Identification, Please

Cami and Tasha dropped me off at the airport on Friday morning reaaa--aaaally early. I rather worriedly handed them the keys to Bertha ("Road trip! road trip!" Tasha was singing under her breath as she offered a guileless smile and "Have fun!") and made my way into the deserted airport.

Seriously, I was pretty much THE ONLY PERSON THERE. I weaved my way through the security tape feeling pretty stupid because there was NO ONE in line. I considered the technique Shrek employed when walking up to Prince Farquad's castle (through the tape, instead of around)--but the security guard was already giving me the evil eye.

I offered him my best smile and toss of the blond curls as I handed him my ticket and driver's license. He was not amused.

"Is your name Diondra or Dia?"
"Ohhh, Dia is my nickname!" I giggled back.

"Well, your ticket here says Dia Darcey on it, so you're going to have to produce some ID that HAS that name on it, or I can't let you on the flight."
"Uh....huh?" I tried the hair toss again.
He was stone. "Not gonna cut it, honey."

Dang, I gotta think fast! None of my IDs have DIA on them; it's practically a made up name!! However, Mrs. Sabey, the generous purchaser of my ticket, had unknowingly put my pseudonym down in my flight information, so now I was stuck.

"Well, handsome, let me see what I have here," I said with a slow wink as I opened my purse and stared into it in a blind panic.

My mind was working furiously and, as it tends to do in emergency situations, completely nonsensically: Maybe I could hit him over the head with the purse and make a break for it! No, a better plan would be to loudly require my legal counsel. Or try to convince him I don't speak English--Ooo, wait, that I'm a long lost LOVER who doesn't speak English! OK, um, fake a heart attack! Warn of an impending stampede!

Just when I was on the brink of a breakthrough ("I know! Confuse him with a tap dance routine!") my eye fell upon salvation: my BYU ID!! Goodness knows why I decided to bring it to Colorado or why I put my name on it as DIA in the first place, but praise be! There it was, and I pulled it out with a screech of pure victory, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

The security guard dropped his keys.

"Ooops, sorry," I practically yelled, still exulting, "but I FOUND ONE!" I slapped it on his security stand with all the triumph I could muster.

He looked it over carefully.
And his steely eyes shifted back up to mine.

"I need another one."

My jaw hit the floor; no, no. Surely not. ANOTHER ONE?!

I tried one last act of diplomacy and laughed gently, "Wait, seriously. You need another ID BESIDES this one-- this one, which says my name on it AND has a matching picture?" I formed a contented smile onto my face and attempted to breath normally.

"...Yup, if the names are different, I have to confirm with two IDs, not just one."

That's it. I was DONE with the "pretty, naive, possibly-Scandinavian traveling girl" charade.

This was war.

We faced each other, still the only two souls in the whole airport atrium.
A tumbleweed blew past and I swear I could hear a faint echo of the theme from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" from some forgotten airport speaker.
I stared into his dark, emotionless eyes and felt for the comforting, cold metal of my wallet (my wallet really is metal, you guys).

His eyebrow twitched.

I drew, faster than the eye can follow, and twitched my wallet open with a thumb. I scanned the names on my cards as they flew by like the jet plane I should've been on: Oklahoma Central Credit Union: Diondra Elizabeth Darcey--Healthcare: Diondra E Darcey--Insurance: Darcey, Diondra--Random Walmart giftcard--Summit County Library: scrawled signature--Red Cross: Diondra E Darcey------wait.
Miss Dia Darcey.

I read it, then read it again, "Miss Dia Darcey... MISS DIA DARCEY?!?!"

VICTORY! I threw the card--the blessed card which had saved me many times before in moments of transportation terror--onto the vanquished security guard's crumpled form and pumped my arms in the air with a howl of animal abandon:

"THANK YOU, TRIPLE A!"

I did have one parting word for my defeated foe, which I offered as I picked up my duffel bag and tossed my hair back over my shoulders, "In this world, there are two types of people, my friend..." I continued Clint's timeless quote as I stepped forward onto the security platform and tossed my bags into the X-ray machine:

"Those with loaded guns, and those who dig."

Unfortunately, THOSE security people took me seriously ("GUN? WHERE?! CODE RED!!!")...



.

Bike Trails

Do you ever feel like life is maybe a little too cushy?

