Might as Well Laugh About It Now (4 page)

After traveling with eight brothers in Japan, I think this was a mood swing!

T
his was how I asked for directions when I was living in Utah: “Just tell me, do I drive toward the mountains or away from them?” Huge landmarks are the only way I can get my bearings. Street names, intersections, sections of town, or any mention of longitude or latitude is like a foreign language to me. I’m certain it’s from spending so much of my life on the road, changing locations every two or three days to a new city, state, or even country. Figuring out how to get from point A to point B seems better left to the landmarks and the locals.

My oldest daughter, Jessica, gave me a GPS system for my car.

“I saw it in the window of an electronics store,” she told me. “I knew it would rock your world. It talks to you. Tells you exactly where to go. All you have to do is listen.”

She paused for a moment, and then said, “That might be the difficult part for you.”

Jessica has always been my practical child. I don’t think she’s ever bought anything that she hasn’t used over and over again. She does not know the meaning of buyer’s remorse. I admire that, especially since my charge-card statements often have as many credits from returns as they have purchases. It’s funny how those things you “can’t live without” become things you “can’t live with” once you get them home. Melon-colored Lucite high heels, anyone?

I made a valid attempt to have the GPS become my traveling companion, with its authoritative female voice giving commands on how to drive. Perhaps it’s from growing up with seven older brothers, but I don’t like being bossed around.

The audio direction might be something like “turn right in 350 feet.” Math was never my strong suit, so I would try to visualize how far 350 feet is in my head. Is that a football field? Football fields always seem longer to me, and before the voice can say “turn here” I’m already a block past it. If I heard my GPS chick say “recalculating” one more time, I was going to recalculate her right out of my car window!

I live in Las Vegas now, and one of the many bo nuses is that I can see the Stratosphere and the taller attractions on the Strip from anywhere in town. It’s also pretty handy that our show at the Flamingo Hotel is advertised on a thirty-two-story poster that wraps around the entire building. Donny’s life-sized head can be seen from miles away, so I’ve yet to get lost on the way to work.

My “look up for the landmark” approach always falls apart, though, in places where you can’t see the forest for the trees. I’ve been there, too. It calls for a different type of directions, a method I learned to put into practice early on in my life.

On one of our first international tours, my brothers and I went to Japan. We always learned some of our songs in the language of whatever country we were visiting by listening to them being sung over and over again, phonetically, by a person who speaks the language. Our welcome in Japan was incredibly warm. They were thrilled with our efforts to communicate through our music, and we were treated to the best that the country had to offer.

We stayed in the best geisha house, where we were taught the art of origami. We were served delicious Kobe beef, prepared traditionally. I was given the gift of a kimono, which was fitted to my size by a seamstress.

My brothers were presented with an Akita puppy that Jay named Fuji. He was the offspring of the national grand champion. Fuji was even featured in
The Osmond Brothers
cartoon in the 1970s.

One of our hosts, not intending to be rude, studied the faces of my brothers and me. He had probably never seen such a large family. He smiled and said, “I will try to remember each of you by name but it will be hard. Americans all look alike to me.”

One afternoon we were invited, along with other families, for a picnic to celebrate the strawberry harvest, which was at the peak of the season. The strawberries are not planted in fields in Japan. They are grown sideways, out of cement cubicles that are stacked at an angle one upon the other, about six containers high. This method keeps the strawberries from ever touching the ground so they are absolutely free of dirt or blemishes. You can pick them off of the plant and pop them directly into your mouth. The scent of strawberries in the air was only a preliminary tease to how delicious they tasted.

Our gracious host gave us each a cup of cream and sugar and told us to pick as many strawberries as we’d like to eat. Little did they know that a flock of Osmonds is capable of wiping out a whole crop of fresh strawberries in one sitting. Let me tell you, we permanently altered the feng shui in that garden.

The picnic was on the very edge of a forested area, so my brothers and I and some of the other children in the group decided to play a game of hide-and-seek. Even as a little girl I’ve always been pretty competitive, and sometimes my will to take home the prize overshadowed my common sense, and still does once in a while. Melon-colored Lucite heels, anyone?

Off I went, dashing into the woods, never looking back. I thought, “I’m for sure going to win this game. No one will ever find me here.”

