shine…….
In my heart, I think that sometimes our deepest fears are not, that we are going to fail.
Not that we will crumble and fall when our hearts are heavy and life seems like it is a futile effort.
Our deepest fears are, that we are capable beyond measure.
We are fearful that we carry more potential, and more virtue within our hearts, then could ever be imagined. We are fearful of the things we know we ought to be.
It is all the light that we hold inside our hearts, not the darkness, that most frightens us.
Our minds sometimes ask……. “Who am I to be celebrated?” “Who am I to be brilliant?” “Who am I to change the world?”
Truth be whispered….”Who are we NOT to be?”
We are each of us brilliant, accomplished, and posses the ability to make our lives and the lives of those around us brighter then the morning sun.
Because we know better…..we are required to do better.
To give, to heal, to comfort.
There is nothing admirable about diminishing ourselves as to participate in things that we know to be small.
Nothing marvelous about lowering ourselves as to make others not feel insecure.
We are God’s children, each of us. We were placed here on this Earth to lighten the loads of one another, to give back to the world
and to shine…..
Shine so bright that the light that comes from within us, can seep into the darkness that chases us all.
We are made of brilliance…..
Ability and strength and compassion is tucked within us all.
Be that person. Be that friend. Be that someone…..who changes the world.
God hears you…..where ever you are.
Today Summer released her final warm breath upon me and the day wrapped its arms around me and carried me to a place that is somber.
That happens….it happens to us all.
One minute we are moving along distracted by all the goings on and the next moment, out of the clear blue sky, we are a wash in memories and feelings peppered at times with a little sadness.
I have been swimming and running everyday. Stealing time out for myself.
The swimming actually saves me. For an hour the only sound I hear is the rhythm of my breathing and it reminds me that I am alive.
The water caresses my body and holds me suspended in a place where troubles leave me be.
I look forward to the nights when I can steal away and get lost in the water….moments when I cannot tell if I am falling or flying.
To rise out of the water, wet and tired and feeling as if I have washed away all my mistakes for the day and just take a moment to be.
But today I ran. I ran for 90 minutes around Liberty Park. The weather was perfect and the fickle golden leaves of Fall swirled about my feet. The smell of the pine tree’s and the air that was thick with moisture, and carried my mind back to remembered moments from my 36 years on this Earth.
As if I were greeting a friend I have not seen in a while, I heard my heart whisper “Hello my life.”
I closed my eyes and let the rhythm of my feet hitting the sidewalk sing a song of long ago, the wind running her fingers through my hair.
I feel very much as if I have lived many different lives.
There was my childhood when I lived in Providence, when my mother and father were still married. Before life changed. Before my brothers died. Before I knew what heart ache tasted like.
I was back in my childhood home, back in the living room sitting on my dad’s lap and hearing him hum the words to Somewhere Over the Rainbow. His hand gently patting my back. Safety.
Then my mother….so many memories of her. She is my cornerstone, we rather grew up together my mother and I.
I remember Sunday afternoons when I would lay in her arms and nap with her…letting the silence surround me as she breathed out and I breathed in.
Then carried to the day when each of my children were born. The moment that I heard their first cries and remembered all of the promises that I made to God. To always be there for them and to try with everything I am to be a good mother.
Then I thought of you. How far apart we are.
I thought I heard you whisper to me all the words that were never said and I just wanted you to hold my face and tell me everything is going to be alright.
Some nights I still wake up screaming, tears spilling onto my cheeks and I hear myself sobbing out your name.
For a moment my heart is broken and the pieces lay about me and I stare at them and cannot imagine that I will ever be able to fit them back together.
Then when the silence of the night calms me down, I feel you there. I can smell you, and if I close my eyes tight enough I you there beside me.
We all have relationships that we lose. Friendships, loves, even family members that slip away and we look up one day and realize that they are gone.
I mourn a few lost parts of my heart. People who wrote well upon the pages of my life.
Once in a while something will make me think of them and as their faces cross my mind, I smile, and remember.