You've been slouching around in your pajamas all day... snacking on leftover cheese sticks and the remains at the bottom of potato chip bags... the basement is so dark, you think you're losing your eyesight... you can't find your left slipper... you've watched three hours of homestarrunner.com straight... your milk's gone bad...

What to do?!

BIKE TO THE GROCERY STORE! Duh.

I was feeling a little disgusted at my inactivity last Saturday. The weather was just perfect--cool, humid, windy and beautiful, and I stared out the window in self-disgusted disgust at myself (?).

"Jennnn!!" I whined, "What am I going to DO tonight? I feel so boring!"
"I don't know," Jenn replied patiently.

Ah hah! I had just brought my bike, Henry, down to Provo. PERFECT!

I decided to bike to Buy Low and purchase cheap and healthy produce--despite my lack of bike clothes, a map, previous biking-in-traffic experience, or even a helmet.
Whatever! It would be a great wake-me-up! I put on my shorts, grabbed my wallet, and ran outside... where it was now sprinkling.

No matter! I just grabbed my highlighter-yellow hoodie ("This will keep me safe from cars!" I hollered to Jenn, who tried to care) and headed back out!

"Bye, Jenn, I'm going to go have an adventure!"
"Ok, Dia..."

My bike seat was already wet, and the pedals were a little slippery. My running-on-stupidity brain didn't care--this will be fun! The rain started really, well, raining after about a block. I threw my hood on and kept on a-riding, as the internal dialogue (well... "internal" as in, I was talking to Henry) began in earnest.

"Ummm...
This way?
...
Sure! I'm pretty sure it's in this general direction; I'm sure I can get there just fine."

"Hey, Henry? Do you think the rain is getting harder?"

"And colder?"

I was passing the duck pond and the rain was now, at least by Utahn standards, "pouring."

It's an interesting feeling, really, the sting of rain droplets on your hands and face as your feet keep slipping off the pedals and your brakes start squeeling on wet tires.

"This is kind of fun!"

I'd made it about six blocks when my brain finally kicked in.

DIA. THIS IS STUPID.
"Henry, did you hear that?"

Unfortunately it took four more blocks before I started to listen.

DIA. THIS IS STUPID. GO HOME.

"....
Uhhh, Henry? I know you're excited and everything, but, I'm thinking we should maybe turn around. I don't have a helmet on. Annnddd... I don't know where we're going. Or... where we are. And it's really cold. And wet."

Henry complained, but we turned around and made it back to the house in record time. I drove the car to Buy Low like a sane person, and got back into the now-deserved sweats when I finally got home.

"Sometimes you just gotta live a little, Jenn," I reminded her, sipping hot cocoa and searching for my left slipper.

"Sure, Dia."

Hometown

“And where did you say you’re from, again?” Ugh, the dreaded question. As I learned in a high school psychology course, stereotypes actually facilitate faster learning because they provide a basic structure upon which new thoughts and ideas can be constructed— but I don’t care.

I just don’t want to hear it again. “Um… Oklahoma,” I say quietly. Hopefully. Pleadingly, but it’s no use; the consequence of such a sentence is undeniable, unstoppable, unending.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Klahoma, where the wheat… comes… wind? …um. Do you know that song?! I love that song! And you’re from Okla—”

Seriously. I just want to put my hands on both sides of their head and scream, “Actually, I had to sing that song exactly two-hundred-and-fifty-nine times in the third grade by law. By LAW!" or I would say, "As a matter of fact, I know all the words and verses—even the ones you thought were part of American the Beautiful—so well that they occasionally enter into my dreams!" or I would retort, "ACTUALLY, do you even know WHERE Oklahoma IS?!” but instead I just smile kindly, laugh gently and ask, “Did you think of that all by yourself?”

Tulsa is a large city in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma. It’s quirky, beautiful, and so much more than an over sung Rogers n’ Hammerstein tune or even a Don Williams crooner. My hometown is unique—it breathes, it grows and it hangs behind my eyelids, always waiting for a visit.

My family’s original roots are in Salt Lake City. I was only eight when we were violently replanted to the foreign land of Oklahoma, and I have never felt more out of place. Nothing in our arid, mountainous homeland could compare with the sheer volume of green that overpowered us as we stepped out of the packed pickup truck at our new home on a sultry August day. It was the amount of green—the grass was chartreuse, the trees verdant, the ferns and vines and elephant ears (the what?!) vividly emerald and jade and olive.

