Today's To Do List

let's title this Simpler Times

When I lived in Washington, D.C. I went to an art exhibit about lists. There were hundreds of lists on display, mostly written by famous people, mostly very poetic. Eero Saarinen wrote twelve things he noticed about his wife, “First I recognized that you were very clever.” Janice Lowry’s titled one list, “Fifty people I need to forgive.”

The exhibit was inspiring to me, so I bought the book and had it signed by the author. I dearly hope it’s somewhere in my parents’ basement because I can’t find it in California. Yet, even without it in front of me, I can paraphrase the introduction: Lists give us the illusion of control in an otherwise chaotic life. Or, a little more darkly, the illusion of triumph in what feels like an unaccomplished life. 

I have always written lists. And this Sunday, like every Sunday of my life, I wrote down weekly goals and taped them to my wall.

• Take Kylee Martinelli’s 
• Finish the Shadow of Man 
• Have lunch with Rachel 
• Buy outdoor Halloween decorations 
• Invite someone over for Sunday 
• Exercise four days this week 
• Return Reija’s spatula 
• Listen to General Conference talks 
• Write up next week’s SLO itinerary 
• Brainstorm Christmas cards 

And you know? It’s Wednesday night, and both my kids were happy today. I should have written that on my list. It’s one of the only things I’ve really accomplished in days, and I need that illusion of triumph.

b perry

Halloween Grinch

This is the kind of wholesome Halloween stuff I was raised to love: teddy bear costumes and trick or treating. 

Here’s an exhaustive list of what I like about Halloween: candy, dressing up in fun costumes, and watching Chris carve a pumpkin. All that gory, frightening nonsense? Pass.

Let’s start with scary movies.

People always want to watch scary movies around Halloween, and I feel like the lone crazy person who doesn’t want to watch [fill in the horrible blank]. I cannot watch the PREVIEWS for scary movies. I get creeped out looking at the posters. I don’t have to explain this to little kids. For a long time, my friends and I were trick-or-treating in peace. But scary movies got cool in high school, especially around Halloween, and so fifteen years ago this month I watched the scariest movie I ever saw… The Sixth Sense. I knew the entire plot from the very beginning of the movie, I was in a giant cuddle ball with like fourteen of my most supportive friends, but I still have nightmares loosely based on that terrifying kitchen cupboard scene. No more scary movies for me. 

Then there’s haunted houses.

In college I went with an otherwise reasonable group of friends to a haunted house that ended in a corn maze. As we left the house (where the very worst nightmares are sent to prison), my roommate and I got separated from the rest of our group, and a dude with a chainsaw chased us into the cornfield. We took a wrong turn, faced a dead end, and as we screamed and clung to each other I was so distraught that I genuinely, sincerely believed I had to choose between escaping this madman or actual death. It’s a funny story now, but I cannot emphasize this part enough: one us literally went home with pee-soaked pants that night, and I’d rather not say who. So that was the last haunted house I ever went to. 

I do not understand all the “fun” Halloween things. I’m really happy to stay home and pass out fun-size Snickers bars to cute, tiny Iron Men. I realize that admitting to all this makes me the equivalent of a Halloween Grinch, so my apologies to Jack Skellington for having a Tell-Tale Heart that is two sizes too small.

b perry

Returning to Our Privileged Places

I don’t have one of those incredible lists of “750 Autumn Activities,” but I do have a small collection of September/October stuff I like to do every year. This Fall there’s a few new items, and the best one so far was returning to the place where Chris and I met.

A few months ago I read about Mircea Eliade’s “privileged places” and I had to track down his whole book, “The Sacred and Profane.” He describes the privileged places of our lives as

...qualitatively different from all others -- a man’s birthplace, or the scenes of his first love, or certain places in the first foreign city he visited in his youth. Even for the most frankly nonreligious man, all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the “holy places” of his private universe, as if it were in such spots that he had received the revelation of a reality other than that which he participates through his ordinary life.