I see the light in their eyes and think of times when we laughed so hard it hurt. Funny reactions to my falling out of the truck, little kisses for no reason at all and nights we shared where our dreams floated up mingled together.
Sometimes it is time to forgive and forget.
There is so much sadness and hurt in the world. So many lonely people holding their broken hearts in their hands, how could we not love the ones that are part of us, love them, even if they do not love us back.
We only have control of ourselves. You cannot make someone love you, you cannot make someone stay if they want to go.
But you have all the power to decide how you will behave. You have the ability to feel loss and then take the shattered pieces and make a new sculpture of your life. Changing it and molding it in your hands, leaving your fingerprints upon places that are good.
But there I go, chasing time again. Sketching out my life and getting lost in the swirling sky of azure blue.
It is okay to remember and to be sad. It is okay to mark the moments thick with regret. It is.
Because with those moments comes the light and a simple reminder of all of the things that are beautiful.
All of the sublime memories that you have yet to make and the amazing people who are just waiting to become part of your story.
I do try to hide at times, keep myself busy and not let those hard days catch me when I am not ready for them.
But in the end, they do, they find their way and that is when I take a minute and sit, with the sun on my face, and just let the sadness and disappointment and fear, release with my falling tears.
It is a letting go and at times that is the only thing left to do.
To many people try really hard to not show emotion, thinking it a weakness.
Not having the ability to say, “I am broken today and I need to feel you.”
I believe that God allows for those moments, because my darling, they too shall pass.
For how can you get lost in all of the magical moments that are waiting to settle into your life if you have never felt empty?
How can you let someone wrap their arms around you and just smother you in love if you have never felt alone?
Know just how big and bright the sun can shine if you have never tasted darkness?
It is all part of this journey. All meant to be together, one to hold the hand of the other.
It is remembering that this is, after all, a journey we must all endure and we are each of us, meant to hold one another up.
Succor the hearts that are lost and love those who seem to not care.
To remember that you are never alone, that you are loved and thought about and dwell in those places.
Let the tears silently fall and then wipe your eyes and lift your head high, take a big breath and continue on.
I know there will be days ahead that will be crowded with feelings and memories and fears that I would rather not remember.
But I also know there are days ahead that will be so filled with love and peace and happiness that those dark days will seem a minor price to pay.
Look around you, everyone has heartache. Everyone feels scared and disappointed and lost sometimes.
You are never the only one.
Breathe, cry, laugh, scream and then close your eyes and simply ………… believe.
AND THE GOOD TIMES JUST KEEP COMING……
I have been slacking in my writing as of late. Life is never dull and I am amazed at the adventures that seek me out. Here is the latest…..
So for those who do not know, I was married when I was 18. A baby. I had the same boyfriend all through high school and then dated one guy for a bit and then met Alan. I am a relationship girl, I love to have someone to share with and love. The whole dating thing confuses me. I have had many men ask me out and I will admit I am not a fan of casual dating. I hold my time in high regard and you have to be rather impressive for me to give up one of my nights. So I have a really good friend who loves me very much and watches out for me like a daughter. He has been trying to convince me to go out on a blind date with a friend of his friend. I am a horrible blind dater, because I secretly or not so secretly am an elitist.
So after much prodding I decided to be a good sport and go out on the date. My phone number was passed along and one afternoon the gentleman (we will call him that for now) called and we talked. He sounded nice enough. He is 47 so right there I was squinting my eyes a little bit, that is 11 years older then me, but I thought……hey that’s perfect. I refuse to babysit any man. If you want to play you need to have your crap together and maybe because he is older he is a little more settled in his life.
We spoke a few times and then he called and asked me out to dinner and a show. We set up the time and planned to meet up later that night. Now you have to know I am a conspiracy theorist. I think that everyone is up to something and it is just a matter of figuring out what that something is. So I found out he went to school with one of my dear friends husbands so I called her up and told her to get the scoop. Her husband had not seen him since high school but for all intents he was handsome and came from a good family. So in my little stupid mind I had done my homework and was pretty safe to go out with him.
