Monday, July 26, 2010

grandma and grandpa

This weekend im at my grandparents house in houston for the weekend. My grandpa and grandma have a great history. Both of them grew up in the middle of nowhere kansas. They met when they were 17 and 19, got pregnant and got married. Grandpa was a refridgerator repairman and salesman with a killer personality and smile that made his customers swoon. Grandma worked retail at JCpennys, and they had my aunt when she was only 18. They had it hard for a long time, strugglin to make ends meat. And one day, as my grandpa puts it, Grandma wanted to see "space more than his face", and she took off. She was young, free, she felt like she had never experienced the fullness of her life. She needed to find out who she was. Oh how well i understand this feeling. And my grandpa didnt treat her as well as he should have treated a wife that you dont want to run away.
25 years passed......they both married again. Grandma married fat Tony.....a fat man with a bbq restraunt that he enslaved her in running singlehandedly almost immediately after they were married. I remember we went to visit them in arkansaw a few times for thanksgiving, and it was all barbeque barbeque barbeque!!! and tony sat there and grunted while grandma catered to us.
Grandpa married Ginny....the lost grandmother of my childhood. Her and i used to make snickerdoodles together, and she took me shopping and bought me a little silver bracelet with american flags dangling from it at a cute little boutique on the outskirts of houston, and took me to tea houses and plays. I remember thinking that she was so elegent, so beautiful. I really loved her.

In the meantime, grandpa got a job with waste management down on the bottom scoopin trash, and he used his wits to get up to a manager position. Over the years his charm and smarts for business werent overlooked, and he went up up up to president of government relations in the whole company. ANd while he moved up up up, he and Grandma Ginney got farther and farther apart. Seems like somehow money always does that to people. I always loved to go to their beautiful home....i sat in the comfy chairs and marveled at the mahogany grandfather clock in the front hall. I used to imagine late at night when it chimed that it was part of a fairy tale, and that i would find some secret passageway in that house that would lead me underground to a forbidden secret.

The day grandpa sat us down at chili's to tell us that he and ginny were getting divorced, i already knew. No one had told me, i just KNEW. i knew that look. i had been through that talk twice already. I knew the drill....take the kids to a nice restraunt to break the news. And i just remember these words...DIVORCE, and 'she doesnt want to see you anymore' i wonder if those were ginny's real words. I still belive that shes out there. and that she thinks of me. wonders what im like all grown up...and if i still have that little red and blue bracelet.

Then the next thing i know we are having a 'family reunion'...the first one of all time at a hotel in fortworth. Our extended family isnt even close...we just dont HAVE family reunions. And my real grandma came all the way from arkansaw. She hadnt been happy with fat tony for years, and grandpa had a plan. He and grandma reconnected, and he helped my grandmother run away from tony's house to her mothers. She left everything she owned, and when he came looking for her in a horrible rage, she hid. After 25years, grandma and grandpa were remarried, and are very much in love it seems like. And NOW they arent poor. Grandpa rebought everything for her, and more. So crazy the things that life throws you.

And this story just feeds into my question: how do you really fall in love, and not fall out? How is it that people have it, and it just slips through their fingers like sand. And you try to grab on, but it just keeps slipping right in front of your eyes, and you arent able to stop it. I dont want it to slip away.
THe other day my brother asked me: "emily....are you EVER going to get married!? cause it seems like you just keep running from it. its never that people dont want to marry you. its that the idea turns you off i think."
me: its on my to do list alex. ill get there. :)
Because he knows that i used to be that girl....the girl who runs. And i dont want to be. I know i need to be brave. and trust. But i know that i deserve something big. A person that, when we are together, we change the world. People should be jealous of us because of what we have. And the whole world stops and you cant breathe. BUt you dont sink....you swim. And when you see that person, you just feel that you belong together. I Know that this exists, and that i will find it. But only because i believe in it....i believe in miracles. And it doesnt end....ever.

Monday, July 19, 2010

china town

So today i went with steve (step dad) up to his work. There are 2 people at his work that are from china, so of course he told them everything about me....probably even my height and weight, and social security number. he's so proud of us that sometimes he talks about us to people when we are standing right there faster than we can tell them about ourselves.

