Chapter 18 A Fresh Start
If your religious practice is nothing more than to remain sincerely open to the ongoing challenges of life and love, you will find God--and also yourself.
-Richard Rohr
A month later, I was packed up and ready to go. There was a girl in a small town in New York state that needed a ride, so once I got her I’d have company for the drive cross country. I picked her up in the small town in New York and we continued our trip West. It was a three-day drive where we took turns sleeping and driving to make good time. I saw so much I had never seen before driving on interstate 80. I noticed how flat some of the country was and drove on highways with more than two lanes. Six lanes was a little terrifying at first, but I got used to it fast. The girl I was with had done this drive the year before, so she was a fountain of information which helped a lot. I had never seen a semi with more than one trailer, and now seeing three trailers was common. The trip was exhausting and wonderful and went by pretty quickly. I dropped her off in Salt Lake City and finished the trip to Pocatello on my own.
Clane’s parents were fantastic. Rod and Sue welcomed me with open arms and were happy to have me there. They were all about five feet tall which made me feel like a giant. We made height jokes with each other, and by this time I was comfortable being an Amazon. College taught me that people come in a variety of sizes and shapes and there were a lot of girls taller than I was. I had come into my own during my first year of college in more ways than one. I no longer felt the need to have sex for the sake of making myself feel worse. My last sexual partner was months ago. I had learned through therapy, school, and living with Mo and Erik to let go and love myself more. I was a more confident and self-assured version of myself. I was lost in the Mormon church still, but I was trying to move forward.
Rod and Sue had a farm and horses. His dad asked if I knew how to ride and if I wanted to go horseback riding. I explained how I kind of knew. I told him about my experiences on the farm back in Vermont. I had never been in a saddle and didn’t know how to ride Western exactly, but I was willing. He got the horses ready and we set out. My horse wasn’t thrilled with my style of riding–a weird cross between English, Western, and hang on for dear life. Eventually, at a trot, she stopped hard and I flew over her head and into the potato field we were riding through. Rod saw me get up, embarrassed and a little miffed, all the while trying to figure out what happened. He laughed so hard he got off his horse to double over on the ground next to me. By then I was laughing right along with him. He helped me get back on and taught me to put one third of my weight in each foot and lean back, which is what I remember doing. And I started learning to ride horses.
Clane and I were great friends. He was dating someone and would take me with him like a little sister. We got pretty close during that time and I cherished his friendship.
Moving To Rexburg
I had applied to Ricks College late, so I didn’t have classes when I showed up, but I had an apartment. It was a three-bedroom apartment and six girls shared it. We were two to a bedroom with one bathroom to share between all of us. Immediately I discovered that living with women is hard and I didn’t like it. Since this was a Mormon college, the rules were also pretty strict. It was lights out at ten on weekdays, and the apartments were monitored by an RA to make sure we were all home every night on time. After being on my own for a year and growing up with far less strict rules, it was a very difficult transition. I was with girls who had never been on their own and were sticklers for the rules.
I quickly got a job as a hostess at Frontier Pies, a Utah family-style restaurant chain. I had a schedule that would give me enough money to live on with the assistance of student loans. Everything was different out West, from the food to the people. I had never eaten boiled pinto beans with salt pork and a side of cornbread. I had eaten very little Mexican food, which I learned quickly to love. Gone was the corned beef and cabbage, and now there was a new variety of cooking. The people were far more warm and welcoming than I was used to back East, so I was glad I had come.
Family Home Evening is a recommendation by the Mormon church to dedicate one evening per week, usually Monday, to spend with your family. A spiritual lesson is planned, and it often includes food and a physical activity. The goal is to add spirituality and become closer to each other. To accomplish this in a college setting, we were all assigned Family Home Evening brothers to our female apartment. The boys had two-bedroom apartments with four people sharing. We were all matched up to have continuity of church standards, and it made it easier to meet people. Our apartment of girls had gone over and met with the boys a couple of times that first week. Keith was one of the guys that lived there, and I liked him a lot.
A Mormon boy asked me out in the first week I was there. I don’t even recall his name. I was ready for my first real Mormon date. He wanted to go to the dunes, which I figured was the name of a pizza place or something. He met me at my apartment and I drove. When we pulled over and got out, I asked what we were doing. We were off the beaten path. He encouraged me to trust him so I followed. He and I walked until he sat down. The dunes. Sand dunes. You’ve got to be kidding me. He brought a blanket, which I hadn’t noticed when he got into the car, and he spread it out. “Sand dunes?” I said. “I thought we could watch the sunset together and cuddle,” he said. “No way. I could have stayed in New England if that’s what kind of date I was going to go on.” I started walking back to the car and told him if he wanted a ride back he should follow. I wasn’t interested in some guy making moves on me on a sand dune in Idaho. I was fairly pissed off.