So I am getting ready for the date and he calls me. I answer and he says “this is rather awkward but would you mind driving tonight?” Again my eyes squinted and my mind began racing with possible scenarios of why he would want me to drive. Honestly I will tell you that I thought maybe this guy is wealthy and this is a test he gives to all women to see if they are just after him for his money or if they were really interested in him. In my mind I was already booking my appointment for my boob job because I knew he would fall in love with me….how could he not…..and marry me and sweep me off my feet and I could get my boob job and be happy for the rest of my life.
So I agree to drive so that I would pass the secret test, if in fact it was a secret test. He tells me where he lives and I pull up to his house and sit there in the car for a minute trying to decide if I go to the door like I am the boy or do I just text him and say I am here.
He comes out and I get out of the car and he is a really good looking guy. He is in great shape and I was thinking okay this is not so bad. So we head to Salt Lake to go to dinner. The car ride was filled with conversation that came with ease and I was really thinking that I should not have been such a snob and agreed to this earlier.
We get to the restaurant and go inside. He opens the door for me…..he orders for me….he dished the appetizer for me and really was acting like a gentleman.
Then the damn axe was lowered.
I asked him why he wanted me to drive and he began to tell me how he had been arrested for selling and using drugs and had had many DUI’s and had his license taken away and in fact had just gotten out of prision……YES PRISON….not just jail…..point of the mountain, serial killer PRISON! My eyes were HUGE and I felt the color drain out of my face. He then goes on to tell me how he has to go back the following Monday and at that point it took every ounce of self control I could muster to not jump up and go running from the premises.
He then goes on to tell me that he has been divorced for 13 years and the reason that he got divorced was because he came home one day and saw a little bug on the kitchen counter. Upon further inspection he informs me that it was a crab. ”Don’t scream” was the only thing that was going through my mind. I have to tell you at this point I have lived a rather sheltered little life and I was thinking his wife went to the beach and had an affair with some guy and the crab busted her. I asked him if he found sand too and he laughs at me and says no….she was sleeping around and caught crabs. I am literally sweating like a man at this point. I have heard of crabs but I thought it was just a rash or something. I had NO IDEA THAT IT WAS ACTUALLY A BUG OR CRESTATION OR WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WOULD CALL IT!!!!
So I am freaking out thinking that I am going to catch something there at the table and was scooting as far away from him as humanly possible. I am funny about my personal space….I don’t like people touching me, or hugging me or getting in my space and I was trying not to have a complete break down that I was breathing the same air as this guy.
The meal comes and my head is swirling and this fool just keeps on talking. He then tells me that he heard I am a “churchy girl” and that he thought about putting on some garments (part of my religion) to impress me. I wanted to go whoooo and pass out on the floor at this point. What does a girl say to that?
He goes on to tell me that he has a group of “swingers” that he hangs out with if I am interested in getting a little action or want a little “recreational” drugs. And you know I have NO IDEA what a swinger is…..I have since googled it and have a whole new topic to discuss at my nest therapy session. At this point it has gone so far into the twilight zone that I am looking around for the tv cameras to see if I am being punked. Alas there were none.
We finish eating and the bill comes and I just want to take my hand and slap myself in the forehead. I already know what is coming. He gets out his wallet and gives the waiter his card. The waiter comes back and you guessed it people…….declined. I get out my wallet and hand the kid my card. I don’t know who was more horrified at this point me or the waiter. He looked at me with sheer pity in his eyes.
After I paid for dinner for me and my escaped convict date, we headed home. And yes I even paid for the parking.
Just my luck there was a Jazz game that night and it took 45 minutes to drive from Salt Lake to Bountiful, which is usually only a 15 minute drive. The guy was talking and talking and talking and I wanted to look at him and say “really…..you need to just stop talking now.” He also keeps reaching over and squeezing my shoulder and I am looking around to see where I am going to pull off the freeway when I feel myself starting to pass out.
