moosh in indy.

I spoke in church today.

I read a talk that I composed on my laptop from articles on the Internet and then presented it through Evernote on my tablet.

The man that spoke after me was an adorable grandfather who gestured at my Xoom and said “I don’t have any idea what that thing she just used is called.”

He talked about technology and how connected we are today.

About how “Sometimes smart people with smart phones do dumb things.”

Amen to that. (Politicians.)

I came home and googled a thing or two.

20 trillion text messages are received every day.

200 million tweets are sent per day.

42 million pieces of content are shared on facebook EVERY HOUR.

And those numbers aren’t slowing down.

He went on to say if we can believe that this kind of connection can happen even though we barely witness a sliver of it ourselves, is it really so hard to believe that whatever higher power we believe in listens to us when we talk to Him/Her? (Of course in our case it’s God that’s listening and we talk to Him through prayer.)

Roaches are pretty much the only things that have been around longer than prayer in some form.

When I’m having a hard time it’s really easy to come here and write. To call a friend an talk. To make brownies and eat. But sometimes it’s best to hit my knees and pray.

It really is the oldest form of therapy and connection.

It’s free, you don’t have to shower to do it and it never breaks or suffers from technical difficulties.

Unless Heaven or the being you believe in starts selling Missoni, you always have an open line of connection with someone who loves you and will always listen without interrupting.

All you have to do is start talking.

This is a story I’d never thought I’d tell, either because it was too sacred or it would scare people off. A woman hearing voices while driving on the freeway tends to land her in the “yay! crazy!” sub genre of society. But allow me to explain.

Cody and I had been married several years. I was having some sort of early 20′s crisis over “is this it? this is all there is? an eternity more of this?” Don’t get me wrong, “this” was good, but a lifetime of Hamburger Helper (I didn’t know how to cook yet) and Friday night movies (come back Friday night movies!) seemed…well…boring.

I was talking to a friend about my crisis (I feel the needs to put air quotes around the world “crisis”) and he said “Did you ever think maybe it’s time for you guys to consider having kids?”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT!!!!!!!” with a bunch of spittle sprang forth from my mouth. “KIDS? ME? I don’t even like kids! Why would I make one of my own that I am responsible for!?” (There was also an underlying fear that I wouldn’t be able to have kids due to several surgeries to remove benign tumors from my cervix.)

But after I was done talking to him I started to think, “Kids…huh. There has to be a reason people have them.” So when Cody got home I brought the topic up. He was totally not opposed to the idea, especially considering how babies are made. But we were still unable to look each other in the face and say “Let’s make a baby.” So we decided to go to the temple separately to pray for an answer.

My drive to the temple was a sunny one, blue sky, big puffy white clouds. I was mulling this kid business over in my head as I was driving when I heard “Yay! Mom’s going to know about us!” in the tiniest sweetest little voices. To say the wind was knocked out of me would be a dramatic understatement. I’ll also say it was a good thing I was already sitting.

The tears started…”Mom’s going to know about us.” and they didn’t stop. Not when I got to the temple, not when I went through the session and especially not when I was able to bow my head in personal prayer at the end. When I finally lifted my head I noticed I was surrounded by nice old ladies who worked in the temple, worried about when the snotty lady in the corner would finish it up already and “I wonder if she’s really okay?”

I mean, there’s being touched by the spirit and then there’s being knocked flat to your knees I dare you to feel any other emotion but the overpowering love of God touched by the spirit. Whew, still wears me out to think of it almost eight years later.

I knew Cody and I had someone waiting for us. He had gotten the same answer but with far fewer emotions attached to it. Addie came into our lives within the next year (not without struggles of course) and we were happy. But I never forgot that those little voices in the car that day said “Mom is going to know about us.” Meaning more than one.

That tiny little moment filled with those tiny little voices carried me through the last six years. Addie was meant to be part of a them. Part of an us. A pair. Of course I was frustrated that I was promised an “us” and that “us” came much slower than any of us expected.

But I grew up, I changed, I learned. I was shaped by the experiences and the people I met and even now I am learning more and more about my capacity to love and hope and dream. Both of my babies have been trapped inside my broken body at some point. While they’ll never remember the experience, I will. There are times when I hug Addie and remember how we made it through one of the darkest times of my life together, literally.

The same will be true of Mozzi. That first moment I hold her I will be able to look at her and say “we did this, together.”

I was talking with a beloved friend this last week and she mentioned that her first baby was her heart and her second baby was her soul.

Addie is my whole heart and everyday with Mozzi inside me the capacity for my soul to thrive grows.

I will never be able to thank them enough for letting me know about them before I even knew of my capabilities and blessings that would result from being their mom.

It feels as though there are invisible hands choking me.

The grip is tighter sometimes than others.

