i inherited two pairs of big binoculars from my sweet poppo. at the time i probably never-woulda-thought that i’d be studying birds with them. but…you know what they say!
and here we are – with these powerful binoculars always at the ready, on the table in the sunroom, so that we can grab them and watch the crows in the nest or the finches at the grape jelly or the hummers at the feeder or search for the origin of the beautiful birdcall. we have a tiny pair as well, to take with us on trails, though we would be waaay better served with the good ones. it’s amazing how up-close-and-personal they get us.
and then there’s the merlin app. what an extraordinary tool that is! you record birdcalls and it instantly identifies the bird for you! utterly amazing, we are grateful to cornell lab of ornithology for this. we have used this app innumerable times, always relishing the quick id it gives us. because we don’t always commit it all to memory – ahem! – we rely on the (non-judgmental) app to tell us again and again. so cool!
i think about what my momma and poppo would have done with the merlin app on their iphone. they would have had a field day! they spent hours watching the birds back home, on long island, and in florida – where they looked out on a lake. i wish they could have played with it. they missed its development by just a smidge.
but every time we grab the binoculars or open the app to record a birdsong, clean the birdbath or fill the feeders, i know. they – momma, poppo, columbus – are aware and are nodding at each other, smiles on their faces, maybe even laughing a little or rolling their eyes at our earlier-in-life bird-watch-disregard.
every single time. my sweet momma and poppo would stand at the door or in the driveway or on the sidewalk or, even, inside, parting the curtains to look out. they would roll down the window at departures. they would roll down the windows if they were driving away. every single time. they would hold up their hands in the american sign language sign for “i love you” as we would back out, pull away, drive down the road, head into the terminal. every single time.
i believe they know that we have all continued their tradition. every single time.
and, no matter what person in their family – in all the circles of nuclear and extended family – in children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren – in all the definitions of family – birthed, adopted, married into, children-by-love-in-laws – they would remind that person “i love you” in leaving. so that you wouldn’t forget.
and you couldn’t. forget. because you could see them – in your mind’s eye – standing there – hand held up – misty tears on their faces.
we’ve passed this downed tree on the trail many, many times. and yet, this was the first time i saw it. at just the right time, i could see the sign. i ran through the underbrush to get a photograph and thanked the universe for the reminder.
love is. family is. all-embracing. they don’t draw lines in the sand. they don’t parse out biological dna strands. and they don’t minimize the giant commitment that comes with giving birth, adopting, becoming a step-parent. they don’t measure one against the other. they don’t ignore the worrying and the angsting and the supporting and the relationship-building that comes with every one of those. because love is love. and a family – filled with complex concentric and overlapping circles – understands that – that love is love.
even the day – when i was young and my siblings told me i was “cesarean” – and i thought i was from another country, no less – i had no worries that i was not an integral and loved part of my family. and i was only eight. but i knew that being in a family is also a decision. so, i was not concerned that my cesarean-ish-ness would make me peripheral, would make me less-than, would place me under any different heading than the ancestral family.
as we go through life we are fortunate enough to find both people who align with us and people who don’t. we entertain conversation and animated debate and learn from each other. we glimpse tiny pieces of worlds we do not know from these others around us and are better for that. we hold each other in respect and with affection. and these people – these friends – our community – become family as well.
and we look to each other to learn how the other lives. we learn about the tight web that holds us all dear to another. we learn – sometimes – that isn’t the case and we don’t hold tight. we learn we share the same core family values. though – sometimes – we learn we don’t. we learn about the choices others make in their lives and glean from them, taking with us lessons about life. though – sometimes – we don’t. and we learn to open our hearts and wrap each new person in our family in love. but – sometimes – we think there are people who don’t count, so we don’t.
and those don’ts make people draw lines in the sand to exclude others. those don’ts make people haughty and rejecting. those don’ts undermine relationships and love. those don’ts destroy families.
what a waste of time – and life – all those don’ts.
my sweet momma and poppo stood with their hands up signing “i love you” each and every time. even their little family continued to grow…because they chose it. the dna of their ancestry passes love of one another – without exception – generation to generation.
because love and family are all-embracing. they are one and the same.
sisu is alive and well at the milwaukee art museum. i was thrilled to see the scandinavian design installation. i was pretty sure it would all feel familiar. all my life, i have been surrounded by pieces from scandinavia, finland in particular.
