Countdown to 30: Day Eight

Diet Cocola: totally worth celebratin'

Countdown to 30: Day Seven

I have some incredibly intelligent, talented, creative, brilliant, funny, and endlessly entertaining siblings who love me to the core. We are each unique and individual--different from one another as night from day. And yet, when together, I feel like I'm with "my people." I feel I make some strange sort of sense.

This is all of them--"Yours, Mine, and Ours."

I'm the baby.

I was loved by all. Naturally.

(So I say.)

And sometimes this being loved business included mauling.

With a side of: "Because you're the youngest, that's why. Now go get it."

Like I said: these are my people.

(Sister-o-Mine, we evidently need to pose in front of the camera at the same time.

But, as always, thank you for engaging in my goofy posing games while on vacations.)

(Watch for the signature Brooke & Wendy pose again in this post.)

If only I had this one's height.

(Told ya it was coming.)

And a more recent picture of me and the brother.

(Have I mentioned how much I love this picture of me and my boys?)

(Also, in searching for photos for this post, I've realized I need to start posing in front of the camera more often with the Dad siblings--sheesh, Rookie!)

I can't imagine loving, fighting, laughing, playing, teasing, celebrating, torturing, admiring, commiserating, living my life, complaining, or hanging with any other siblings but these. I'm lucky to have so many crazy kids to call my very own.

Half or not, I call you all ALL mine.

Thanks for putting up with 30 years of this:

Countdown to 30: Day Six

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

~ Mary Oliver

Have I mentioned I'm downright smitten with Mary Oliver's poetry? And Pablo Neruda's translated poems (how I long to read their originals and understand each word). And there's Whitman and Pinsky and Swenson and St. Vincent Millay and Cummings and on and on and on. I am smitten with each of them. With poetry in general, really. Words, frankly, and all that these morphemes and syllables and sounds are capable of creating.

It was a boy that got me into it (poetry, that is--and isn't that always the story?). The boy is long gone, of course. But the poetry. Oh, how the poetry stays.

"Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly,
you'll find yourself, and that,
and only that, can be the happiest
or bitterest hour of your life"

~ Pablo Neruda

Words are musical. Words are art. Words, when it comes right down to it, are one of the best ways in which we communicate our inner selves to the outer world.

Countdown to 30: Day Five

At one very low point along the old musical taste timeline, I dug these guys:
Joey McIntyre was my personal favorite. My sister, Tammy, and I would endlessly discuss John/Jordan (her favorite brothers) and Joey. And how one day they'd all come a-knockin'. Even if it was in our dreams.

Before NKOTB I remember loving Cindy Lauper and listening to pretty much whatever the older siblings enjoyed: Depeche Mode and R.E.M. (from the brother); even Milli Vanilli and Garth Brooks (from the sisters).

I've since gone through my Hip-Hop/R&B phase in 6th grade. This was around the time I'd call the local college radio station DJs, pretending I was much older than my 12 years, and dedicate songs like "In the Still of the Night" (a la Boyz II Men) to 12 year old boys who didn't know I existed.

In high school it was all things Broadway (with a little bit of Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, and other Dawson's Creek/Lilith Fair fare scattered in). Ragtime was my favorite. Then Into the Woods. The summer after I graduated I bought a Discman with my first paycheck. I recall listening to West Side Story as I walked (okay, maybe I skipped) in rhythm to the bus stop.

Until I realized just how nerd-a-licious my tastes were. And that boys listened to something a little bit tougher. Which was the impetus for my pop/punk/ska/rock phase. Blink 182. Weezer. Incubus. Sublime. Beck. Good Charlotte. Foo Fighters. (Whom I still adore--Rock Star Boyfriend, anyone?)

And then I became an upperclassmen. I'd taken Women's Studies 1010 (for 2 weeks). I was a serious-minded English Major. I bought all my clothing at thrift stores. It was an era of Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos and Chaco Sandals and bandannas in my hair.

And then I mellowed down the hippie-granola-vibe. I'm now smitten with everything from Glee to The Frames to Alicia Keys to Regina Spektor to Debussy to Ray LaMontagne to The Weepies. I've discovered that I don't really like what's on the radio--beyond NPR.

And the beautiful thing about music--it always takes me back. "The Right Stuff" still gets me dancin'. How can you not laugh and feel young and careless when the music of your lifeline comes drifting through the air? I celebrate music. Even the eras of really bad musical taste--and there were many. Each song is linked to a memory, a someone in some moment somewhere I haven't been in a very long time.

Here's to the stuff that makes my toes tap, my hips sway, my mind surge with memory. Here's to music. I delight in it.

Countdown to 30: Day Four

Once upon a time
I was blonde-ish, bald-ish, and kind of doofy looking:

But guess what?

They kept me anyway.

Maybe because I matched the set?

And then I turned into someone even doofier looking:

(But Grandma and Grandpa insisted I stay.)

Unfortunately, I only got a little bit doofier:

And then it went from bad to worse:

(My mother chose my glasses. But you never would have guessed that on your own.)

Until I turned into a beautiful swan.

Then again, maybe not:

Countdown to 30: Day Three

Everything I am I owe to my parents. They are good people.

Even if my mother sported a white-woman's poodle 'fro circa 1980 (evidence below).

(My parents on the left the weekend they eloped in Vegas--aunt and uncle on the right.)

I get my expressive nature from my mother. I talk with my hands, emphasize every sentence. I feel her energy and presence run through me. Tonight I found myself sitting in a position exactly like one of hers. It was eerie and comforting at the same time.

I get my mellow side from my father. I can, if need be, go with the flow. I like to be alone, in my own little world of quiet and thought. I also got his terrible vision. Does this mean I can send my eye doctor bills his way?

I learned to laugh because of them. Even at my dad's stale jokes: years upon years of hearing, "You're going to eat your mother?" after asking "When are we eating, Mom?" (He still thinks this is knee-slappin' hilarious, by the way.)

(THIS, my friends, is the 80's in all its Mormon WASP-ish glory.
In fact, I'm pretty sure this was taken at a ward party.)

I am lucky. My family laughs. Sometimes at each other, sometimes simply because we're being silly, sometimes because it hurts so much what else can one do. My parents taught us this. To keep going. That life keeps moving. That tomorrow is tomorrow and is sometimes much better.

I learned to accept others charitably, without judgment--to love unconditionally, to give of myself, to serve, to stay loyal to family--all from them. I learned that everybody's family is a little crazy and that's okay. I learned to feel things, to be self-reflective from them.


Between the two of them, they've raised 10 children. They have 19 grandchildren. They mixed two families together and made it out alive. They've lost businesses, houses, parents. They've been married over 30 years. They are good friends. They drive one another crazy.

They're down to earth. Their idiosyncrasies are boundless. They are each quirky and witty and fun and intelligent. They are intriguing, unique people. I am grateful I have them. How can I celebrate these 30 years without acknowledging who got me here?

I love you, Momdu & Popsy. You're good people.

Love,
da baby

Countdown to 30: Day Two

I've since learned better.

I now prefer an icy Diet-Cocola.

With fresh squeezed lime.

Or an icy cool water.

Water rocks my world.

I'm also far too curvy (and fashionable)

for overalls.

But, in all honesty here, wasn't I cute?

(And rockin' the piggies?)