A Myspace Blog: hope it's not offensive

My Insane and Beautiful Family: From LDS to LSD (read mikie's below after this)

This blog could go on a thousand million trillion pages. And I gots lots to do today. But let's say this: I am very excited this is a holiday week and for once I get to see all FOUR of my siblings and my PARENTS all in the same day. Some people hate getting together for the holidays. I mean, secretly, the family thing to them is a bore. But for me, whom once was a terrible teenage party pooper, the more time I spend with our wild, OPEN-MINDED, ridiculous, beautiful talented family, the more I love being alive. I am priveleged and specially lucky to be a kid of our kind, because we have some serious freaking spirit.

Spirit! Like team-spirit kind of spirit. We all grew up Mormon, as I have ranted before, and though I ain't so fond of the whole religious fixings of that particular organization anymore, I am so glad I grew up with the closest most sweet compassionate family ever. But what's even RADDEST about our family, is that though we all grew up Mormon, we have gone on to become OURSELVES. We may not be so religious these days, but we damn well believe in being good and kind to others (especially the underdogs) - and we have grown out of the green jello and gossipy Sundays into green other kinds of lives filled with fresh vegetables (the vegetarians some of us now are), sushi, musical instruments, songwriting, books, paints, gardens, cats, art, movies, acting (mr. miguel), insanity, and sharing our good lives through our bizarre family blog. Even though Mom and Dad got a divorce a few years back (thank god! we should all say) they are better friends now than they ever were because Mom finally could go and find her own world of books and cats and little finches and truly be herself. And Dad has learned to love cats too, and feeds the wild ones, and it seems he treasures his children and Mom and all the things we are and we love more than ever now.

That's what makes my family so special. We started out compassionate and interesting, but we didn't just stop there. We have grown and grown and grown as people, improving our lives and our kindnesses and our thoughtfulness and ESPECIALLY by following our true-est hearts. We have gone from meat and potato rednecks to polar bear loving vegetarian fools. Our parents have seen us smoke, drink, and have listened to all the "sins" and they don' t give a hoot anymore. It took some hard work (by me!) in the beginning to get them to lighten up, but now they even shop at Trader Joes. Mom likes coffee and we can say "fuck" in front of her without feeling like we have betrayed God! We drink soy milk. I am telling you, these are not the ways our very traditional little family grew up. We would have scorned soy milk and organic thinking. Even Matt, our Mormon bro with the three genius childrens, uses organic EVERYTHING, and is the kind of guy who is openminded enough to talk with his peers in pubs and discuss the politics of nature, the physics of everything, the make-up of our government, with anyone he deems somewhat interesting and knowledgable. And open-mindedness is intelligent, my friends....

Sometimes, I have gotten sad that, like some of the talented folks here in Nevada City, I did not grow up with my dad recording music or my mom painting or making sculptures and feeding me organic bean sprouts and chanting pretty hippy lullabies to me. I have pondered what my own children will be like, as they will have such cutesy little luxuries. I have seen those children whom I know now in this city exude a confidence like I have never known. It is rock solid, it came with the way the grew up around a consciousness of the globe and all the people and food and cultures on it, it came through their hippy parents doing whatever the hell they wanted to. My parents weren't like that. My mom did what she thought society needed her to do, what she was "allowed" to do, what was "right" and "good" within her religion. She fiercely fought with my Dad to get us piano lessons and to get us learning other instruments, and to give Mikie the chance to become an actor in theater at a very young age. She did those things because those parts of her never got to. And so, besides a few lessons and the daydreams of our mother, we never grew up with the artsy fartsy shit, we had casseroles and Spam sometimes and dinner around a table, and read from scriptures on holidays and had to wear skirts that weren't short and go to church every Sunday, and many other church activites. I was wrought with guilt just for growing boobs in the first place.... And despite all of this uncomfortable time of my life, and despite short bouts of jealousy I get for my extra talented, talented, practically famous, artist friends who are children of artists here, I am so very very grateful to have lived a life of duality. A life that began with much strictness, but lots of love, (yet a very narrowminded view of the whole world) and I have gotten to WITNESS the growth and change of all my family as we have discovered our true hearts and the depths of culture and consciousness, and magic in our lives. I have gotten to see the growth unfold within us all, especially within Dad who is now so patient witnessing all of our new strange foods, the garden burger bonanzas, and our talents, and our defiant spirits and our non conformant selves. And I actually feel more priveleged than the artist kids for this witness of change, and this wisdom. Because my kids will just have it, the easy life. And that's WONDERFUL. But I had to work for it! I had to convince my parents that other countries had real people in them, and that Americans weren't the only kids in the world. I had to preach vegetarianism when I was one, (Heather did most of that though) and they thought I was insane. I had to deal with Dad's outbursts about me "living in sin" with boyfriends. But now, he could care less for such labels of life. My parents are such wise and wonderful and real changed happier people. I have worked and worked to see these changes, and my efforts paid off! To me, that is the greatest privelege in the world. I don't mean to sound braggy! I just was so unaccepted by my family for a while there, but now they could care less about anything except us being together. I think it's alot closer to unconditional love now. And though my confidence as a teenager didn't start out at 100%, I just don't care. I have a large dose of humility integrated into my soul, and it can be very hard sometimes, but that's OK, it's probably good for me.

And so while other people groan about the holidays and family "obligations", I will be dancing the insane dance with my family and some blasting song in the living room.