Sweet Pea

Someday. . .someone will sing this to me.

And I will be blushing furiously.

Crowd Searching

It's inevitable.  Every time I'm in front of a crowd (like tonight--the bright spotlights gleaming off of my violin and gently toasting my face) my eyes are drawn to the empty space in the audience.  Right in the middle.  I look for you there, half expecting to see you filling up a seat.  Sometimes I think you're smiling at me, or browsing through your program, or chatting with an old lady nearby.  More often I blink and accept the cool emptiness of the red plush chair, its bare velvet cushion soaking in Rimsky-Korsakov's Overture, never to comprehend the rise and fall of the melody.

Time Stands Still

 I'm loving some throw-back All-American Rejects this week.

Resilient

Images via

Sitting in church today, the thought crossed my mind: I am resilient.  It sat there in my brain, neither accepted nor rejected, just floating.  Hymns were sung, speakers spoke, and before I knew it, the thought had moved in. And I liked it there.  And I kept it. 

Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
--Jeff Bezos


And you, you are resilient too.  We were made to break, re-shape and ultimately heal. 

The Crisp Gala is Key

 My soul is made up of music and words and crisp gala apples.

On my perfect day off, you'd find me sitting in a corner cafe in Georgetown with a blushing gala in one hand and a purse-sized copy of Jane Eyre in the other. 

 I'd be so busy inhaling the words of Charlotte Bronte that I wouldn't notice I was almost running late for my date at the National Symphony. 

Shoving my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and re-wrapping my hair into a gigantic bun on the top of my head, I'd leap onto my bike and whiz through the cobblestone streets.

Of course, I'd make it just in the nick of time. And as luck would have it (it is my perfect day after all). . . 

They'd be playing Corelli.

Somebody That I Used To Know

This is the story of a little-known Australian singer whose single went viral and was--and continues to be-- emulated countless times by artists around the world.

This is also the story of a girl in the U.S. who happens to be a little bit obsessed with her latest music discovery.

Gotye's lyrics are haunting and I love how much he sounds like Sting (See 1:30, am I right or what?).  And the whole cubist painting thing is weirdly working for my inner Picasso lover.

Pentatonix, the recent winners of The Voice,  made a sick cover:

I probably would have voted for them over my homeboys in Vocal Point, not going to lie.

This is the first version I ever heard.  Five people playing a guitar.  What?  The vocals are good, too.



Ingrid Michaelson caught on to it.  I didn't know she was such a hipster!



I like this duo.  They rev it up with some electric guitar and the kick is nice.



This guy's guitar gives it a John Mayer vibe.




Something else that I learned? Gotye, pronounced "Gaw-tee-ay" is a phonetic variant of the French translation of the name Walter.  Love it :).

Rainy Day

Image via

Eating toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, letting semi-sweet chocolate chips melt in my mouth as I'm

Reading King Lear, curled up on a pile of fleecy blankets before I

Set the book down, close my eyes and daydream about someone to dance in the rain with as I

Slip into a deep mid-afternoon nap with the

Rain pattering soothingly on my window.

January's Playlist

Maybe you can tell we went to see Footloose? 

The Lining is Silver

I've found a new fool-proof way to boost your mood from a downer 2 or 3 to at least a solid 6.5

Step 1: Put on running shoes and prepare iPod with this song:


Step 2: Soak in the lovely, harmonious sounds of Relient K as you pick up speed and get on the running trail of your choice.

Step 3: Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Yes, exactly four times.

Step 4: Take your headphones out, tuck your iPod away in your pocket. Take in the sounds of passing cars, rustling leaves, and whirling breezes. Return a smile and wave to the cute guy (or girl, depending. . . ) running by. Breathe deeply.

Step 5: Sprint the last leg home. Gulp a glass of ice water and cook up a hearty meal.

Step 6: Recognize that you can't trust anyone to sustain your happiness for long. Except you. And maybe Relient K.