It was also the amount of VOLUME. The entire landscape buzzed with the sounds of a thousand wings, a million mouths, a billion busy legs crawling over luscious leaves. The green canopy filtered the squabbling and chirping sounds of huge, fluffy squirrels. Even the huge, waving ferns and brilliant redolent flowers seemed to be rejoicing noisily in the chaotic din. The whole scene was punctuated by the dependable pulse of the cicada (whatever that was).

The next thing that hit us, I’m sure, was the heat. The term “wave” received new meaning as we drowned in the high tide of humidity. We gulped for breath, the saturated air trying to enter our desiccated lungs like a sumo wrestler trying to get through the turnstile for Splash Mountain.

Our bodies somehow did not protest the change; rather, skin exulted in the wonderfully wet and unbearably boiling climate and began to relax, unwind and decompose, back to its natural state. The skin’s natural state is a large pool of sweat.

Though the first impression on these delicate desert blooms was drippy, my family surmounted the challenge. Instead of wilting, we flourished. We put down new roots and feelers and shoots; we learned all we could in order to survive, even enjoy, our new surroundings. We observed the behavioral patterns of the fox in our front yard and learned how to sneak up on the red hawk in the big hackberry.

Life filled our pool on steamy summer nights, and we learned how to pinpoint a tiny peeping frog in the dark by the sound of his pipes. We also learned to never reach into the pool skimmer without checking it first (snakes like chlorine), and shaking out shoes and boots (use your imagination). We learned how to distinguish a deadly brown recluse from a harmless wolf spider (the recluse is the one that lives in your BED) and the basic guidelines for approaching a stranded turtle (if it’s smaller than you and doesn’t bite the scout, your younger brother, you’re golden. Go ahead and throw it in the trunk). Curiosity and courage overcame the family’s original worries and we soon dove right in and tried things that make other families shudder: raising a scorpion, ducks, a couple red-eared sliders, two or three blue-tailed skinks and four beautiful tarantulas.

On one heavy twilight when even the stars were enveloped in the sticky, smothering blanket of heat, another alien aspect of Oklahoma came pouring into our lives. Oh, that first rainstorm! Warm drops of jubilant life released the landscape from its agonizing heat, bathed the blistering driveways and houses and baptized the horizon anew. We were sent out in our swimsuits, appreciative Martians ogling and splashing in the everyday miracle that the natives didn't seem to notice.

In the winter, rain came in a frozen and much less gentle form. Even before the television’s pronouncement of “school’s out,” the gunshot sounds of collapsing trees in the yard announced the ice storm and rendered sleep impossible. Similar to our familiar snowfall, ice fell in a sheet. It covered the lawn and streets and cars and maybe even the cat if you left her out last night, but a closer look revealed that this too was a completely new experience. Every tree limb, every leaf, every delicate tendril of life was encapsulated, caught in time, captured inside a perfect layer of shimmering ice.

The most infamous and ominous feature of Tulsa crept in occasionally on Tuesday afternoons and Sunday nights—odd and anxious spring days when the rain had a dangerous roar and the clouds looked a little funny. The family huddled inside around a tiny television as the merciless hail started tormenting the roof. Natives told us you didn’t really have to worry until the sky turned green and since that occurrence was surely too foreign to even comprehend, our fears were assuaged. But we were wrong—I can tell you. It does turn green.

Tornadoes haunted my nightmares for weeks that first winter. Too many classmates had shared the stories of destruction, and someone (why???) somewhere had let me watch Twister. My fears were realized that first spring night when the rain began. The rest of the family geared up halfheartedly—shoes in the bathroom, mirror off the wall, emergency radio and flashlight charged and wound: the bare essentials. I moved stuffed animals, studied emergency plans and searched for the outside pets with feverish intensity that resulted from absolute fear. When the hail finally stopped that night and an eerie silence began echoing over the lawn, up the driveway and into the house—the truly dangerous sign of a twister—I’m sure I was beyond anxiety. My mother noticed my anguish as we all piled into the bathroom “just in case,” and she pulled the kids close and grinned.

“No matter what happens to the house or car or our things,” she told us, “We’ll be just fine. We’re together. Now let’s count how many times Dad asks if he can go outside and get some pictures.”

By the next spring, we had shed our frightened outsider tendencies and the bathroom sanctuary. When the weather report sounded doomsday this time, we all rushed outside with the real natives to watch. Now, hail in April is a miracle, not an indicator of destruction, and tornadoes are an adventure.