in what is likely a sin-of-casualness, quite some time ago i placed the vintage marimekko dish towel into the kitchen drawer, wanting to use it, to see it more often than the rare times i open up the cedar chest. i took out other finnish linens as well, placing them in regular rotation. they are simpler, organic linens, raw in color. but the marimekko…it’s happiness in a towel.
so when we walked into the room with the brilliant marimekko maija isola’s unikko (poppy) design hanging as a giant banner of fabric, i was inordinately happy. gorgeous and bold, you could stand there for a long time and just soak it in, like sunshine on a bluebird day.
i have many finnish relatives. all delightful and spread about in finland and various other european countries, i haven’t had the pleasure of being in their company since i was eight and my grandmother took me to finland for ten weeks to experience the land of the midnight sun, the sauna and the lake of the northern cabin, the town named after her family – klamila. but, at eight, i wasn’t fascinated by bolts of fabric or designer glass. instead, i pretended there was a horse on the back porch and spent long hours on the porchrail, reins in hand, exploring the wilds of finland. it would do my heart good to meet this branch of family once again.
i knew my sweet momma and my grandmother were cheering as we slowly made our way through the installation. reading all the placards and admiring the simplicity of pieces of silver, of china, of exquisitely designed coffeepots, we had to, of course, veer off the scandinavian path and visit the diebenkorn and the rothko before we left.
the marimekko towel was the next one up in the drawer. i took it out and pondered the feasibility of using such a treasured item. and then i could hear my momma echo my grandmother’s words: of course you should. it’s your roots.
mama dear made rag rugs. i still have a few of them. for a long time, a rag rug served as a faux tablecloth on the kitchen table. eventually, after years of washings, the stitches loosened up and i tucked it carefully into the drawer of a cupboard in the dining room.
my grandmother also made yoyo quilts. she took outgrown clothing and bits of leftover fabric bolts and cut circles from them. sewing a running stitch along the perimeter she pulled and it gathered into a rosette-round. hundreds of rosettes later, even thousands, she stitched them together into quilts full of visceral memories of moments spent in party dresses or aprons or simple a-lines. yoyo quilts sell on etsy for a few hundred dollars, but i would never sell mine.
some day i’d like to make a yoyo quilt. i had envisioned my children cherishing one made from clothing they wore as little ones, but i realize that their level of thready is nowhere near mine, so i will have to make the quilt for myself. i have saved their clothing to do just that – tiny overalls, sweet sundresses, toddler leggings, mini blue jeans, printed onesies and receiving blankets – for a yoyo or even for a traditional quilt, both projects which seem like mindfulness exercises even with the tedious work needed to create them. someday.
we walked into the door of the farmhouse. it was our second time there. i remembered it as homey and just perfect for what we needed – as a gathering space for the family, the rest of whom were staying in a hotel. i remembered the blue walls, the chalkboard cabinet doors with messages, the photographs. i remembered the cheer.
but i had forgotten about the rag rugs. instant bonding.
in early morning, the sun rose past the horizon, peeked under the porchroof, around the adirondack chairs and the swinging platform, past the sleeping gracie-cat and up and over the fern perched on the rusty-red outside cellar doors.
but at just the right time, in later afternoon, it curled around the silo and the barn out on the west side, streamed in through the screen door and bathed the old wood floor and the rag rug in light. like a spotlight on something simply beautiful, it called out to be noticed.
i wonder how hard it is to make a rag rug. mama dear never showed me how she made them. i suppose i could take them out of the upstairs closet where they linger, waiting for the right chance to use them again. maybe i could figure it out. it can’t be too very difficult to discern the process. but my grandmother was a talented seamstress and i remember mama dear sewing and sewing, her hands moving quickly – at her singer or with needle and thread – and talking, talking, talking as she sewed. the only time she didn’t speak was when she would (don’t try this at home) store pins pursed between her lips. i thought that straight pins needed ‘spittin’ on’ in order to use them. it wasn’t for a few years until i learned that my grandmother was not spitting on the pins before she used them. perception – as a child – is a funny thing. what i did understand was how much she made things for all of us. no spit needed, just lots of love.
rag rugs and quilts and wood floors. they go straight to my heart.
