This song fits this post because I wrote it during the worst of last winter. This winter bit me with the blues even worse!
This winter came in so beautifully with its snow and Christmas cheer, but as it got deeper on into January and February it was like an invisible black hole that seduced me down, down, down into the gray abyss of apathy and lethargy and made me feel like my life was a never ending stream of tedious and tiring obligations.
It was never going to be sunny, never going to be easy or fun again.
It was just going to be work and more work. Even the parts of my days and weeks that were fun and rewarding, I only half enjoyed because I believed the story the gray oppressive cap of smog was telling me.
It's hopeless. You are, everything is, you should give up on everything.
You are so tired and everything is work and the sleep never lasts long enough, the peace and quiet is gone before you had time to really do what you wanted to do.
Your house is always going to be this messy and to keep it clean is impossible with 5 kids working against you.
If you could learn to delegate then that might work but your kids don't respond to your rational delegations of household chores so it's all pretty much hopeless....
This is the sad story that crept into my head and heart this winter. Sometimes I could ignore it and feel really happy, especially during our to California after Christmas! But then we came home and it just keep being cold and ugly and dead I would remember that my life was all work and the play never lasted long enough to really keep me from falling back into my black hole.
It is now March 4th. By the end of February I started to see the first signs of spring.
My daffodils were peeking out of the ground.
One pansy bloomed by my front door.
The light out side looked different somehow.
The birds began to chirp again in the morning.
They stop chirping in January and February for the most part and I'm telling you, not hearing them sing really brings me down.
I didn't realize how far it brought me down until they started singing again.
Their happy, early morning conversations makes me feel like there is hope and life in the world again.
So here I am again. I feel like that last bit of foggy sadness has dissipated.
I didn't realize how thick it was till the sunshine of spring came out and burned it off. Some other great things happened too to bring me out of the gloom but they are for another post.
I'm already planning how I am going to prevent such a deep sink of sadness next winter.
I can't let it suck me down again!
I have things to do. A lot of things to do.
Now that spring is here I can see that I WANT to do them and secondly, that I CAN do them.
I've been reluctant to post, and so very happily doing other things.
I'm finally posting about last summer's performances.
It's been nagging at me long enough, I can't ignore it any longer!
As you might have guessed from my last post, I feel conflicted about this whole performing my songs business I've started.
It's so fun when things go well and I'm in the right frame of mind.
It's also time and energy consuming, and not just for me, for everyone I involve in it and our families. Maybe that's why I don't do it much.
Perhaps, in a few years, the time in my life, and the time of my friends/musicians, will open up a bit, as our kids get a little older?
Maybe then we can give this music more attention.
Or, maybe not.
Maybe I'm so naive to how busy life gets with older kids?
Either way, I have enough music in my life to keep me semi content. I can write songs when I feel like it, I can sing loud and long while I'm home alone, I can collaborate and record when we all are able to get together. I love it when we all are able to get together. I would love a bit more time for that. Being creative with other musicians feels like play but with the satisfaction and accomplishment that a good day's work gives.
Good job Kristen. Playing the guitar even though your hands were a shaky mess.
I feel proud of myself, looking back.
I got myself all nervous about this performance. Mostly because of all the unknown and all that was out of my control. Will the sound system be good? Will I be able to hear myself? Will the person ahead of me stay within their 20 minutes or will they cut into mine?
Bottom line, I could hear myself and we could all hear each other, we had enough time.
We had a good experience.
My name is Kristen Morris on the poster. For singing I like to go by my first and middle name, Kristen Carol. They goofed up. When they emailed me a picture of the poster before the performance, my name and picture wasn't even on it.
Ouch.
I let them know and they fixed it.....and almost got it right ;)
See, look at us, all happy and free.
It took me forever to decide what to wear. I even went shopping and bought some new things.
After all of my struggling I decided on my favorite mom skirt and a t shirt with sandals?
This picture is funny to me.
I look like I'm yelling "Hey there Buckaroo!"
I'm not, I'm singing with my emotional intensity.
So, to recap.
June 15, 2013 I sang at a music and arts festival at a park in Kaysville Utah.
No big deal to anyone but me.
I unnecessarily got myself really nervous about it, but it ended up being a good experience for all 3 of us.
