The Eye of the Beholder

Beauty is much sought after, but what is it exactly? I work as a massage therapists and see bodies every day. Don't get all weirded out, it is strictly professional. I love doing bodywork on pregnant women and marvel at how natural and beautiful they are. I love to see the fairest of skin, the freckliest arms, the craziest tanlines, well worn hands, smile lines and the beauty and diversity of each guest who comes in. I like to think that I am the kind of person who sees people for exactly who and what they are and loves them. Idealizing someone for who you think they should be, or should look like is a dangerous past time. It sets you up for failure.

Consider the bombshell blonde, Orange County soccer Mom: flowing locks, bronzed skin, bright sunny smile. Now lets see her real beauty...or not so real. Besides having paid enormous amounts of money for double D's, orange skin, sewed on hair and striking white teeth, she portrays insecurity. If you have to augment so much of yourself to feel beautiful don't you think maybe the problem is inside your head instead of with your body? I would not want to be with a man who encouraged plastic surgury. (If I want it for some reason that is different than being encourged by my man) I would feel as though he thought I was unattractive, and would never feel up to par with him unless I was running the rat race toward this unattainable goal of beauty.

I realized for the millionth time today that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I think I could maybe be happy with Quasimodo if he had a good heart and a loud laugh! Who cares what everyone else thinks about you or your significant other? They aren't you. They don't have that deep rooted connection that you have where your heart threatens to stop beating with joy when you catch him gazing at you instead of the movie. They may not love your freckly shoulders, or your weird habit, or the way your face curves, but someone does. I have seen the most in love couples being involved in this choir. I have caught sidelong flirts sent between couples married fifteen years, batting eyelashes and grinning foolishly at one another across a room. Maybe to an unattentive beholder these people don't have that...something but they have something better! They unabashdly love the person they are with, beauty being what it may! Truth is, age is inevitable (and another blog) and yet as we move progressively into our decades we become more beautiful in many ways that are not always physical! Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, try to see yourself the way someone else might. If you are still not feeling it, get a massage! One never feels more beautiful in their own skin than after a massage!

Smile

Messiah In America

This is the show I have been practicing with since January. It is my second professional choir that I have been a part of and I am wishing I hadn't let all those years slip by between high school A Capella and now. I love to sing, I adore it and can't remember a time in my life when performing wasn't my favorite thing to do.

Lets see if I can map out my performing. I debuted with The Winner School ballet class at age 6, not sure what we wore but I bet it was killer cute! I continued on as a dancer until about 14. By that point I was in advanced rigid ballet classes, but my body refused to grow into the shape of a ballerina! So after some really sad moments I morphed from dancer into singer! I performed at Kingsbury Hall in the children's choir in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (superb) at ages 11 and 12, then onto High School endeavors. We competed at State Competition and did well I believe. Then came the sad dry spell of just singing The Used in my car for a few years...and hello Disneyland! Last Christmas I was in the Candlelight Processional as a part of the Disneyland Choir and totally loved it! I couldn't just abandon my old friend music after reintroducing myself and so I immediately auditioned for OCMCO (Orange County Mormon Choral Organization) and this is what I want to blog about today...

Next week we are premiering Messiah in America! It is an original handwritten Oratorio by Brett Stewart who is an absolute genius and a spiritual giant to top it off. It is text hand selected from The Book of Mormon from the story of Christ visiting the America's after his resurrection. The Spirit is so strong in rehearsal I get chills just thinking about how amazing this will be at Segerstrom Hall. I have never had the opportunity to sing in a building with good acoustics. I am breathless with excitement!!! Perfectly befitting of my personality it just so happens that I am the bright eyed chipmunk front and center during the show! Beyond all of my excitement is a sense of overwhelming gratitude that I got to be a part of this.

It is a missionary opportunity the likes of which I have never had access to. I am the lone Mormon at work and get questioned about my beliefs all the time, Now I can simply ask for their support in my amazing show and with their bodies in the audience I can sing at the top of my voice my testimony for all of them to hear! I am very excited to have my boyfriend's parents attending, especially his Dad, and am anxious to hear about how their experience was during the show. I invited everyone to bring a non-member friend or just simply a date! C'mon who wouldn't love the opportunity to get dressed up and go to the theatre? It is my favorite thing...even better than ice cream! I feel enormously blessed to be a part of a professional choir that is dedicated to performing music that uplifts the spirit and invites peace into all those who hear.

Smile

What's a Brainpage?

I realized the other day that I am coming up on ten years of blogging. My personal blog as it is now has taken me through a dramatic transformation. It was my sounding board through my most shameful time in my life, it also knew me as a lost little junior in high school, and watched me transform into who I am now! There are a lot of things in that blog that I love, lots of very good writing and also lots of venting when I new I would hurt people's feelings, which is why it stays my secret!

Today my boyfriend asked about my blog when I mentioned it and I had a quick realization! Why should I keep that tight in a little box like I have had it for so long? So, after careful consideration (about fifteen minutes haha) I decided to go all in and start a new blog as the new me! I love who I am now! I have most definitely undergone a dramatic transformation in the past eighteen months. I went from being entirely lost, hardhearted and selfish into being touched by the Spirit and going through the refiners fire! That isn't what this is about though...this is explaining my term: brainpages.

I coined this term in high school as a student who had a horrible attention span. I sought some relief in my notebook covers. I wrote poetry, sketched and pretty much just put anything that was in my brain, onto the page. I kept some of them, they're cool! Not all the classic "Mrs. Fill-in-the-blank" or J+S or any of those silly things that smitten high school girls get pegged for. Now as a young adult I find happiness in my fingers moving across the keyboard, letting these words travel down my neck into my arms and find their way onto this little screen. This is my new version of brainpages and if I can't write it here, maybe I shouldn't write it at all!

Smile