Fake Trees and Real

This is not my family nor my tree. (Image courtesy of Judiology.com)

We used the same artificial Christmas tree year after year throughout my entire childhood, dragging its musty box out of the cellar or garage every year and shaping the limbs into verisimilitude before decorating it.

At least we weren't the people with the silver foil Christmas tree.

I swore that when I grew up, I'd have a  real tree. And I did for many years.

The Hat Tree (1981)

At the young-adult flop house where I did most of my young-adult partying, we had a real Christmas tree that we left up for months and months after Christmas came and went.

We did eventually take off the ornaments, then covered it with hats and called it a hat tree.

Happily, though there was plenty of smoking going on around it, this little fire hazard never burned the flop house down.

Top-Heavy Tree (1984)

A couple of years later, I moved west to California and lived in the legendary Casa de Montgomery in Santa Cruz.

It was a boarding house of sorts, with a colorful history. It had originally been an old country estate, later turned monastery, turned mental hospital, turned low-rent boarding house.

By the time I met the Casa, it was a decrepit Spanish-style estate with a long industrial-utilitarian hospital wing extending from it. It had fallen into disrepair and was occupied by university students, aimless young people like myself, divorcees and people or various ages who were on the dole.

When Christmas rolled around, we residents put up a tree and decorated it. But sometime in the night, the tree fell over with a crash, ornamens rolling and pine needles scattering across the floor.

I was very troubled by this at the time, making vague analogies of this event to my lifestyle: top heavy, pretty to look at but lacking in a solid foundation.

That was the same year I went to the beach on Christmas day and made a sandman. California living...

Trees of Life (1990-1996)

When my kids were little, we always had a live tree, which we tried to plant again afterwards, but I don't know if any of them survived the ordeal of being brought into the warm indoors like a pet, then thrust back out into the harsh elements.

Under one of those trees, my partner planted the placenta that had nourished my elder son throughout his gestation. A no-longer-needed organ, full of nutrients that could now nourish that little tree instead.

One of those live trees I kept in its pot on the front porch after Christmas was done and it stayed there all year long like front-porch topiary. When Christmas rolled around again, I pulled the whole tree, pot and all, back inside for decorating.

Snow Tree (2002)

Years later, I remarried, and my new husband, plus his two kids and my two kids, journeyed up Trinity Mountain Road to hunt for our tree, all bundled up for snow.

This was a wonderful, beautiful day which stands out in my memory. So much laughing, snow up to our knees, crisp, bright winter wonderland.

The kids found the right tree, my husband cut it down, and the kids dragged it back to the truck, where hot chocolate in a thermos awaited us.

Sadly, that marriage didn't work out. No one ever really got along. His kids moved out almost immediately, and after that mine went to live with their own dad awhile. And eventually the marriage itself was casualty.

But that day in the snow, we were all together like a real, hopeful and happy family of six.

Simplifying (2007)

One summer, at a yard sale, I found an artificial tree, still in the box, tall and slender, with built-in lights. It was like a miracle: just pop it up like an umbrella, plug it in and voila! The best 20 bucks I ever spent.

We use this tree every year now and cover it in homey Swedish-style decorations. I understand now where my parents were coming from with their fuss-free fake tree.

My elder son, who has his own family now, has a real tree at Christmastime, I noticed. The circle continues...

The Story of S: Found In Translation

My grandfather (center)

I was never into genealogy; that was my dad's thing, but he somehow managed to get me involved, one way or another, over the years.

Pappaw's WWI Journal
For example, when I was a teen he had me transcribe the little journal my grandfather Edwin Albert Anderson kept while he was trudging across France in the winter during World War I.

I painstakingly copied out those entries, which were terse and unembellished due to my grandfather's absolute physical exhaustion every day. He and his platoon marched miles in the rain and snow, dug miles of trenches, they stopped to get "deloused," they ate, and they slept.

There was no trace of my grandfather's gentle humor in those entries, nothing of what I remembered of my comfortable, smiling blue-eyed Pappaw, who had passed away when I was 7.

The Swedish Patrinymic Naming System
Some other project I did for my dad brought me into contact with the next generations back, Pappaw's parents, Augusta and Adolf Anderson, who came to America in the late 1880s, and their parents, who stayed behind in Sweden, and several generations before that.

And it was there in those records that I discovered something interesting that had a lasting impact on my life: the Swedish naming system, whereby children take as their last name the first name of their father + a possessive S + the word "son" or "dotter" depending on the child's gender. Andersson, Johansdotter, etc.