Outside on the front porch, sweltering and freezing air intermitently rush around us as we revel in the beauty and power of God’s hand at work in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I beleeve...

This I Beleeve…. I Mean, Believe

I believe in imperfection. I believe in bad hair days, missed appointments, botched opportunities and forgotten deadlines. Without fail (or rather, with fail) every effort I make will, in some way, be ruined, lacking, flawed and defective. My best will never be good enough, and my abilities have limits that will cause eventual heartache and disappointment.

And you know what? It’s OK.

As a precocious child attending private school, I was the “model everything”. I wore the biggest bow and an immaculate uniform, and my penmanship was the envy of the world. Of course the teachers adored me: “Watch how Diondra finishes her homework so quietly,” “Look how Diondra colors inside the lines!” Until one day…

One day, Teacher was absent. The bored substitute passed out a mindless worksheet and pandemonium (literally) rained. Kids ran up and down the room, over chairs and tables, and performed Crayola “firework displays.” I cowered at my desk, wanting only to follow instructions and flawlessly (as usual) complete the dot-to-dot. However, Thomas Annoying-Boy had snatched my entire pencil box to augment the colorful stationary explosions above our heads, and I was tool-less! Alarm bells crashed in my head. I could not finish the assignment, I could not please the teacher—I could not be perfect.

The panic welled up like a bubble in my chest and my pulse quickened. When the anxiety became unendurable, I ran to the front of the classroom to exercise my only option--the one tried-and-true, surefire way to get out of a classroom ASAP.

“Mrs. Teacher!” I all but screamed in my terror, “I am going to THROW UP.”

Of course, the immediately-attentive substitute whisked me from the chaotic classroom to the sanctuary of the nurse’s office and shortly thereafter, home. There, Mom put me to bed—not for an upset stomach, but for mental anguish revealed by tearstained cheeks and swollen eyes.

I could control the mechanics of my world with clockwork precision, but when an unforeseen cog fell into the works and pandemonium ensued, adaption was out of the question. An obsession with perfection damages my confidence in myself to adapt and improvise, halts problem-solving and reasoning, and, perhaps most frighteningly, cripples creativity.

No more. At 17, I stared into my mirror at an older, but no wiser tear-streaked, exhausted face framed by frazzled blond tendrils. I couldn’t be perfect any longer. Too many things demanded my time and energy. Seminary, grades, church, scholarships, family, friends, clubs, activities, applications—I couldn’t control it all, so I resolved, then and there, to stop thinking I had to.

I chose honesty over image. I chose sanity over self-abuse. I chose humility, and I chose to accept the sacrifice of the One whose perfection is enough for me.

My imperfections truly are the most defining and vital part of my character. I can cope with bad hair days, manage missed appointments and forget forgotten deadlines. I refuse to be controlled by my surroundings—I will be happy, perfect or not. I believe in imperfection because in it, we can all be made strong.

Mission... Possible

Nightfall, and the tiny, snow locked, sleepy town was silent except for here, inside the rustic vacation home to which I had trekked in order to fulfill a mission.

My mission.

Laundry. This collegiate gal’s attire needed some serious Snuggles action, so I sojourned through the mountains in search of a washer and dryer. Luckily, my cousin had come to keep me company on my quest and his mission, if he chose to accept it (or not) was to keep the fires in the house stocked with wood. After a few hours, my mission was almost complete, and both machines were rumbling and tumbling in the basement while we chilled in the living room. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only rumbling going on, as Derick’s and my stomachs were beginning to drown out the movie—not that we really wanted to see A Little Princess anyway.

Derick is ten days younger than me (and oh, how he hates it) and he, with two other of our younger cousins and I are an unstoppable, inescapably awesome team. We play together, we work together, and we form risky mission plans and daring acts of secret espionage together. When we were about twelve, we began planning for the Ultimate Mission: post-high school. We had provisions for college, dorms, budgets, rules, and missions (but not marriage. Introducing someone NEW to our foursome? Impossible). Together, we could best any obstacle, grapple with any hindrance!