Well folks, lately when i drive places here in the metroplex, i get lost....ALOT. First day of work: took 2 wrong freeways. And i used to work there before.
Went to game night: lost for one hour. and i knew exactly where the place was.
Went to the mall to buy new lady things: lost coming home for 20 min, and ran out of gas on the service road, turning into oncoming traffic. this one was the most fun.
Im always lost! so after i gave a homecoming talk in the spanish branch the other day, steve made us drive the exact route to his work
"ok emily....now take this freeway, and turn right on PEARL. ARE YOU LOOKING? EMILY! LOOK....TURN HERE ON PEARL. now....drive up this way past the hotel, and park here in this parking lot"
Yes we even went to the exact parking lot. And parked. And then we practiced how to get out. I felt soo dumb lol because i knew that he was right! even without saying it he said to me, even with written out directions emily, you will probably still get lost. Im a horrible driver!!! those asians sure rubbed off on me. shoot i am asian so SHOCKER.
So today i followed directions as instructed. and he came to get me, and introced me to everyone and their dog at work, and they talked like they knew me or something. and i dont know them from adam! after a mission its kind of like that i guess. you've been gone and tons of ppl have heard about you and so they act like they are your kin and you are like woah buddy
SLOW DOWN. lol.
Steve's asian friends are Ana and Simon. Ana is even older than steve....a typical old school chinese lady. Shes very short and thin and wears glasses....but her accent sounds like texas. Simon is a typical chinese man. Short hair, glasses, power tie. Noticeable accent, and LOVES to feel important. so i just ask him about china and business stuff alot.
They took us to a place where you eat dim sum.....its where they have alot of little pieces of food thats steamed, and friend rice, and everyone just sits at a table and shares everything that we order. Its in China town in dallas! and when we got there.....i realized....everyone that works there is from hong kong!
In the car, i could tell from simon's tone when he said "well theres some hong kong ppl at this place, so you can try your luck with your cantonese" that he didnt have high hopes for me. I have experience with this.
We came in, sat down, and the first lady that came to wait on us, i just ordered in english. Then.....in chinese "do you have any fried rice"
Her face: stunned.
Then she said....ha ha very funny. Did you teach her that? (to simon)
me, in chinese: no.....i speak cantonese.
And then she was just speachless....like she had just seen a miracle or something. I think i scared her! and then i just kept talking to her, and she was like...."i just cant believe this....i just have to go" and she walked away!!!!
And after that all the waiters would come up to me and just automatically speak chinese. And they wanted to know who i was, and where i was from and why i spoke chinese....so well. and i said it was because of God. I wish they had believed me.
And then simon to steve: if my eyes were closed, i would think she was a normal girl from hong kong"
I feel like it.
And when i speak to them....i feel myself becoming someone else. Someone that i love....thats confident and bright and just is bustin at the seams with heart. And my whole face lights up and im just not me. But another part of me. I miss that part.
Simon paid for the lunch for all of us. Even though we went on the understanding that we would all pay for ourselves, I knew he would, but still I said why? he said: you helped our people for 1.5 years. its the least i could do.
Chinese people just love me. Im not sure why.....but probably because i just love them. Theres this connection between us. I can feel it starting in my toes...it feels deeply rooted. Like i knew them before. And as we left that restraunt and i drove back home....i felt desperate. I wanted more MORE MORE in my life. I felt it yesterday too when i was lost, and i popped in my cantonese pop to feel more grounded. because I wanted to go run back to any place there and meet more. and make them my soul friends, and just sit with them. love them. make one of them marry me so ill always have that feeling with me. Thats weird huh? yeah i guess so. huh.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

dream

the other night i had a dream.....and you were there.
And these last few weeks i dont ever feel anything....i mean my heart. it never feels. but not like when its in ice water and all numb. its like its just content....beating slow and steady. It never thinks or reacts.....everthing is just streamline all the time. Which is not like me....im not sure if this is the exception or the rule. Because my mission drained up all my emotion.....i just kept pouring and pouring it out of me, and nothing filled it back up. And all the things that make me feel...all my emotion. all of my pain. everthing. it just got swallowed up because someone else was crying, or hurting, or needing part of me. And i ripped out my heart and ripped it to pieces, and gave it away. and then i was running on just the Soul and heart that God gave me, but it felt heavy. too heavy to carry. and i realized that my emotion, my depth that i was carrying around.....i just had to let it go. I had to lay it down. Because my emotion was my own pain.....the baggage of my life that im so proud of. Sometimes i am so proud of my hard things.... i hang on to it as if it makes me special. The things that make me deep....beautiful......emotional. one day i gave it all to the lord. And then i just felt light, and easy, and the deepness in me was just....gone. the PASSION that is emily....gone. And now instead of feeling like a tornado, runnin wild all the time, i just feel like a spring day. In the middle of a snow storm i'd still be smiling...unaffected.