I looked up from my paper and thought with a smile, my name would be Karol Eddiesdotter.

Then suddenly it occurred to me, "Why is our name Anderson and not Andersson?"

When We Lost Our S
I searched through the records and saw exactly when that S was lost. It was when Adolf came to America. At the time, I thought some careless customs officer had misspelled Adolf's name and that some clerical error had followed my family, generation after generation to this day.

Within a year, I had changed my own name, first informally and later officially, to Andersson.

No one in my family batted an eyelash about this change, no one told me I was being disloyal to my family. To this day, everyone in my family, whose name is Anderson, spells my name Andersson. I love my family for that

But the story doesn't end there.

Lost Name, Found History
Much later, when my feminist principles had been tempered by time, I got married and took my husband's name for exactly 7 years. It was remarkably easy to change my name to his. Just show up at the social security office with a marriage certificate and wham, my name vanished like smoke.

It was during those years that I became interested in my Swedish heritage. It started as a hobby when I returned to college. I needed to furnish a cheap little Victorian apartment that I was going to occupy during the week while I attended school in Arcata. Because I had to furnish the place on the cheap, I patronized garage sales and thrift stores.

I found myself attracted to a certain kind of decor, which I didn't at first even recognize as Swedish kitsch. I would find something cute -- say, a colorful teakettle with "Kaffetaren den basta ar av alla jordiska drycker" (Coffee is the best of all earthly drinks) printed on the side -- and think, "Aw, this reminds me of my grandparents."

Soon my little apartment looked a lot like my grandparents' house, as does my apartment to this day.

Swedish Diaspora
Soon I began to study the Swedish language and culture. It became my hobby. Every time I got in the car to go somewhere, I was listening to audio recordings of Swedish language for beginners.

I also learned about the Swedish diaspora of the late 19th century and the social forces that drove more than a million Swedes (a third of the population) to the US: famine, loss of land, attractive opportunities in America, attractive ads offering jobs, jobs, jobs in places like Pennsylvania and Illinois, where Adolf and Augusta wound up.
Since Ellis Island did not open until 1892, I realized that Adolf and Augusta had entered the country (separately, unmarried, perhaps as strangers) at Castle Garden Immigrant Station.
Augusta made the journey with her younger brother, Algot. The two were coming to join their elder brother Bengt in Illinois.

A Likelier Story: New American Names
I began to see the story of our lost S in a whole new light, as more than a careless bureaucratic misspelling. Instead it probably went more like this:

After an exhausting passage, young Adolf who spoke almost no English was simply given his "new American name," Anderson. Maybe he was even proud; after all he was a young man, full of hope, setting out on the journey of his life.

But Augusta lost more than simply an S. The word -dotter was removed from her name, replaced with -son, which must have seemed odd to her, but then again, maybe exciting too, this new American name.

I have taught ESL and have seen more than half my students assign themselves an "American name." Attached to this impulse are probably the notions of fresh start, new identity, breaking with the past, forward progress and individualism.

The Irony of Going to Sweden without my S
In 2009, I went on a trip to Sweden without my name. It was after my divorce but before I could complete the name change process and regain my name.

Oddly, the process for changing your name after a divorce is much harder, involving $300 in court fees, a legal advertisement in the newspaper for six weeks, then a court hearing, then trips to the social security office, the DMV, the bank, etc.

So I had to go to Sweden with a name that said absolutely nothing about who I am, not only without my precious extra S that identified me as a Swedish American, but without even my Americanized Swedish name.

It was my dad's genealogy projects that allowed me to wind up in Sweden. I was in search of some information for my dad, and the amateur genealogist who translated the parish records for us also hosted my visit there.

He showed me many historical and relevant things that allowed me to understand the emigrant experience. Yes, emigrant, not immigrant, because suddenly I saw Augusta's and Adolf's stories as stories of leaving Sweden instead of stories of arrival.

Found in Translation
Over time, I have formed a special bond with these ancestors I never met, particularly Augusta who fascinates me enough that I have a whole story in my head (part fact, part fiction) that needs to get written one of these days.

The next project my dad gave me felt climactic in a way I can hardly describe, as if everything I had discovered, however serendipitously, led to a single, seemingly modest but deeply meaningful activity.