it stands on a small-town iowa hillside. it’s been there well over a hundred years, this carved headstone at almost-the-highest-point of the pioneer cemetery. in front of us, the earth falls off into fields and fields of green. if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there.
we spent the afternoon on the lake michigan beach, searching for hagstones and leaning against a big piece of driftwood watching the waves. mostly deserted, the stripes of soft sand, rocks, aqua, blue sky were serene. we had stumbled upon this beach, discovering it. if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there.
there is a spot high in the mountains surrounded by lodgepole pines, the scent strong and inviting. it is cool under the canopy of trees and the log sits next to the stream in a bed of pine needles. an upstream glance reveals a snow-covered summit; downstream is a tiny waterfall. it is a slice of heaven. if you didn’t know…
another spot, a different mountain, we have hiked past the aspen stands and are past the end of the trail. we sit on rocks and play in the brook that swims past us, curling around red rock and granite. there is little noise, save for the babbling. if you didn’t know…
high on the edge of a deep canyon, the sun set over us as we echoed our voices into the deepening dusk. my daughter brought me here and it will always be a pinnacle moment in my heart. that very spot – that canyon – that sunset – that breeze – that stillness – that echo – that power – that humbling – that love – is profound. but if you didn’t know…
places that have made an enduring impact. places unmarked by signs, specific places many do not even know exist, they are carved into my mind’s eye. places – specific spots – of relative anonymity. places that changed me.
it is likely that hillside, that beach, those mountains, that stream, that brook, that canyon will maybe last forever. they will certainly be there long after i will be here. it’s sobering. it gives one pause for thought. it seems a natural hop and skip to: if you didn’t know i was there, you wouldn’t know i was there.
but the hillside, the beach, the mountain stream, the end-of-trail brook, the canyon became a part of me, of the stuff in my tapestry. and, in symbiotic turn, i became a part of them, of those spots.
and somewhere along they way, we have done the same – a tiny part of us has become a part of someone else and they a part of us.
littlebabyscion wore the lighted tree like a sparkling bejeweled crown. the tree was the guide back to our little xb in a very crowded parking lot. littlebabyscion wore it proudly.
i’m not much of a hat-wearer. i have those 180-earmuffs and wear those mostly. i think that my face looks like a smushed pear if i wear a hat and – the other day when i tried to describe to david what my hair does when i pull on a hat – i could only verbalize it with sounds – like mwuhhh! – the sound that might demonstrate the smushing down of long hair around my long face pulled over my long forehead. goodness! so.much.long. not enough round.
i gaze around at how very delightful other gals look in hats. i mean, some women wear hats like there’s no tomorrow. stunning, adorable, beguiling, you-name-it…they can really carry off a hat. me? i have a nordic face and my thank-you-poppo-dad’s forehead and the non-thick blonde hair of someone in my ancestry. not to mention these jowls that appeared a year or so ago. don’t worry…i won’t go on and on about those again. i am vowing to go on and on less. to me. to others. to the universe. my jowls are teaching me a lesson. “be less jowlish,” they say. i will leave it to you to decide what that means. for i do not want to go on and on.
so, suffice it to say, a crown would not be my best accessory. an adornment such as that sort of requires thick hair that doesn’t really tousle easily. i fail on both accounts. i do not wake like women waking in movies. (nor do they, i suspect.) instead, i wake and look like i have pretty much slept on my head or have sleep-wandered outside and found myself in a windstorm before moseying back under the covers. clearly i am a peaceful sleeper.
i do love the idea of a hat, though. and back in the day – during the forehead-bangs of the 1990s – i wore many a fine hat. a flat-brimmed black felt hat, a kelly green felt upturned-brim bucket hat, a paddy cap, a cowboy hat…once on, they were my companions for the whole entire day as hat-hair is a thing to which one does not want to expose others. it was my millinery period of time and i still have the hats in hatboxes in my studio closet. one never knows when hat-juju might strike.
and so, the two winter hats i have call my name every now and then.
we got out of littlebabyscion to go hike the trail. it was cold and really damp, a deep chill. i pulled the hat-with-the-biggest-pompom-you’ve-ever-seen over my head and reveled in the instant warmth. there is definitely something to be said about this whole-head-hat-thing as opposed to the 180s.
i pulled on my miracle mittens, looked at my reflection in the car window and began to walk away from the parking lot.
but not before i could hear littlebabyscion stifling a guffaw, trying hard not to laugh.