I think what meant the most to me was that Ryan and Bridget seemed to enjoy it and seemed happy and even a little proud to be up there with me, mixing their talents with mine.
Taking songs and putting our personal twist on them is very enjoyable.
I've been working with Bridget longer than Ryan and thankfully I know she wants to make music with me.
As I was walking off stage I heard the guitarist for the next singer say to the announcer,
"You don't need to say my name or introduce me, I'm just accompanying her"
Ouch, that would have hurt me if I were her.
As Ryan and Bridget were leaving with their families, Ryan gave me a hug and said he was proud to be up there associated with me.
That was a happy surprise that came out of this performance and it meant a lot to me.
Bountiful Summerfest International 2013
Now I'll tell you a little about my August shows.
In a nutshell, Friday's show was a bit a of bomb and Saturday's was great.
I don't think most people thought I bombed but I thought I bombed.
Mostly because I wasn't enjoying it. For me that is one of the main, most critical aspects of all this.
Am I enjoying it? If I'm not then something is wrong. The energy of fun can carry any kind of performance, even if my voice cracks or I forget the words. If I'm not having a good time either are the other musicians and either is the audience.
The picture below is of Friday's performance.
Reasons I bombed
1. We started an hour late
2. It was hot and I was worried about my mom overheating.
3. Because we started an hour late I had time to start wondering "why am I doing all this?"
Is this the best use of my talents and time?"
I have other interests that I'd like to purse, I started to ask God, 30 minutes before I went on, "Are we sure this is the best use of my gifts? Could I pursue my other interests too?"
Nothing wrong with this question, just not 30 minutes before I go on to perform.
My brother was in from New York. We were walking around the park right before I went on and he asked me if I was nervous. I said not really but I'm wondering why am I doing this? I don't want to get up there on a stage and talk about myself and sing.
See how we are not smiling. It's because we couldn't hear each other. The sound system wasn't quite right. I couldn't hear my guitar or the cello, I couldn't tell what I was doing on the guitar, I'm not that comfy playing the guitar even when I can hear well.
I forgot the words on one song and then I was really discombobulated.
I think all this could be remedied by more experience on stage.....
But, I don't know how or when or if I want to work at being on stage more.
Bridget gracing my songs with her cello.
Love.
Ryan, singing and playing like a very cool person.
Almost every single person in this picture is my friend or family member.
This was on the day I bombed so it made it more embarrassing.
Ryan's wife Emily was smiling huge at me the whole time. It really helped me! Can you see the smiling blond on the second row?
My dad is in the back with the sunglasses. He helped me stay focused too.
Nate was frustrated about the sound and the late start and he sat there glaring.
Not glaring at me, just glaring in general.
He was sweet and said I didn't bomb.
That's my very hip brother David in the blue I was talking to before the show.
He said something to me after the performance that went straight to my heart and reorganized my head.
He answered my question I had posed to him before the show.
He said
" I know why you need to do this. The only way to touch another person's heart is by opening up your own."
He said it with a mixture of sternness, love and a little choke of emotion in his voice.
He is my wise baby brother who I adore.
I listened to him and felt the truth in his words fix my head up a little.
I wish he lived closer so he could doctor me up more often.
This is us on the second day.
It was great fun and I KEPT my head in the right place.
I made sure I remembered how much I love to sing and tell stories and hear my own voice in the microphone singing.
Does that sound conceited?
I know I don't feel conceited, I'm just being honest.
We made sure the sound system was just right and we started on time.
The only thing that would have made it better would be if I had worn my little gold belt so I didn't look like I was swimming in my big boxy shirt.
I will now end this very long post with this video.
Another singer songwriter posted this on facebook and I thought it put into words how I have felt.
I think it gives some really great advice for anyone starting out in a new venture.
I think it would be so nice to have a blog that I wrote,
that no one I knew, read.
Only perfect strangers, who I would never meet, could read my blog.
That sounds like a safe relief.
There is something un settling knowing that your friends and family might read your blog.
Who knows what they think of some personal thing you shared.
You don't know if they read it or not so you feel kind of un sure and weird.
You hope they didn't read it because then you still have your privacy,
but then you hope they did read it because what is the point of writing a public blog post if no body reads it?
