Seattle Mormon Stories Conference

A few months ago I posted about an opportunity to lead the organizing of a conference. That conference happened this past weekend. For those who don't know about it, Mormon Stories started out as a podcast. The idea is basically to tell various people's stories that involve Mormonism. If you check out their podcasts you'll see a wide variety of perspectives, beliefs, and experiences, because people from all areas of Mormonism have stories that are interesting, worthwhile, and important. The first MS podcast I ever listened to was the Danzig's story, which is moving and heartbreaking. (Parts of their story unfolded while I was at BYU, and I remember hearing whispers of it in the hallways of the HFAC, but I had no idea who they were or what had really happened, so it was great to hear their perspective on everything.) John Dehlin, and now the others who work with him on the podcast, have done some amazing interviews with Richard Bushman, Carol Lynn Pearson, Terryl Givens, Daniel Peterson, ex-Mormons, believing Mormons, pretty much any kind of Mormon there is. There are so many that I've loved. If I had to pick some favorites other than the Danzig's, it'd probably be Daymon Smith talking about the history of correlation (I cannot say enough how fascinating this topic is) and Lisa Butterworth, who started the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives.

Mormon Stories tries to create a space where all types of Mormons can feel welcome and at some point some regional communities came into being. The Seattle one is pretty low-key. Occasionally there's a potluck type gathering and people will come together to discuss their stories, where they're at, difficult aspects of Mormon history, doctrine, or culture as well as what they enjoy about all those. Just after Ryan and I moved to Seattle, some of the regional groups started having conferences. Since we have a lot of people in the MS Seattle region, but not a lot of people willing to organize big events, it took a while to get us going on a conference. But John Dehlin was going to be in Seattle anyway this past weekend to keynote at the Affirmation conference, so we decided we'd better do what we'd been talking about for a while and actually get a conference put together.

Since they'd done several conferences already the task was much easier than if we'd been one of the earlier ones. The MS organization had figured out what usually worked well and what often didn't, so we had some templates to work off of. One thing those of us organizing learned: book the venue first. We, for some reason, didn't start thinking about venue seriously until a couple months before the conference. And, of course, lots of venues are too expensive and lots are booked more than two months out. So that ended up being a bit stressful, but thankfully members of the community stepped up and helped us find a place.

A few other hiccups happened along the way. Mormon Stories decided that our conference would be the last one sponsored by Mormon Stories/Open Stories Foundation. This meant we got caught up in the transition a bit, which halted planning for a week or so. In the end, John Dehlin wasn't able to make it to the conference and one of our other well-known speakers, Maxine Hanks (of the September Six, recently re-joined the LDS church) ended up experiencing some health issues and had to back out the day before. A couple other bumps the day before the conference made things a bit more stressful than I would have liked, but it all got smoothed out in time.

Friday night I left Ryan with the kids and headed off with some other ex-mormon friends of ours to go to the pre-conference social. We enjoyed socializing for a bit and then I headed back home with another friend. Saturday was the crazy busy day. We packed the kids and snacks for between sessions as well as my clarinet and stand into the car. Ryan dropped me and Malcolm off at the venue. He took Gareth with him to his drum set lesson. Malcolm, surprisingly, was willing to be held by a complete stranger (one of the fellow organizer's wives) for about an hour. This covered some set-up time and the beginning of the first session, which I was conducting.

The first session speakers were Kristine Haglund, who blogs at BCC, and Brent Metcalfe, who edited New Approaches to the Book of Mormon. They provided a nice balance for one another, both shared parts of their stories, and were enjoyable to listen to. One of the local community members provided a musical number and we sang "Love is Spoken Here".

The second session was excellent, with a board member of WAVE sharing how she came to Mormonism from Unitarian Universalism and the struggles she's had and how and why she's decided to stay and be involved in Mormonism. Then we had a panel discussion with Jon Anderton from Modern Mormon Men, Natalie Kelly from fMh, and a couple other local members who I know are involved in various areas of the bloggernacle but I'm not entirely sure where to link to for them. They discussed ways unorthodox members can effect change and create space for authentic membership in the church on various levels - personal, familial, ward, and church-wide.

