Skye Lovely's Questionnaire

I'm from a little town (I think we're 154 strong now) called Heaven, Michigan right outside of White Cloud, Michigan. That's so cute, right? I live here because well, it's my people, my family, my home. I love my community, and I couldn't even think what a world without them would be like. And I run the choir, you know. I help the kids learn music theory and then they'll have music for themselves for the rest of their lives. Who else would come out to the Boonies to do that? Besides, we live on a homestead and with that way of living, you need all the hands on deck you can get. Besides, it's honest good work and we're self sufficient. The kids still need minding too. All that is to say, I want to be here because I love it and I need to be here because they need me.  

Even if I do end up being famous, I think I'll spend most of my time right here anyhow.

I make money doing private music lessons, I part time as an EMT and selling surplus from the homestead. Eggs cost so much now, but we have so many eggs from the coup and we get to sell them to people for fair prices! Mama Samantha and I do embroidering together sometimes and sometimes we'll sell those at an artist market in a bigger town, she'll make some baked goods with Ella and Stella. Dad gets the cheese and the butter going. We spend most of everything on the church because people come to our church in all manner and sort of need. We're a community center, a library, a clinic, a school, the place for after school programs. That church is what our people need so we're happy to contribute everything we can. 

I wish the whole world could be like our little town where we help each other no matter what, we're committed to peace and generosity and love and honor for our fellow man. There are little children in this world starving because of war and poverty, people in pain because they can't afford their medical bills...it's endless relentless madness. The truly wealthy sit on their piles of cash and watch all the rest of the people struggle at their feet like it's reality TV. I don't think I can live with myself until I know I've done everything a person could possibly do to help. It's got to end. War, Poverty, Famine, it's all got to go and I can't rest until it is. 

I'm not necessarily the most extroverted person or anything, but I do have a voice that people seem to want to listen to. And people look to me like I'm a leader so I want to act like one. People seem to want to listen to famous people so I suppose I've got to get famous for everybody to hear me. I'm saying all this but you know, I don't believe in God. Or at the very least He doesn't believe in me or...I don't know what's going on really. It doesn't matter what I believe though, people seem to want to do what they think God wants them to do. So yes, I plan to keep lying to everyone but I'm doing this for everyone's own good. Who knows, maybe there really is a God and one day He will speak to me. I'm all ears. But for now, a white lie will have to do. 

If I have to kill for it, I will. Murder is not always bad. I will do everything I do to avoid it, but I've made my peace with that. I'll die for this if I have to. 

I think the most defining day was when I went up and I sang in church for the first time. I was 5 and I had a little solo. I saw everybody's eyes light up and I remember being so happy they were happy and I smiled bigger than I ever had it before, even just thinking about it makes my cheeks hurt. I was loved, I was cherished, I knew everybody had my back. I was strong and I was wanted. And what I had to say was worth hearing and I was powerful. It was nothing special, just a little bit of "This Little Light of Mine", but that meant the world to me. I just knew I had to keep on singing for the rest of my life then and there. 

I'm gonna do four because I want to. I have my little sisters Ella and Stella. They're 10 and they're menaces to be sure. They're so clever and thick as thieves. I can't imagine a world where one exists without the other and I don't think they could either. I think they must be soul bonded or something. I love those little rascals to bits. 

There's Mama Samantha. Technically my step-mother, but she's my mom. My biological mother Linda died when I was 3, but Mama Samantha is the one that raised me. I honestly don't just call her Mama because I like the rhyme and it makes her sound like a saint like Mother Theresa you know? She deserves the title. If I was Catholic I'd be pulling all the strings in the world to get her canonized. She loves and loves and loves. I think she might just be the definition of love itself. 

My Dad is my hero though. He challenges me and he thinks I can do anything. He makes me believe I can do anything. He taught me fishing, hunting, shooting, trapping, farming cause he wanted me to be independent (although I do think there's a little part of him that's a doomsday prepper). He worked with Mama Samantha to get there to be a women's martial arts class at the church. When there's been hunger and poverty and recession and threats for pipelines or becoming a richer town's dumping ground, my father always was on the front line and always brought everybody together. My father always practices what he preaches.  And he made sure all the boys around here fall in line, you'll never meet a gentleman like the ones we have in Heaven, Michigan. 

He's part of why I'm doing this. He told me "Skye, your life is out there. You've got to go take it. Come home whenever you'd like but you're the type of bird that's got to fly." 

So yeah, that's why I'm here. 

My childhood was pretty incredible. I grew up in the church surrounded by loving family and all the space in the world to roam, and run and learn and grow. I was always encouraged to develop and share my gifts. My father's name is George Lovely. Before he was called to preach, he worked in a garage and before that he was in the military. He tells me he was running from his destiny because grandpa was a preacher, and even great grandaddy was a preacher and supposedly so was my great-great grandaddy (although my father tells me that he was a cowboy, but I digress). Actually, it's not a digression because my father says great great grandpa must have been the blood from where he got his rebellious streak from. My biological mother Linda died from before I could remember but from what my father told me she was an extraordinary woman taken from us too soon. I remember hearing her sing to me. I can't remember what she looked like from my own eyes, but I remember the sound of her voice. My father says I have my mother's voice. He never told me how she died, but he always looks so wistful when he talks about her, says things like "she really was one of a kind". 

My conscience sounds like my Mother Samantha. She is a tireless and hearty woman, the no nonsense kind. I have to admit though I love her and she loves me dearly, sometimes we have trouble understanding each other. But, I know without a doubt if I had to murder a man tomorrow she would help me hide the body. That woman is loyal to family like nothing else. I try to be like her, but I can't really, not all the way. People say they'd swear she birthed me from my work ethic and sometimes automatic way of thinking but what they don't know is that I wasn't born hard like her, I had to learn it from her. I dream too much, and she doesn't really understand dreams. She doesn't act like she has any of her own, and if she does, they're buried somewhere deep she's never shown me. 

Of course I went to school. I was a bit of a star in school. This town is so small, everybody knew me already. I was perfect, I made sure I was perfect. I represent the church after all, and the church represents God and God is perfect so I must be too. And I sang, I got lots of solos so people knew my face. I'm Skye Lovely, the preacher's daughter in Heaven, Michigan. Of course I'm perfect.   

I don't... I don't think I've been in love? But I will tell you I had the most desperate crush on Samantha Bailey in the seventh grade. At first I wondered if maybe I hated her. She was athletic and smart and I couldn't stop looking at her whenever she crossed my path and my face heated up something fierce when she looked at me so I thought this stinging feeling must be jealousy welling up inside of me. So I prayed on it. I asked God to banish away the hate I had inside my heart. Well it turns out Miss Bailey was looking at me too and she was smarter or at the very least, she engaged in reality better than me so she actually knew what was going on. She tried talking to me some and so in the spirit of being a good Christian, I agreed to that. It turned out she was really nice and fun to be around and to my surprise, we even got around to being friends. In the summer, we started holding hands when we walked together. By August, she kissed me on the bank of the lake shaded under an oak tree by my house. Sometimes I wonder what might've happened if she hadn't moved away.