Plus, a day, a month a year from now my opinion or experience could lead me to no longer feel or believe what I wrote in that blog post in the past….
Then I might regret that my old opinion is written down for anyone to read.
You see my dilemma?
You know that song by John Mayer, Paper Doll?
There is a line in the song that says "You're like 22 girls in one and none of them know what their running from"
(Was he singing about Katy Perry? Maybe you have to be 22 girls in one to be like Katy Perry?)
That sounds awful to be 22 girls in one. I think it sounds really complicated because I think I'm about 4….maybe 5 girls in one and that's bad enough.
5 girls in one.
I've been thinking about this theory the past few weeks.
Let me expound ;)
I feel like one girl thinks we should keep all things private and close to our hearts.
Only sharing with trusted friends.
The fact that we have a blog and a youtube channel and are singing any where but church is appalling to her!
She is so embarrassed by all this putting ourselves out there behavior.
This girl doesn't want to put herself out there! She wants to have babies forever!!!
I think I shall call her the Quiet Wet Nurse. This girls still thinks we should be pregnant and wants to give birth on a regular basis.
Nursing a newborn is her favorite thing in the world.
"Let's nurse and change diapers all day!
Hire out the cleaning and laundry! Get a nanny for those big, loud, unruly non new born kids!"
She wants to quietly nurture those in her care.
Bless the Quiet Wet Nurses' heart. She can only tend our friends or sister's babies these days.
She is learning to be satisfied with nurturing other things in her own life, instead of nurturing babies.
These multiple girls in me cause a lot of inner conflict.
Especially for another girl in me.
She is not content to sit at home.
She is fearless and loves the whole world. All she wants to do is give her heart out to anybody and everybody.
Let's call her Oprah's Mormon Sister. Copyright 2012"Hey, I have a great idea! Let's turn our private journal entries into songs that we publish on iTunes!"
That's so not embarrassing! That's sharing our heart and soul with our big, entire, human family that we love sooooooooo much!
We must teach and reach and uplift all of our brother and sisters.
Nothing can hurt us. Have faith. Get up. Move it, please.
Let's get the heck out of here! If we have to stay home and clean and cook and do homework for one more day we are going to wither like a dry reed!!!
Where is my microphone? Give me my stage!
When we shine, God shines. What's embarrassing about that? Let God shine through you.
Let Jesus look out through your eyes and be seen and heard by this tired and confused world."
Oprah's Mormon sister is really fun but not very practical.
The children must be fed, the laundry must be done. She enjoys preaching to her children and singing really loud while we do housework, blogging personal stuff, to tide her over until she has her microphone.
Then their is the third girl.
She is the Zen Master.
"Let's just be.
Let's just listen to the snow drip off the roof.
Let's wake ourselves up at 4:00 a.m. so we can sit in the dark stillness.
Let's stare at our bright red geraniums.
Let's just breath and be grateful for life.
What do we need to work so hard for? Life will take care of itself.
Balanced chakras.
Being still.
Connecting with God. What more is there?"
I love the Zen Master.
I know everything is going to be ok when I'm her.
But she just prays and sits and smiles all day so we can't always let her be in charge.
I'm trying to figure out how to be her when my kids hate my cooking or drop all their stuff all over my clean house.
Or when they refuse to wear the darling and practical outfit I just bought for them, that they picked out and said they would wear but now they won't because they want to wear the ratty clothes from last summer that they won't let me throw away and we are late for school and I just want to be a nice mom but how can I when they are so exasperating???!
The Zen Master is so elusive. I can never hang on to her as long as I want to.
Girl #4….
The Mirror.
"I'm you and you're me. When I'm with you, I am you.
I empathize and imagine so deep how it feels to be you, I forget I am me and only feel like you.
When you cry, I cry. When you feel pain, I literally feel physical pain too."
This can be quite distressing. I've had friends go through some hard divorces. It has plunged me into sadness and confusion with them. My sweet husband will come home and all I see is the man they are divorcing. Nate has to remind me he is not those men, he is Nate and he is kind and my best friend. "Oh ya! Thanks. I've been empathizing too much today and forgot who I was and what my life is about."