The third session at Mormon Stories conferences is always a story-sharing session. Ryan came back to pick up Malcolm before this session so that I could play without being distracted by his screams. I performed Erland van Koch's 1975 work, Monologue #3 for solo clarinet. I'd prepared the first movement for my Seattle Phil. audition and really felt that the whole piece spoke my story with Mormonism quite well, hence why I decided to perform it for the third session. I could nitpick the fumbles and mishaps that occurred, but overall it went well and people seemed to appreciate and enjoy it. I thought briefly about trying to re-record it so the version that everyone listens to online would be better, but I think I've decided against it, despite how embarrassed I feel about some of my flubs. It's a live performance and things like that are often going to happen and I think I'll just accept that and move on. After I performed, members of the audience had a chance to get up and briefly share some aspect of their Mormon story. This is where it became obvious how successful we were at drawing in a wide group of people related to Mormonism. Some ex-Mormons got up, some completely believing members got up, some less orthodox but still active members got up. During the course of the day I met a couple who had performed proxy baptisms at the temple before coming to the conference, several heterodox members, several ex-mos, and even a non-member who has stumbled upon the online Mormon community and finds it fascinating. We ended the conference by singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing".

Several of us went to dinner at Phinney Market Pub afterward, which was amazing. They prepared a family-style meal for us. Bread, salad with gorgonzola cheese, walnuts, and blackberries, some squash and carrots from a local farm, fettuccine with smoked salmon, halibut baked with cream cheese Dungeness crab and parmesan, and BBQ beef brisket and rosemary potatoes. I'm not much of a fish fan, but I loved the fettuccine. I didn't order dessert, but they looked delectable. Huge amounts of food, so I made sure to take some home to Ryan (I promise, I'd offered getting a sitter so he could come, but he chose not to). The atmosphere of the restaurant was perfect. And to top it all off, it's a super kid-friendly place - they even have a train table in one of the corners! Ryan and I will definitely be going out to dinner there together at some point.

Those of us who worked on organizing the conference ended up very pleased with how things turned out. We had about fifty or sixty people attend, with some of the attendees coming from Spokane, Portland, and southern Oregon in addition to Seattle. While I'm naturally starting to leave Mormonism completely behind (I don't often listen to Mormon Stories or other Mormon-related podcasts anymore and don't read Mormon-related blogs as often, though I keep my eye on them), it was definitely a worthwhile experience to help put together this conference. Not only because it's a big accomplishment to organize something like this and something I haven't done before, but also because I appreciate the goals of Mormon Stories and want to support those who advocate for big-tent Mormonism. Mormon Stories podcast was important to me in my journey and helped slow my exit from the church. It let me know I wasn't alone and helped me take the time to evaluate what was truly best for me and my family. I couldn't stay in, but I support those who choose to. Anyway, it was an enjoyable, if somewhat packed weekend (I had a concert down in Renton yesterday followed by a rehearsal last night). And, while enjoyable, it's a relief to have it all over!

Portland Trip

We took advantage of Gareth's day off on the 12th and drove down to Portland for the weekend. I had a friend from New Jersey getting married down there on the 13th and I wanted to be sure to be at the reception. Becky has been a great friend through the years. She's Ryan's age, so a few years older than me, but we became friends around the time I entered high school. Our families had known each other for ages, our brothers were the same age, but high school is when we really got to know each other. And when Ryan and I got married, Becky came and helped us clean our apartment as we were moving in. We ate dinner together on a few occasions. And when I had Gareth, she helped find someone to watch him while I inventoried all our possessions before we moved across the country. She has frequently visited with my parents and my sister over the past several years. So, yeah, she's been a good family friend and I figured that since I could get to her wedding so easily I definitely should.

We stayed with another friend from New Jersey. Morgan and I are the same age and her oldest and Gareth are both in Kindergarten this year. I haven't seen Morgan since we went off to college, so it was fun to stay with her family. Gareth got along wonderfully with her girls, though they were a very noisy bunch. They just got some chicks, so Gareth got to pet and hold them a few times while were were there. He was very sad when it was time to leave on Sunday, asking before we were out the door if he could have another playdate with them soon (apparently playdates are two day affairs now).

Malcolm was amazing on the drive down - he didn't cry at all. He made up for it on the way home by crying for all but about 45 minutes. So I guess if you average the two rides then he cried about half the time, which honestly isn't too bad considering he's never been in the car longer than about 15 minutes.

I was hoping that staying the whole weekend would mean we'd get to see several things in Portland as well, but that didn't work out quite as planned. We meant to stop at Powell's as we came in on Friday, but Google maps took us down a street that never let us turn left - which was very necessary if you wanted to get to the parking garage for Powell's. So we went on to Morgan and Will's house instead. We did hit Powell's on Saturday. That place is huge and totally awesome. I love book stores and a book store that takes up an entire city block is just amazing. We only went to the kids section, and we still got turned around and lost trying to find our way back to the entrance. They even have a map for the store that you can pick up on your way in. I would've loved to explore some more, but Ryan's feet were tiring and kids were impatient and we were all getting hungry. Ryan did manage to find this book, which is by the same author as this childhood favorite. It was only a couple of dollars, so we bought it. It's a new favorite of Gareth's.

