He's Born to Shimmer

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die.
Mary Frye (1932)

That was the verse on a card I got from Sally right after my world got turned upside down.

There are some things I remember vividly, some I remember pieces of, and some I can’t remember at all.

It was a fall day like any other, and I was in my office at The Metropolitan, my college newspaper where I was one of the editors. I called my mom to tell her that I was on my way home, and to see how my dad was feeling. He was supposed to leave on a business trip that morning, but had gotten sick, and so he didn’t go. My dad NEVER gets sick, and he was supposed to go to the doctor, and I wondered what he had said. I asked “How’s dad?” and my mom said “Not good. You need to come home because we need to tell you something.” She’s never been good at things like that. My first thought, naturally, was that something was seriously wrong with my dad, and so I immediately started crying and telling her that she had to tell me right now whatever they wanted to tell me. She wasn’t going to, but then she said “Felicia (my aunt) called this afternoon. Vannie died this morning.”

I don’t know what happened next. I remember being alone, and then all of the sudden all of my friends from the newsroom were in the office and I was sobbing – I don’t know where the phone went. Somehow I calmed down enough to drive home – or maybe I didn’t, but the next thing I remember is walking in the front door of my house. It felt weird. Usually my house is quiet, and the t.v. is never on during the day. But it was, and my mom was sitting on the couch just doing nothing – waiting for me to come home, I guess. My mom never just sits and does nothing. I think she hugged me, and she said “Go see your dad – he’s in the computer room,” and so I turned and went towards the hallway. Right then, my dad came out of the room and when he saw me, he started sobbing. Which undid me even more, because my dad rarely cries, and never like that. He hugged me and held onto me for a long time while we both cried.

Both my parents come from big families, and I have lots of cousins, especially on my mom’s side. But Vannie was my dad’s first nephew from one of his brothers and sisters, and my dad had always spoiled him, especially when he was little, because my brother wasn’t born yet and my dad could buy Vannie cool little boy things. I remember the joy my dad got from playing with Vannie when we’d visit Illinois, or when my grandparents would bring him here. So he was heartbroken.

I don’t know what happened next. I think I went to Kendra’s at some point – just showed up there, bawling. I don’t know if I went to school the next day, and I don’t remember how many days passed before we left to go to Illinois for the funeral. We rode the train, and I remember lying on the bed in our sleeper car listening to, of all things, Kid Rock’s Devil Without a Cause at top volume on my headphones. When we got to the train station in Illinois, we were so late, the visitation was starting like right then, we still had a ways to drive and no one was showered or dressed.

I remember my mom and I standing outside the station, waiting for my dad and brother to bring the car, and the waves of nausea washing over me. I sat down on my bag, looked up at my mom and said “I can’t do this. I can’t go to this. I can’t.” She looked down at me and said “You have to go. You’ll regret it if you don’t. You can do it. Just remember – you can get through this – you’ll never get over it, but you can get through it.” I am so thankful to her for that. My mom is not usually the one to go to for sympathy, but in this case, she knew exactly what the score was. When she was young, she lost a nineteen-year-old too – but it was her husband, killed in a motorcycle accident nine months after they were married. She knows too much about sudden death, what it is to have someone taken from you so unexpectedly. And she knew what I was feeling. Continued...

Hey! I'm singing for you!

I was going to make this post “A Brief History of Amber’s Musical Journey,” but since nothing I do is ever brief, and also, I got bored writing it, I figured you’d get bored reading it. I’ll give you the highlights:
Colorado Children’s Chorale – hoity-toity prestiiiiigious choir that performs with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and travels around the world performing. I’m pretty sure I was the only kid from a *gasp* PUBLIC SCHOOL in the whole bunch. Maybe not, but the other public school kids were from the fancy rich public schools. Anyway, I did that for two years until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I was in first grade.
Sounds of B.C. – the top choir at our high school. It was SHOW CHOIR! Woohoo! Fancy dresses! Bazillions of performances! Choreography! I actually hated that last one, because while I can dance, I’m horrible at choreography of any sort. Anyway. I loved it because it was exactly what I wanted to be doing and I had the greatest friends there, and therefore, I have the best memories of that portion of high school.
Fiddler on the Roof – Junior year of high school, I played “Chava.” She’s the youngest daughter that runs away. We had great costumes and it was a fantastic production, only no amount of makeup could cover up the fact that I had spent spring break in Mexico. Therefore, I was about 5 shades darker than the rest of my family – and the entire town.
All-State Choir – one of the biggest honors ever, at least in my mind. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but basically, All-State is the best 300 (I think) singers in the state of Colorado. You have to be in 11th or 12th grade to audition, and as you can probably understand, it’s VERY competitive. I was lucky and made it both years, and it was so cool.
College Vocal Major: I was a voice major for two years in college. I loved it, because I got to sing all the time, but I hated it, because I was sick a lot. It’s stressful trying to avoid all potential voice-affecting situations! As a voice major, we had to take private lessons (my teacher was a total diva who seriously looked like Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid – she was nice though and did NOT try to steal my voice) and we had to learn like nine (usually opera) songs per semester (only one could be in English) and we had to perform a certain amount of times. I loved the history and literature part of the curriculum, and was a miserable failure at theory. I quit after two years because I sucked so bad at theory, and also because I had no interest in performing professionally if I was going to have to deal with the backstabbing divas all the time. DRA-MA.