My music teacher once said: Everyone wants to feel. Its why we do everything...because we are searching for it. Yearning to feel SOMETHING. and that is why we crave music. because it moves us. It flows through us and aligns with the wants and needs and emotions of our heart. And when we listen to music we create a certain emotion in us. ANd it might make you feel WILD or passionate, or free, or just make you float away to a different place. That's what i want now....i just want to feel something. I want to feel wild, and dangerous and young. but I'm scared to let this feeling overtake me. Sometimes when my emotions get the best of me, i spin out of control. the safe, organized and responsible missionary in me is fighting this need. I want to feel PASSION and LOVE. even if its raw......i want it. I want to feel my heart break and bleed, hear my own screams reverberating off the walls. I want to feel out of control....why do i want this? NO idea. But maybe its something to do with seeing you......in my dream.
I didn't think i'd feel anything. anything at all. but i did. just like before. i felt the force between us. And i remembered what its like. i wanted more....that scares me.

I'll light you on fire, and watch you burn. But you wont even notice, cause you like the way it hurts.

sister masterson is SAFE
emily is combustible and unpredictable.........
So who am i now?????

Saturday, July 3, 2010

the battle with the window

Today it rained....ALOT. And it couldnt make up its mind. Really hard pounding rain, sunshine, pounding rain, little wispies, lots of clouds making you think its clearning up, then pounding rain again. Luckily i still got the see the fireworks after the ranger game.....caues SOMEBODY would have had to bite that bullet. i LOVE fireworks.
But the rain reminded me of a story from my mission that i want to tell you. Since thats all that i really have thats meaningful to talk about these days lol.
In HK (really pronounced H.K....thats what the cool kids call it :) ) there are typhoons. A typhoon is like a rain cloud thats all built up from the waves of the ocean and stuff, and when it moves over HK it will rain ALOT and and very high winds and speeds. yes this is my legit definition. neways typhoons mostly happen in the summer, when its SOOO hot that you can feel sweat dripping sun up to sun down. And showering doesnt seem to help because after, the hot water just kind of sticks to you....and you dry off and dry off but it just doesnt work. And your clothes go on all sticky because of the humidity. But God throws you a typhoon every once in a while....just to shake things up. But i only experienced one big one.

last summer while all of you were having summer flings and eating snowcones and going to the pool, i was in HK with my chinese companion. Her name is Sister Tsui (CH-OY). Just say it however you want because its too hard to say it right anyways :) Shes a little asian girl that loves stuffed animals and spongebob, and she kinda looks like me, just asian. We lived together just the 2 of us during the summer. Luckily we are really great friends. On the 4th of july i told her i really wanted to celebrate. She said...."Why?" i said.....because i need to celebrate my countries freedom! she said "ok whatever. lets go get SUSHI!!!" so that was our celebration. My chinese 4th of july with china Tsui And i cut up a watermelon when we got home and hummed the national anthem as i cut. It was one of those little baby watermelons that only like 2 ppl can eat anyways, and Tsui doesnt like watermelon. So This was my own little tribute to my own heritage....which was slowly slipping from me.