My dad sent me a letter to translate, a letter Augusta wrote in 1930 to her son, my grandfather Edwin. It was several pages of scrawled, often misspelled Swedish that tested my translation skills. I labored over it for a week, calling on every Swedish friend I had to sort out the meaning of certain phrases.

What I learned was that Augusta was an ordinary woman, a grieving mother whose youngest child had just died in a car accident when she wrote that letter. Her grief is nearly unbearable, though she barely hints at it as she writes matter-of-factly about practical things.

She is a wife trying to make ends meet, missing her other son who lives far away in Texas, sending a sweater to her dear little grandson, my dad.

I know what it's like to worry about your youngest child. I know what it's like to miss your grandchild. I know what it's like to worry about the future.

So in a sense, it was that first colorful little Swedish tea kettle I found on a dusty shelf in a Eureka thrift store led me to my great-grandmother.

And the force of my father's continual interest in family history has kept me safely tethered to my family in spite of distance and time.

It was an odd roundabout journey and it's hardly over.

But that's another story.

Polaris & Pan

I think grad school was my mooring for the last three years; amongst all the life-altering events (divorce, for one), grad school was a constant, like the Northern Star, keeping me oriented.

And then, a little over a month ago, I graduated.

I should poll my colleagues and see if anyone else feels as thoroughly disoriented as I do now that it's all over.

There was such a flurry of activity leading up to graduation that it was all I could do to hang on tight, work as hard as I could and try not to overlook any details.

The Flurry
There was the finishing of the thesis, a copy of which had to be mailed off to my second reader who had retired to Southern California; then I had to get approvals, track down lots of signatures, write a dedication page, get a copy to the department for binding, etc.
There was an awards ceremony, at which I found out I did not win the Patricia O. McConkey Award for Outstanding Thesis of the Year. Even though I knew the nomination was a huge honor, I was still a bit sad and disappointed after the ceremony.

Then there was a totally fun barbecue at my place to congratulate and thank my colleagues and celebrate ahead of time with friends and family.
Major highlight of that day was that my son, his girlfriend and my precious granddaughter spent the whole day.
And then, graduation itself: exciting, heady, a little overwhelming.
I was very much aware that this was the last time I would get to experience this particular company, my fellow grad students. Never before has my life contained such a bounty of intelligent company and trusted colleagues. I wonder if it ever will again...
So I tried to savor the moments, there at the ceremony, the laughter, the shared excitement, the sense of belonging.
And then, a dozen friends scattered to the four winds, to teaching jobs in New Mexico, Virginia, the Bay Area, to PhD programs in Texas, to summer vacations in Gold Country, Oregon, Monterrey.

And here I still am.

The Floundering
And then came the job hunt, not to mention dozens of existential questions about what I even really want to do. Teach? After completely surrendering my life, heart and soul to grad school for three years, I am hesitant about surrendering those things again--a surrender that teaching as a career seems to demand.

But after flailing around for awhile, alternating bouts of extreme lazy self-indulgence with bouts of existential angst, I finally started a new job last week--- in marketing.

I was trying to think outside the box, trying to find a job for which my particular skill set would be of value (former journalist with an advanced degree in persuasive writing). But also something that would allow me to work just while at work, then be able to claim my off hours for my own.

Once I figure out the business and the market, that is . . .

It's a telecommunications company, so there is a steep learning curve for me. After a training Friday, I had to go home and take a nap because my brain hurt. A textbook my boss put on my desk Monday morning is called Wireless LANs: Implementing Interoperable Networks. Yikes!

Finding my Footing
Anyway, I've spent the last month feeling a little disoriented--in life, at home, at work, spiritually, emotionally, materially.

Who was I before life became so complicated? Before I got married, before my kids grew into teenagers, before I became a grandmother, before my son's accident, before I got a divorce, and before college and especially graduate school made me set aside all my personal interests in order just to survive?

Fun
So for a month now, I've been going on dates and having romantic adventures. I've been yard sale-ing, cooking, playing guitar, painting, flying kites, hiking, bicycling, picnicking, drinking cocktails and sunbathing. I've even begun to read for pleasure.

I think of a quote from my little niece's website:

"On my good days, I believe in love, laughter, and the goodness of people. On my cynical days, hedonism is always a nice alternative." --Emily

I like that.

Love Grows

My eldest son became a young father last fall, a challenge that he has risen to with beautiful grace that absolutely humbles me.