I love how Meg Fee said it:

i don't want a life that's perfect. where every day is good. where happiness never falters and gives way to longing or loneliness or pain. that doesn't interest me. why try and hide what makes us human? show me that. give me that. offer up your humanity, your fault-line of divinity, and i will spend each day forging forward into that land where language has no meaning. to that place beyond words where we find and love each other wholly and simply.

Nenna

I nicknamed my daughter when I was ten years old.

She is my earliest memory of a time when I wrote for someone else, simply because I wanted to. Although she was—and continues to be—only a dream, I wrote to her in a silky smooth journal with all of the earnest, motherly love my precocious heart could muster.

 I never actually intended to name my daughter Nenna. Rather, I envisioned that it would be a mysterious, affectionate nickname that she would never really understand until her tenth birthday when I gave her the diary. Flipping through the pages of the lavender spiral-bound notebook, she would find quotes, magazine clippings, recipes, and pieces of advice from her ten year-old mother, all addressed to “Dearest Nenna."

This was the first time that I recognized the ability of writing to transcend time. It didn’t matter that I was only ten years old; it didn’t matter that I wouldn’t have a daughter for years and years. It never occurred to me that my advice might seem outdated and juvenile, or even humorous. I wrote for myself, what I wished I could hear from the past.

I wrote for my daughter, a more distant piece of me, imagining the echoes of my past colliding with the future.

Life Slice

Right now I'm sitting in the Cougareat, sipping a small, caffeine-free cup of Diet Coke. Basically it's doing nothing for me, but I'm hoping the taste will trick my body into revving up my energy. Placebo effect, eh?
I'm voraciously slurping--in the most refined manner possible--the last contents of the cup now, because I just took a gigantic bite of my hot and spicy chicken and rice bowl from Teriyaki Stix.  They weren't lying about the hot and spicy.  I've decided that the chicken and rice combo, or maybe just rice, is one of my go-to comfort foods.  I feel like a list of said food is in order:

Paige's Comfort Food List
Peanut Butter
PB&J
Hot bread (tortillas, freshly homemade bread, pitas)
Burritos
Peach Popsicles
Orange Juice
Hot Chocolate
Grapefruit
Apples
Chocolate chips
Pretzels
Hot applesauce with cinnamon
Chicken and rice


Could be a lot worse, eh?  (Please note my Canadian-ness in using "eh?" twice in the same blog post.)
Buy me any of these things and I'm yours forever.  Or, at least a week.

The sounds of the food court are washing over me, a blur of feminine giggles and masculine guffaws and side-conversations. I'm awkwardly sitting directly in front of someone I recognize from high school and I'm trying not to make eye contact or stare.  My lips are still burning from the chicken.  Food and drink gone, I'm trying to find an excuse not to leave this table before I lock myself away in the depths of the Harold B. Lee Library, never to surface until my research paper is complete.

I mean it this time.

Right now, as I'm sitting here, I'm missing people.  I miss my family, I miss my friends away at college, I miss my friends away on missions.  I'm missing the depth of my friendship with those people.  I have to remind myself that it never came quickly.  Things of great value rarely just fall into our laps.  Still, I can't help but think that it all came so much more naturally in high school.  There's just so. many. people. here at BYU.   And not enough time to really move beyond the preliminaries with everyone.

Lest you worry, I'm far from lonely or homesick.  I'm constantly interacting with wonderful, intelligent people. I've met so many of them. I'm just growing weary of small-talk and starting to ache for one of those soul-searching, up-all-night conversations.  Or maybe just a solid talk with someone new.  Someone who is on the same energy level as me, who will get excited about things with me, who will talk about something other than school but still ask me what my favorite book is.  Someone who I want to talk to just as much as they want to talk to me, and vice verse.  Something new.

For now, I'm marching forward with my eyes open for some place-holders for my missing friends. And I have a feeling, just an inkling, that my heart might even open up some new spaces.