And here we are in the present, and at the point of this blog. Last October, I did a vocal performance at church with a quartet to benefit the youth group and our community outreach funds. One of the songs I did was “The Prayer,” which has most notably been done by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, and also Josh Groban and Charlotte Church. If you click here (and follow the instructions on the site), you can hear it done by my friend David and I. At least I hope you can, because I’m new to this. Hope you like it!

The Last Word 2000-present

Here is installment two of the posts where I get the last word. Because I like to.

Matt – I’m sorry that our relationship moved so fast that I’m pretty sure we broke the sound barrier. That big “boom” you heard was either our relationship ending, or the sonic boom. Yikes. Then remember how we got back together? And THEN remember when you left for your internship in Wyoming and insisted that your best friend T and I hang out, and so we did? And how he and I got on swimmingly – so much so that we spent most days either talking or hanging out and then one time? He kissed me? Remember? Yeah. Luckily you and I had broken up (again) by then, but still. AWKWARD. I should have known better – even though you were so tall and blonde and gorgeous, you’re a Capricorn.

Sean – I’m not sure, in your case, how many different ways I can impart to you how big of an ass you are. Maybe not ways – languages. U bent een ezel. Dutch for “you’re an ass.” Vous êtes un âne – French, this time. And finally, Sie sind ein Esel – German. Wasn’t that multicultural of me? Anyway, not only are you an ass, you’re a really stupid one at that. Have you learned NOTHING about the smallness of the world, especially the Bear Creek world? Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out about your “casual” girlfriend of FIVE YEARS? And what made you think that you could have two girlfriends? Especially because you are decidedly not hot. Though I will say that I was told that even after hearing the whole story (including direct quotes) about your cheating, your girlfriend is still with you, which I find ludicrous. So she’s clearly stupid and obviously you’re stupid, so it turns out that you’re perfect for each other! Just please don’t procreate.

Shawn – for you I reserved my favorite term of non-endearment: Ass. Assity ass ass ass. It would be redundant to go into the whole debacle, so I won’t. I will, however, wish a hearty “good luck” to you in finding someone who will put up with your lame excuses and large U-Haul truck full of baggage. I mean, I have baggage of my own (don’t we all) but for one, all of MY baggage is really cute and it matches (tm awesome greeting card), and for two, I don’t constantly trip over said baggage, thereby allowing it to cripple me emotionally. So yeah. Good luck (I say as I snicker snidely).

So that’s the end of installment two. Same disclaimer applies. Happy weekend!

The Last Word, 1995-2000

I think it's human nature to want to have the last word. Times when, at the time, the words that came out of your mouth were more like "Oh yeah? I know you are, you big jerk" instead of the intelligent and sometimes witty rejoinder you come up with much later.

This especially happens with the end of a relationship. Most of the time, no one gets to say what they really want to. And even if you do, there's stuff you think of later that you WISH you could say.

So this is what I wish I could have said.

Brian – I’m sorry that I ended up liking your fraternity brother enough to make me realize that we shouldn’t get married. There were other things, but that was essentially the clincher. We WERE only 20, and I think I can say with certainty that we would be divorced right now. But it’s cool, right? You and I actually bucked the norm and stayed friends (except for that one awkward as hell hookup when we were 23), you and your fraternity brother stayed friends (“Bros before Hos,” am I right?) and you’re married now to the girl you dated before me. And I have a scrapbook FULL of pictures of us at various theme parties thrown by the fraternity. Fun times. I mean, who doesn’t like to explain to the youth group kids that that picture was proof that they were the beer bong champion among all the other girlfriends? Anyway, I don’t really regret anything, though I sorta miss my diamond. Especially since I heard much later that you had cheated on me. I would have kept it if I knew that. But whatever.