In a matter of months, this wild, reckless boy transformed into is a strong, fine man; an able, willing provider; a patient, loving partner; and a kind, gentle father.

As for me, I really didn't know what grandmotherhood was going to be about, but I guessed it would just mean that there would be a new child in our family to love.

I didn't predict that my love for my son was going to take on new dimensions. I didn't know it was possible to love him more or more deeply.

Nor did I predict that my love for my granddaughter would be filtered through-- inextricable from-- my love for my son and his love for his daughter. It's hard to describe.

I began to understand it the day my granddaughter was born. Of course, I was deeply moved by the arrival of this precious new being. But I was absolutely floored by the curve of my son's shoulder as he held the warm bundle of his daughter for the first time. And by the softness of his face as her tiny hand curled around his finger.
My son and his family visit me sometimes, and my dear little granddaughter, now eight months old, has just learned to crawl. It seems I need to vacuum more. And I need to do some rearranging to accommodate a little explorer in Grandma's house.

I love way my son and his girlfriend look at their baby girl, the way they hold her and the way they talk to her.

I love how my son won't let his daughter put a metal spoon in her mouth in case she might chip her two brand-new teeth.

I love the way he put leggings on her when her newfound crawling ability made her bare knees turn red from the carpet.

I love the way he tells her she's the prettiest girl in the world, second only to her mother, and her mother responds, "No, she's way prettier," and my son and his girlfriend give each other a little smile.

Love.

Children Teach You How to Raise Children

With my two fine nearly grown sons earlier this summer.

A friend posted the following on Facebook recently and I wanted to share it. I tracked down the author's name, Anne Quindlen. Enjoy!

"Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay."

"On Raising Children"
By Anna Quindlen

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed-- the pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black-button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast.

Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves.

Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.
Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early childhood education, all grown obsolete.

Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used.

But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations -- what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.
Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything.

One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome.

To a new parent, this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active.

I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane?

Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.
Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame.

The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs.

The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp.

The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.)

The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive- through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons...What was I thinking?
But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this: I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.

There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.

And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting-it-done a little less.

My two wonderful sons back in 1993.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life.

When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done.

Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.

The books said to be relaxed, and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out.

I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me.

I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

My eldest son with his new baby daughter, photo taken last weekend.

Turning Corners

i.ehow.com

The sun came out in this part of the world at long last. I ran around doing errands and getting things done.

For one thing, I purchased a plane ticket.

Things are set in motion, and I am taking a trip!! Hooray! Now I have five weeks to tie up loose ends and get prepared. Just a little scouting mission, just a chance to see what Sverige is like.

A Little Extra Cash

Longitudebooks.com

I am all about picking up a little extra cash any way I can in the next five weeks, so when Jack offered me the paper route while he's out of town in a few weeks, I said yes.

And I took a heavy box of books to Tin Can Mailman and made $40, but I turned around and spent half of it on a Guidebook to Scandinavian Europe, a set of tapes of Colloquial Swedish (uber helpful and just in the nick of time), and a Margaret Atwood novel that I've vowed not to crack open until I am on a plane somewhere.

Thumbs Up from Students
When I got to work the results of student evaluations were in. I had given my students a heads-up about this last week and told them don't be afraid to be honest and offer constructive criticism; anything they said would only make me a better teacher. So I didn't know what to expect.

But the results were gratifying. Two important (to me) things are obviously getting across: 1. I really like and respect my students for what they have already learned and the bold thing they are doing by being in an immersion program, and 2. I really very badly want them to succeed, in passing the TOEFL exam and going on to fulfill their dreams.

I take over for the other teacher, who is quitting, next Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday, I will observe. Busy, busy, busy.

Summer Begins

Tomorrow, my son meets with his independent study teacher for the last time as a sophomore. It's the end of the school year-- another hooray! Then he is going away for the summer to be with friends in Sacramento. I hope he has a fantastic time.

My Brave and Brilliant Sister

exeterhospital.com

My sister starts chemotherapy tomorrow. She is full of dread but also gratitude. It is really an inspiration to behold. I am not sure I could ever be so courageous.

She went to a workshop called "Look Good, Feel Better," put on by the American Cancer Society. It was all about finding ways to deal with the appearance-related side effects of cancer and cancer treatment. She found it so inspiring that she wrote about it, breaking about 15 years of writer's block.

Basking in Svenska

Svenska är
ett mycket sexigt språk!