And I was so right. No one could find me, and after about fifteen minutes it occurred to me that I couldn’t find them, either. I was lost. Every direction I looked presented the exact same scenery: trees, trees, trees, an occasional rock, and more trees. I could barely see the blue of the sky with the density of branches and leaves overhead.

In a panic, I started running as fast as I could, first in one direction and then the other, looking for any sign of a clearing. I would stop, momentarily, to try to hear the voices of other children, but my heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear anything else. Tears started to burn my eyes, matching the sting of the scratches my bare legs were suffering from the ground brush and briars.

I was desperate for help, but when I called out to my brothers there was no answer.

Then I remembered a verse from the Bible that my mother would always say to us when we were afraid. It was from one of her favorites, Psalms (46:10): “Be still, and know that I am God.”

I had been raised from infancy with the belief that God would never abandon me. I was told that any problems or concerns I had could be taken to God, and to listen for an answer by letting myself “be still.”

Obviously, my own frantic attempts to get myself out of this forest were getting me nowhere, so with childlike faith I got on my knees and I prayed to God for a rescue. I asked that I be shown the way back to my brothers. I calmed down immediately and even grinned, thinking that God might say: “Are you sure???”

I said: “Yeah, I really do want to be with my brothers again.” My bizarre sense of humor never left me, even though I was terrified. After all, I was the girl who would grow up to buy melon-colored Lucite heels.

A feeling of peace moved from my heart to my head as I stayed perfectly still, listening. I knew I was being answered. A strong intuitive sense grew inside of me, a firm direction on which way to go to get out of the forest.

I stood up and began to walk confidently for a while. I had moments of fear as doubts swirled through my mind, wondering if I was only walking deeper and deeper into the woods. But when I pushed the doubts away, I could feel guidance, as though a gentle hand were on my back, urging me forward.

Finally, I heard the sound of people talking in the distance. I picked up my pace and knew I would soon be safe again. Actually, somehow I could tell that I had always been safe and protected. It was deeper than the knowledge that my family probably wouldn’t drive off to do the next concert and leave me to perish in the woods. (Well, maybe Jimmy would have!) It was my first experience with truly trusting in God, and in the intuitive feelings that are the GPS of our soul, the voice that guides us if we can be still long enough to listen.

So, when I’m driving, I look up to find a landmark, whether it’s a tall building or the mountain range or my brother ’s mug. When I am looking for true direction in any aspect of my life, I look up to find my one constant landmark, God. It’s one of those things I “can’t live without.” I may briefly lose my way or need to “recalculate” my mistakes sometimes, but I rarely feel lost, at least not permanently.

As if it happened an hour ago, I can still remember saying “Thank you” to God when I saw the clearing and my brothers coming toward me with strawberry-stained grins.

One of them ran up and tagged me. “You’re it.”

The game had been changed, but so had I.

Fake It When You Can’t Make It

Here’s me “faking it” that I can keep up with the professional dancers in the
Donny and Marie
Flamingo show!

I
faked a pot roast. I had to. It was that or not come through on my promise to my kids. I had told my daughter Rachael, who was then thirteen, and her sisters and brothers that I’d make their favorite meal: pot roast, potatoes, and carrots. It was the opening night of the school play
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
. Rachael was playing Lucy.

Suddenly it was already four p.m. and I still had to pick up my four-year-old from her tap-dance lessons, order cleats for my eleven-year-old football player, stop by the office to sign a contract, and retrieve my altered jacket from my seamstress to wear on QVC the next evening.

I ran into a grocery store to see what I could do instead of actually cooking. When I saw the woman behind the meat counter in her white lab-type coat I called out, “Help! Can you help me???” as if she were an emergency room technician. She seemed perfectly calm as she assisted me in finding two precooked pot roasts and then pointed me in the direction of fingerling microwavable potatoes. I take it I wasn’t the first mom to assail her like a maniac for her storehouse of supper shortcut suggestions.

The trick in faking cooking is to hide the packaging. I pushed it to the bottom of the trash bag. After I microwaved all of the food, I even dumped it into a roaster pan and put it in the oven on low, enough to make the aroma fill the kitchen.

I had to fake the pot roast because I had also promised Rachael that I would find two wigs for the school play: one for her, as Lucy, and another for her good friend, who was playing Sally. I was optimistic that it wouldn’t be complicated, but as it turns out, wig stores don’t stock hair that makes women look like comic strip characters.