Do you have holy places like that? There are places I consider important personal historical sites, but I don’t have many that feel sacred. There is my home in Idaho, 27 Palace Court in London, and the magnolia-lined street in Virginia where I saw fireflies for the first time. And then, of course, our friend’s beautiful home in Palo Alto where Chris and I first met. Even though we live fifteen minutes away from this Perry Family landmark, we hadn’t been back in the last four years.

There’s just something wonderful about returning to those places, and it feels like the best kind of time travel. I could see my younger self walking up the street, nervous and excited and oblivious. Literally the only interaction Chris and I had with each other was about Chris’ job at Bump, and how my dad was adorably obsessed with their app. Barely anything. But to us, it’s enough to imbue this whole neighborhood with romance, to make it sacred.

b perry

First Birthdays

For Jack's birthday we tried to pack in every single thing that he loves. He had two whole eggs for breakfast. We took him to his favorite slides. We held his hand as he walked in circles around the house for hours. We went on an evening walk. Most importantly, we let him eat at least three sticks from the trees in our yard.

I wrote this whole emotion-laden post about our first year together. It was nostalgic and cheesy and you’re welcome for transferring that to a journal. Here’s what’s left: celebrating this birthday feels rare and beautiful because for the last year, our life stories were the same silly, wonderful story.

And it’s a story I’ll love to tell until my dying day because, without caveat or condition, it’s been the best year of my life.

b perry

see below for the cake smash

Grandma's House

Please note: not a single picture of our mothers in this photo batch. I don’t know how I let that one slide… but there is a picture of Great Grandma Stokes, so that’s something.

Cinnamon raisin toast smells like my Grandma Horman. Well, not her exactly, but that smell transports me to some quiet early morning in the deep 1990’s, when it was just me and my Grandma having breakfast at her big kitchen table. My Grandma Stokes, on the other side, smells like browning butter. Whenever I’m making a roux at home, if I close my eyes I can see her standing by the oven in her slippers making pancakes or toffee or caramel (butter is the glorious beginning to most of her signature treats). 

We’ve taken Jack to the motherland before, but on this particular trip I was extra aware of the tastes and sounds and smells that will become his childhood memories at Grandma’s. I don’t know what will remind him of his grandmothers, but he’ll have a lot of great options. It may be the taste of chocolate chip cookies, the way the desert smells when it rains, or the sound of the grand pianos. And I know it’s a silly thing to wonder about, but just the thought of it makes life feel fresh and sweet to me. 

b perry 

Upstairs At the White House

a picture I stole from Amanda from our ten year high school reunion, which omg was last week

Sometime during law school, I stopped reading for pleasure. The Brittney from ten years ago would be ashamed of what I had become, but if that chick said anything to my face I would just laugh at her because omg, why are you perming your hair youareridiculous. A lot can change in a decade.

In 2005 I was a senior in high school, and when grownups asked what I was going to do with my life I told them I wanted to be the head chef at the White House. I still consider this a totally viable career option at this point, by the way. Teenage Brittney repeated that ambition a thousand times, but it had been forever since that almost-life crossed my mind. Then last month, my mom mailed me a magazine article about the current head chef at the White House. “Remember your plan to become the White House chef? Who knew you would have been the first female?! Love, Mom.” Her note made me smile, remembering this version of myself that I had all-but forgotten.

And do you know what else I was going on in my life ten yeas ago? I was a reader. And that girl is finally making a comeback. I have to carve out the time, but I am, and I feel like I am uncovering a version of myself that I loved and missed. I just finished reading Upstairs At the White House. It's a fascinating book in its own right, but this week it almost feels like a talisman, protecting a past that I might have abandoned. I crawl into the bed at my parent's house with my White House book, and remember the 17-year-old Brittney crawling into bed with her book. She wanted to move to DC, she dreamed about the courses she'd one day serve the First Family, and she permed her hair like an idiot.

b perry

p.s. related: Goodreads. I love that place, and if you're on there we should be friends immediately.

Seeing The Future

"Don't take pictures now! Why are we not eating?! FEED MEEEEEE!!" Takes after his mom. 