When I got home from work there was still plenty of sunshine left. I spread out a white cotton quilt on my newly mowed lawn, brought my little stereo out onto the porch, lay in the sun and listened to the new Swedish tapes.

The new tapes are quite rigorous. What an overwhelming language! They speak so fast I can barely read along in the book. I get a wonderful soul-deep frisson when I hear Svanska spoken in long stretches, in dialogue for example. I absolutely love the sound of this beautiful language.

As The World Turns

Remember the olden days when I used to post every day? And now, weeks go by with nary a peep. It's not like there are any shortages of things going on in my world and in my head, but the drama of my life has definitely toned way down. Thank God.

Now there are just a few things to report:
The Joy & the Challenges

It's week three of teaching and I seriously love it. I truly like and respect every single one of my students. After class, I practically float out of the classroom to my car, because teaching energizes me!!

But there are also challenges. One of the zillion books I am reading about teaching ESL literacy, describes "the difficult circumstances under which most teaching of English as a foreign language is done, with few texts, high absenteeism, large classes, and learners with a wide range of proficiencies" (Teaching and Learning Vocabulary). That about sums it up, plus a few challenges on the administrative side.

Every minute I'm not in the classroom, I am planning, thinking, preparing, problem-solving. It even keeps me up at night when I should be sleeping.

Baby Comes Closer

I saw my son and his girlfriend over the weekend and the size of her big round belly reminds me that September is really not that far away. Before we know it a baby will be here. I need to get cracking on a number of projects, from baby blanket to cookbook.

Time is Kind

I went to a small summer music festival and saw many old friends. I was struck by how beautifully everyone is aging.

Image from oldrhinebeck.org

Moving Sucks

I've decided to move into a small, cheap apartment as soon as I can find one, because I can't afford so much space and I need to save money for the trip to Sweden I plan to take in January.

If I am fortunate, I will find a place that will let me keep my cat (whom I've had for years and is no trouble). But judging by last summer's house hunt, I am not holding my breath. If it comes down to it (and I hope it doesn't), perhaps my old friend Paris can be housed with friends.

Meanwhile, I have to down-down-downsize my possessions. To that end, I sold my other bikes on craigslist today.

Of course, the weather is so pretty now, the flowers are blooming and my home is so pleasant. Wish I could stay, but that is not in the stars.
Sverige

I am casting the net widely to try to find a teaching job in Sweden before I go there. I don't know if I have the nerve to go there and then look for work.

And, there are a million little things to sort out first-- passport, plane tickets, permits, learning the language, establishing equivalent credentials, etc. Researching that is what I do for fun.

Life is Short, Eat Blueberries

Image from antioxidant-fruits.com

What's going on in our family is that my sister had a double mastectomy last week and starts an especially toxic form of chemotherapy next week.

She lives far away, and I can't be by her side. I feel remote and haunted, but she is handling it with this incredible grace that I don't know quite how to describe.

I can't seem to stop thinking about cancer, its insidiousness, sneaky and horrible like random violence. Yet I have not even dared to go to a website and study it the way I study literally every single other thing that affects or interests me.

It is on my mother's side of the family, this cancer potential. My mother's sister, Ruthie, died of breast cancer 20 years ago. Ruthie's son, my cousin, Lane, died of stomach cancer 10 years ago. My mother survived breast cancer with a lumpectomy and radiation 6 years ago.

And now my sister. She had a clean mammogram in July, found a suspicious lump in March, and here we are now.

My sister is a warrior, a petite, shy woman with a gun and knife collection that would shock you. From the start of all this, she has seen cancer as an enemy, something to be attacked calmly and methodically, something that can't be allowed to glimpse any weakness.

She's a Girl Scout whose motto is preparedness and survival, so she spent the weeks leading up to her surgery arranging every practical thing so that she could survive afterward.

And she has this huge faith in the strong arms of God holding her up and the bigger picture of which this life is only a tiny part.

My mother called me last night, and I felt myself turn back into a frightened child. I asked her, my voice small, "Mama, how do I keep from getting cancer too?"

I have my instructions now: vegetables and exercise, regular mammograms, eating breakfast, adding blueberries into my cereal, the usual list. Follow my dreams and be happy because life is short.

Life is short and we are all precious! I hope you are all taking good care of yourselves, dear readers, adding blueberries to your breakfast cereal and following your dreams.

