"the choice" ch-6

"in which everything changes"

My final shoot as a glamour shots photographer was close to home. It was only a couple hours south of Seattle. (as an aside, it was pouring rain that day and the house was small and blue. For some reason I've always imagined Bella's house in Twilight to look like this house.) Anyway, after that shoot was over, I headed back to my Aunt and Uncle's house.

At this point, I had a nice savings account and no job and no real plans for the future besides that I knew I needed to do whatever calling I was asked to do. I didn't have to wait long. The very next day was the First Presidency Christmas Broadcast. On my way to my seat, the institute choir director stopped me. He said he heard I wasn't going to be traveling anymore and would I be able to play the piano for the institute choir on Thursday? I thought to myself, "duh...this is why I quit my job!" and told him I'd be there.

I remember every moment of Thursday night, Dec 9, 1999. I took my time getting ready. I was wearing khaki pants, a long sleeved white shirt and a green vest/jacket thing. My hair had been recently cut and dyed at that MT salon and I was feeling pretty good. I walked into the institute room and noticed a sign up sheet. I wrote down my name and email address and then I sat at the piano. I was early so I could practice a bit and I didn't really pay much attention as people came in. The Institute Choir was made up of all the south Seattle singles wards so I didn't know a lot of people there. Really only the few from my ward. I'd spent the last 6 months as a bit of a recluse and I was naturally quiet, especially in new situations, so I basically ignored everybody and just played the piano.

About half way through the choir practice, I looked over my left shoulder and noticed a couple guys sitting in the front row of the tenor section. One of them had been looking at me so I turned back around and did my best to ignore him. (I should probably mention here that the ring Matt gave me was a simple, gold band that had previously been his own pinky ring and I had never taken it off my left, ring finger even though we technically broke up. I figured I was going on a mission anyway, it would dissuade the crazies that had previously hit on me).

Choir practice ended and I started gathering up my music. I stood up and one of the two guys that I had noticed earlier came over and started talking to me. He seemed like a nice guy and we chatted for a few minutes. The other guy didn't say a word to me. He sat down on the piano seat that I had just vacated and started to play "Waterfall" by Jon Schmidt by memory.

Naturally, he caught my attention and I turned away from the guy that only spoke. I was captivated by the music and I remember just watching his hands. Any hands that could play like that were worthy of my attention. When the song ended he just started dinking around with chords and runs. I think I asked if he knew any blues scales but I don't really remember talking to him. I know I sat down next to him and showed him the B flat blues scale. I told him to just play random notes and rhythms in that scale and I'd play a bass riff. For the next several minutes we improvised some jazz together. It had been a while since I'd played the piano with someone who could hear music so well and I had so much fun.

The room had emptied out by this point and we stood up. We spoke for a few minutes, I found out both the guys' names and that they were roommates. They said they had to go and they took off. I left right after that and just figured maybe I'd see them at the next choir practice.

I had no idea at the time that one of them already knew he was going to marry me.