My World.

  

   My world consists of an older sister who has freckles like I do, a father has the same sarcastic sense of humor as me, and a mother who makes musicals out of bad days. They are my everything.

    My world finds sanity, finds gravity, in music. It is a medley of songs written in blue notebooks, of jam sessions in my car with a dent in the back, (thanks big sis), and of an insatiable thirst to have my music one day be blaring from someone else’s speakers. It’s first and most loyal friend is an upright piano from Syracuse, New York that a 5 year old girl fell in love with and to this day, shares secret smiles with.

    My world leaves me hungry for family. Appreciative of the sacrifice that has granted me all I have, but lonely; parents who work too late, too hard, and too long, a relentless desire to rise above, far above, mediocrity so that they can one day put their blue collars away for good. And live, really live, like they’ve made possible for me. My world is motivated by this duty.

    My world rotates on an axel of adventure, of spontaneous trips to Montana and four wheeling adventures, of California beach bonfires in the summer, and of a two month trip to Fiji. It has given birth to a craving to explore the wide world beyond my own and to soak up its beauty.

    My world feels most complete when I am at the dance studio, which has become both an escape and  a second home.

    My world is driven by memories. It remembers the hurt of losing a grandma, a hero, and three peers, and it has witnessed the appreciation of life I have gained. It has made me want to give the world a life that will be worth watching come the day it flashes before my eyes.

    My world has made me grateful, humble, and strong. From walking upon its landscapes of lessons, I take away dreams to engrave in the world inspiration that is in fact derived from it. I hold in my heart aspirations to become successful so that I may, above all, make the people who have given up everything for me proud. My world has shaped my dreams; yes, this much is true, and I reach for the sky even while my feet are still attached to the ground.

   Luckily, I’m not afraid of heights.

Here's to Music.

    We've all felt it. 

That moment when you're driving in your car and the music is up all the way... the beat of the bass so strong it feels as if its your own heartbeat. In that moment when the sound fills the air around you, it seems to seep into your pores and absorb into your very soul. That rush is one of my favorite feelings in the entire world. In that short moment, its as if time is suspended and all of my bottled up emotions are set free... and as I'm filled to the brim with an emotion I can't really describe, I feel as if I'm on top of the world. As if anything is possible.
     Music, I am hopelessly addicted to you. My entire day today revolved around you, and if I think about it, most of my life has too. Since the time I could climb onto a piano bench, I've been absolutely fascinated by you, by that feeling you give me. When my self taught prodigy of an uncle would move his fingers over the black and white keys in a cataclysm of sounds, I would sit next to him with hands that could not even write yet and wish so badly that I could set my soul free through music like he could. When my grandma gave us an old upright that my parents put downstairs,  I approached it with determination. Little did I know that some of my uncle's talent had been passed down to me, and I remember sitting for hours and teaching myself how to read music and how to play. I was 5 years old, stubborn, and wanted more than anything to be like Mozart. Well, I definitely didn't develop anywhere near his talent, but I was able to play his music shortly after. For some reason I've always been able to hear something and then just play it. Just feel it and do it, just like that. When I got lessons then came Beethoven, Debussy, Aerosmith even as well, and soon my teacher told me I was playing at a college level in 8th grade. 

    And that was all great to hear, but my favorite was just sitting down at the piano, all alone, and writing. I had an old cassette tape recorder that I would record all of my songs on.. it to this day has hours and hours of child Lauren simply playing whatever chords and melodies felt good at the time. Piano was my first love, and the only thing in life that's ever come natural to me. No matter what had happened at school that day, no matter if girls were mean to me or I didn't get the grade I wanted, no matter if I didn't get the part I wanted at dance... piano was my escape and I always felt happy there. It was the one place I could go and know that I was understood here, good enough here, safe here. It has always been the one place my thoughts would disappear and where I didn't have to try.
   I loved playing in the dark and my mom would always find me downstairs, tell me I was going to get horrible vision and turn the lights on. I always played it off like I was just too lazy to walk over and turn on the switch, but in all honesty, there was something magical about trusting my fingertips to recognize the keys for me, something about hearing and feeling the music without the sense of sight. Sometimes I'd even play entire tarantellas with my eyes completely closed. I'd get lost in that for hours. 
    I began to crave that  feeling of absolute freedom and began dancing. The studio became my second favorite place in the world... it'd always have the music up loud and there I got to defy gravity and push myself to the point of exhaustion and in those moments I'd feel that same rush. We'd all feel it. It was there as we waited backstage with the lights down, nervousness buzzing in the air. It connected us together when we danced.. it was a kind of magical feeling that would come about as we were moving together, spinning and leaping and expressing in sync, a kind of peaceful hush that would come over everything... and then disappear as quickly as it came about when the song ended. It was bliss.
     Today I got the chance to feel that rush again, on the same piano that I first sat down at. And I know that this entire post is a bit of a rant, but it felt so good, so natural to have everything pouring out as that indescribable feeling coursed through my veins again that I simply had to write about it and remember that moment, because I feel as if college has started it has been so rare for me to get to go back to that place. It's the one place where I feel more like myself than anywhere else, and I've missed it terribly. I ache for it everyday I'm without it. 
   So for everyone reading this, I encourage you to take some time to indulge yourself in that one thing that makes you feel invincible. Whatever it is that has that power to soothe your mind, take you home regardless of where you are, and inspire you simultaneously, never give it up, no matter what it is. Hold on to that rush - it's one of the things that makes life worth living for. You were given that love, that talent for a reason.