Scraping up the last bit of rice in my bowl, I watch a man and wife converse in Sign Language. They're laughing. I keep on thinking the man is motioning to me, I'm thrown off by his extraneous movements. There's something romantic about their silent conversation.  It's private even in public, it's warm.  It's lovely.

Maybe it's not just words I'm missing, maybe I'm just beginning to forget that feeling, the experience of sitting side-by-side with someone, saying nothing, and being totally comfortable with that.  I think that's the true measure of a friendship.  When there's nothing left to be said, you're happy to just

Be.

Grammar Love

  This picture solidified what I've thought for years: a good--no, impeccable-- command over the English language (or any other language for that matter, but that's a blog post for another day) is an incredibly attractive quality in a guy.  Or maybe it's simply the fact that the lack thereof  is extremely distasteful.  It's all about the your/you're, definately/definitely, and the "lol".  No man--or any guy hoping to fill such a title--should ever,  ever type "lol."

Not ever.

Bonus points if he can correctly spell bigger words than me.

The Secret About Me

Sometimes I have thousands of words building within me

My words, they are sharp fragments of emotion piercing through my vocal chords
And when they're finally released, they come out in volumes
A novel for each fragment

Word upon word, line upon line
Trying to describe something I can't explain but only feel

Clarity often fails me because as I'm speaking (or furiously typing)
I'm discerning
It's a simultaneous process
To speak and write is to understand
Not to resolve

And that's the secret about me

When they're all out I'm empty
Not better but more clear

Often my words, they hang there,
Selfish, meaningless, ranting
Exposed

I wish I never shared them
Because hours, months, years later
I see how lost I was in my narrow context

But sometimes,
Just sometimes,
They bring meaning and depth
They form a bond from my heart to another empathetic one

It's that rare person to love me enough
To wade through the verbosity and
 Acknowledge the process while skimming over the confusion spewing forth
The person who leaves me thinking
Yes, that is exactly what I meant

My very own paraphraser

Afterwards I'll be quiet for a time
I never was the biggest talker
Introversion will overcome
For when the words are no longer necessary
Then the sorting, the healing, the changing can begin

There are many words I regret
A few simple ones I'll never rescind
And many more waiting to come forth

That's the secret about me

Look here, my dear. . .

Listening to Steve Moakler as I unload the contents of my closet onto my quickly disappearing floor. I have several half-written blogs but few coherent words at the moment.

The time that has dragged for so many years is suddenly whipping me forward in a whirlwind, faster than ever before. My life is about to change. And I can't wait.

But right now I don't feel much of anything. The excitement will come, and with it, some lingering sadness. I know this much. But in this moment, all I can do is keep my mind present in each passing hour. Because my hours of safety and familiarity and comfort are slipping through my fingers. And sometimes, no matter how much you long for adventure, nothing is quite the same as your own warm bed and your mother's home cooking.

Download his album here

You won't be disappointed.

Catch a Ride or Catch a Cab. . .

Run :).

A Truth

Sometimes the things you think will never change--do. Time pushes in two directions: it sends the present spiraling backward and it grasps the future, drawing the unknown ever closer.
A blink of an eye, a shifting week, a passing month. Before you know it, the defining truths of your life,  balanced so precariously in the tender palm of the present, begin to topple.

The future draws nearer, yet the echoes of the past still reverberate.  The sound is swollen and heavy and throbbing, it fills the present. Much more than an echo, you realize it's a truth, a deep memory, caught between the dissipating past and the impending future. It is latched between the two sides, tearing slowly as they diverge. And no amount of pressure or care, anger or sadness, can restore it. You aren't strong enough to prevent the dichotomy between WAS and IS.

Time insistently pulls forward and backward and the sweet truth trembles under the growing rift.  To ignore the echoes is impossible, to live in the present-past with the memory is delusional.  So, you choose the forward-bound side and hope that when the tear is complete, the larger portion of the truth fell to that side too.