last night, after digging through some boxes that have been stored away for a few years, i wondered at my attitude and behavior pre-marriage as i looked through some old photo albums. oh, no, it was not nostalgia that overcame me...it was a bit of disgust to be honest with you. i remember the confusion and the numbness that engulfed me for many, many years (and which i am only now beginning to get my head above the trees to see it all). those years were full of sarcasm and falseness: false confidence, false loves, false goals. i remember being a copy-cat to the extreme. i wanted to be everyone else. so-and-so spoke korean and graduated in international development...so would i. so-and-so loved rock-climbing...so did i. so-and-so was a multi-media guru...so i would try. good things, for other people. not me.a week ago i picked raspberries with my grandpa newel from his bushes behind his pretty little yellow house. for the past few years i have been realizing what it is that i love (and what i never really loved in the first place). i have been picking raspberries from grandpa's bushes ever since i can remember...the flavor of raspberry anything immediately transports my mind and heart to that lovely back yard years and years ago. i realized that's why i favor raspberry jam, raspberry tarts, raspberry syrup, raspberry chocolate over any other fruit. raspberries are grandpa's berries. and they are mine too...because i am his blood.
there was a memorable day when i knew what i wanted to do with my life...when i realized how nostalgic i was for my ancestors and days gone by. history and story would be my passion. the more i find out about my family and my family of generations gone by the more life has meaning for me. the more i love, the more i learn, the more i am. i am the blood that runs through me...an amalgamation of irish farmers, german philosophers, british stewards, alchemist blacksmiths, american frontiersmen/women, and on and on. i am a steward, a farmer, an academic, a mystic, a musician, a writer, a mother, a sister, a historian. i know who i am. this i believe.
first polaroid of me with grandpa newel picking raspberries. september 2009. photo taken by mom.second polaroid of newel's grapes that have provided jelly and juice for years. september 2009. photo taken by me.
3 comments:
oh how i just love coming to this all honest blog! it is very interesting to hear you say you wanted to be like other people. i would never know it! there is no one quite like Ann and the loveliness she carries around. i too love learning about where i came from. since i was young i spent many hours around my sweet grams' table talking, learning, crying, laughing. she is a florist. she talks to flowers, says it helps them grow strong. i used to think she was crazy, now of course, I catch myself doing it all the time. recently i finally met the other side of my family...oh how i adored those couple of days in montana and the stories. i learned so much about my other grandma (whom i never met)my mom and myself. i'm glad you have this special tradition with your grandpa...he is adorable by the way. i think it is important to understand where we came from. it is interesting to hear where you came from.
I sure am glad we're friends! love you.
I thought I was only young women obsessed with her ancestors in that deep strange sacred way.You remind me of myself.
'You have a thousand years of cells inside your body and I think you cannot escape it,you are all those people' - Bjork Gudmundsdottir
and do some ancestry testing! I did mine with dnatribes and 23andme,its always so fufiling too me to see those really random deep ancient roots hinted at in my dna.
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