It has been incredible to watch Jack figure out the world. He looks down the street when he hears the train coming. He opens his mouth wide when the spoons come out. And, most validating of all, he lifts up his arms when I reach to pick him up. It’s exciting to see him anticipate what will happen next, even if it’s only four or five seconds in the future.

More incredible, perhaps, has been my ability to peer into the future. I have always been a planner, and Jack’s randomness is his most enigmatic quality to me. When he was brand new, friends would ask if we could get together in the next week, but they could have asked if we could get together in 45 years – I didn’t know what the next hour would hold, so the answer would have been the same. But I have gotten so much better. Last week I even went to lunch with our friends. I have somehow learned to find organization in our life together, even though his adorable, single tooth has put his penchant for unpredictability at an all time high.

Again, I have always been a neurotic planner, but finally embracing the unpredictability has let me better enjoy the pieces of the future that I can see. He has learned how to stick his arms through his pajama sleeves, and I have learned that he’ll be asleep around 6:00. He can see that in ten seconds, I’m going to pull him out of his car seat, and I can see when we have thirty minutes left in his car seat before he screams like the entire world is burning in a fiery apocalypse. We’re not fortunetellers or anything, but we’re both getting better.

b perry

Lucky

I got my permit to drive when I was fourteen and a half, and I was pulled over for the first time when I was fourteen and a half and a week – sans proof of insurance, sans permit, sans parent, and after dark. That was the first of numerous traffic violations that did not end in a ticket. It would be inaccurate to say that I’ve been pulled over for “everything” but “nearly everything” is pretty accurate. Speeding, a rolling stop at a stop sign, running a red light, driving into oncoming traffic, not wearing a seatbelt, failure to signal, an utter inability to fix my headlight, talking on my cell phone, and my personal favorite: drunk driving (from a girl who has never had even the smallest sip of the booze). I can distinctly remember being pulled over thirty-four times, and that number doesn’t include the times I’ve forgotten.

I am always sorry to disappoint the people who ask what my technique is, but I didn’t have a system. I only cried once (that first time because I was so scared). Sometimes I was chatty, other times I was totally silent. Sometimes I was honest, and sometimes if you have an Idaho drivers’ license in a New York rental car, it’s a pretty reasonable to assume that you didn’t know you’re not allowed talk on your cell phone when you drive. *ahem* Twice. *ahem* In one week.

The truth is, I was just unbelievably lucky. Of course, certain friends considered it unbelievably annoying, but it felt like luck to me. Whatever it was, all that came to a screeching halt when I was driving to San Francisco in 2010. The speed limit dropped, but my speed didn’t, and the dude clocked me going around forty over. It should have been like a $600 fine, instead it was something like $150, and I kept driving to the Golden State.

A year later, on the night I met Chris, I broke the news to my friend Jen that my run from the law had finally ended. A month after that, when Chris and I saw each other next, he walked up to me and said, “You’re Brittney Horman. You’re the girl who never gets tickets.” That line, that story, that pesky speeding infraction is part of what brought us together. So yes, some might consider that first ticket to be the end of an incredible and gratuitously long lucky streak, but I consider the time I got pulled over in Jackpot, Nevada to be the luckiest I ever got.

britt

p.s. Happy anniversary, mi dilla.

Mama Fierce

I developed an alter ego when I studied for the bar, and this girl was great. She was capable of studying for twelve hours, every day, all summer. She got ready in the morning. She loved contract law. She went to bed at 8:30 at night. And she wasn't someone you'd invite to a party, but she could pass the bar. Once at dinner with some friends I tried to explain this by saying, “You know, like Sasha Fierce” and I got three blank stares: one blank stare from a Harvard graduate, one blank stare from a Yale graduate, one blank stare from a Stanford graduate.

And I was like, “GET SOME CULTURE, ya Philistines.”

I love the Sasha Fierce concept. It makes sense to me that if you’re really stretching yourself, you’ll eventually be confronted with situations that seem completely incompatible with your personality, but if you want to be like Beyoncé, you have to find a way to get onto that stage.

