My Monologues

When I was on study abroad, I was in Israel for two semesters-- almost a year. I had a scholarship, but I worked teaching folk dance and at the library to try to support myself. In the end, it turned out that I had a little leftover money. The director came up to me and said, "You have like two hundred and fifty dollars."
I said, "Great! This means I can buy some souvenirs."
So I bought some small things but I thought, "I've got to get Mom and Dad the biggest thing because they sacrificed so much to allow me to go on study abroad." So I thought of Moses because he means so much to the Jewish people. I went into the Old City to look because tourists really liked Moses. And I found a Moses that was made out of olive wood-- which is the tree that has been there for thousands of years before the Savior. The olive tree is very treasured in Palestine. It was fifty American dollars, which is pretty expensive. I knew my parents would love it. So I hand carried it all the way home. I wrapped it up in my Bedouin scarves and carried him in my open backpack on the airplane through all the checkpoints between Israel to England to home. And nothing was broken! I was so excited. That was my gift to my parents and now when my mom moved back in here, she gave him back to me.

When I was six or seven years old, I got a cute little doll as a Christmas gift. It was a little toddler on a swing. And I really liked that doll, but when we went to my Jewish grandmother's for Christmas, she gave me a beautiful baby doll with layers and layers of white lace on her dress. She was so pristine and delicate. I really liked both of my dolls but I was worried that I couldn't love both. Like I couldn't do them both justice. It sounds silly, but now I know the more we love, our love grows in greater capacity. But in my child's mind, I was worried that I couldn't give them both equal love.
A couple of days later, we went into the home of the family that my dad baptized into the Church, and their youngest daughter was named Georgia. Their family was on a limited income, and I noticed that Georgia didn't have a doll. I thought, "I've got to give her one of my dolls."
I decided to give her the most beautiful one because I was worried that the other one wouldn't get as much love. I felt the responsibility to love the one that wasn't as beautiful. I kept the cute little toddler doll and gave her lots and lots of love.
All these years later, I recently came across Georgia now after she has married and had children. She told me that she has never forgotten that Christmas when I gave her one of my dolls. "I just treasured that doll," she said. "I still have it."

When I was a young boy, somewhere from around the time I was five years old . . . I can remember all the way up to being about thirteen years old, my dad would take us up to Hollywood from where we lived to go visit all of his family, so we would make the rounds. One of the families we would visit was my uncle and my aunt Fanny. My aunt Fanny is my dad's youngest sister, and her husband Mac was a Canadian Mountie. So I used to go to his house about once a month and he would tell us stories about catching bad guys in Canada.
But there was another side to him too, it's kind of interesting-- I think he was maybe quite a good-looking guy running around Canada and I think he flirted a little bit, just for the fun. I don't think it was anything serious because he and aunt Fanny were happily married as far as I could tell. But some beautiful Indian princess, he told me, handmade these gloves for him to wear when he was riding his horse out across the wild wilderness when he was catching bad guys. Then he would bring these gloves out, these handmade gloves made of caribou leather and hand-beaded embroidery on the top side, they even have this beautiful kind of this velvet inside lining, and they're warm and strong. He would wear them to ride out.
It was interesting, I didn't realize as a little boy, but I guess his own children kind of grew up and didn't come home to talk to him that much. So by the time he passed away, I was the closest memory he had to a kid. And he asked his wife to give me the gloves, so I inherited his gloves.
The story gets even more interesting because I was talking in one of my art classes about what makes something valuable to us. So I brought these gloves to my art lecture class-- about a hundred students-- and I was showing them the gloves and telling them the story that I just told you. Kind of in a nervous way, I was just kind of playing with the gloves while I talked and I started to put on one glove . . . and they've got to fit tight because you're riding a horse and they're work gloves. And I put my hand in...and the glove fit like it was made for my hand...just exactly to my size. I had this moment right in the middle of this lecture where I realized that my Uncle Mac and I had this thing in common: we have the same size of hands.
It caught me off guard. I just kind of stopped talking for a while and got kind of emotional. Everyone was wondering if I was mentally healthy. I said, "Well I've got to tell something to you," and I told them what I've just told you.
And that's the story of these gloves. I don't even know what to do with them because they're so beautiful... like who gets them when I die? You know? Where do they go?. I feel like they ought to go to a museum because they're so beautiful. But I don't know.
That's the problem with having beautiful things that are priceless. What do you do with them?