At this moment? It’s tight. I’m afraid to move for fear of it truly overtaking me again like it did on Friday.

It gets tighter when Cody isn’t next to me. And at the moment he’s not. And tomorrow he’ll be back at work.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

Some may say codependency, I say he’s the only safe thing I know when the real me is lost.

I’ve been slinking around the Internet reading the words so many of you have written. I want so desperately to be able to reach out to you, to help you the way you’ve helped me. I occasionally stare at twitter and skype wanting so badly to get involved with my friends and with people whom I’ve never met who are pulling for me. But it doesn’t last. I can’t keep it up.

Maybe you know what I mean?

And sleep isn’t coming easily. Which makes this even harder for me. Being wide awake with my misfiring brain when the rest of the world is fast asleep? It’s hard. Last night an owl kept me company. Which in theory sounds like a lovely thing to have keep you company, but if you’ve never heard an owl? They’re unsettlingly loud. Add the whole dark mysterious forest in the back yard to to equation and I kind of miss the fire trucks, modified mufflers and domestic battles that lulled me to sleep in the city.

This time is hard. Because I don’t know how or when it’s going to end. Or what the future holds for my brain. So much talk goes around about postpartum depression, and I didn’t do so well last time. But if you’re one of the lucky ones who has exasperated antenatal depression? Well. It’s kind of like coming up with a battle strategy for leaving the fire for the frying pan, where you have to bring a tiny little baby and your family along with you.

I want desperately to be worrying about nursery colors and arranging bitty baby clothes, not “How am I going to make it to Friday?”

I am grateful for the tiny little reprieve I got between the shock, the worry, the transition, the sickness, the something may be wrong, the anxiety and now this. My memory is pretty talented to have blocked out so much of what I went through the first time. It covered my postpartum fears with delivery fears and it covered those with antenatal depression fears. It then covered those fears with the fear of miscarriage or something being wrong. Those were covered up with the deep and abiding fear of being sick while the whole situation was covered in the giant overwhelming fear that I would never have another baby of my own to rock to sleep.

As I tear through the layers, vividly remembering each one I also remember there’s a reason I wanted to do this again. There’s a reason people have more babies. There’s a reason people fight and spend and never give up hope to get babies here.

Which also reminds me. Baby books, especially the parts about delivery? Are not a comforting distraction when your brain is wrecked.

This never will be easy for me, but at least someone promised me somewhere along the way that it would be worth it.

(At 1:31…just watch it.)

I was having a particularly rough day in high school when a boy named Jacob Orosco noticed how down and out I was. He performed an ice skating routine for me right in front of the office to cheer me up complete with singing and a grand finale.

The next week he was gone. He had taken his own life. Rumors flew about as to how and why it happened, but the biggest rumor was that he was never accepted for what he really was, gay.

This is the same high school where instead of allowing a Gay/Straight Alliance as a school club (Jacob was one of the founding members) they did away with extra curricular clubs altogether. I remember one administrators stance was that “If we let the gays have a club then we’d have to let the KKK have a club as well.” Awesome. Way to lump GLBTQ people in with the KKK. Students from our rival high school, West High, started a club called “SAFE-Students Against Fags Everywhere.”

FHA however (Future Homemakers of America) were still allowed to meet regularly on school property.

In the last three weeks there have been five suicides by gay teens.

Jacob took his life in 1997, this most recent news is nothing new and it’s not getting any better.

***Edited 10/07/10***

Mormons Divided on LDS Apostle’s Speech on Gays.

Yep.

***Edited 10/08/10***

I was criticized heavily for my personal feelings that President Packer’s choice of certain words were ill timed and insensitive, I simply disagreed and was uncomfortable with his choice of phrasing at times. I wasn’t alone, and my feelings were not completely wrong either.

Apostle’s Speech on Gays Changed on LDS website.

It’s true.

It was announced in General Conference (like a State of the Union address only it’s about church) this weekend that an LDS (Mormon) Temple is going to be built in Indianapolis. It will take a few years, but one is really coming.

This is huge for the Indianapolis LDS community.

The closest temple to us now is in Louisville. There is also ones nearby in Chicago and Columbus.

Before 1985 the closest temple to Indianapolis was Washington DC.

A temple is different from a regular church meetinghouse.

It is very, very sacred to us.

And sacred is much different than secret.

Have you ever tried to explain what being in love is like to someone who thinks love is a waste of time? Or explaining the joys of parenthood to a single, carefree person who thinks kids are a waste of time and money? I know the one that gets me is when people talk about the “high” of running. I loathe running unless it’s to get away from bears, and no  matter how much you tell me running is amazing and life changing? I’m not sure I’ll ever really understand.