I got into classes late, which sucked. It was hard to figure out what I needed to do to catch up in each one. In one class, we were asked to give introductions of ourselves. One guy stood up and said that he was a return missionary and his sole purpose was to be there and find his eternal companion. Holy shit, what had I gotten myself into??!! Guys either wanted to bring me to the dunes or find their eternal companion. I didn’t want either. Where was the middle ground?
Meeting Destiny
I went to visit my Family Home Evening brothers late one afternoon. They had their neighbors over to visit, and immediately I noticed a guy there. Not just noticed. Chemistry across the room throwing sparks type of noticed. And he noticed back. They were talking religion–of course–and this guy, Kirk, said he was there to get his life together, but he was atheist. Never one to stay out of a conversation or keep my mouth shut, I asked if he didn’t believe in God. He believed, he said, but he wasn’t sure in what. So I let him know he wasn’t atheist. He was agnostic. The conversation wound up and Kirk and I ended up talking to each other. He was 6’3”, had dark, wavy hair and huge brown eyes with eyelashes for days. He was steamy Calvin-Klein- model looking. I had never felt chemistry like this before. Part of me wanted to run and part of me wanted to stare in his eyes, talking forever.
We all went our separate ways. Keith asked if I wanted to go to the movies with some other people in a couple days. Absolutely. As the truth came out, I found out that the movies was more of a double date, but it was with Kirk and another girl. The movie was The Princess Bride, which I had seen a dozen times. I decided to go because I wanted to see Kirk and set things straight with Keith. I let Keith know right away that I thought he was great, but not as someone to date. I told him that he made it sound like a group event or I wouldn’t have said yes to lead him on. And I was sorry.
At the movie, Keith sat to my left and Kirk on my right, with the girl he was with on Kirk’s other side. The entire movie our arms were touching, rubbing against each other, and I couldn’t believe there weren’t sparks flying. After the movie, the girl went her way, Keith went his way, and Kirk and I found each other together alone. We were together from that moment on. Because I had enrolled in classes late, I ended up dropping out. I couldn’t catch up. So I worked and spent every second I could with Kirk.
We were two pretty lost souls trying to make sense of religion and figure out what we wanted. Kirk was adopted at birth and loved his parents and four siblings. Four of the five kids had been adopted, two at birth and a sibling brother and sister when they were 5 and 8 years old. Kirk was raised Mormon but struggled with it. He did go on a mission, but when he got there he realized it wasn’t what he wanted and asked to be sent home. He had come to Rick’s to get college classes done and try to make sense of what he wanted. He had never gotten into a lot of trouble, but experimented with pot and alcohol in high school and had more experience by far than I had sexually. We were drawn to each other being lost, but we were both good people. We were like best friends, talking for hours and laughing. Being together felt like finding a missing piece of myself. Someone who understood me. I could be myself and that felt amazing. We cooked together, worked out together, and did a lot of the college activities. They had great dances and outings, and we did things with friends as often as possible.
The sex for me was finally what it should have been. Now that I knew what I was missing and I was with someone who knew what he was doing, I could orgasm during sex. All my pent-up desire with no outlet was being fed. Neither of us could get enough. I was still pretty naïve. I had several partners but not a lot of sexual experiences and Kirk bridged the gap. I wasn’t self- conscious about my body or embarrassed at my lack of experience, so I was open to pretty much anything. Kirk was patient and slow, and I learned a lot about myself as well as what he liked and wanted. His roommate also had a girlfriend. He spent nights over at her place, so for the most part we had the room to ourselves. I was glad not to be in an apartment with five girls, so I spent a lot of time at his place.
I was at Kirk’s apartment when a migraine came on. I told him I’d need to be taken to the hospital for a shot, but he told me he thought I could get through it on my own. He told me to relax, put a cold cloth on my head, turned the lights off, and sat on the floor talking to me. “You just need to relax and find your happy place.” It sounds so silly, but it actually worked. I visualized a beach, a cabin in the woods, and taking a hike. Whatever seemed happy to me at the time. Each time I got a headache, he would do the same thing, and over a couple of months I had fewer headaches.
For Thanksgiving, Keith invited a few of us to his parents house in Seattle. Kirk and I drove my car with Keith and one other person to Seattle and had a great Thanksgiving. We had spent time in Jackson Hole, WY together on a trip, and this was one more adventure. On the way back to Idaho, there was a storm and we got snowed in and had to stop in Spokane, WA, which for us was just another adventure. We found a cheap motel and all crashed together for a day until we could keep driving.
