17. UNEXPECTED

 

For six decades I've been a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During my formative years I was the religious anomaly among my peers. I was the only Mormon girl in my graduating class in the suburbs of Pittsburgh PA. I remember an elementary school teacher cupping her hands around the top of my head, feeling for the stubs of horns. I kid you not!  Pennsylvania was old enough to remember folklore of the history of my people... the ones who were tarred and feathered and driven from their homes. I guess I learned to expect judgment before people even knew me, which is a pretty unfair thing to put upon a kid. Every one of us in our little Pleasant Hills Branch had to decide if our faith was worth it. 

I've  adopted a desire to try to represent well: represent my religion to those who might not understand it, represent women in a biased society, show people you can function as a whole family without the presence of a father, walk with dignity even if you can't afford groceries that week. There were pivotal times in my youth when I made a conscious decision to love my Lord with all my heart, and follow the path my chosen religion set for me. I have remade that decision multiple times in my life.

Dave converted to the LDS religion as an adult. After graduating from BYU law school we moved to New York, then back to Pittsburgh. One day, out of the blue, Dave got a call from a New York Wall Street law firm. They were opening an office in Salt Lake City and wanted him to help open it. 

"Are you kidding me?" I said. "We don't want to be Utah Mormons!"

It took some serious negotiation to get us where we are now in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

Just to clarify, we love it here in Farmington, Utah. It feels like home. Mom always said "You'll find good people everywhere." She was right. 

My mom, an Idaho gal in a steel mill town, moved west with us when we came to Utah. We were the last of her seven kids who remained in Pittsburgh, and when we decided to shift, she shifted with us.

One day Mom and I were driving through our new neighborhood and stopped to chat with a fellow who lived  around the corner. At some point in our conversation he referred to the Mormons who lived here, following it with "You're obviously not one of them." 

Some people would be offended by such a judgement, but I was flattered. Not that I wanted to appear to be something other than a lover of the Lord. But it has never been my heart's desire to dress the part, so to speak. I want the heart of a believer in the flesh of a unique human. It's long been part of my self-definition to be a missionary for diversity among believers.

The important part is to be genuine. Faking the part rarely lasts. We can't pretend that long.

For instance, for a while if company came over, I needed to clear off every counter and shine  the granite with a good polish and mop the floor...so that by the time company came I was exhausted and resented having company at all. At some point I decided that if I required this of myself I would never have anyone over. So I changed my self-imposed restrictions. I'll try to be fairly clean, but it might not be tidy when you come to cook in my kitchen with me. Appearances are not the bottom line, though I do try to be generally respectful of myself and others.

I remember once, years ago, I was in a recording studio in Salt Lake City. A producer had wanted to record some of my original songs and was even paying for the sessions. At that time I was working on honing my skills as a writer of country songs. One of my songs, Just Like a Man, was a bluesy heartache kind of song where the vocal hangs mournfully on its notes over the chord progression. The engineer was playing a track for the producer when some firemen stopped in for something or other. I only knew they were firemen because they were in full gear. I guess they knew someone there. Anyway, they heard the recording and paused, listening a bit. The two guys nodded and lifted their eyebrows. "Wow" one of them said, "That sounds awesome. Who's the singer?" The producer pointed to me, and the guys both stood there in disbelief. "No way!" I had to talk to myself all the way home to let myself feel good about how they liked the song rather than how unbelievable it was to them that an overweight mother with tired eyes could be an artist. 

Another time, my singing parter Merlyn and I had decided, last minute after a gig, to stop at the Dee Events Center to see if we could get tickets to the Chris LeDoux concert. It was sold out, but we bought scalped tickets on the steps outside. It turned out the seats were not together. I sat between two strangers through the whole concert. I was curious to see if Chris was still performing one of my songs. Alas, he had a new album and it wasn't part of the set. But when he came out for an encore he introduced the song as his favorite song, by a woman here in Utah named Cori Connors, then the familiar strains of Get Back On that Pony started. Dang it all, Merlyn wasn't sitting next to me to get all excited with. I just couldn't resist though, so I leaned over to the stranger sitting next to me and whispered:

"That's me!"

He looked me up and down, turned to the stage where Chris and his country band were rocking in their cowboy hats, then looked back at me and replied:

"Yeah, right."

I could feel bad. And for a twinge I do. But more often I let myself giggle, because  sometimes I get to show people that not everyone is exactly who you might expect them to be.

The trick in not being exactly what people expect you to be is knowing where "unexpected" fits best. There are some things I want to be consistently obvious:

I want gentle eyes that make strangers feel comfortable.

I want gracious hands that allow people to take what I have to offer.

I want a warm heart that whispers to folks its safe to let me hug them.

But I do get a kick out of showing I can do something maybe a little cool before anyone could possibly know.

There's a bit of magic in the mystery.