The Wish Ribbon

In August of 2011, my friend/co-worker Fabiana at Yahoo! returned from a visit to Brazil with a bundle of these:

I instantly recognized these little ribbons from my visit to Salvador, a vibrant city on Brazil's northeast coast with beautiful 16th century architecture and a heavily African-influenced culture (it is the birthplace of the martial art/dance capoeira). As a tourist, you are constantly accosted by beggars on the street who try to give you these ribbons as a "present" (though if you accept it they will hound you relentlessly until you give them money). The bands say "Lembrança do Senhor do Bonfim" ("Remembrance of the Lord of the Good End," referring to the moment that Christ died), and the local custom goes that if you make a wish when the ribbon is tied around your wrist, the wish will come true as soon as the ribbon falls off your wrist. But it has to fall off on its own - you can't cut it, tear it, or rip it.

The Foreign Service

At the time I put the wish ribbon I was wrapped up in applying for the United States Foreign Service. A friend had told me that the State Department was looking for Portuguese speakers to fill five-year posts in the U.S. embassies in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília. The application process was brutal; the friend who told me about it had applied ten years in a row and had only made it past the first round twice. However, I somehow sailed through the first few rounds of essays, phone interviews, and language exams, and received an invitation for the final oral assessment in Washington D.C. It all came together so suddenly and easily. The job sounded like such an incredible adventure and I wanted it really badly. So naturally when Fabiana tied the little orange ribbon to my wrist I wished that I could land the Foreign Service gig.

I bought a very expensive last-minute flight to D.C., finagled a week off from work, and arranged to crash on my cousin's couch in nearby Falls Church. The day of the exam was draining (a multiple choice exam, a written plan of action for an impromptu crisis situation, and a 75-minute grilling from two senior agents. I felt very confident about my performance, and after two hours of deliberation they called me back in to announce the verdict: I had failed.

I was stunned. I was so certain that it was meant to be. The wish ribbon had failed.

Two New Wristbands

The thing I didn't realize then about those cheap little wish ribbons is that they are shockingly durable. I've had that thin orange ribbon around my wrist for 21 months so far, and it sure doesn't look like it's about to fall off anytime soon. A lot of things have happened to me in that time that I didn't think to wish for because I had no way to see them coming in advance. For example:

Less than 6 months after putting on that wristband I got married (even though I wasn't even dating anyone when I put it on), and a week later I got accepted to the MBA program at BYU (even though I had never imagined that I would ever study business). The foreign service job in Brazil would have been a great adventure for a few years, but had that wish come true I would have missed out on all these other unforeseen opportunities with long-term repercussions.

Lately I added a couple other wristbands alongside the wish ribbon:

The plastic one with the holes was given to me when our baby Miles was born, and the paper one was given to me when Miles was immediately rushed to the newborn ICU. Having Miles in the NICU was difficult and exhausting, but now he's home with us, with an oxygen tank and heart monitor in tow until the doctors determine that he's okay without them.

This isn't exactly how I would have wished for the birth of my first child to play out, but as the wish ribbon proves, I don't have perfect foresight about what is best for my own life. So I'm anxious to see what other surprises and unforeseen opportunities life will bring before that little orange ribbon finally deteriorates and falls to the ground.

The Roll-up Café

Amy and I now drive to the hospital four times a day to visit and breastfeed our little baby in the NICU (see full coverage of our baby's birth at her blog). Because we drive past the same stores and restaurants so often we have started to get curious about them and we've decided to stop in and find out what they're all about. First up:

Roll-up Café on State Street in Orem

We rolled in around 6:00 pm on a Saturday night and the place was nearly empty, but that didn't stop the teenage girl behind the counter from being really flustered. Throughout the course of our stay she notified us several times that she was the only employee there and that she was alternately bored and overwhelmed. The place had a really kooky vibe, and it was clear that they would like to be the hub for the Orem/Provo bohemian scene. The decor consisted of melted vinyl records in the shape of flowers, bookshelves made from actual old books, and baskets of quirky local arts and crafts for sale like hand-knitted owl-shaped smartphone cozies (it reminded me of this "Bein' Quirky" SNL sketch, where Björk knits a sweater for an octopus with an extra hole for "its ideas and dreams"). They also had a tiny stage area with a guitar at the ready for their open mic night on Tuesdays.



Amy and I both ordered savory crepes, and when I bit into mine it was cold in the center and the bacon was uncooked. The employee volunteered to cook it for a few more minutes, noting that she had only worked there for a month and her coworker hadn't shown up. While we waited for her to cook our food properly we overheard two teenage boys at the table behind us pontificating about their pot-smoking habits. My favorite conversation snippet: "Dude, if your parents found out you smoke two ounces of weed everyday I don't think they'd even be mad - they'd be impressed."

As our reheated food arrived at our table, a pair of high school girls came in all dolled up for prom. They explained that they had each been ditched by their respective prom dates three days ago, but they weren't going to let that spoil their fun, so they had decided to go together.

It may sound like I'm making fun of the place, but I actually liked it a lot (although the food was merely okay). I like that they are trying to make a place in the Provo/Orem area where kids who are a little different can feel at home. Although we were in a hurry to get to the hospital, I thought I'd try to cheer up the two girls in their prom dresses and the abandoned clerk with a little song. I thought the Buzzcocks' classic "Ever Fallen in Love with Someone You Shouldn't Have" seemed appropriate for the two ditched girls; Amy caught the very end of the performance on her phone:

The girls were ecstatic - they grabbed their phones and were like, "We can't believe you're doing this for us!" It was an easy and fun gesture on my part, but it was something that might just be a highlight when they're telling the story of the night they went stag to the prom. And as we walked out into the parking lot, Amy stopped me and kissed me and said, "I'm glad you're the type of person who does stuff like that."

I am too. One of my favorite posts I have ever written was called "Young at Heart" from 2009. I was 28 and a single doctoral student at the time that I wrote it, but I wrote at the time that I hoped that even though I was "growing up" I hoped that I could still find joy in doing fun and silly things every once in a while. Well, now I'm 32, an MBA student, married, and a new father, and guess what? I still find fun and silly things all around me, and I try to share that sense of joy with others. And I hope that I can teach Miles to find joy and fun around him too, and to share it with others.