arena. RIDING EVERYDAY IN A HEATED INDOOR!
4. I switched phone companies from Verizon to AT&T, which means a hot new red phone.
3. Mesa has learned how to catch grapes mid-air.
2. Against popular belief we're still poor, and not pregnant.
1. Brent shot a 72 at the Ranches last week. A 72. I'm married to the next pro.

Everyone Welcome MaRea and Kyle to the blogging world: www.mareah.blogspot.com
Next stop: Kim & Lee :)

This Autumn has been an unlucky season for most Utahn's. With literally every saturday being rained out, most days too cold to go out and enjoy the falling leaves, and yes - it snowed last night. Not a light fluffy beautiful snow - but a wet, heavy, freezing cold rainy snow. sigh. We're trying to keep our chins up.
Hows the weather for the rest of you?