Glen – I’m sorry that you are a sucker. That the first girl you dated after me was super manipulative and not only convinced you to marry her, she convinced you to turn Mormon. You’re a sucker because you believed her when, after the first time you slept together, she told you that now no man would ever marry her if you didn’t, because she’s no longer pure. Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard THAT one. I’d have like…well, probably a nickel. I’m also sorry that once you got married, you disappeared into the powerful Mormon vortex. And I certainly hope you didn’t end up working for her dad (like she wanted you to) at his Amway-esque business instead of using your exercise physiology degree to become an occupational therapist like you wanted to. How do I know all this? Our “couples friends” P&T told me. Only there was more swearing on P’s part. Also? They call your wife “Boobs.” And not in an affectionate, endearing way. That's probably partly because P&T haven't seen you since you entered the vortex. But THAT could have been because when they were invited to your baptism, P was getting bored as the guys were trying to figure out how to best dunk you in the baptismal pool, and so he says, under his breath "He's a G**damned kayaker for C****sake. Just dunk him." And as it turns out, it wasn't so much "under his breath." Anyway, you could have done monumentally better because you were so damn hot. And so funny. And nice. That last one was probably your downfall, unfortunately.

So that's that. For this installment. Oh, and if anyone feels like saying "good thing you're not bitter" or "you're not over that yet?" -- don't. Because I'm truly NOT bitter and I AM over it -- this is what we call writing for the sake of writing. Or writing because we have to sit through a day long conference about really boring stuff because you're the only one in your office that knows how to work the conference room video equipment. It could be either, really.

Other People's Houses

I housesit a lot. I’ve done it forever, and it’s fun. I love my own house and my own cats, but I also love staying at other people’s houses. I will amend that to say staying at a select few other people’s houses. I stay at Sally and Joe’s, the Hot Tub House, and once and ONLY once, I stayed at the Stink House. That was the worst experience ever.

Anyway, I love Sally and Joe’s, because their backyard is so awesome, their bed is so comfortable, there’s always wine in the fridge, and there are books, books, books. I’ve housesat for them for a long time, and they still love me, even though I’ve had to put one of their cats to sleep, I’ve backed into Joe’s business partner’s $80,000 Mercedes (I didn’t see it, and at first I thought I hit a trash can. Ha. I should BE so lucky), and then there was the debacle last year involving one of their birds, their two cats, and the fact I didn’t quite pull the door to the library closed tight enough. Suffice it to say that when they got home, the bird was dead (not because of the cats though – he was sick before and I prefer to believe that that’s why he died) but as a lovely parting gift, they received a stick drawing detailing the experience. I know, right? Why do they keep asking me to housesit? Well, mostly because they’re awesome, but probably also because 9 times out of 10, I’m totally responsible and not as accident prone as I sound. Plus, they know I love their pets.

Two houses over from them are Nancy and Mel. They are the parents of one of my friends who I have known since we started first grade together back in the day. All of Mel and Nance’s kids live far away now, so they travel a lot and consequently, I stay at their house a lot. It’s the Hot Tub House. I love their house because I can lay in bed and watch t.v., or like last night, I can lay in bed and watch the lightning – it was so cool. They have a really sweet black lab who usually sleeps right next to my side of the bed, unless she hears a fox or a coyote or raccoon or one of the myriad of other animals that roam that neighborhood. Then she scares me half to death waking me up with the barking. I always have friends over to that house, because who can pass up the hot tub and the Tivo and the endless supply of Corona in the basement fridge?

The coolest part about these houses is the neighborhood. I am determined to live in that neighborhood one day. I want to get married in Sally and Joe’s backyard (they told me I could and I’m so excited. Yes, I know I don’t have a boyfriend, but could you not rain on my parade?) and it’s just the coolest place. Somewhere in the neighborhood covenant, there’s a rule that no one can have fences. So behind the houses there’s just one big yard and a pond. There are no streetlights, so it’s always super dark at night. It’s really quiet – except for when the foxes scream and that’s creepy as hell. But that doesn't happen all that often, so it's mostly soooo quiet. And I love it.

Anyway, tonight I will be going to the Hot Tub House. I’ll be sitting in the hot tub, looking out over the backyard (it’s in a glassed in sunroom) until it gets too hot. And then I will put on my favorite boxers and my Homestar Runner sweatshirt and I will go to bed with the windows open so that it gets cold in the room. Tomorrow when I take the dog out before it’s light and while it’s still silent, I will wander through the yards, wrapped in a fleece blanket, listening to the ducks on the pond quack and hearing the prettiest sound of the rustle of the breeze through the huge cottonwoods in Sally and Joe’s yard. And I will be happy because I have a pretty cool life.