dna | reverse threading

August 14, 2025
by kerrisherwood11 2 Comments

birdwatchers by dna. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

i am surely turning into my parents. at least when it comes to their love of birds.

early this season – and after much research – we went to the nursery. we were set on purchasing trumpet-shaped salvia – for our hummingbirds. they didn’t have any but recommended cardinal flower, another flower that attracts these tiny birds.

we planted it in an old metal firepit out by the back fence next to the big leaf hosta, adjacent to the hummingbird feeder. and waited.

months. it has taken months for it to grow and to sport blooms. for a while we thought we would need to go find salvia, our original choice, to add to the planter. nothing was really happening with our cardinal flower.

until all of a sudden.

it shot up tall – almost as tall as the fence. and then, to the drumroll of the universe and its independent timing, stunning red blooms began to open. and, in a validating moment of glee, we watched a hummingbird hover next to multiple blooms and drink from them. finally.

this cardinal flower should have come with a note attached – “please be patient”. as it is a perennial, we hope it will return next year as well in this big metal urn. but we will plant some salvia just inside the perimeter of the urn next spring, because, well, we aren’t all that patient.

in the meanwhile, I’ve kept our red glass hummingbird feeder freshened and ready for any hummers on the move. it is completely delightful to watch them zoom in – they know the feeder is there – a tiny gps keeps track of these things in their tiniest brains. it never ceases to amaze us.

just like the birds who swoop in to the feeder out back or land on the edge of the birdbath, one of our favorite purchases from a couple years ago. they know. seemingly, word has spread to the house finches that we have grape jelly, word has spread to the sparrows we have dirtbath access, word has spread to the robins we have water to sip, word has spread to the cardinals we have easier access to food. because it is obvious that they know.

we couldn’t be more proud.

it starts for us when we wake to the sounds of early birds outside our windows. and, at the end of the day, out on the deck in the waning sun, we watch the swallows and bats compete for airspace while other birds seem to be finding shelter and places to rest.

yes, my parents used to sit for hours watching the birdlife. they seemed absolutely content, quietly observing and talking about feeders and birdhouses.

we totally get it now.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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June 16, 2025
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

choose radical love. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

chosen family.

“the powerful, loving bonds formed between individuals who are not biologically related but who choose to be family…highlighting the strength of these non-traditional family units and the unconditional love they provide.”(the trevor project)

so, dna ain’t everything.

i, for one, have found it personally shocking at times to be related to my similar-dna-stranded relatives. particularly now. for one – incorrectly – assumes that one is aligned with those in one’s family – with values and love and respect leading the way. this, however, is not always true. and – shockingly – families, like friends or colleagues, are quite capable of throwing others under the bus. shocking, indeed.

so we seek those who support us, who support our world view, who challenge and push, who protect, who encourage others to be their best and most authentic self.

in this – incredibly the 21st century – with a twisted administration – we are faced with making decisions of estrangement – boundary setting that is squarely focused on the upholding of each other and our rights and freedoms. it is impossible to pretend to be “family” if members have chosen to undermine the rights and freedoms of other members. dna schmee-n-a.

a week ago we spent the weekend attending milwaukee pride events at which our EDM artist son performed. his friends welcomed us with hugs and dancing and conversation. we were embraced and felt the love. i cannot imagine why anyone would reject or endanger such a community – LGBTQIA – so inclusive of all. it is incomprehensible.

one of his friends came up to us while we were dancing and drew us close in to talk above the music. “if i had parents like you, i’d have everything,” he said into our ears. i cried as he walked away.

my grown children have a wonderful father. they have a generous-of-spirit stepmom who cares about them. they have me. and they have david, who has been supportive in every way that a caring father can be. they are every much his children in this last decade. we all share them and join together as the circle of one-generation-previous people around them who want them to be their best and most authentic selves. isn’t that what parenthood is? they are just lucky enough to share dna with two of the four of us. but we are all their parents.

these are days of non-traditional. we are fortunate to live in these days – days of wisdom and cultivated illumination – when love is simply love and the bonds of family extend beyond ancestry lines. i can only hope that we all celebrate each other – in our differences and in our sameness. we can seek family with bonds based on unconditional love and support. if we can look at our biological families and freely choose each other, we are lucky. if our own families endanger others or refuse to see or value them, it is incumbent upon us to draw lines in the sand. this life keeps ticking. it would seem infinite love – acceptance, inclusion, belonging – would be the way to live these tiny lives we get.