We get back to his place and he looks me right in the eye and says “when I get out of jail we need to do this again and next time it is my treat!” Bless his little jacked up crazy soul he actually thought there was going to be a next time.
Then he asks me if he can have a hug and I finally lost it and burst out laughing and said, “ummmmm NO!”
I could have not in my wildest dreams came up with a better horror story date then that. The only thing I think would have maybe made it more traumatic, and I say MAYBE, is if he would have reached under the table at dinner and removed a crab from himself and flicked it on the table to show me what one looks like.
Needless to say I came home and rubbed sanitizer all over my body and even gargled with it. It will be a long long long time before I agree to a blind date again…..Jennifer said I took one for the team….I guess it gave me a good story and really what more could a girl ask for………except a guy who does not have a standing reservation at the state pen.
A final gift was given…..
My Everyday Angel
Her kinky brown hair erupts from the crown of her head and spills forth framing her face. Big brown eyes sparkle and shine and smile, yes, she has laughing eyes. Her grin spills across her face and has the power to sweep you up and make you feel hope. She is larger the life, the simple movement of her hand, animated in a way that is almost satirical. Her song is played loud, her laughter seeks out and fills every dark corner of the room and she appears to never have tasted the sorrows of this life.
She came to be a part of my story almost 12 years ago, a simple glorious happenstance. Yet when we first met there was something there, a recognition, of one spirit to another. It was a reunion of sorts, where two old spirits found one another again and said, “Hello, I remember you.”
Jennifer seemingly had the perfect life. She was raised in a quiet town surrounded by a loving family and a childhood that read out as a bedtime story. Even now if you came to know her it would confound you that her lips have ever tasted the bitter cup of disappointment.
She moves through the moments of her life with the quiet authority of a woman who is at peace with herself.
Her hands assuming the various shapes of her life, as they are called upon to touch another, wipe a tear from a sorrow streaked face or tuck a treasured note from the tooth fairy under the pillow of her dreaming child.
The familiarity of her would wash over me as the years passed and I would come to admire in her the ways she treasured simplicities and how she would allow them to fill her to the very brim. She had an ornate trust in life and in the idea that everything would work out in the end. Even when the stillness of her life was booming in sorrow she sought out the less complicated seconds that would carry her by, until the waves of discontent receded.
Jennifer’s guilelessness and the purity with which she saw the world, was contagious. Even as I watched this beloved friend of mine face the moment which she feared and anticipated the most, I saw in her a grace to move past the silent visitation of her greatest fear, to the moments of joy that silently remained.
My love for her, one might say, was laced with freedom that accompanies caring for one with whom you share no blood. It is easier to choose to make her part of my life, easier to assign my feelings to her and I know she will hold and cherish them, because she is not required to do so.
I did not know her when her body was wrought with adolescent gracelessness. I did not know her when the summer nights, thick with stars, would have found us sleeping outside whispering in the darkness. Yet I know her now, and with such ease that those years and those stories could have in fact been written.
Jennifer seemed to carry with her the easiness and the peace of a slow summers day, when your biggest project was rocking in an old wooden chair, catching the setting sun in a fisherman’s net. Pain and trouble seemed to move away from her like a fall leaf caught up in the hurried waters of a spring creek. She was altogether steady and steadfast and if she suffered any real fear of this life, you would not know it.
So this woman, this kindred soul became a part of me, filled my empty moments with laughter and ease in a way that only she could.
I was grateful for her from the beginning. But I what I did not know was that this woman, this mother, this flight attendant, this daughter, this invoker of laughter would be the greatest example of joy…..that I would ever know.
Jennifer was adopted when she was six days old. With the sudden passing of her father at two years of age, Jennifer was taken to Utah with her mother and raised in Springville. Her grandmother and grandfather helped her mother try to tame this child that exploded with energy and joy. Being an only child these three people became the lead characters in the story that was her life. They were always there. Always waiting in the nape of the Rocky Mountains with a safe home for her to return to when life became to hard and the bite of reality was much to sharp. They always provided a refuge, a harbor in the storm where Jennifer could return and gather up her courage to again return to fight the fight.