It even happens every time I watch a movie or TV show I find interesting.
After I saw Gravity I was in shock. I didn't want to speak above a whisper. The whole theater of teenagers stood up and started blabbing away. I sat there wanting to plug my ears and curl into the fetal position. I wanted to say to them "How can you get up like nothing just happened to us? We almost died? We were alone in space! Spinning and spinning and freezing and lost. We just made it back to Mother Earth and our legs can't handle gravity. How can you stand there and laugh and blab to your friends? We almost died!"
My husband, who knows I'm weird didn't question me at all when I whispered to him after the movie. "I need to go straight to the car and straight home. Don't talk." He believed me, thank goodness. Put the kids to bed himself while I washed dishes alone in my dim kitchen, my ears still feeling like they were hyper sensitive and my head feeling open and tingly.
It took me 12 hours before I stopped feeling like I was the smart and beautiful Sandra Bullock.
Wow, It feels great to be Sandra Bullock.
The Mirror Girl, makes us late. It's not our fault, it's her fault we are always late.
We miss a lot of freeway exits too because she is lost in the beautiful blue of the sky or swept up in ecstasy by the sight of the perfect puff of the clouds. My kids know when she starts to drive.
They must feel it somehow.
They say, "Mom! The turn is coming up"
At times it's like she is crystal clear and who ever she is with shines right through her.
There is no time or space, no barriers. She can feel her deceased grandparents close by, sometimes she can feel your deceased grandparents close by. The angels make much better company than the mortals.
How am I even functional with all these sensitive and emotional girls living in me?
Maybe I have undiagnosed multiple personality syndrome?
Thank goodness for girl number 5.
She get's the job done.
I shall call her No Nonsense Nellie.
She gets the laundry done, the meals cooked and the dishes washed and she even enjoys it!
She takes quiet satisfaction in her simple work.
She doesn't need anything fancy.
Her beat up minivan is great as long as it's clean and runs well.
She loves a good cheeseburger with fries and a coke.
She lets the other girls worry about what too many cheeseburgers is doing to us.
(She can have as much coke and cheeseburgers as she wants as long as she keeps doing the laundry!)
I think unity must be our goal.
Inner conflict and arguments with voices in my head can get tiresome, as I'm sure you can imagine. Maybe you have the same problem, :) Maybe we all do?
Well this has been fun.
Theorizing about the multiplicity of my personalities is a great way to entertain myself.
Now if Oprah's Mormon Sister can convince the Quiet Wet Nurse that we should publish this post then maybe we are making progress…..
So I have reached a major mile stone. I have arrived in the promised land. The land I have been walking towards for over 14 years. My hopes have soared pretty high with all the plans of what I will do when all 5 of my kids are in school. Today I went to the gym because I had no excuse not to and my back hurt because I haven't done Pilate's. Then I ran an errand, then I came home and took a long shower. Then I was tired from the warm water and all those core exercises so I curled back up in my bed and took a 40 min nap. Then I came down and made myself lunch. Lately the thought and process of making and eating a meal seems like too much work. I'll do it for my kids but I just want to go out and have someone else cook for me. This isn't practical, so I have been avoiding meal eating and have been eating snacks all day. Nectarines from our trees, raw green beans from our garden, lots of raisin bran with a little cream…yum. Today I made myself make and eat a real meal. It was good. I wish we had fresh garden produce all year.
It's sprinkling outside. I'm sitting in my sun room where there are windows on the ceiling. It's a nice sound. I have so much to post and write about my summer. I ditched my blog in June and so I'm behind.
October 21, 1013
Hey, here I am. Writing a bit of a blog post while I bottle grape juice. My in laws have grape vines. Not purple grapes but WHITE grapes. Oh they make delicious juice. Since they are white they don't stain my counter and floor. It can get messy with purple grapes.
After dinner tonight we had about 30 minutes of day light left. We left the dinner dishes and raced up to Grammy's house to pick grapes.
It is still amazing to me that we can sometimes, effectively work together as a family.
It really is a new stage of life we are in.
Another example of our new stage of maturity...
We took a little road trip to St. George, to see my nephew give his farewell talk for his LDS mission.
The car ride was easy. No melt downs. No major fights.