Everyone says that parenthood changes you, but I one hundred percent refused to believe that one day I would be non-nurturing, sleep-loving, barely-self-suffient Brittney and the next day, I’d be Mom. I expected that being a mother to a newborn would require a Mama Fierce of some kind, but Everyone was right. "Parenthood changes you," and I didn’t need an alter ego for this.

britt

Baby Blessings

My parents and grandparents came out for Jack's baby blessing. The blessing was tender and beautiful, and afterward we taught Jack that in our family, it is acceptable to eat an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting.

britt

Family Pictures at Foothills Park

Last night, an old friend asked if my life is "as magical as documented." And, I don't know, I don't want to be the tool who humblebrags her life, but when I told Chris about the conversation he said, "Did you respond, 'It's even better'?" That's why I love him.

We did a family photo session with Cassie Green a month ago, and the results are indeed magical captures of real moments and real emotions. Someday we'll have family pictures that make our life look better than it really is, but I look at these and see exactly how our life feels right now: golden, filled with light, and soft around the edges. 

britt

Jack's Birthday

 

A few years ago I started working with people under conservatorship. These are usually elderly people who can no longer care for themselves, and so the court appoints a conservator who ensures that their needs are met. Every two years their conservatorship comes under review, and it was my job to read the notes of a court investigator and provide a recommendation for the judge on whether their conservatorship should continue.

I reviewed hundreds of these cases, but a handful of conservatees were especially memorable. In particular I remember a woman close to ninety years old who was alert and communicative, but she had forgotten almost everything about her life and the world around her. I was totally shocked when the court investigator asked if the conservatee was married (she was), and she responded, “I don’t know. Maybe. I think I might be.” She had forgotten who her husband was, if she had children, what her career had been, where she lived. Everything was gone. She knew her name, but the only details she remembered about her life were her birthday and the name of the small French village where she was born.

Do you ever worry that your birthday isn’t on the “right day”? No, you don’t, because only a crazy person would do that. But I thought about our baby’s birthday almost every day for the past year, even before I was pregnant, because I wanted our baby’s birthday to be on a good day, the right day. I don’t even know what the “right day” means, but I wanted it still. I didn’t care if he came early or late or smack on his due date, but someday ninety years from now, that day may be the only thing he knows about himself. He might not remember who we are, or how much we love him; but he may remember his name, his birthday, and where he was born – and last week, that was something we gave him.

britt

"You look beautiful"

I have not been great at taking weekly progress pictures, but this is a 32 week picture from my instagram 

My whole life I thought pregnant ladies looked freaky. Almost without exception, I believed every one of them was a puffy, star-bellied-sneech-shaped alien. Obviously they were not the problem – they were goddesses, glowing with miraculous, life-giving glory – but my own fears surrounding pregnancy and labor fueled this belief for roughly 25 years. Then my friend Lexy got pregnant and wrote about teaching her students to say, “You look beautiful,” to those obviously carrying a child. That’s it. Not, “Awww, you look so tired!” or “Wow, you look so big!” or anything except “You look so beautiful.” 

Reading her post was like receiving a Get Out of Jail Free card because, to me, talking to pregnant ladies actually felt like a super awkward jail. My previous conversation strategy was simple: completely avoid talking to all pregnant ladies, at all cost, no matter what. I was sure that any other solution would require an intricate flow chart based on some complicated equation from a calculus/birthing class that I never wanted to take. But now I knew the trick, and it was even simpler than my existing strategy. So for over a year, every time one of my friends got pregnant, whenever I saw her, I told her she was beautiful.

Then, somewhere along the way, I started believing it. I stopped being terrified of pregnant ladies, and I started genuinely seeing beauty in pregnancy. I think the most astounding part of this paradigm shift is how it happened A) so naturally and B) completely by accident. Anyway, I am most grateful that it happened before I got pregnant myself; otherwise this post would be written about my progress in intensive therapy.

britt