So, Derick and I should have been able to deal with this barrier to our movie night, no problem! Though we hadn’t originally intended to watch all six library-rented movies at once—our unexpected movie marathon felt more like being chased by a crocodile along the Boston route rather than actually planning on running the 26.2 miles— as usual, we were flexible, and had accepted the challenge two movies in (“You wanna just watch all of ‘em tonight?” “Yeah… why not?”). Now, to deal with the one thing threatening the mission: hunger.

“Dia,” Derick intoned. “I believe,” he continued as if making some great declaration, “the food within your household needs to be located and devoured... NOW.”

I paused the movie and we raced to the kitchen for popcorn.

We sat side-by-side on the counter (to save bare feet from frosty linoleum) and, as custom dictated, poked, flicked water at, and hit each other to fill the terribly dull two minutes, thirty seconds before the main event, popcorn wars.
We discussed the merits and fallacies of the warnings of burning, scalding, suffocation, blindness, electrocution, etc., that were plastered in small print all over the popcorn bag, and then moved on to debate the litigious nature of the world. Derick and I are deep thinkers.

DING! Derick hopped down from his perch and punched the “open” button. I sought to prove my side of the debate by placing my hand over the opening of the popcorn bag.

“SEE? It’s NOT burning me—ow!” The smell of singed flesh and the sound of Derick’s mockery joined the more pleasant fumes of perfect popcorn in the air as I sulkily stuck my hand under cool water in the sink. Derick’s next comment, though, more than trumped the silliness of my action. He popped open the bag and inhaled deeply:

“Ah! Oh, baby, we make some good popcorn.”

Silence—an odd occurrence when Derick and I were together. The soft whistling of the winter wind around the old, creaking house, the crackling of the fire in the adjoining room and the rumblings of the washer in the basement only threw the silence in the kitchen into starker contrast. Derick’s eyes shifted from the popcorn sideways, then up to the ceiling, and back.

He tried to remedy the situation gracefully:

“Ummmm…”

And failed.

“Derick,” I queried slowly, “Did you just call me … baby?”

The bag of popcorn hit the ceiling at about the same time we hit the floor. Kernels rained from heaven as we lay on the linoleum, laughing too hard to breathe.

Derick wheezed, “I meant for that to be TWO sentences! TWO! ‘Oh baby, PERIOD.’ Then, as a COMPLETELY separate thought, ‘Dia, we make some good popcorn!’”

I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to reply.

The rest of the weekend proved as eventful as that first night. We narrowly escaped from an ancient, frightening tome which, we’re positive, was possessed by Voldemort (no worries, we burned it AND stabbed it with a basilisk fang). He introduced me to the Slurpee (where had those BEEN all my life?!) and aided me in my epic struggle with about fifty belligerent, evil potatoes which REFUSED to mash nicely for Thanksgiving.
I thought joining our cousins for Thanksgiving would be the sweetest part of the week, but the most singular experience was the next day, on Black Friday as we three girls of the foursome of cousins were given the mission to pick Derick up from his all-night shift at the Gap. We took him to his physical and dental appointments—to obtain signatures for his mission papers.

Part of our united plan for the future has always included the idea that the kid cousins would eventually grow up and serve missions. With Derick’s and my birthdays so close together and girls leaving at 21 instead of 19, we always knew that if I decided to serve a mission, we would just miss each other coming and going—and not see one another for about three and a half years. It was a fact that had always been no big deal.

Today, today, today, I was slowly, gradually but increasingly realizing that I’d been wrong. The memories of the previous weekend and countless, wonderful others filled my mind and burned behind my eyes as unshed tears as I drove our carload of cousins from mission to mission. At the last destination, as he grinned and exited the car with a, “Don’t blow my cover!” I leaned over the center consul into another cousin’s shoulder and…well, I just lay there. I wish I could tell you that the refining tears came and healed, or that I received comfort from heavenly messengers, or that Derick came back for his wallet and made me feel better, but that didn’t happen. I just realized the true mission of that weekend.

Realized that my coconspirator, my confidant, my cousin would be leaving in a few months or less, and that I had been given these last few free days to enjoy with him as a truly tender mercy. Realized that he would be filling a lifelong dream, and that to be anything but excited for him would be selfish. Realized that before we met again, this kind, crazy, hilarious boy would grow into the sweet, caring man I can see glimpses of today, and that I would miss him more than I would ever, could ever admit.

By the time Derick got back in the car, I was back to normal. I had to be.

“What’d they find? Did the tapeworm spawn again? How much longer do you have?”

He punched me in the arm.

-