Cast List: the main characters of my life

I love, love, love to write little blips about the people that I love. Over time, I collect their significant little details, and keep them in memory boxes on the top shelf of my closet. This is a question that I ask people all the time: If you were a character, who would you be? And they never quite know how to answer, so let me instead. At 12:12 in the morning on April 24, wearing nothing but a bedsheet and my glasses, because every hour that that I've been in bed, I've gotten a bit more restless and hot and shed a layer, I'm going to answer the question myself.

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Mom:

She's a firebreather, the kind of woman that's laced with gasoline and carries her own damn matches. Nothing gets to her anymore. No one can do anything to hurt her, because she's simply past that at this point. Within one year, she was abandoned by the lover who with she felt 15, 35, and 70 all at once, she lost her father, and had no choice but to leave her home. She became a 911 dispatcher and signed up for a whole lot of quiet trauma, began rebuilding her life and putting herself back together, and then lost her new home and most of her belongings to a housefire.

After that, the wild woman had seen it all and couldn't be burned or bothered by anything, so she took the strength and skills and imagination that she'd always had and decided to buy an RV, put her stuff in a storage unit, and travel with our pup, Moose.

Her hair is dark brown and big and curly, and while she looks just like her cookie-cutter siblings who have also Welsh and French genes, she always looks like she's just come from the beach. She loves old cowboy shows, pink and blue, to stand in the pasture with our horses, and to go for a drive. She forgets to tell me when to get work off for our family reunion in Missoula and doesn't notice (or doesn't care) that the entire aisle at the grocery store is stopped because she's standing in the middle of it, because she's impossibly independent. And it drives me nuts. And I love that about her.

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Kylie:

An entire enigma. She's a great cook and always has grown up things in her fridge. And she's the biggest teaser I've ever met. The girl burns perfect strangers like they're her best friends, and they turn to the rest of us with pure astonishment in their eyes and open mouths to say, "Did she really just say that?" We shrug our shoulders and give them an apologetic look, but can't help but laugh and understand that this is how she is. She's a firecracker a lot of the time, and you've got to be tough if you want to stick around, but she is also soft and sensitive and filled with the color blue.

Her heart is her purpose on this planet. It's so apparent in every piece of her that she's made to take care of people, to grow up and create a big, old family, to be the pinnacle--the grandma in her arm chair that cracks the funniest jokes you've ever heard, to be tough and have a potty-mouth, and to cry at every dance recital. Her emotions appear on her face immediately. We always know when she's grumpy, when we've said something that's hurt her feelings, when she's about to laugh, and when she has a bright idea. Her hair is so bright and shiny, and somehow, she can pull off everything: mismatched shoes, green zebra jeans, bubble braids, straight hair, crimped, curled--everything. In my journal in February, I described Kylie as a vacuum, because I noticed how everyone was drawn to her in such a crazy way. She is the sun, the central energy of the room that brings everyone together.

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Rachel:

Rachel is my manifestor, the kind of girl who is a magnet to what she wants. She is so connected to the spiritual realm of life and purely seeps creation energy. She understands how reality works and is able to just create her own reality so naturally. And, she's young, vibrant, and learning so much more. What I love most about Rach is how naturally gifted she is, and how much potential she has to further grow into that. Rach and I always have a lot to talk about. She's a spiritual little bean, a romantic, and a creator. One night Kylie, Rach, and I were sitting on the floor of the hallway, when I asked one of my obscure questions: "What do we look like... as not humans?" And I said that Rach looked like a fairy. She has a cute little fairy nose and fairy ears.

Rach has big power and big dharma. She's going to do something big, and she's about to go through a huge transition, that I can't wait to see play out. Her energy and presence is soft and reaching like the stars. I notice when she's gone and I miss her, but not in an overwhelming way, just in a really kind, she's so lovely to be around kind of way. She owns a jewelry company that sells earrings and necklaces made of mini coins. She shows me the best songs like Katie Queen of Tennessee and Alley-Oop, and she broke her ankle when we were roller skating last week.

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Kylee

This one is unexpectedly honest. She is so truthful about who she is, and it isn't just verbal. Every move she makes and every expression that leaves her is a true reflection of who she is and what she values. I remember when I first moved up to Blueberryville, I had this crazy string of guys, but I also had a tendency of being a bit picky, so I would go on a couple of dates with someone and then disappear without a trace and hope I never ran into them again in this little town. (I've run into everyone everywhere, FYI).

Well, in February, I went out with a close friend of ours and in the next month, things actually went somewhere for a minute. But, it was right when we linked that I had decided to take a timeout from dating and to hermit for a minute. I wanted to do some self reflection and not worry about anyone but myself for a while. The timing was bad and I realized that I was looking for something different, so I was talking to the three girls, my big sisters, one night, trying to figure out what to do, when Kylee said something like, "Cut the bull**** and just tell him." I was seriously shocked for a moment. I thought, "What? I can actually tell people the truth about how I feel?" And that's when I realized that yes, I could, that Kylee did--in every sense of the word, that it was as easy as she made it sound, and that it was cool to be clear.

When she wants to do something, she does it. When she doesn't, she just doesn't. I love that about her. Not only does it show how independent she is and how greatly she lives her truth, but it shows that she has a lot of self awareness. Kylee is someone who doesn't really try to dig deep into her subconscious and psyche to understand what's going on inside of her, but just knows inherently. She loves hot dogs (and I mean just a glizzy, no bun, no sauce) and a good bowl of croutons with salad dressing. She's very connected to the physical world--a kinesiology major that works out three times a day. And she's truly a kind, accepting person, someone who really just doesn't hurt people, who treats everyone with respect, but loves few. Her heart is such a powerful vessel, and whoever has a place inside of it is blessed beyond measure.

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Ally Mia

She's an inherent lover, maiden, and mystic: passionate and romantic, a bit naïve and clumsy, but wise beyond her years when it comes to the invisible things like feelings and happiness. She loves to daydream, to close her eyes and just imagine that she's a fairy in a garden full of irises and pansies, a reader in a coffee shop on a rainy day, a painter on a Sunday morning in a farmhouse, or a woman on a train to somewhere gorgeous. She's constantly in motion, changing, growing, whisking her wispy thoughts into a new reality. And it's her best and trickiest quality, because she really struggles to be a human, to get grounded and take care of real world things like finances, food, and responsibilities. She loves it though and doesn't mind the craziness that it brings.

She looks just like her mother and just like her father's other daughter. She appreciates flowers to an unusual extent, is constantly in a state of observation and romanticization (not a word), and just loves to fall in love. She doesn't like the color black, so she turns in every paper in a slight brown instead and hopes her professors don't notice.

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There are so very many more people to describe, but these are the main characters, the people that I talk to every day. And it's 1:55 now and I think I'm a bit out of juice. I love you, though. Goodnight ;*

Song: One Last Wedding -- Vlad Kopec

Scene: A kitchen with a window that looks out over some mountains in the East, sipping coffee out of your loveliest mug and watching the sun come up.