Music, I owe you a big thank you. 

Yours truly,

Lauren

Dream Audaciously.

The other day I had a thought.
 If you were to look down at the world, before your life had even began, and were talking to your fellow not yet existent friends, what would you imagine for your life? Would you say, "Man, if I were alive, I would go to school, be average, go to college, graduate, get a good job, be middle class and have some fun along the way."? Chances are... no. Most of us, if given the chance to have this detached perspective of our own circumstances would perceive them in the daydream kinda talk we usually do when saying what we would do if we were to win the lottery, make it big, or any of the many thoughts we've entertained ourselves with over the years. I, for one, wouldn't sit up there and wish to be mediocre. I would look down at our world and think one thing: I want to rock that place. I want to live so passionately, so fearlessly, so out of the lines that society will draw for me, that an adjective would have to be created to describe the kind of life I lived when my time is up. I would want to be remembered, not for something self glorifying, but for creating such inspiration, such impact... for having ridiculously big dreams.. and then fulfilling them.
That is what I would say.

 Then, I had another thought... why am I NOT pursuing this path wholeheartedly? It may be crazy, but who is to say I, who is to say WE, can not all accomplish this?
At 19 years old, and a freshmen in college, life right now is probably more confusing that it has ever been. With the grind of tests, lack of sleep, and constant planning of my future, the most logical thing for me to do is to fulfill the requirements set up for me, do what it takes to get my law degree in human rights, and THEN start helping the world. Yet another good life, but in a lot of senses, a safe life... a medicore life. Ahh, mediocrity. My worst fear and the enemy of greatness. 

 I am Lauren Miller. I am crazy, I am ambitious, and I would like to stop waiting, stop planning, and start changing the world... NOW. This whole cookie-cutter plan for my life that is being shoved on me is rather a bore, and I would like to do something extraordinary. So I will do just that. It may involve some dangerous world adventures, extra hard work, and a little luck, but I dream of going after what I've been told it is unreasonable to dream of. Starting today, I am doing just that. If we all did this, man, what a different place the world would be.


As I hear that little voice who gave me a wake up call, I realize that I was put here with potential, for a reason. We all were. And it's time to reach with determination and reach high. Higher then a lot of people may expect me to ever go. Well, to those people: watch me. Yes, I dream to the stars and beyond even as my feet are attached to the ground. Luckily, I'm willing to learn how to fly.

Borders - a poem.

Small lines on a map, is that what it comes down to?
Borders making "order" of the world that surrounds you
Taking sides, building pride, getting rich, taking lives...
Not the kind of order on which higher purpose survives
But the truth is that the borders really start in our minds
It's all a head game, made of numbers and divides
Sometimes all I wish is for the world to hit pause-
11:11 rolls around, I frame my hopes in a clause...
Let love foster selflessness, and from there understanding,
Then comes peace-
Why are we so demanding?
Millions of kids today, dying of AIDs
But we say we can't do much, they cost too much to save...
Says the CEO driving home in his Escalade.
Huh.
Something's wrong with that logic.
Pretending we don't have a cure when we've started to solve it
Holding out 'till we can find a way to make a bigger profit
Equating human lives to a bill in my pocket
I can't buy something new from helping you, so your life? I'll rob it.
Humanity.
We share this.
Brotherhood?
We don't.
It's messed up that's the difference between "will" and "won't".
What would happen if we re-wrote history, took out war, put in compassion
If we create a different past, would we have different action?
Would the ones who follow us eradicate hate?
Or argue that this learned emotion is part of our fate...
Excuses-
Yeah, well, I'm sick of them all.
See,  all they ever do is build us up to our fall.
Maybe to you this is all just a set of rhymes.
Idealism and naivety, all arranged into lines.
But I refuse to resign-
 I believe we can win.
Believing in the confines of our sin... this locks us in.
My lines aren't like those of the borders we create,
Realism isn't truth; hope isn't fake.
It's all what we make of it- whose sake we fight for
This life is more than money, more than pride, more than war
Forget greed, forget me, forget you, remember humanity...
Cause if our decisions now are sane, then I don't believe in sanity.

