On Dreams

I have kept a birthday card my maternal grandmother gave me years ago while I was still in high school.  A bit childish for someone turning seventeen, a stitched and stuff teddy bear wishes on a bright yellow star.  The printed sentiment inside the card reads: On your birthday, may all your dreams come true.

My wonderful, faithful, practical little grandma penned her own message underneath the typography: They won't.  You have too many. 

She intended no malice and I laughed at her matter-of-fact take on the idea of dreaming: if you have a small wish, or if you conserve the number of dreams you have, the better the chance your dream will come true, right?  At the time, I disagreed with my grandma's logic (I still do); however, I have since learned that, although one doesn't have to give up their vision or stop dreaming, one may need to find flexibility in shifting their expectations of how their dreams will be fully realized.

You have to be a little flexible when you're an adult, or life just ends up disappointing you.

A Taffeta Wedding, Part I

Cars speed along the road outside an open kitchen window, spinning water up from the rain-soaked road.  I sit in the breakfast nook just of the room in which I sleep, listening to music called Pale Yellow, stretching my heart and contemplating the lyrics of a song in a show I'm playing in Maine.  I've been working for the past three weeks as a musical director for The Arundel Barn Playhouse.  The scenery is beautiful (I need to purchase a camera and start uploading photos before I have to go home); the beach is incredible and I'm making many great friends.

We've been rehearsing a relatively new show, titled A Taffeta Wedding, for the past two weeks.   Set in a TV Studio (MBC), circa 1964, and concerns the on-air wedding of four singing sisters known as The Taffetas--Kaye, Peggy, Cheryl and Donna--and their fiancees, "those singin', swingin' guys" from Alpha Mu Phi Pi, The Cardigans--Chuck, Johnny, Frankie and Buddy.  It's a great show, cleverly written and full of shoo-wop favorites including "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" and "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)."  The four couples, dressed in matching pastel dresses and sweaters, travel through the ups and downs of love all in an hour and a half, culminating in a quadruple wedding--complete with a cute flower girl planted in the audience--in the second act.

The couples sing "Love Me Forever," as recorded by The Four Esquires, for their vows.

Love me (love me)
Love me completely (love me completely)
Tell me (tell me)
You will be true

Promise (promise)
Promise you'll never (promise you'll never)
Leave me (leave me)
Lost and alone

Kiss me (kiss me)
Strongly and sweetly (strongly and sweetly)
Tell me (tell me)
You will be true

Love me (love me)
Love me completely (love me completely)
Now and forever
As I love you.


Coming into the first rehearsal, I didn't have any idea that this silly show would have such an impact on my summer. I remember singing through this eight part music with these talented and gifted actors. It was getting late in the rehearsal on a humid afternoon; they were singing half-heartedly and weren't really connecting to the lyrics. I sat up at the piano, put on my music director hat and started improvising.

“Ok guys.  So, let’s take a look at what’s happening here.  These words are your wedding vows.  These are the words you are giving to that one person who has become everything to you.  More than flesh and bone and blood, and you’ve become more than flesh and bone and blood for them.  You have become breath and love and life for each other and you want to make breath and love and life together, forever.”

I took a beat, listened to what I was saying and realized I actually meant it.  I took stock of the room and saw that my actors were also deeply invested in what I was saying--some of them were even crying.  It was the first moment of many we’ve experienced together as colleagues working on A Taffeta Wedding.

When Your Names are Jayden, Andi and Nic

Dance and sing to this:

Eat this:

Watch this:

Read this:

And then nap.

"¿Cómo se dice?" and the Secret to Gay Sex, Part II

"Soh, Neeee-c, how be yoh moshunrife?" Miranda asked with a sly little grin.

I had no idea what she was asking me.  "Um, come again, my dear?"

"How be yoh moshunrife?"

"Um, my what?"

"Yoh mo-shun-rife!" she exclaimed.  "You know, rike yoh ruvrife?"

It clicked.  "Oh! My love--my emotional life?"

"Yeah, yore moshunrife!"

I reminded my dear young friend that, as pianists, she should know how much extra time there is for a love life, and thus, I had not many minutes to spare for a moshunrife.

Then, with a shy giggle laced with more cuteness than an Anime heroine, Miranda whispered, "Oh, Neeeeee-c!  I habbuh see-creh foh yoo.  Yoo move ow Utah, gae sex!"

I laughed.  Oh, how I laughed.  "You mean to tell me the secret to my losing my V-card is moving out of the state?!?"