After some lunch we headed off to the reception. We were an hour late, but still had plenty of time to congratulate Becky as well as catch up with some of her family a bit. They had pie instead of cake and the happy couple rode away on a tandem bicycle. After they left we headed off to Ryan's old roommate's house for dinner. Gareth played very happily with their two year old, we had a delicious meal with our friends, and then we headed back to Morgan and Will's where we battled Gareth into bed way past his bedtime. Then we stayed up and chatted with our hosts for a few hours.

Sunday morning we were all a bit slow to get going. By the time we headed out we needed to get some lunch. After stopping to do that it was already two, so we opted to head home. But the drive proved very do-able, so we'll definitely head down that way again. The next time we go I'm hoping we'll stop and check out the Columbia River Gorge as well as more of downtown Portland.

Playing with Daddy

Ryan and Gareth played Minecraft together over the weekend. Gareth also went to a birthday party and had a soccer game, both of which were great fun, but playing with Ryan was the event that he wrote about on his "weekend news" exercise at school Monday morning.

Malcolm Tries Something New

Malcolm was very excited at being introduced to the high chair yesterday:

The food? Not so much:

Six Months

Malcolm is a healthy six-month-old these days. At his appointment he weighed 14.14 lbs (10%), was 26 3/4 inches (55%) and had a head circumference of 44cm (75%). So he gained about half a pound in the last two months and grew a little over two inches. Typical for a kid of ours I'd say. Ryan was surprised though because he feels like Malcolm's getting fatter, and even Gareth asked the other day why Malcolm is so fat. He definitely has a couple more rolls than Gareth did at that age, but it doesn't take much to beat out Gareth in that department.

Catching a non-blurry moment is difficult these days. Despite the blur, the smile here was too cute to pass up.

I tried feeding him some carrots the other day and noticed a rash shortly afterward. The rash is still there, more than a week later, so not food related, but we hadn't fed him any other solids since because I wanted to be sure. His doctor thinks it's the soap we're using at bath time drying out his skin and gave us another type to try, plus some lotion. So, if I can get my act together, he'll start eating cereal and trying new fruits and vegetables over the next few weeks. He also has a yeast infection, so we've now got a prescription to deal with that and hopefully we'll be back to a rash-free baby shortly.

Looking back at old pictures, it appears Gareth was starting to sit up a bit on his own at this point. Malcolm isn't there yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he crawls before Gareth did, because he's already inching his way along the floor at times. He's rather quiet, but extremely observant. And he loves to engage with other people, making eye contact and smiling even if he doesn't babble at them. He still doesn't laugh, though he is amused by many things, opening his mouth in a huge smile to show his excitement. Malcolm loves watching his big brother and likes doing Wheels on the Bus, Eensy Weensy Spider, and Pat-a-Cake with me.

He's much more into oral exploration than Gareth was. Malcolm wants to put everything in his mouth. He's constantly sucking or chewing on something (which also makes for a lot of saliva everywhere). We've got several old rattles and other toys that are meant to be chewed on. People gave them to us before we had Gareth and they got absolutely no use with Gareth. He could have cared less about them. But Malcolm uses them exactly how they're meant to be used. And he recognizes, knows, and loves those toys. His eyes light up when he sees you approaching with one of his favorites. Malcolm's firefly from his aunt and uncle is a continual favorite - so many easy to grab places, lots of crinkly noises, rattle, and the mirror is great for chewing on.

What I Plan for My Remains

I've long thought about how I want to be buried and all that. When I was a kid, I wanted the most impenetrable coffin possible. Bugs crawling through my body was such a gross revolting idea after all. Of course, as I got older that really didn't bother me as much, though bugs were still equally gross. Oh, and I wanted to be in a cemetery with upright headstones because the flat ones are just lame.

By the time I was married I saw cremation as a somewhat appealing idea, except the whole scattering the ashes thing seemed silly to me. And it just seemed weird for someone to have the ashes sitting on a shelf somewhere. So I still would've opted for a nice wood coffin, something that would allow decomposition to happen fairly quickly as I now saw beauty in the idea of returning to the earth and continuing life through other organisms. Then at some point a friend mentioned going to a ceremony to bury a relative's ashes, something which I hadn't realized was an option. (Apparently there are all kinds of interesting things you can do with your ashes, from shooting them off in fireworks to making jewelry out of them to being made into a box of pencils.) At that point (probably two to three years ago), I became firmly decided on cremation for my remains and to have them buried in the ground somewhere. But in the last year I think I've sort of changed my mind again. After seeing pictures of several funerals, it all struck me as such a waste. Big, expensive coffin, space in the land (what happens when we run out of cemetery spaces? do we just get rid of the headstones for the now decomposed bodies and re-use the space?), all the ritual.