Dedicated to: Uncle Tony. I never met you because AIDS took you away before I could, but you'll always be loved.

Inspired by: Jeffrey Sach's article in the Economist, which shed light on the fact that rich countries(such as ours) could find vaccines for AIDs,malaria, and other devastating diaseases claiming millions upon millions of lives in underdeveloped countries... yet we have not. Why? Because the countries that need it lack the ability to pay us a price for them which we could profit from. I find this horrifying. How is this at all ethical? To withhold technology and let millions of fathers, husbands, sisters, mothers, and children die or be orphaned because they are unable to pay the steep prices proposed.. it's not ok.

Calling for: Change. 

Remembering one who shaped me...

  Those moments - the ones that feel like thunder in our souls, they come at the most unexpected of times.We can never prepare for them or foresee the tremendous impact they will have, and to be honest, even if we could, it would do no good anyway.

     Six years ago tomorrow, February 23rd, I had such a moment. When I found  out, images flashed through my mind of the last summer I had spent with her in Montana, and we woke up in the middle of the night to watch the meteor shower. The crickets were humming, the summer breeze was warm, you could just hear the calming trinkling of water down below in the creek, and the sky was illuminated with millions of stars... the most beautiful it has ever looked. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully explain that moment, but something passed between me and my grandmother that night. As together we held close and witnessed one of the most beautiful things God has ever created, making wishes on every shooting star, it was as if we felt this presence and as if we became inextricably connected in that moment. To this day, that summer night in Montana stands as one of the most moving, soul shaking nights of my life.
      I am writing this today because I want to remember the life of a woman, Joan Marie, my grandmother. Most people don't get to experience this kind of bond with their grandparents, and I am so lucky that growing up I was able to consider her my hero. She was beautiful, still so young, and had endured so much tragedy and grief, she had beaten cancer three times, she had lost so many loved ones... yet she still faced life with so much joy. Growing up , we had the best times with her. I remember calling her in 4th grade for advice, writing letters back and forth because I wanted to be closer to her, and how amazing she was through all of it. We were so close. I miss that so much.
     There have been so many moments in my life where I would have given anything for her to be there. When we were younger I have a vague memory of her saying that she didn't think she'd make it to our high school graduations, and in the moment when the lights were on me as I stood at the podium delivering my commencement speech to my senior class, you  and that very moment were on my mind. When I stood in the White House and President Obama smiled at me, and told me he believed in me... when I got on the bus afterwards and cried, it was because I wished so badly that I could tell you. Make you proud. Show you that all of my hard work to get me there was for my family, for my love of them, for you. The times of drama in high school, the times of questioning in college, every time I wished that I could dial that phone number I had memorized by heart and hear your cackling laugh and know it'd all be ok. My heart was crushed, broken, empty. I was so, so sad when you left this world and cried myself to sleep for months and months and months. Even sometimes now it still hits me. However, one of the last thing you said was you wanted us all to remember the good times, the good things, so here goes Grandma:
     I'll always remember squeezing me, you, and taylor into your green chair and until we couldn't fit anymore and you reading us story after story. I'll always remember how much you loved ice cream... surely I got that from you. I'll always remember how beautiful your house was, how beautiful Montana was with the mountains and pastures and rivers and even just the smell of the air. I'll remember every single, wonderful summer I got to spend watching sunsets with you there. I'll remember how you made the BEST non-alcoholic margarita drinks for us. I'll remember how incredibly beautiful you were. I'll remember all the funny stories you'd tell us about our mom after we'd crawl into your bed and attack you in the morning until you'd wake up. We'd always say you were playing possum. I'll remember camping in eastern washington and sitting around eating mac and cheese and just being happy.I'll always remember how many times you watched Pippi Longstocking with me haha, and the shape of your hand as it held mine riding on the quad through the fields. I'll remember deer runs. I'll remember how the light would play off the crystals hanging in the kitchen and you'd say it was magic, and that one night there was a huge thunderstorm and you loved telling the story of me and taylor appearing in the lightning flash and scaring you and Grandpa. I wish I could remember more clearly what it felt like to sleep next to you afterwards.I'll always remember how you smelled: Chanel No. 5. I'll remember how you'd always spray a little extra when it was time to go see your physical trainer who you thought was cute haha. I'll always remember your sandals, how you loved to watch the hummingbirds, that you were the biggest football fan, how we'd go down to the creek together and collect heart shaped rocks and that above all, you loved everyone of us more than anything.
   And I'll always remember the night we watched the stars together, just as you did the day you died. The doctors said you shouldn't have been able to even speak... you were paralyzed on the left side and on enough morphine to kill a horse. That's what they said. Scientifically,you shouldn't have been alive. Yet somehow, after praying and praying and praying for you to get one last chance to say goodbye before you left, you sat straight up and opened those brown eyes. You grabbed Grandpa's hand, his right hand, with your left, the side of the body that was paralyzed for days. You got to say everything you wanted, you sent your love to everyone, and you said you'd always remember watching the stars with me that night. You said you saw Him, and it was time to go, and you went. The candle went out in the room when you left. And the most beautiful sunset painted the sky, as if the very earth was sending you off with its best farewell. God was there in your last moments, just as He was in our last moments together.
       I'll always love my grandma and luckily I know that love conquers death. However, for the moment, for all of those who may be reading this... will you do something for me? Can we all take a few seconds out of our day to do this?
    For all of us who have ever lost someone, no matter who... will you let the people you love know tonight? Enjoy the feeling of their arms around you, soak up their smell, their love, their soul. Be kind, be patient, forgive, and be grateful that they are able to experience life with you. Love them here and now for those of us who have to live off memories. Remember to never take them for granted and to put them above you. Life is short, so make sure to get in a few of those irreplaceable moments ok?
    Because I promise you this... that moment me and my grandma shared will always mean something. One day, we'll be together again, and we'll still remember the stars that night. Except this time, we'll have a much better view.