As our friendship deepened with the passing years I would come to know that little fear that tucked itself behind her eyes, that dread of being alone.
We often spoke of the day that our parents would pass and how that would feel to not have the safety of our mother’s wing to return to. The words passed our lips but neither really thought that time would really come.
Then one day, hemmed into the fabric of the long summer days, came the news that her mother was ill. Her mother’s small body, laden with cancer, was thrust upon a landside and the minutes of her life, now tossed upon a course with the end suddenly in view.
There was not much that could be done, so Jennifer faced the fear that stood beside her in the stillness of the night like an unwanted visitor, the task of taking her mother home, and helping her die.
The next few weeks were filled with weary moments of bathing and feeding and soothing the one that had first filled those shoes. Jennifer was now the mother and her mother the child, and she acted well her part.
Time seemed to drag long but then in an instant, escaped with the twilight moments of dusk. The end of the day finding Jennifer sitting at her mother’s side, whispering of recalled childhood stories that vanished in the twinkling of an eye.
I was scared for her. I watched with eyes fearful of the moment when her mother would breath out her final breath and pass into the breeze. I wondered if that final moment would reach out with icy fingers and snatch away part of my best friend. How she could possibly be the same after walking through the strangling waters of death.
I prayed and prayed that final moment would not come, that somehow it would pass them both over and we could just go back to a life that was not bound in conversations filled with words such as death, and cancer and loss. But that sadness came just the same.
In the still of the evening my phone rang and I knew. My best friend voice was not broken or collapsed as I assumed it would be. It was steady and strong and I heard the melody of her heart playing loud and sure.
When it was all said and done and her mother was laid to rest, we laid together she and I, in her mother’s bedroom and we talked about those last moments shared. I watched her face for pangs of brokenness but there were none to be found. My eyes having never really tasted of death, still unspoiled, watched to see how this would change her, how with the passing of her mother, a little of her light would fade away. But as memories of her mother carried us away that night, I started to see that not only was her light still there, in some strange was it was brighter then before.
I expected her words to be desperate and hopeless, for her to speak with words pregnant with untethered sorrow. But it was quite the opposite.
Jennifer took her mother’s death, a space in time that could have driven the strongest of souls to their knees, and wrapped it up in the most beautiful paper she could find. The words that escaped her mouth spoke not of the tragedy of death, but sang of a last gift that was shared. My eyes watched with wonder and sought to find the crack in her persona, the little hint of insecurity where all her sadness hid.
I could not imagine laying my eyes upon someone I loved so dearly, and having the courage and the faith to tell them goodbye. Yet I watched as she played out this part we both feared, so well.
She taught me in those last stolen moments with her mother, that a final gift could be given.
Their were conversations were true, and moments of laughter that were shared were genuine. And a last allowance was given by a mother to her child…..a simple offering of hope.
The brilliance of a life lived with no regrets, and no remorse. A promise from a daughter made to try a little harder to remember what is really important and linger in the pure moments of life and let the ones heavy with turmoil roll on by.
In the end when I think back, Jennifer handled things just as I knew she would. I was the one who had no faith in the lessons being taught. Jennifer coached me that night in a lesson that would soon fall upon me, that inevitably falls upon us all.
How to simply celebrate a life that was lived, take from it the beauty that was created and with grace and appreciation…..continue on.
I feel so far away from where you are……..
The last week has been a myriad of quiet moments that wrapped around me like my grandmothers old wool sweater. Thoughts filled with smells and images of things that I once knew and imagined moments that wait just beyond the horizon of tomorrow. Familiar places in my mind that both keep me warm and draw me back to places where I found love.
I have been ill, my body versed in weary exhaustion.
Yet my moments were still and silence laid with me.
Today I went to class, the first class that I have been to all week. Though I was tired and it hurt to rise move forward through the day, I did.
When class was over I met Jennifer for lunch and an afternoon movie. To us, being able to sneak away when all the rest of the world is busy at work is a guilty little pleasure. To have our minds washed over with the sounds and the images from the giant screen, to escape into a world that is not our own……a love we both share.
