Dave, my blue hat & I
Before I start I may need to change the music. Eli says, “Did she really just say football?” followed with a, “This music scares me,” as we listen to the end of the song Red Football from the album Universal Mother. Sometimes I like Sinead; sometimes, like years at a time, I don’t.
“Yes Eli, they did say football and yes, the song is scaring me too.”
I forward to the next song, Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. Please deep bass beat, please pump some energy back into me. Eli leaves the room. He needs to read. I need to write. Even an hour ago I was full of energy. Instead of writing, Dave and I ran errands: Starbucks, World Market & Jans Sporting Goods, all slowly sucking the life out of me. I had so much to say. Most of which I said to Dave, and to which he responded, “Yep.” Today I spent the day with four lovely women and I was feeling really inspired. And right now, well, I can hardly keep my eyes open — literally.
The Day I met Robin. July 31, 2006
We all met in different ways. I met Mary a long time ago through my brother, Bill. Robin and I met through Julie. Julie met me through my blog. Carrie and I met through Robin. And at approximately 11:00AM this morning I met Suzanne. We have been planning this meeting for some time and today we all met at Carrie’s. Carrie had a lovely spread and I brought the Veggie Pigs.
Bracelet Eli made because Carrie taught him how to crochet & gave him that green beed
We did what women often do when they get together. We talked about things we usually keep to ourselves. What I can tell you is that towards the end, as I was exclaiming some wondrous wisdom that I cannot remember, I aspirated a piece of Pistachio. Carrie walked into the kitchen to get me some fresh water. I followed her, noticing the beautiful daylight. “I could stand here forever! It is so warm and sunny.”
With water in hand and because the other women patiently waited for me to catch by breath, I walked back into the other room and tried to finish my not-all-that-important thought. Ladies, thank you for waiting.
Earlier, as I sat there desperately needed to pee, but not wanting to miss a word, I waited until I could wait no more. I noticed the adorable bathroom sign hanging on the door and made my way over. As soon as I shut the door, I noticed that Carrie and I used the same type of tile on our bathroom floors. I was unusually distracted with the grout. I kept looking at different areas of her floor and could not leave the bathroom until I was sure their grout color was the same as ours or not. I returned to the super stimulating conversation to find Robin conveying her thoughts by standing up, utilizing her entire body in a sort of a dance-dance-revolution sort of way. She did this more than once and it was brilliant. Mary told us about France. She just returned from living there in the land of bon soir and baguettes and I could not hear enough about it. Carrie’s husband, who was at work, made the muffins. Somewhere in some thread we all discovered that I “dated” Suzanne’s cousin. I say “dated” quite loosely because I was never really sure we were “dating” even when we were dating. We hung out a lot. We even held hands once or twice. He made me dinner and while we were “dating” I made out with his friend. Ah, the good old days.
About the time I met Mary. My brother Bill & Me
Not once, but several times I sensed there was a common thread tying us together. Even though we are all over the spectrum, each of us was raised Mormon. At one point Robin insightfully inserted, “Even if you leave the Church, Mormonism never leaves you.” I think she is right and I told her as much. It defines who we are, and how we see the world is filtered through our Mormon lens. We all attended Brigham Young University, and as I listened to everyone recount their BYU experience it was apparent that things like heavy petting are to a BYU student the same as having sex for a student attending another university. We all get it. Some of us married young. Some of us didn’t. For me, in the Mormon culture, once I was twenty-two I felt like an old maid, an unworthy vessel who had missed the marriage opportunity. I am just scratching the surface here. As Mormons, active or not, we have a short hand for these experiences. Often I think this shorthand lends itself to the Mormons-are-a-Cult perception of non-Mormons. With our The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-Day-Saints shorthand, we can talk about things like being called into “BYU standards” and with a few phrases like, “do you have a beard card,”or “there were boys in your bedroom,” or “your skirt is above your knee,” we all get it. And even if we, ourselves, were never called into “BYU Standards,” we have heard stories and we all know the fear.
We can talk about things like prayer and faith and having our faith shattered and we know. We were all taught in various ways that if you pray hard enough, God will answer your prayers. If you are worthy and righteous, things will be ok. We know the helpless feeling of banging our prayerful heads against the wall and feeling like it is we, not Thee, who does not have enough Faith. Some of us have prayed so hard our heads have exploded. We then used our agency to piece our heads back together, often with our central beliefs forever changed. I do not believe anyone who will tell you otherwise. Because even those who no longer attend or no longer believe still feel the pull and this particular pull DOES filter how we view the world.
Now what to do with that. Well today I was able to let my hair down, be honest, not feel judged and not feel so alone. Today it felt like home, a home I cannot wait to go back to. Thank you ladies.
The conversation was so good that this was the only picture I managed to take
COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. 
This is a touchy feely post and did not think the comments needed to be turned on. This being said, I DO have A LOT to say about my 80′s HAIR!
