the emotional woman

i have been pretty emotional the past few days. no really. i was at the gym, running on the treadmill, sweat dripping down my face, and since i was at gold's gym, i was running in the
cardio cinema (awesome) and watching coach carter. for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's about a team of kids who are going nowhere but basketball saves theirs lives etc. i don't even like this movie. but as the kids, after losing the final game (sorry if i ruined it) file out to greet the crowd after showering in the locker rooms, the crowd is still so happy to see them, cheering, etc. yeah it's really cheesy. but as i was running and sweating i started crying. right there in the gym. yeah.
then yesterday i taught sunday school and told a personal story because no one else would share. and i cried again.
then i was telling travis goodnight and that i love him. cried again. you get the picture.

all the times i have cried this week have been because im so happy. yes, the warm weather plays a huge role, but a big reason im so happy again is because i finally changed my attitude. im happy to be where i am right here and now. God blesses us with things we might not see as blessings at first. luckily He is patient enough to wait for us to thank him later. :)

the good life

my guitar is sitting on my leopard skin rug, leaning up against my wall. it's saying "why don't you play me anymore?" i played for a minute tonight, but just lost patience with the internet chords and not feeling like playing by ear. lately i have been messing with my harmonica and learning how to play bluegrass music with benny, guitar hero and mandolin learner. bluegrass is a good time to sing.

lately.
-took a trip to st george and zion's with travis. we hiked angel's landing, emerald pools, weeping rock, and got a little lost going the wrong way through the park. the good weather, being with my man, and seeing family was a great weekend.

-i started going to kickboxing, pilates, (a few months ago) and doing p90x. im working on getting ripped. haha we'll see. it's an awesome challenge and i love exercising. im never getting out of shape again.

-went biking in moab with my daddy. that man is a champion. his college buddies nicknamed him "mountain goat" for a good reason. while the young guys with their full suspension bikes were huffing and puffing, my father was cruising up slickrock and smoking everyone on his old beat up bike. he inspires me. plus it was nice to spend the day with my dad, talking to him about everything. (i made him explain politics and economics from nixon to obama to me during the drive.) im blessed to have doug charles as my father.

-i took a linguistics take home test. no big deal; it's open book open note. six and a half hours later im still not sure how i did. it's kind of like music theory, only with words... so hard yet i love that class so much.

life is good. im learning so much about being happy and making the most of the situation you're given. i have so much to be grateful for and im trying to deserve it all. :)

there's this thing called love

he whistles at me.
he takes me to church.
he shares books with me.
he takes me on dates.
he sings with me.
he makes me happy.

the man who became a paramedic

my boyfriend travis passed his national paramedic test! we are all so proud of him :) my mom and i made him a cake to say congratulations. way to go travis!

the bullets

• stayed up late watching scrubs with reed
• i love my wed night pilates class. it's something i feel like i do completely for me.
  
• we made meal plans in my health class today and i won a banana in a contest in class. oh yeah.
• it's freezing outside, but i love wearing boots.
• those boots have a five inch heel. i was feeling pretty sexy, crossing the street after getting off trax. there were quite a few people around. of course i fell flat on my face.
  
• travis and i ate chili for dinner. we didn't put rice in it. it's the mainland.
• my mom is the greatest mother bear of all time.
• the theme music to grey's anatomy, the piano song that plays during those tender moments, it actually brings me to tears sometimes. don't tell anyone.
• i really do understand the importance of attitude in living a happy life.
  
• phonology is amazing. loving the linguistics program. :)

the passage of a beautiful human

a big thing happened. i watched a friend die. she was on the last stages of ovarian cancer. months ago she asked me to come sing to her when she was dying so when her sister and one of my oldest friends, came over to my house in tears, i knew it was that time. i grabbed my guitar and we headed down the street.
she weighed probably less than ninety pounds, a shadow of her once busty and curvy self. the cancer had left her too weak to even hold up her head. i now understand the expression "death rattle." careful of iv's and tubes, i eased onto the bed next to her and sang somewhere over the rainbow, the song she had requested. the crowded room grew quiet, and karina's breathing calmed down. music is amazing.
i played for over an hour, singing folk songs, pop songs, church songs, drawing out anything and everything i have ever learned to play or sing. when someone knew the song, they joined in and were comforted. having something to contribute and do made all the difference in dealing with watching her die.
we stayed all night, making her comfortable, watching her grow weaker. she passed at midnight, just like her to make it to the next day. she is a beautiful, generous, selfless person, and i am blessed to have known her. she is an example of faith and attitude to me and i will never quite be the same for having experienced this.