be the people whom others choose. “chosen families have helped queer people survive and experience radical love and joy at a time when their rights, and in some cases their very lives, are threatened.” (alex welch)

radical love and joy. life is too short for anything else.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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February 19, 2024
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

love and family. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

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.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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September 5, 2022
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

on the trail of uuno. [merely-a-thought monday]

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.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

October 20, 2021
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

‘shrooms and fairies. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

the amazon truck pulled up and the driver got out, ran a package to our door and ran back to the truck. but he didn’t pull away. he pulled up a bit and stepped out again with his phone, aiming it up at the big old tree at the end of our driveway. in the notch of branches was a giant mushroom, super-sized by humidity. he poked at it and a chunk fell off for him to investigate. from inside i couldn’t tell what he was doing, but once i walked down the driveway i could see the giant ‘shroom. perhaps a northern tooth fungus, it was beautiful and mysterious. it’s no wonder the amazon guy stopped to stare and photograph it.

there are years that we have had mushroom rings in our yard. you’re thinking, wow, they mustn’t have great grass. no, we don’t have great grass. but a fairy ring of mushrooms is common and apparently take about a year to form, all underground. superstition says that if you enter a fairy ring, you will dance with nature’s creatures and you will be unable to stop. since we like snacks and sleep, we have chosen not to enter the ring, avoiding the off-chance that this inexorable dancing take over. but the presence of fairies and elves seems magical and since these rings are associated with luck, i choose good luck over bad and we haven’t done anything to prevent them from being there.

one evening as we sat having a late dinner at our covid table in the sunroom, happy lights on and a couple candles flickering, i looked more closely at snakeinthegrass. i was surprised to find the presence of tiny mushrooms, sprouting up and living in community with this sansevieria plant. perfect little fungi, they stood tall and steadfast for a few days and i imagined tiny invisible-to-the-human-eye fairies waltzing under their domes. we laughed at the ballroom on our table.

as fascinating as mushrooms are, i would never be one to go out into the woods to arbitrarily pick them; there are too many doppelgangers out there and we are not informed. but in the way of learning new factoids, it’s amazing to note that mushrooms actually breathe oxygen – just like humans – and emit carbon dioxide, the opposite of plants. and the genetic makeup, the actual dna, of mushrooms is more similar to humans than plants.

as i look at the coming and going of these tiny mushrooms in our potted plants and high in our maple tree and ringing in the yard, i think about the necessity of their existence in our ecosystem. fungus, they give back and make it possible for plants to survive. they are synergetic without exception. perhaps their dna is even more advanced than humans.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

May 13, 2021
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my dad’s jowls. [d.r. thursday]

over-exposed and blurry. that’s how i prefer photographs of me these days.

this morning i opened facebook and there was one of those “you have a memory” pictures. it was from nine years ago when my girl graduated from college and she and i and one of my nieces were all in a pub gathered closely together. adding to my over-exposed and soft-focus-photo-capture-desires, this memory looked different – younger – than when i looked in the mirror shortly thereafter. hmm. the marks of time.

my sweet momma would look in the mirror and, in a singsong whiny voice whine, “i look like an old woman!” she was 93. i would gently remind her both that she was a woman of age and she was amazingly beautiful wearing that age. but as i look into the mirror each day, i’m wondering if she was as dismissive of my words as i am dismissive of david’s “you’re beautiful” compliments. we are so hard on ourselves. our grooves, impressions like the ones in the carpet at the old family home, are earned from the long haul, from all that we have encountered, from the sun in day and dreams at night.

the wear and tear – or lack thereof – on each of us belies the courage and tenacity beneath the surface. we keep on keeping on, adding a wrinkle here or a grey hair there. i thought i was getting used to the appearance of tiny evidences of middle-aging until one famous morning. it all had gone basically unnoticed until that one day when i looked in the mirror and WHAMMO! my dad’s jowls had appeared. what?!? i stared at myself. my dad’s jowls stared back. it was all i could see. what on earth had happened overnight??

i ran to the next room to get a photograph of my sweet poppo and, sure enough, there they were. a perfect match. i pulled up a recent photo of my dad’s sister, his only surviving sibling, and voila! there they were. i am in a perfect-harmony-trio of jowls. i looked for a picture of my sister. though i was hoping to, i didn’t really see any jowls. what’s up with that, dna? seems slightly unfair to me. ahh, indents and jowls. the marks of time.

i look sideways to the window as i write this. below the sill are a variety of lines in the wall, many of them. on summer nights, when the window was wide open and you could feel the breeze blowing and the sweet smell of mown grass drifted in, this was the window that babycat jumped into to sleep. his lumbering body stretched out on the sill, he would lay there throughout the night. in the morning, he would put his paw down in front of his body and drag it along the wall to carefully get down out of the window. the scratched lines remain. indented in the wall, i am not eager to remove them in these times of dearly missing our beloved cat.