I get that it's all for the living and if that's what the relatives need for closure then that's cool. But it's not what I want for me. So I've decided to donate my body to science or a body farm type place. Someone may as well learn from it after all. Relatives don't need a grave site to visit to remember a loved one, just their own brain with it's memories. And if you donate it to science there's usually no cost involved as they cremate the remains when they're done with them and then return them to the family to do with as they wish. Beyond that, it'll be up to what Ryan or our kids feel they need to determine what, if any, gathering type things they hold. After all, I'm not going to be around to know or care, now am I? But if it were me, I'd probably keep it a small, intimate gathering at home, perhaps with friends sharing meaningful memories if they wish. There were some interesting ideas in this podcast that I listened to the other day, but especially loved that in Australia most people use a secular Funeral Celebrant to help them plan a ceremony celebrating and focused on their loved one, rather than a ritual focused on espousing a particular dogma. I also liked the idea that one couple had of having readings from their favorite authors/books.

Is it weird that I've thought about this so much already? At least when I die Ryan/our kids will definitely know what I wanted, right? And, just for fun, if you were going to be cremated, what would you have your family do with the ashes?

Orchestra Audition

The evening before Gareth started school I took him to his first soccer practice and then we rushed home so I could scarf down some dinner and run back out to an audition for the Seattle Philharmonic. I think it's possible that some of my facebook acquaintances have thought this is a bigger audition, for a paying job. It's an understandable mistake, as some cities have professional orchestras that are Philharmonics. But the big professional orchestra of Seattle is actually the Seattle Symphony. The Seattle Philharmonic is a community orchestra. But, according to what I've heard, it's one of the best community orchestras in the area (the classical station here will sometimes broadcast their concerts). Anyway, their second clarinetist died last fall (very sad - it was a brain tumor and she'd been doing better and then about the time we moved into our house here the tumor started growing again) and they'd had someone subbing in the position for last year but hadn't yet held a formal audition for the seat.

My teacher had been out of town for the three weeks before the audition, and some of the excerpts they were asking for had changed since we'd last had a lesson, meaning we hadn't ever gone over the new excerpts. But I'd found recordings and done my best to get them up to speed on my own. For those who might care about such things, they asked for Beethoven #2, first movement, Beethoven #6, first and third movements, Brahms #2, second and fourth movements, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, and Capriccio Espagnol (I practiced the excerpts from both the 1st and 3rd movements, because I didn't know which they wanted, turned out they wanted the 3rd movement). And I prepared the first movement of Erland von Koch's Monologue 3, which is for solo clarinet.

There was one person before me and one after. Not sure if there were any more as I left after I was done. While waiting for the first candidate to warm up I sat and chatted with a vocalist who will be singing with the orchestra in the spring. Unfortunately this left my throat rather dry and I'd stupidly not thought to bring a water bottle with me. I managed to get over this while warming up though. I was a bit thrown by realizing I'd be standing up for the audition. Back in my high school or college days this wouldn't have fazed me, as I practiced standing up quite often. But it's been a long time since I've played standing up, so I was not happy to notice a slight change in my tone quality while standing.

The audition went quite well. Of course, immediately afterward I mostly focused on the negative things: I got too soft too fast here and so those notes didn't speak, I fumbled this passage here, the sight reading was dreadful, and so on. But the vocalist pointed out a lot of good things about my audition and said that at that point I'd be her pick. So by the time I left I was feeling better about it and in reality it was a pretty solid audition. I felt that no matter what happened, I'd be happy with how I'd played. Later that night I got an email letting me know about a rehearsal venue change for the next night, but that just left me uncertain as it wasn't a definitive, "yes, you've got the spot" and they could've sent the information to everyone who auditioned.

Ryan at times seemed more anxious than I did to find out, but that might've been because Gareth and Malcolm had been little nightmares while I was gone. He even jokingly said at one point that I shouldn't audition for such things because then I might actually get in. When he saw that an email had come from the personnel manager the next morning, he brought my phone to me right away. I got the seat, and the manager said some very nice things about my playing. Ryan, while not terribly excited about the prospect of a second night in a row alone with the kids (and for a much longer stretch as the rehearsal was a good half hour away), was very excited for me. And a bit jealous because I have several musical groups I participate in now and he doesn't have any yet. I haven't played in orchestra since graduating in 2006, so it was exciting news for me as well. Orchestra has always been my love, so it feels wonderful to be in one again.