life's not a song

i have a dear friend who is on her last round of chemo. she's been preparing to die for the past year. she traveled the world, spent time with family, and lived to the fullest. she also suffered through round after round of chemo, losing major amounts of weight and hair (and eyelashes which we talked about the other day, never thought about losing those) and she is just an amazing person. this poem was inspired by a surprise party her friend lisa threw for her. it was a "celebrate karina's life" party. no crying allowed. only dancing. anyway, her face when she walked in and saw all of us there to love her and show support was something ill never forget.

take every memory, every single dream
suck the ideas from the whole wide world
lay them out on your coffee table.
can you piece together that puzzle without
the big picture?

there's a room, full of balloons and lemons yellow
a sea of faces to yell "surprise!"
everything you ever loved, gathered
to see you die.
who would be in your room?

go to the park and watch that couple
a thousand years old and counting
not a word passing, just a familiar smile
if love was something you could buy,
how much would you pay?

don't push your luck, don't buy more time.
life's not a song- no reason or rhyme.

we enter and exit through the same doors
skin teeth bone blood
ultimately all wanting the same thing.
the trick is not to lose after you find.
how long can you hold off?

the things precious

there are a few things in my life i consider precious, sacred even. i guess you could call them my priorities. at least i would hope the precious pieces of life take precedence over all else. among these are my faith, (taken as both noun and verb here) my family, and music.

i have been thinking a lot the past few weeks about what matters to me. what i would stand up for, even sacrifice for. am i living my life in a way that supports my belief system? how far will i go to protect my beliefs?

i have always tried so hard to be careful. don't offend anyone. don't hurt anyone's feelings. it's ok if they don't believe what you believe, just don't offend them. by all means, listen to them belittle your faith, but don't stand up for yourself in case you (heaven forbid!) hurt their feelings. am i neglecting my own priorities? am i taking the easy way out? am i a coward?

or am i trying to be respectful of others? i guess it's up to me to decide that.

my younger brother is 16. he has recently decided we are brainwashing him by wanting him to sit with us in church. every sunday our family holds its breath, bracing itself for an outburst, slamming doors, him tearing off on his longboard to blow steam. my mom's tears, the ones she tries to hide from us, being the strong mother she is.

so tonight he comes home, all flushed and pleased with himself for meeting some girls at the gateway. man i love that kid and his perfect teenagedness. well, as of late we have had conversations that start well and then slowly lead into arguments. and then fights. we are both a little pigheaded. i don't even have the excuse of being a pigheaded teenager anymore. anyway, we had an argument about church and both of us ended up in tears. kind of the opposite of what religion is supposed to make ya feel. not that the actual religion was doing anything. it was the contrasting ideas about it that did the damage.

and here's where the argument i can hear in my head starts in.

head: really? you think this helps him at all? fighting?
me:* well someone has to stand up for what you believe.
head: he isn't even hearing what you're saying. you're just making him more mad.
me: why can't he see that he's being closed minded too?
head: you were the same way at his age? remember how you promised never to forget how it feels?
me: if he can be blunt about what he thinks, so can i.
head: you better go say sorry before you make things worse.
me: sometimes i can see people's point about organized religion.
head: stop that right now. you can see both sides of the argument with your brother too. now go fix this.

and then i go fix this. but still feel sad when he says, "it's ok. im just tired of everyone in the whole world being mormon and not caring what i think."

instead of arguing, i leave his room thinking, i feel the same way sometimes, but really? what do i even believe? how can i help him to see that everyone is not judging him; he's being insecure. and if they are, what does it matter? am i being a coward by not standing up better for my beliefs? or should i keep choosing my battles?
i guess knowing your beliefs and priorities isn't just something you can decide once and keep forever. everything changes. it's up to us to decide who we are and who we want to be, and then work toward it. constantly pruning, trimming, and repotting our ever evolving precious and sacred priorities. makes sense, i guess.

*yes "me" and my "head" are two separate entities.

the walri

travis took me to my favorite place to eat, mi la cai, and then posed for at least 7 minutes with chopsticks in his mouth so we could take an only-slightly blurry picture. it might have taken so long because we couldn't stop laughing. :)

a little grumpy

im trying not to be a hypocrite. i hurt him first and it's only fair that everyone who disagreed with him leaving in the first place and blamed me would now be angry at me for hurting him. and totally disregard the way i am feeling. fair enough right?

seriously though can we grow up a little?

can i just be angry for a minute?

do you think that maybe just because i don't share how i feel with you that im not also feeling sad and hurt? do you ever think that maybe you should share with the people i used to be so close to how we have talked and made things better? or is it just easier to let them hate me for awhile?

am i really wasting my emotions over this?

and will i ever really know what i want?

i have a new respect for the unemployed. and the dieters. but i think ill be getting a job on monday. and i have lost twenty pounds since march. all those things you think you'll never let happen to you, tend to happen to you, huh? :)

Hem + Dan Messe

Half Acre


I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
And folded in this scrap of paper
Is the land I grew in