*Good article about anti-cancer healthy eating.
It says:

• Turmeric (one of the main spices in curry)
• Green tea (more than 3 cups a day)
• Veggies & fruits (5 or more a day)
• Less meat (12 ounces a week)
• Fewer sweets (try fruits and berries instead)
• Agave syrup (instead of sugar)
• Omega-3 oils (olive, canola or flax seed)

• Watch out for cancer-causing growth hormones in meats and dairy
• Try to eat organic if possible.
• Get more exercise

My Girlhood Among the Outlaws

"Salty," "bittersweet." "If it took those years to get me here, I'd do it again for you."

You being two young boys I love more than anyone on Earth. When I'm at a loss for words, song lyrics often bail me out.

My Girlhood Among The Outlaws
By Maria McKee

My girlhood among the outlaws was salty, bittersweet
The things I did, ah I could just kick myself now
Through nights of lousy dreams

As visions gather in my head
I find it hard to live with the things I did and said
But for you my friend, I’d live it all again
And love you in the end

Anything for you baby anything for you
If it took those years to get me here
I’d do it again for you

Took a leap of faith and I stumbled
Tried to live outside grace and I was humbled
But I’d like to bet if I’d lived to fear regret
Then we never would’ve met

So here we are and I don’t know what we call it
‘Cause love is such a funny promise
Commitment is impossible and forever is a lie
But that still leaves you and I

Anything for you baby anything for you
If it took those years to get me here
I’d do it again for you

In the 'Hood

Grandmotherhood, that is. Impending grandmotherhood is turning out to be a source of tender amusement.

My oldest son, who is going to be a father this fall, is visiting me right now. He borrowed my laptop for awhile last night, and when I got it back, all his windows were still open: MySpace, Napster, the Huggies Club and BabyNames.com.

Cute, n'est ce pas?

His girlfriend, the expectant mother, just got back from shopping in the city with her mom, and she announced excitedly to us that she'd gotten the baby a Halloween costume. The baby, who will be about 9 weeks old on Halloween, will be dressed as a banana and its mother will be dressed as a monkey.

I laughed until my sides hurt when I heard this.

Not our actual baby

Family Photo

Little sea monkey, March 2, 10 weeks from conception. Fingers, toes and tail, and strongly beating heart.

I'm not going to be one of those kinds of grandmothers, the ones that post photos of their grandbabies all over the place.

Or maybe I will. So what?

She Will Bring the Buds in Spring

Little fuzzy things on a tree at school

My friend Angela came over with her truck this morning, and we hauled stuff away to various destinations.

I hadn't had any sleep the night before, so it was difficult to wake up early and do manual labor. But Angela arrived with coffee and a can-do attitude.

Out with the Old
There is now a storage unit that contains nothing but my soon-to-be ex-husband's stuff, and soon, all that will be left here in this house are our own valued possessions.

On the bright side, my clothes and shoes can stretch out a bit because now the whole closet is mine.

Even better, there is no longer a copy of Ronald Reagan's autobiography taking up valuable bookshelf space next to Albert Einstein's. It was a strange pairing there on the shelf and ... do I even need to articulate the rest of that thought?

How do people dissolve marriages? I understand the legal process of divorce, I know how to break up with a lover, but what is done with the leftover memories that before had been so carefully preserved? The wedding album and the wedding dress, the dried flowers, the ring?

In with the New
Spring cleaning is not about the old but about welcoming in the new, right?

So let me add that there are memories here I am glad I've preserved, because our family has a new member on the way.

I have the tiny cotton outfit my son wore home from the hospital when he first came into the world.

I have his baby pictures, so we can scour the images for family resemblances.

I came across his G.I. Joes today and had a strange and wondrous thought: what if he has a son?

Little boys are the dearest things on earth.

Next page

Today, the sun is out and the sky is blue

In case I sounded depressed enough to worry anyone last night, I want to say I do feel somewhat better today. Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging comments. They really helped!

I had a beauty shop appointment first thing this morning, for a haircut and to cover the irritating grey strands. I walked out of there looking better and feeling better. Shallow, I know, but every little bit helps.

I have a birthday this weekend, during which I will still be trying to process this new development:

I am going to be a grandmother!!

Photo from mrines.com

Baby Daddy

This cute little boy is my venerable and dignified father. And that bespectacled cowboy is his great-granddad, my great-great-grandfather, George Madden. These are the oil fields near Corsicana, Texas. And that, my friends, is a 1929 Pontiac Roadster. How adorable is this?