Kirk and I struggled with the church in general and sex being a vice for both of us. We decided that a Mormon college wasn’t a good fit. We had only known each other three months when it was Christmas break. With no school on the horizon, we had no real plans except that we were both planning on coming back to Rexburg in January. We then each went home for the holiday.
Strange Encounters
On the first leg of my plane ride back to Vermont, I sat next to an attractive man named Steve who was in his 40’s. We chatted a lot. He asked me about college and what I liked, and I mentioned singing. It happened that he lived in Stowe, VT and was returning home. He owned a recording studio called Clic Studios and invited me there to sing while I was on break. “You never know what could happen, and it will be fun,” he said to me. He played demo tapes on his Walkman for me, and we were never at a loss for words. We exchanged numbers and decided to meet in the next two weeks.
Steve called me the next day and said he had an opening in two days. I asked my mother if we could go, if she had anything for me to sing, and if she wanted to play the piano. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we went. It was December 15th and my 19th birthday. We drove to the studio in Stowe, and I sang for five hours. First I sang the song we brought with us, Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting For You” and then everything they had on demo tape, from Paula Abdul to The Bangles, until my voice was tapped. When we were done, he asked to chat with us and we sat in his living room.
He offered me a three-album contract. He said singers need to have certain things: A look, talent, and presence. He noted that I had all three, so he didn’t imagine I wouldn’t be successful. We could do a lot of the recording there in Stowe, but it was a smaller studio so the editing and some of the singing would have to be done in Los Angeles. He had a friend with a studio there that he rented to finish his contracted singers.
I was overwhelmed. Shocked. This was the offer of my dreams staring at me from his coffee table. It was everything I wanted. And I didn’t know what to do. My mother and I asked if we could think about it. He told me I had until I was 21 to come back to him and sign. We drove home and I was completely stunned. I’m good enough. I’m good enough? Holy shit. I’m good enough. I couldn’t wait to get home and call Kirk. I wanted to sign the contract and move back to Vermont and start recording, and I wanted him to come with me.
Tough Choices
I got home and had messages from Kirk. It was my birthday after all. I called him back right away, eager to tell him my news. He was so excited to talk to me. He called me honey bunny and was incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and romantic. He was so excited about what he wanted to tell me, I let him go first. He bought me something for my birthday and Christmas and hoped I liked them. He sent them out to me. He also had talked to his parents and wanted me to move to Arizona after we got back to Idaho. He wanted us to pack up our stuff and move in with them. Fuck, you’ve got to be kidding me. Another option I wanted. That I didn’t expect. I told him my news and he said he’d rather live in Arizona, but he completely understood if I signed the contract. It was a once-in-a-lifetime offer, and I should probably take it.
I was torn. I wanted both and couldn’t have both. My presents arrived and Kirk had gotten me an Indian bracelet and earrings made out of silver, with smooth, pink stones. They were beautiful and I loved them. We talked every day on the phone. One day I called him crying. I told him I chose to move to Arizona with him instead of signing the recording contract. He was elated, excited, and also in disbelief. He was so thrilled that my decision was to go to Arizona with him.
After the Christmas break, we both flew into Idaho and packed our belongings. I sold my Ford Escort and we put everything we owned in Kirk’s 1967 Buick LeSabre and set out for Arizona.
Becoming A Warrior Princess
I’ve been in touch with Clane and his family off and on over the years. I moved back to Idaho in 1994 with my first daughter and rented the basement apartment from Clane and his wife. I also spent time at his parents. There is a special place in my heart for him.
A few years ago I was having a particularly tough time, and after 24 years of not having headaches, they came back. I couldn’t remember what I used to do so I texted Kirk. He couldn’t remember at first, but after a few hours I got a text from him that said, “Find your happy place,” and it all came back.
My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me. The most difficult, too. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss singing. It’s part of the fabric of my being. I won’t lie and tell you I’ve never wondered “what if,” but I look at my kids and know that they were the right choice. Sometimes I’ve wished I had signed and let the chips fall where they may with Kirk, but I didn’t. Or that I had figured out how to have both. I moved to Arizona and to a life I wanted more than the contract.
Triumph with Love
You can have two opposing dreams–family and music for me–and have to choose. I was so afraid of falling prey to drugs and alcohol if I had gotten rich and famous singing that my fear ultimately stopped me from signing that contract. I didn’t know how or if I could have both things I wanted, so I walked away from one.
LEARN AND GROW
• Good friends are a treasure
• Love is blind but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great
• Music can live in your soul.
It’s something no one can take away from you