Think of every town you've lived in
Every room you lay your head
And what is it that you remember

Do you carry every sadness with you
Every hour your heart was broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you

A man is walking on the highway
A woman stares out at the sea
And light is only now just breaking

So we carry every sadness with us
Every hour our hearts were broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with us

But I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
I am carrying this scrap of paper

That can crack the darkest sky wide open
Every burden taken from me
Every night my heart unfolding
My home

his name is travis

and i really like him :)

i've had a tough time getting out of bed this week. no, i haven't been staying up that late watching scrubs. it's that i feel completely emotionally drained. last week i was doing the annual freak out of "i don't want to leave my family why do i always miss out on what they are doing and i don't want to move out for another nine months i can't leave my mom again." and then i was doing the "i can't believe the missionary i thought i would marry is finally home and we are driving each other crazy i feel bad for dumping him i'm a terrible person for hurting another human being this way." and then i did the "i think i'll go back to hawaii for one more semester so i'll run over the the U and ask them about transfering oh no i can't believe they only accept four classes from my major now what do i do." and then trying to make a decision based on what will be best for me, not about how i will miss my family, boyfriend-who-i-actually-like-for-once, and life in slc. not to mention the almost sacred feelings i have for hawaii and how much i wanted to be there right now.

i didn't know what to do until we had a family prayer and my brother reed asked that i would know what to choose. and five minutes later i chose to stay in utah, where the schooling would be better for my career and life. where it snows and turns grey for five months and the inversion makes the pollution worse that LA's. far from the beaches i love and the palm trees and choir and my job tutoring koreans and the smell of salt water. i had already made up my mind to go back to hawaii like 12 times. but that prayer, it always gets ya.

so even though i have been home for three months, it almost feels like i just got here. i feel a little awkward again, like it's not my house. my little brother zane thinks it's funny to point out the window in the car and say "look collette! the ocean!" he has been doing that all summer, but when he did it this week, it killed me a little.

i went to alex's homecoming, that missionary who i didn't wait for, and everyone had questions for me about hawaii. i kept talking in present tense, e.g. "yeah it's great i live in a little house on the beach and i tutor esl students and i am in choir. oh i love it so much." till i remembered that morning i canceled my flight and it's past tense now. good memories tense.

it's not all sad though. my brother reed played a show and instead of missing it, i was there with the family, cheering his metalness on. it's been great to hear "we are so happy you are here." from chad and zane every day. my dad and i don't have to cram in little fishing trips because i'll be gone. i had a girl's night with my mom and we watched the time traveler's wife. i'm buying a new coat for winter. there's a piano in my living room, instead of having to find one on campus. and i still have a ticket for hawaii whenever i choose to go. (this spring)

thank goodness for erika dick, who recognizes how sad i am even though i won't call her back because it breaks my heart to hear her voice, but she still found someone to take my spot in the house, and is figuring out a way to ship my stuff home. i can't express how much i love her. miss you hawaii.

you know it's a charles family vacation if...

we barely make it to the airport in time to leave
every other sentence exchanged has some form of scrubs referenced
"why so uptight?" is the only thing anyone asks me.
my dad wears his speedo and then needs some reassurance about it
we take so much stuff to the beach, it takes several trips to get it all out of the car
reed sneaks pictures of women who might actually be men
zane believes my mom when she tells him "i hope you wore clean underwear, because when we go through airport security, you have to strip down to your boxers."
chad plays pokemon blue the entire time
my mom and i take bike rides and almost kill an asian man.
every small detail must be videotaped for all posterity to see.

went to a funeral today. grieving is a funny thing, isn't it? how different people express pain in different ways, how stoically silent men carry the casket in, how the widow seems to have a spotlight over her face the entire time. and watching people say goodbye to a wooden box, leaving white carnations on top. and what do you say to a woman you just met, who just lost her life's love, when she tearfully embraces you and says, "thank you so much for coming"?

ee cummings much?

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

people are funny things. i wonder what would change if instead of using language to communicate ideas, we could transport pictures, feelings, sounds, smells etc. to someone else's brain. language  is just so limited. i work with a woman from iran. like many second language english speakers, some of her idioms and expressions can be a little confusing or offensive. the other women who work with her don't even try to understand that when she says "that's the point" after every single thing she says; she's not meaning it in an "i'm better than you" way. she just thinks that's what you say instead of "you're right." they don't like her accent. they don't like that she calls her husband and he calls her every day just to say i love you in their native tongue. teri, the woman who works lancome, calls her husband to say i love you every day too. and no one has a problem. because she speaks english and we can all hear her saying it.

i started asking nahid, the persian, to teach me some phrases in persian. she seemed surprised, but i have been practicing. 

also. i turned 21. 

also. i keep learning things from the guy i'm dating. 

also. i miss everyone and can't wait to fly home in a month.