Show and tell

Bright Beauty from the Garden
My son and I worked again with the gardener at the church, and this time my son planted 576 seeds in flats, all winter vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, chard, cabbage and kale.

For our efforts, we brought home Swiss chard, to try for the first time. It was delicious! I am a big fan of greens, lately--a big fan of anything fresh from the garden, actually.

Speaking of which, we ate a carrot that had only been out of the ground a few moments. It was better than chocolate, and I never thought I would say that about a carrot.

Anyway, this Swiss chard was "Fiesta" variety and here's why:
A Blanket the Color of his Eyes
And while I am sharing, here is a pic of the lambswool afghan I crocheted for my other son, who will graduate from high school this year. This project took about 2 weeks, while the last one took months. Not sure why...
Pretty Flowers Anyway
My internet access has been spotty and unpredictable all month, so I also never got a chance to show you the roses I received for Valentine's Day. They aren't as meaningful as you might think, but that's not their fault. They were lovely.
Stories Between the Lines
And finally, my Swedish friend has found out a bunch of interesting genealogical information about my family by reading old church records from the mid 1800s. The records look like this, but my friend can decipher them:
Augusta's Story
So here is a little story about this woman, Augusta. She was my great grandmother:
Augusta was born in a tiny hamlet in southern Sweden to a farming couple. She had an older brother Bengt and a younger brother Algot.

Bengt was adventurous and went away to America in 1882 when he was 24, because the American government was promising land to immigrants.

When he got there perhaps he wrote letters home saying it was good, because five years later in 1887, Augusta, 25, and her little brother Algot, 23, packed their bags and sailed for America.

They all three settled in Kane, Pennsylvania. Augusta never learned to speak English; I don't how she made her living.

Soon she married Johan, a young man who was also a Swedish immigrant from the same area her family lived in. Perhaps they already knew each other.

Johan was the son of a farmhand and he had come to America seeking land of his own. He came first to Illinois, but wound up in Pennsylvania where he married Augusta. They had a bunch of sons, including my grandfather, and lived happily ever after.

Bengt's Story
Augusta's brother Bengt, however, had a more eventful story. He married, and he and his wife had two sons. But soon Bengt's wife became mentally ill and had to be committed to an asylum.

Perhaps Bengt was overwhelmed caring for his two young boys alone, grieving about his wife. Perhaps his mother offered to help. In 1900, Bengt decided to return to Sweden with his ailing wife and his two sons who were 12 and 7. The family moved back to the farm with Bengt's aging parents.

Bengst's wife never went back into an asylum, but after her sons were grown she ran away from Sweden and returned to America in 1915. This secret act was recorded by priests in The Book of Nonexistence.

Bengt eventually remarried, took over the farm after his parents' deaths, and then died in 1926.

This story is written between these spidery lines on yellowed paper. There are giant stacks of these papers. Imagine the stories.

My story would be so incomplete if you tried to piece it together from official records.

Something

Me in high school (that button says, "Fuck off and die.")

Something Delightful
The theme of the last couple of days has been nostalgia. I found some old friends from high school on Facebook, and we've been exchanging emails. I just don't know why I let people slip out of my life the way I do. Now I have to gather them all up again.

My great-grandparents: could they get any cuter?

Something Surprising
Tonight, I was looking through some really old photos to make a scrapbook page, pics of parents as babies, my grandparents as newlyweds, etc. I turned over a photo of my great-grandparents to see if there was a date written on the back. Instead I found a line in Swedish written by my great-grandmother. It didn't say anything significant, just "This isn't very good but I'm sending it anyway." The significant part is that I could read it without a dictionary.

The Coen Brothers: I don't trust these guys anymore
(photo from PopCritics.com)

Something Inane
I'm watching Burn After Reading, and I hate it (but I have to finish it anyway). The Coen brothers used to be so cool. Their O Brother Where Art Thou? is one of my all-time favorites. Miller's Crossing is great, and The Big Lebowski is hilarious. But I've been disappointed with everything else.

The stove I really want to cook on
(photo from homesweethomewrecker.com)

Something New
I made Cornish game hens for dinner, a first for me. I found a recipe online, "Cornish Game Hens with Garlic and Rosemary." The other magical ingredients are white wine and lemon. This was delicious! Putting the lemon and rosemary inside the hens to cook made the flavors seep into the meat. And the garlic roasts alongside the hens until it's tender and savory. My son was delighted that he had a whole little bird all to himself.