And I fully admit that is my own ignorance and dislike with running that will keep me from not understanding, but if you like it?GOOD ON ‘YA! Keep it up, I admire you for it. I’m just not going to be training for a marathon along side you. (However I will wait at the end with Gatorade.)

This is how temples are for members of the LDS church. Amazing things happen in temples. They are beautiful, an escape from the outside world. A place where one can feel so close to God you’d swear you could feel Him standing right behind you.

But I realize a lot of people feel about religion the way I feel about running.

And that’s fine.

Just as I respect runners, I would ask you to respect my beliefs. Or anyone’s beliefs for that matter.

Being mean isn’t going to get us anywhere. (Well, anywhere good at least.)

To (almost) everyone who isn’t LDS in Indianapolis the temple is just going to be another building to you, albeit a very beautiful, well maintained and landscaped building.

But for those of us who are LDS? This means so much.

(I compared it to an Ikea on twitter, maybe not the best comparison, but given there are some people who believe Ikea to be the holy of holies when it comes to home decor? Ikea it is.)

I can tell you that I have had experiences in various temples that simply sit in my heart and glow. Last February when I was in NYC the security guard at the Manhattan temple let me just stand inside the entrance. The quiet and the warmth and the light that I felt just one foot inside the doors of a temple was overwhelming.

That same feeling is going to be here, right here. Where I live.

The other fantastic part? After it is built and before it is dedicated to temple service, anyone can tour it. Meaning I can take my friends into the temple and show them how peaceful and lovely it is. It doesn’t mean they will understand it, but they will get to see it. To feel it.

Want to know more? Here’s some FAQ’s about the temple. More here. Or here.

Just as google should be avoided for medical diagnosis? Google should generally be avoided for religious questions as well (thanks.)

Nearly 60 years ago, while I was serving as a young bishop, Kathleen McKee, a widow in my ward, passed away. Among her things were three pet canaries. Two, with perfect yellow coloring, were to be given to her friends. The third, Billie, had yellow coloring marred by gray on his wings. Sister McKee had written in a note to me: “Will you and your family make a home for him? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.”

Sister McKee was much like her yellow canary with gray on its wings. She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity. Yet her song helped others to more willingly bear their burdens and more ably shoulder their tasks.

The world is filled with yellow canaries with gray on their wings. The pity is that so precious few have learned to sing. Some are young people who don’t know who they are, what they can be or even want to be; all they want is to be somebody. Others are stooped with age, burdened with care, or filled with doubt—living lives far below the level of their capabilities.

To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, “How might we achieve these goals?” I answer, “By gaining a true perspective of who we really are!” We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that: created in the image of God. We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power.

You can read the full article here.

I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself yesterday.

I need to face my troubles with a little more courage and my disappointments with a little more cheerfulness.

I need to find my song. And I need to sing it.

I know God knows me. And that He loves me, oh how I know.

He knows and loves you too, whether you know much about Him or not.

I can always tell when Addie is being contemplative in the back of the car. Her eyes narrow, she mumbles a bit to herself and stares out the window. She grows quiet, and then it starts…

Mom? How does Jesus make babies?

Well, there are spirits up in heaven and when a baby is put in a mom’s belly Jesus puts the spirit in the baby. Then the baby is born.

So, where’s the spirit?

It’s inside you.

Can you see it?

No.

So you’re telling me a spirit is like a firework that sparkles on the inside?

Yes. Yes I am.

I sat in a parking lot on the phone tonight and listened to my favorite aunt die.

There wasn’t much to hear, my family and cousins surrounding her bed, my uncle offering a prayer of which I could only hear the word “smile.”

My cousin gave me the play by play, my sister was holding her hand, her heart rate had slowed from 35 to 21 BPM in a matter of moments. She said she looked peaceful (my sister later added that there was a lot of snoring involved. Way to be Cheryl, way to be.)

I cried a little. I mean, every quality attribute I possess can be traced back to Aunt Cheryl.

Then remembered that I had never seen Cheryl cry. Ever.

This is a woman who spent nearly half a century in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic.

She’d be ticked off if she knew I was crying. So I quit.

You see, we Mormons have a different view on death. And Aunt Cheryl? Was totally a Mormon. Maybe the best one there ever was or will be.

Death is a separation of spirit and physical body. It is not the end. Her spirit is still very much alive and it was still very much alive as my dad held the phone up to her ear and let me say my earthly goodbyes to her.

Her spirit just happened to be stuck in a very broken and very tired body.

“The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.”

Alma 40:23

And what was the first thing she did with that proper and perfect frame?

Threw gang signs from heaven.

Yeesh Cheryl, I get it. You’re happy to be there. No need to show off.

Then all of a sudden there were rainbows over the cornfields on my drive home.

You win Cheryl. You win.

I will love you forever.

Until we meet again.