All These Little Pieces Lumped Together

I have been thinking a lot about this notion the past six months. There are lots of reasons why, but they aren't really important. Explaining the concept is important though, so here it goes...(and I LOVE ellipses, so here are the first of many!)

Our lives, they are made up of so many different pieces, people, places and things. Hundreds, thousands, millions of little pieces of all of these things that make me the person I am today. Some people adore this person, some people hate this person. Some people are best friends with this person and others shun me like the plague. It's all of the millions of places I have been, people I have met, experiences I have had, choices I have made and things I have learned (mostly from other people) that together make the composite that is me.

As I was making soup this afternoon, I had this crazy thought. What if I took a moment once every couple of days and wrote it all down? What if, for me and my posterity, I took a minute to try and deconstruct my composite self? Why today, while I was making soup, did this all come to fruition?

I was making a roux to add to the soup Jack made. I made it at his request (no, I did not co-opt his soup!) because in passing he mentioned he didn't know how to make a roux. As I was stirring the flour and oil I thought about my friend Scott. He is the one who taught me how to make a roux. He  was a cook at a restaurant in Orem. I met Scott when I first moved to Provo while at a retreat for college students. I was wearing my Connells t-shirt (after all, it was 1994) and he approached me and said something to the effect of, "I love the Connells! I didn't know anyone else did. My name is Scott." We immediately formed this odd friendship that lead to so many experiences and introduced me to so many new people. At the time, I had just moved to Provo, didn't know anyone except my grandparents I had moved in with, and was antsy for friendship.

Scott was a staple in the local underground music scene. He loved the saxophone. He would show up to my work and plaster my 1984 Brown Grand Marquis Mercury with fliers for whatever concert I needed to meet him at after my shift selling jewelry at BEST ended. The best was when he took me to one at the "venue" underneath the Arby's in Orem. (Totally random, I felt so cool! Reverend Horton Heat!) I think my love of music and live shows and uncovering a piece of my true self really flourished under his friendship (including my stint as a belly-dancer. yep. true!).

Now he is owns a yoga studio in SLC. Our lives have gone separate directions. We are not in contact (other than FB friends, of course, but who isn't?), but I still consider him a friend. A friend who helped me define who I was in my early college years (which at 17, was amazingly difficult).

Thanks, Scott, for teaching me how to make a simple roux.

So I am going to do it! I am going to tell share little vignettes about all random people and places and things that have impacted me, taught me, and clumped together to form me. Then maybe one day when I am gone, and my children want to know more about me than what they hear from everyone else, or what they see in pictures, or the usual stories they have heard 100 times, they can look here.