What is happening?
I need to post our summer pictures.
You ready?
I
Hyrum House
Summer Vacations with the family.
Hehehe……:)
Going out with the sister in laws and momma.
Painting pet rocks.
Hours of fun for all ages.
The baby cousins in our family love my boy Luke.
He is fun and gentle and attentive with them.
The Amazing Race
My sister in law Carrie planned a game for our family of 33.
It was like that show The Amazing Race.
She planned and set it up for all of us and she was even 7 months pregnant at the time.
When I'm pregnant I'm proud of myself for going grocery shopping. There is no way I would plan a game for 33 people. I'm glad there are fun, active people in my family.
One of the stops included making and eating an ice-cream Sunday.
Another stop we formed a line to take water from the lake and fill up a bucket. It was so fun to see the little cousins feel like big helpers.
It was a great family party this year with our Morris side.
We also had a family reunion with my Samsel side of the family.
It was great to be with all four of my siblings and our parents and our children and spouses.
My youngest brother David took this cool picture of our neighbor's cow and will tree.
It looks like the cover of a book or CD or Magazine to me.
Sarah makes a darling nerd.
My beautiful sister Melissa, my girl Gwenyth and my daughters's girl, Camilla enjoying the sunny day.
And here we are.
The 4 Samsel kids all grown up.
We are even in birth order from left to right.
Melissa, 41, Kristen 39, James 36, David 32
Boating was a blast.
The funnest was watching my Older sister and my youngest brother get whipped around on the tube.
Nate drove around like this all day.
I'm glad I didn't have to drive the boat.
Sophia, Ella, and Gwenyth.
Somehow I didn't get a picture of my parents at our reunion.
It was a fun time this summer.
My family and Nate's family are pretty different in all kinds of big and small ways.
Some of the differences make me laugh and others make me crazy.
The biggest difference was that with my side of the family the house was always clean.
My dad kept the kitchen perfect at all times, plus we ate out for dinners.
The beach blanket stayed clean because Melissa and David were on guard duty;
Directing the children "Wash the sand off your feet at the hose first!"
The first night as I lay in bed I said to Nate, how am I going to relax with all these people that are more intense versions of myself?
Happily, I did relax.
Nate finds all our idiosyncrasies endearing. Good thing. I guess that's why he can be married to me.
Well, that's my summer catch up.
Back to the present.
The kids are at school and I have lots to do.
I'm trying to find the balance of it all.
Happy Monday to you.
It's my favorite day of the week.
I have a couple summer posts that were never posted.
We went camping in August? Or was it July? Either way, I started this post and then never published it. Here it is, a little late. ;)
The first, official, family camping trip!
My kids have been asking to go camping for years.
I have ignored their requests for years.
How could that be fun?
It's hard enough to make meals and clean up at home.
Why would I want to do it in the dirt?
Plus, I think it's hard enough to keep my kids alive around here let alone next to a river and a fire and woods.
I didn't grow up camping with my family, so to me, camping looks like a big job I do not want to be in charge of.
Mmmmmmm, tinfoil dinners.
But I do like camping without my children, when someone else is in charge of meal planning and food packing and fire building. I have loved going to girls camp with the youth of my church.
I decided after seeing how much my girls loved girls camp this year, that maybe I could handle camping with my children now.
My youngest are 6, it's not like I have to change diapers and keep them from falling into the fire pit.
So we finally went this past weekend.
We only went for one night. We could have easily enjoyed another night.
Every new stage of parenthood has wonderful, new, fun things to offer!
That's good, because every stage of parenthood has hard, no fun things to go through too.
Ever had a banana boat?
They are yummy. Wrap that it tinfoil and put it in the coals to get all melty.
Fishing in pajamas.
Making whistles out of snake grass.
The clouds kept it cool.
It didn't get hotter than about 83 degrees most of the time.
It even rained for about an hour an a half.
We snuggled down in the tent. I napped and read and the kids played some made up game all cramped in one half of the tent.
Distant thunder rumbled, keeping it exciting but not scary.
Then it stopped.
The sun came out and we played in the river.
Nate is great.
This water is freezing.
My feet went numb standing in it.
I loved camping. I am looking forward to doing it again.
