Our Life is a Story...

Geoff's sister Emily recently sent this personal experience to us. It is just too good not to share...

I just finished reading a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that talks about our life being a story. Some people live a bad story, most live an average story and some live a really memorable story. The reason most live an average story is because we naturally seek comfort and safety and security, which often leads to going through the motions but not really living. Those who chose to live a memorable story aren't afraid of a little risk; going outside of their comfort zone to do, feel, or see something memorable. There is a lot more to his premise, but that's the gist of it.

So I started thinking about my life and what kind of a story I'm living. I think I'm living a pretty good story; I've let myself feel and live and love and the good and bad that have come from that. But I do often retreat toward the comfortable instead of venturing in to the unknown because it's comfortable and I'm a bit of a control freak.

I finished the book on Wednesday night and decided Bailey (her six-year-old daughter) and I needed a little adventure that took us out of our comfort zone. So we decided to take TRAX (commuter train) into downtown SLC, meet Nikki (another of Geoff's sisters) and go have a picnic lunch at the Gallivan center where they have outdoor concerts everyday at noon. Bailey and I decided we would dress up like tour guides, riding the train into Paris. I put a silk scarf around my neck and after deciding her fairy outfit and purple wings were too itchy (and not French tour guidey, but I wasn't saying anything...) she decided on a scarf in her hair and we set off. My french is pretty rusty and Bailey's is limited to bonjour and merci, so instead of only speaking in French, we decided to pass out lollipops to everyone we met.

Once we got going, we walked the length of the train and started passing out lollipops. It was amazing. People went from distant and down, to smiling and aware. Some gave us a confused look and said no, but most people smiled and said yes. Then they started chatting with us and each other and we looked back and the whole train was full of people eating lollipops. Bailey realized how much fun it was, and as soon as a new person got on the train, she would walk down and give them a sucker. We passed them out all the way to downtown. When we got off the train and were waiting at the light to cross the street and go meet Nikki, Bailey handed one to a business man waiting next to us. He turned to her and said, "I don't take candy from strangers". She just stared at him. Then he smiled, said, "just kidding", and took the sucker. So she gave one to his friend too. She passed them out all the way to Nikki's office and to everyone in the lobby.

Nikki came down, we chatted with Chad and Jared (fellow lawyers), Bailey gave them suckers too, went and got lunch, and headed to the Gallivan center. We were disappointed to find, after walking three long blocks, that there wasn't any music that day, just a band on stage doing a sound check. So we hung out, ate, chatted about this book and making life more of a memorable story, and then got ready to leave. We made a potty stop, and when we walked out of the bathroom, we noticed we were right off the stage and the door was open. Bailey said she wanted to give a sucker to the band rehearsing on stage, so we walked on and started passing them out. They loved it. Bailey gave one to the drummer and in exchange, he gave her a set of his drumsticks then asked her if she wanted to play the drums a little! The band manager took a picture and was getting Nikki's email address to send it to her while Bailey and I finished passing out suckers to everyone else on stage. The manager told Nikki, "she just got drum sticks from BB King's drummer!" They were warming up for a big concert that night; I had forgotten that BB King was in town and we had no clue it was his band when we went on stage!

We had passed the Church Administration Building earlier in the day and I was telling Bailey that it is where President Monson and the Apostles work. As we were walking back to Nikki's office, Bailey asked if we could give President Monson a sucker. We stopped in to Nikki's office to get some band-aids (I was getting a blister from all this walking around...) and President Monson's son Tom walked into Nikki's office! Bailey gave him a sucker, we explained her desire to give one to his dad, he said security wouldn't let us up there but that he was going up there tomorrow for Pres. Monson's birthday party, and he would take one to him, so Bailey gave him her very last sucker, to give to his dad. I asked him to tell the prophet that a little girl from Riverton says Happy Birthday. He said he would.

After a quick stop at the Planetarium, we rode home on the train, giggling about what a fun day we had.

And of course, upon hearing our story during dinner, Mike's first comment was, "let's see how much we can hock those drumsticks for on ebay".....