i was stunned to see my eyes on his face. maybe even my nose. ok, maybe – for obvious reasons – more my dad’s, my mom’s. but, sheesh, this ancestral dna, undeniable, is a funny thing.
finnish. i am finnish. and proud of it. though there are millions of us, my most-italian-city-in-the-state-of-wisconsin doesn’t have a lot of finns. we are pretty few and far between. the most finnish we get in these parts is people talk about (while mispronouncing) “saunas” and wonder about the use of the word “sisu” (one of my personal favorites.)
recently, in facebookland, my cousin posted this finnish proverb, “the forest will answer you in the way you call to it.” another cousin wrote that she remembered the story about our relative uuno klami, a famous finnish composer, “one of the most significant composers in the era following jean sibelius”, who brought people out into the forest and encouraged them to “sit quietly” and “listen to the woods”.
my sweet momma used to tell me about him, too. she connected the dots back to uuno as where i drew my composing juju. no one else in our family wrote music and, actually, not many even played instruments. my dad used to brag about how he could “turn on the stereo” as his musical talent. yes, he was a cutie-pie with a dad-sense-of-humor. my mom was insistent. in the ever-so-typical “yeah-yeah-yeah” internal response to which we children seem to default, i didn’t go much further than these conversations, a discuriousness i now regret.
so a couple weeks ago i googled him. it was startling to see his picture. because i felt like i recognized the heavy eyebrow lids – frontal bossing or some such term – slightly drooping eyes, the 11’s furrowed over his nose, his actual nose. geesh. he was not blessed with as high a forehead. now, a few generations later…
but – his woods connection. yes. psithurism: the sound of rustling leaves and wind in the trees. gorgeous. inspiring. evocative. i so agree with him.
his music – as i now begin to listen to it, on his trail – many pieces with only one recording, one interpretation. and – in the way of composers and real life – much of his oeuvre is unpublished.
yet i suspect that the forest knows it all. what he brought to it – his muse – returns to the leaves and the wind and is always there.
every week we would drive to st. james so that i could take norwegian lessons. my sweet momma and poppo took them too. i had no idea why i was taking these lessons, but far be it from me to question the stubborn pull of the sons of norway lodge for my parents, who loved their membership there, a little inland from the north shore of long island. i belonged to the sons of norway youth group as well. one of my really close high school friends belonged to the greek youth group, so my membership at the loyal lodge didn’t seem quite so weird, but the greek youth group was way more lively than the norwegian’s, with many festivals and dances. i mean, just think of the food alone: norwegian fish pudding vs. greek moussaka, lapskaus vs. souvlaki, krumkake vs. baklava, akvavit vs. ouzo…there is a different level of excitement and celebration. anyway, i felt less like an anomaly going to norwegian lessons because angela went to greek school.
not much of the norwegian tradition has carried on. there have been times when we have made krumkake, filling the plain waffle cookies off the iron with fruit or whipped cream. there have – never – been times that we have sought out norwegian fish pudding nor lutefisk. never ever. i have never – ever – used my norwegian lessons. sadly, even if i went to norway, which is most definitely on a bucket list, i would not understand any of the language now’days.
but “uff da” has endured.
my dad used the expression often. it was a substitution for “oof!” or “oh geez!” to express surprise or dismay or just to buy a moment of thinking-time. “uff da!” is synonymous with him in our family. so it is likely if any of us sees a bumper sticker or what-have-you that says “uff da!” we will send it on and around. it’s like we have had a tiny visit from my dad; erling has spoken.
we have a couple “uff da” magnets on our fridge that came from their fridge. and my nephew named his children beautiful and unique heritage-rich norwegian names, carrying on legacy my dad passed down. i get to carry my dad’s name with me (as well as his jowls). and you can sometimes – though not too often – hear me say “uff da” out loud.
my sons of norway days are no longer, but i remember fondly the cute boy “j-r” in my class, the norwegian dancing instruction, the man from the lodge who built our stone fireplace rock-by-rock, the miss norway pageant in the city and the marzipan.
i hope there is chocolate ganache cake and asti spumante. today is my sweet momma’s 100th birthday and, wherever she is roaming in that other plane of existence, i want there to be an enormous celebration of this day she was born back in 1921. there is not a moment i don’t miss her. there is not a moment that i am unaware of her presence.