one day, like the vacuum that will remove the ridged lines in the carpet in david’s parents’ living room, a little sanding and paint will remove these scratched lines. but their import won’t go away. the sofa that sat in the living room may no longer be there, but the times spent there will always be a part of that space. the scratches on the wall may be fixed, but the cat that graced our lives will always be a part of this space.

the jowls that are now on my face will remain, however, and i suspect become more pronounced, just like the wrinkles and the grey hairs. all that i have been – including the times when i didn’t care about over-exposure and blurred photos – will remain. all that i have experienced, just like you, makes its mark. and we will be lucky if we someday glance in a mirror at 93 and whine-like-we’re-45, “i look like an old woman!”

jowls or not.

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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April 16, 2021
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

i struck gold. [k.s. friday]

once upon a time, a long long time ago in a faraway place, something happened. and then, there was A Rift, chasm-like and mysterious to those who followed. members of a family – my family – got hurt and angry and argued and dissed each other and cut off communication. no one really remembers the details but it must have been of gigantic proportion because decades have passed and relationships never regained their footing.

and then.

in the aftermath of breaking both my wrists last year, in the beginning of this global pandemic, in a time of upending change, i decided that life was too short for something i really could not remember, for something that had nothing to do with me, for something that represents tear-down instead of build-up. i started to research.

now, with google and all manners of social media, it doesn’t take a private investigator type to find people these days. it was not very hard.

and suddenly, my long-lost first cousins were there. in a tiny family tree, it is hugely significant to find first cousins, part of the constellation. sadly, two of them had passed, though there is open opportunity to be in touch with their families. and, miracle of miracles, the one remaining elder in the family from either side – my mom’s or my dad’s – in that age bracket and generation – my aunt – at almost-99-now – was alive and well. this woman who grew up with my father, who could tell me stories of my daddy when he was little-little, was still on this planet and i had had no idea.

i reached out.

just because i don’t remember, nor care, about The Great Rift didn’t mean that others felt the same way. so i was concerned and had some trepidation. but i was determined to try. for five decades i had lost the opportunity to know these people, my relatives. i had lost the chance to spend time with them, get to know them, laugh and cry with them, love them. i had lost over fifty years of relationship, over fifty years of connection. and that loss, something i’ve thought about on and off for these decades, was worth the risk. there’s way too much of that. loss.

they reached back.

and they didn’t just reach back. they reached back with joy. it was amazing to message and talk with cousin tony and cousin linda. it was thrilling to re-connect, my cousin tony laughing when i asked him to tell me everything, from every day, starting from 1970 or so.

in the middle of a pandemic, it is impossible to have the chance to go and (re)meet them yet, but we have our sights set on it for whenever it is safe. a chance to hug my aunt helen will be a chance to hug my dad once again. a chance to laugh heartily with my cousins and their children will be a chance to touch the heart of budding relationships, to touch dna.

though we have been connected despite our disconnectedness, it is a celebration for me to re-connect the dots. at a time when really nothing is more important than relationships, it is not time to be circumspect about connection. we are related! my cousin linda wrote words of promise i hold dear, “i can’t wait for the day when we just pick up the phone and just call each other without having to think about it.” yes. and cousin tony’s words ring true for me, “let’s not lose this connection again.”

Great Rifts seem to be prevalent. especially in these times of divisiveness. as i think about all the tragedies of even just the last months, i wonder what could be so important, so utterly pivotal, that could destroy connection. there is no doubt. we could exist somewhat without others, without ties. but connectedness feeds us and our souls in ways that nothing else can.

my sweet momma used to remind me of the girl scout song, “make new friends but keep the old. one is silver and the other’s gold.”

connected.

grateful.

i struck gold.

*****

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

March 18, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

jen-napkins. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

these napkins make me think of jen. it’s the reason we bought them. at every single gathering with jen and brad, jen, who is an amazing creator of festivity, sets out fun napkins. patterns and colors and images and phrases. not the 300-1-ply-approx 6″ square-white-napkins-in-plastic-wrap kind of napkins, but napkins you choose that have some panache. confident napkins. napkins with personality. napkins that celebrate.

i grew up with the other kind of napkins. my sweet momma bought the 1-ply-approx-6″ kind of napkins all my growing-up years. sometime in their retirement, beaky switched to vanity fair napkins, which are a bit more substantial and, in their substantiality, a bit fancier. any sweetly patterned napkins were reserved for special occasions, parties, holidays. because DNA is a powerful thing, our beaky passed all this down to me, and so, i haven’t yet reached the vanity-fair-napkin-stage.