Rest in peace, Joan Marie Baker.

Love always,
"Short Stuff"

FEAR

"Fear is such a weak emotion- that's why I despise it,

We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you

Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to

I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you

Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few

My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through..."

-Lupe Fiasco

      Isn't it funny how a single line from a song can set off an entire chain of thought and epiphany? Fear. It's something we all experience day in and day out. It may not be experienced in the form of life threatening circumstances. However, cannot the small instances where we let fear hold us back become equally smothering to our lives? To care what other people think too much, to underestimate your own ability in order to talk yourself out of taking a risk, to have a dream and watch it pass by because the courage to go after it leaves no guarantee of gaining anything but the promise that if you fail you could lose everything... in everyone's life fear has in some way dictated a decision. Maybe an extremely important one or a small one, but either way, we hide our fear behind masks because we fear even showing fear. We hate it... as we should, right? Throughout my 18 years of life, I've come upon more insincerity,insecurity, and regret  as a result of this emotion that any other.  

      But what if people stopping fearing fear itself? What if we realized that life is bigger than this crippling feeling, that God is bigger than this, that ultimately, it isn't fear holding us back... it's us. We are the ones who fail to believe in us or in something better than us overcoming it. We give the reigns over to fear at times and in those moments we become trapped.
    I for one, am done with letting this happening. Although I come off as confident, outgoing and assured, I too face at times face the tangling grip of fear. That's a large part of the reason why I'm even writing this blog - I find that when it comes to certain things, I am incredibly outspoken but when it comes to ME... I am hesitant to express or say or share what I really think, feel, or want. However, I refuse to hold up just another mask. 
Vulnerability is the hardest thing for humans to give themselves over to, yet is so liberating... so I'm letting go. 
   I for one will no longer let being different weigh me down. Living as a Christian in the largest Greek system in the West Coast is such a challenge. Not because it tempts me, but because I am constantly treated differently and sometimes feel so alone. Especially because I have been dating the same boy for 3 years. And am in love. Pure, honest love. Have you ever felt isolated before? Try that combination out on Greek Row. The other day in chapter I was recognized by some good luck I've had on my college midterms and in front of everyone brought up for the high scores I've received. Yet instead of being proud, I found myself putting my head down.
   Why? Fear. I already feel so different... why would I want to stand out any more? Well, I sincerely am done thinking that way. I'm sorry if my morals convict you. I'm sorry if I'm a prude because I choose to build relationships off of genuine experiences rather than the buzz of a substance. I'm sorry if my ambition comes off as intimidating or challenges you to live up to your own potential. But most of all, I'm sorry that I've been afraid of showing the fullness of my identity because of how others may perceive me. 
   Well world, you can pin a scarlet letter on me. Because fear has lost its hold on me.  Here's to  being fearless, of daring ourselves to do what we feel we can't and proving we can do what others think we can't... here's to erasing limits and accepting apprehension.. but fighting back with courage, genuine heart, and bold belief in yourself.
   Take that, fear.