"Oh, yes, yes.  Yoo move ow Utah, no prahb-rem foh yoo."  Miranda explained, "At my dohm, we habbuh no cuh-tain on ween-doh.  Across my room is an-uddah dohm room of berry sexy man.  He walk rown aur time no shirt on.  Sum time, he walk rown naek-ed"  Then Miranda blushed and covered her mouth with her hand.  "And sum time, he habbuh-nuddah naek-ed man in room."

"I go to crass wit naek-ed man.  Sum time, he walk into crass berry rate and profess-ah, he grumpy and he say 'Why yoo rate foh crass?" and he say, "I don't hab time puh pants on!'  So, see Neee-c?  Yoo move ow Utah, gae sex!"

"¿Cómo se dice?" and the Secret to Gay Sex, Part I

As I've described before on this blog, I spend at least five days a week, if not more, with a small and delightful group of Asian people.  They are each wonderfully gifted, driven musicians, and I am so pleased to call them my friends.  One of my dear little friends is a girl from China named Miranda.  She spent her first year of college taking an intensive collection of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) courses.  She writes beautifully, but her conversational language skills suffer from a very thick Chinese accent.  While her practice of the English language has sometimes been a stumbling block to her communication skills, she is the first to tease about the language "barrier" which has elicited some very funny moments in our friendship.

A fairly recent episode follows.  Just a few details to remember, dear Reader:  1) Miranda is currently attending graduate school in Ohio as a master's piano student with Italian wonder-pianist, Antonio Pompa-Baldi.  2) Miranda loves Mozart (so her compliment really meant very much to me).  3) Miranda was visiting Utah (her self-proclaimed adopted home) on break from school when this happened.

I was practicing a Mozart sonata (K. 333, for anyone who might be interested) for an upcoming performance when the practice room door opened.

"Neeeeeeeeeee-c!  Yoo prae Moh-tsah vihdy soh-gooh!  He can be yo hooss-banh!" Miranda wailed in her cheery way.  "Bach? He be my fee-oh-say, but you ken meh-dee Moh-tsah.  He be soh-gooh foh yoo."

"Oh, Miranda!" I replied,  "I don't know if I want to marry Mozart, but I'll keep playing him.  How are you?!  How is graduate school?"

"Eez soh-gooh!  Eez so hard.  Too much pieces to prae aur time."

"I'm so glad to hear that it's good.  I imagine it's difficult, but worth it.  How are you studies with Pompa-Baldi going?"

"He eez soh gooh.  Make mos bee-yoo-ti-fur pianissimos.  His Engrish berry bad, though.  Too much Itarian accent."

"So, between your Chinese accent and his Italian accent, how do you communicate in lessons?"

Miranda giggled, "Wear, he rissen to me prae, and he smire oh he frahn and he prae foh me, den I prae again."

"Wow," I said. "I guess if that works..."

"Eez soh gooh."

Miranda and I caught up a little bit.  She giggled and blushed a bit when I commented on her fabulous clothes and her uber-trendy haircut.  I asked her about her boyfriend (who stayed in UT) and if she'd seen him yet.  And, as we were discussing boys, she asked a question I couldn't quite decipher on the first--or even second or third--hearing.

Rachmaninov: The Dream, Op. 38, No. 5

Love You Forever

because you read Black Beauty, Little Women, Where the Red Fern Grows, Summer of the Monkeys, Little Britches, Stories to Tell, Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, The Secret Garden, The Jungle Book, Tales of King Arthur and His Knights, Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows and so many others to us to us on languid summer afternoons when we were very young

because you took us to the Hyrum City Library every summer week when we were old enough to choose from the shelves ourselves

because you made waffles in the morning while we studied our scriptures and read that men like Nephi and Alma were heroes

because you helped us see Nephi's and Alma's in our everyday lives and made our father and our grandfathers and our uncles heroes of an even better value

because you gave us each a garden patch

because you let me sing to The Phantom of the Opera and Rigoletto and Reba McEntire's Greatest Hits

because you taught me how to play the piano

because you let me play Cinderella even though it worried you

because you both never were afraid to say "I Love You"

because you are good

because you microwave my food longer than your own because you know I like my food much hotter than yours

because you rubbed Vick's Vap-o-rub and alcohol packs and mustard packs on my weak chest and because you took me to doctors and specialists and because you and dad held me up to the cold air from the freezer and the warm moist air in the shower late at night when I couldn't breathe

because you never left the examination rooms when I had to rest on my stomach when the nurses pricked my back and the pricks swelled up and itched and you just tickled me so I wouldn't scratch at the reactions

because you came to every performance, and now come to every performance you can

because you encouraged my brothers and I to love each other

because I inherited your laugh

because you make me feel safe to be my best self

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always.
As long as I'm living,
My mommy you'll be.


Happy Mother's Day, Mom.