we actually are cloth-napkin people. because tight-budgeting runs through my veins, we seek out two cloth napkins as souvenirs when we travel, instead of chachkies. we can tell you where all our cloth napkins are from and love to pick out which ones to use from the drawer in the dining room.

but there is something to these fun napkins that jen uses. in the basement where we keep party supplies are several packets of fun, patterned, imaged napkins. i’ve been saving them. for company, for special occasions, for a celebration.

the other day i took out a handful and put them on the kitchen table. the last couple of evenings, as we sit with a glass of wine, i have laid one at our spots. this little napkin instantly makes me happier. a simple napkin. our moments of sharing a glass of wine at the kitchen table have become moments of celebration.

so, in this time of waiting and uncertainty, i have decided, even though it will require much pushing-back-against-that-nagging-stingy-voice-in-my-head, that we will use all those napkins. i’ll go downstairs and get all the fun jen-napkins we have, no matter the season to which they are dedicated. we’ll set them out and use them, making each time we are at the table together a celebration.

and i know my sweet momma, our beaky, will be smiling down at us. “wowee!” she’ll say.

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

March 18, 2019
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voila! [merely-a-thought monday]

20 rolled his eyes at himself when he told us the story. he was at the grocery store and was looking at dish soap. he likes dawn dish soap; it gets the best ratings, he said. as he is peering at the shelf of containers, he can see that way in the back is a container with just a bit more…the volume of the ones in the front seem lower than this particular one in the back. so he reaches all the way in, moving aside other dawn bottles now rejected by him and pulls out the one where he can see the soap level just-a-little-bit-higher. he notes that the plastic bottle is not squished or dented (for obviously that would cause a rise in level) and he triumphantly puts the chosen bottle in his cart. voila! “there must be something wrong with me,” he said.

as a person who grew up with soap socks and leftovers i couldn’t disagree more. of COURSE you look for the highest level of soap in the bottle. that’s a no-duh. penny-pinching and making things last as long as possible were unspoken mantras for me; they still are.

my sweet momma kept a soap sock. for those of you who have no clue what that is: as a bar of soap gets smaller and smaller it becomes increasingly difficult to use. never to waste anything, my momma would gather all of her tiny vestiges of soap bars and put them in a clean white sock (generally a sport sock…something a little thicker with a tooth like a washcloth.) she would tie off the end and voila! there you have it – a washcloth with built-in soap! a soap sock!

i have inherited this trait from my momma. i will turn bottles upside down and squeeze the life out of them in order to finish all the product. days after d has declared a shampoo bottle empty i am still encouraging shampoo out of its depths. our refrigerator rarely has much extra in it – we buy for what we need and we use it up, even if it ends up as some weird concocted leftover. growing up i didn’t need the “starving children in ….” speech. i had dna.

so when 20 told us that he takes three pre-packaged 3 lb bags of potatoes over to the scale and weighs them i listened. apparently, 3 lbs of potatoes can look like 2 3/4 or 3 1/2 or 4 1/4 lbs. who knew? you can bet i’ll be trying that. more potatoes for the money! voila!

“there must be something wrong with me,” 20 said. nah.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

March 23, 2018
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

ks friday

with the advent of ancestry kits and accessible dna testing, we are a society of people with more desire to learn about our individual heritage. for christmas, The Girl and The Boy each got a dna testing kit from their father. i’m excited to hear the results of these. it’s fascinating to me to find out what our roots are; despite some specificity flaws and rounding up (or down) of genetic heredity in the testing and reporting kits i have read about, it is still interesting to know just a little bit more about where we come from.

my sweet momma and poppo traveled to salt lake city to work on the genealogy of our family. they spent hours in the library there, researching. they would have loved the idea of simply submitting dna to find out a broad spectrum of heredity, of lineage, but i suspect they still would have traveled to work on this the old-fashioned way, looking for names of family and how the branches of the tree spread out.

without doubt you have seen the commercials for these tests. my favorites are the ones where people find that they were either mistaken about their ethnic heritage or they found that there were some surprises. the best part is that – and i know it’s a commercial, but hey, i’m gullible – they embrace learning about this new part of their identity they had no idea existed. they embrace something different. they want to celebrate ethnicities they knew nothing about. why not celebrate these whether or not it is a part of our heritage? maybe we can make the legacy we pass down one of inclusion and acceptance and a curiosity to learn and welcome others, whether or not their dna matches ours.