the dining room table is piled with all kinds of finnish glassware and etched crystal and scandinavian birchwood as i empty bins that have been packed for years. i carefully unwrap the end-of-roll-clean-newsprint that layers between these and i’m immediately reminiscent. every here and there there is a tiny note, written by my mom, to explain the origins of this vase or that kissing-couple-wine-stopper. i have many questions and know that they will now go unanswered. i find myself researching and researching, a google-fest of information about these items, some of which have no story i can access.
i am drawn to pieces and carefully clean them. we poured chilled white wine into a pair of chunky goblets, ittala ultima thule glass designed by tapio wirkkala, inspired by melting ice in lapland. yesterday i made strawberry rose sangria and poured it into glasses from a heavy crystal etched pitcher, which i remember was a gift to my parents early in their marriage. the other day we had happy hour snacks out on the deck, olives and crackers and goat cheese on hand-painted japanese china, a post-world-war-two-origin lost to me, served on a glass mid-century hazel atlas boopie berwick party platter (which is actually called a ‘smoke and snack tray’ but i can’t bring myself to call it that.)
the history gathers in our dining room and i can almost feel the cheers of my momma and my dad, my grandmother mama dear and grandfather gramps. they encourage my googling and they also encourage me to sort through and find the things that really resonate with me. i can hear my momma telling me, “pass it on to someone” or “sell it!” as i unpack more bins of things, things, things that would otherwise remain packed. although i still abide by the unspoken ‘beaky rule’ to saaave new things for a bit before using them, keeping all these things packed in bins for years, no, decades – unused – is silliness and it is rewarding time spent opening it all up, seeing what’s there, going through, incorporating these jewels into our daily life. i know that is making my momma smile.
today we will lift our glasses to my momma, our beaky, and celebrate her. her spirit and spunk live on. her stink eye penetrating look, her raised eyebrow “oh?”, her ‘write-a-lettuh’, her sisu, her new-yorkishness. her kindness, her storytelling, her love.
today i will light a candle and gently ring the delicate glass bell she and my dad received as a wedding gift and i will be grateful that this day – 100 years ago – my momma was born on this earth. for that, this world is better.
when my big brother died, i was lost in a maelstrom of emotion. it was hard for me to wrap my head around how the world would go on at a point he could no longer feel it. it wasn’t like i hadn’t experienced loss before. at that point in my life, i no longer had any of my grandparents present on this earth with me. that just felt like a more natural thing – to lose those we love who are elderly, who have lived long and full lives. my beloved brother, on the other hand, was merely 41 and there were so many hopes and dreams he still had for himself and his family. i am still struck by the fact that the world does, indeed, go on. the sun rises and sets; the moon lingers in the night sky. and my question, both existential and somewhat obvious, remains unanswered: how it can go on if he can’t feel it anymore. how it will go on – someday – if i can’t feel it anymore.
at some point a few years ago, i played for a memorial service at a synagogue. one of the meditations before kaddish made me weep. penned by merrit malloy, it reads: “when i die give what’s left of me away to children and old men that wait to die. and if you need to cry, cry for your brother walking the street beside you. and when you need me, put your arms around anyone and give them what you need to give me. i want to leave you something, something better than words or sounds. look for me in the people i’ve known or loved, and if you cannot give me away, at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind. you can love me best by letting hands touch hands and by letting go of children that need to be free. love doesn’t die, people do. so when all that’s left of me is love, give me away.”
the white trout lily humbly bows on the forest floor. much like people, though on a different scale, their presence is ephemeral, fleeting. on sunny days, their petals will curl back, up, towards the sun; on shady days these small flowers may not even open. their simple beauty a mystery to the passerby, their faces shyly downward, they fill the underbrush on the side of the trail, dotting the landscape with fragile white blooms. i trust they are not concerned with the impact they make on the world nor do they wonder about their footprints once they are gone. they are simply there – love – dressed in white floral.
as we have moved through the pandemic and the devastating myriad of even just this past year, it is inevitable to think of all the loss, the loved ones who have died, the families and concentric circles left behind in grief, questioning. it is also – yes – a reminder that we are still here.
my dear friend sent me a link to a new york times op ed by charles blow. she drew my attention to the last line, words of perfection: “when i am gone, and people remember my name, i want some of them to smile.”
reverse threading 