I do not know what I would do without her…this centering point of mine. To her I whisper all of the crazy things that cross my mind that I probably ought not say out loud. Sometimes she laughs at me and shakes her head that I would admit to some of the things that I admit to and other times I see the little creases in her eyes turn down and her eyes look at me and I feel the sadness in them.
We spoke about those moments that I spent alone, tucked into the white billowing folds of my feather comforter and the thoughts that touched down and then hid again.
I told her that it was all so very hard. That things always felt like such a fight and that the ugly battles won were mounting against the small little victories of hope that tried to hold their ground. I was tired, and lonely, and not hopeful that all of this was worth it.
She then looked at me….. as only she can and said well what are your choices.
I said well, I can give up. Which would mean living in a shoe box somewhere (yes I had to work in the shoes), get a job working the nearest street corner, not care about anything anymore and wipe my tears on my cheap velour jacket that I had recovered from the dumpster on West Temple…….
Or I can continue on……finish this book, finish my education, fight with every last ounce of strength that I have to build this life to hold things together and move forward.
It rather sounds so easy. My choice. Just me.
We sat there two little best friends enjoying good food and surrounded by laughter and moments that will hold joy forever.
When the afternoon was done and it was time to head home I walked along the sidewalk and it was just then that I remembered……
I remembered walking that sidewalk with you…..Right where we parked your truck and exactly the way that the sunshine lit up your face. We had snuck away to an afternoon movie that day…..and I smiled, a little crooked smile at the irony.
I remembered holding your hand through the whole movie and the way that our fingers played and danced in the darkness of the movie theater. I tried to watch the movie but would catch myself glancing over to look at you….to see you there beside me. As if it were all dream and if I looked away to long it would fade away into the stillness of the night.
We walked back to the truck and laughed as we crossed the street, hand in hand. The perfect afternoon.
I remember driving home and looking in my rear view mirror at your truck…..right behind me and I closed my eyes and hoped that you would always be there when I looked…….
I stopped for a minute, right there on the street and closed my eyes and remembered the shadows of your face, the feeling of your heart beating, the way you would seek me out in the darkness of the night…..and I missed you.
I missed all of the little things that I never thought would mean everything in the world to me…..
I missed our long talks, and the way you could always make me laugh…..I simply missed you.
In that minute…..standing on the sidewalk where we stood that day, it all came to settle. I remembered dancing with you that day in the rain, and every quiet little moment that we alone shared……
And it settled. It did.
I may not have gotten the happily ever after that I wanted, but I got those moments.
I had that day……and it was ours.
On the way home the sun was shining and I just sat there and let her warmth heal me just a little more.
I am braver today then I was yesterday, I am smarter then I was yesterday and I believe in myself…….with each passing moment………
I become more of myself.
So though I wish you were here, though I wish we could sneak off to that quaint restaurant with the flower lined walkway….or walk to the river where the water sang our names…..those moments are there, tucked just inside my heart.
Today was a beautiful day. I laughed with the one who heals me and I talked with the one I love and…..
and I remembered you.
Soroptimist Honor
Look at me a local celebrity. Ok it is an article about me. http://davisclipper.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Bountiful+Soroptimists+honor+Curless+for+courage-+education%20&id=4004787-Bountiful+Soroptimists+honor+Curless+for+courage-+education
Bountiful woman recognized for courage
PEOPLE_PLACES – Bountiful native honored by Huntsman
looking back……
I spend a lot of time looking back. Looking back at things I once held in my hands and loved with all of my heart. In some strange way moving forward means leaving those things behind.
The trick is to realize that nothing back there remains….nothing to leave behind.
Childhood fancies, where dreams were bigger then the rainbow painted outside your bedroom window…..now passed onto the gentle eyelashes of my children.
Mistakes I have made are not tucked in the shadows awaiting my return…..
And loves that were lost are not standing with outstretched arms beckoning my familiar touch…..
Life moves forward……and there is no looking back.