One night we came home, and there was a sign raising the alert of 'LEVEL 10 TYPHOON', which is the highest level. All the windows had tape X's on them, as if that will protect them from being blown out by the wind lol. If its 8 or above, we cant even leave the house. But we had to sleep at 11 anyways, so i didnt think anything of it. Then at 2:15 am i woke up and the windows were rAtTlInG and everything was sHhhhhAkInG and water was literally pounding on the walls. Me and my companion woke up at exactly the same time.
Tsui: do you hear that?
ME: WHAT IS IT?
Tsui: I'm scared! We are going to die!!!! come over here!!!!
So i went and crawled into her bed and we huddled under the covers all scared together.....and THEN we heard this huge CRASHHHHHHHHHHHH that came from the back office.
And i jumped up, ran back there, and turned on the light only to see that the wind and smacked open the window and water was POURING in, and all of our desk stuff and other stuff was on the floor getting soaked. So i ran up to the ledge infront of the window and put my hand out to pull it back closed, but the wind was too strong. So i put my hand out behind the hinge to try to push it closed, but after i got it a little ways, but then the wind suddenly SNAPPED BACK, and it almost cut off my hand between the hinge and the window edge. And I screamed AHHHH and looked down and my clothes and i was soaked head to toe, and i yelled "i CANT BELEIVE I AM DOING THIS RIGHT NOW! I CANT BELIEVE I AM IN CHINA IN A TYPHOON DEALING WITH THIS AT 2AM." and my companion was laughing hysterically at me declaring my disbelief that this was my life. the battle with the window in china. With a little chinese girl laughing her head off at me. Have you ever felt like your life was so crazy it just couldnt be real? because this was my whole life for 1.5 years. And i miss it so much. Making the drive from the airport back to my house here was so surreal. I felt like i had just had a bizzare dream where i went to china and learned chinese and changed the world.....and then....i woke up.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

the chuck norris bowl

OK so im back from Utah, where i stayed with my best friend stephanie, who just got married to one of the greatest (and possibly wealthiest) men in all of utah county. His name is Devin and he's about 5'6 with blonde hair and likes to wear skinny jeans, but not the tight ones. And when he talks, you can tell that money doesnt even matter to him. I like that for my stephie, even though they live on a huge estate up in the wasach mountains that overlooks the valley, and they have their own tennis court and playground. back when devin was still on his mission, i used to help stephanie house sit his house while his parents when on vacation during the summer. And on the first visit i got all lost on the twist and turney roads that lead up to the gate that is covered in white Christmas's lights. Then when steph had to let me in and i drove down the long drive upto the gorgeous white Victorian style house, i just couldn't believe that THIS could be devin's house! Now you might be wondering what house sitting actually entails. Well....it includes sleeping at the house and 'watching over' it (how do you do that? its like babysitting a fish!), eating really really good chocolate wedding cake in the refrigerator (the kind that is disguised to be like a wooden cabinet or something, but its not), sleeping in a queen size memory foam bed with a view that overlooks the whole wasach front, and playing on the blue grand piano, which has silver stars and is one of a pair that was actually created by and played by elton john. hard life huh. Oh and we also had to be responsible for receiving misc packages they got like surfing boards (in utah?) and let out mogley and shadow for awhile, but never at the same time (the 2 dogs). This part was probably the most entertaining because one time mogley, the little one, escaped, and shadow (the REALLY BIG ONE) magically took off his collar and chased him down the car park. And stephanie ran after them screaming SHADOW NOOOOOOOO) while i just stood there and laughed. OH i love that girl....and now shes married. I feel kind of like she died.....why is that!? why is it that when mormon kids get married, the single people have to have like a death ceremony for them. It feels like you'll never see them again and you have to put on your sleeveless (gasp!) black dress and cry and come to grips that its just 'us four now' instead of 'freshman 5!' or whatever. Dang....sometimes mormon culture is so weird lol.

So two mornings before steph got married, i was at her house. And every morning various gifts come. Like sets of tupperware, the thrid one of its kind thats come. Pan sets that are nicer than anything my mother has even owned. And that one morning, a big box came, and once she opened it she immediately started laughting and said "haha its signed from Chuck Norris!" A beautifully carved wooden bowl complete with little wooden spoon.
ok so whos gift is going to come next? The tooth fairy? Denzel washington? i mean really.
How annoying that the person that sent this gift couldn't even sign their real name!? who does she send the thank you note to! As i was voicing this objection aloud later that day, stephs cousin chimed in "no em....its really from chuck norris"
"HAHA yeah right."
her dad: "nope its from chuck norris"
"get real.....it cant really be from chuck norris"
Stephanie: "emily, its really from chuck norris! and his secretary sent us a tent!"
how the heck do these people know chuck norris?
Devin's dad knows him from the bodybuilding infomercial i guess. Cause he owns the infomercial franchise.
OH OF COURSE! how did i not know that this kids dad knows real walker texas ranger celebrities ?!?!?!?!? ;)