roots

tucking these here today.   working on the my wall tree project which is involving making copies of our roots, our angels, our lithe strength and talent.

don't want to forget some of the names although every name won't matter.   we blend and mesh.

Magnus and Ingrid Augusta Svensdottir:  grandpa's parents.  
Carl, Paul and Hannah - grandpa's siblings

Ingrid's picture will be a strong big part of the bottom.  She looks diminutive but i have no doubt of her strength of spirit.   Her shoulders will hold us all.   Her wings are understill.  I hope that you and she got along.  She died in 1930.  She and Muddy (for the record we all think it would have once been Mutti which is German) would have had both been part of Dad's life but i don't know if they lived close by.    Most of the family lore spins around Muddy and your sisters.   That's how it works now too.

the confluences

why today?  my friend sue hedin posts the stillwater library FaceBook stuff and today she had this quote from the Little Prince.

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Manon, Ballerina

today of all days?  

today when i am swirling and knotted about jami.   

today when i'm trying to decide if this blog site might somehow be a place to connect w. her.  

today when i'm wondering if the point of beginning this blog was to zero in on the sense of this life.   if not zero, which is pretty dang ambitious, at least ponder.  

Olga lost the sense of it.

i bought this small copy in Paris almost 3 years ago to the day.   i bought it because, most amazingly, my Dad had once said that the Little Prince was one of his favorite books.   REALLY???   "you ever READ the Little Prince?  you more than LIKED it?   i'll read it again and i'll treasure a French copy bought at Shakespeare & Company on the River Seine.     always working the threads of course, 

they give me sense.

something tangible?

ah ha!~!   figured out how to bring in some pictures.   there is she, now shared inspiration olga. classy. confident. fluid. lithe. sassy. 

too good to be true

brittle.

did you have a tangible stash of inspirational stuff?  things to lift you or ground you.  both?  i'm not quite there with such a go to pile.

i do though quite constantly wear your jewelry, or aggie's, or mom's as an amulet.  a connection, a shelter.   a touch point.   

who wouldn't.

attic treasures

had an envelope from your old home in Cambridge waiting for me one night this week after work.   how did they know i was writing to you???

The Ostrum family is insulting the attic in your home and a handful of old treasures were uncovered.   I had the highest of hopes as i opened the envelope; which bits and pieces, which keys would be handed to me~!   Treasure was stretching it.   a mouse eaten corn husk doll.  4 Christmas cards addressed to you and Grandpa in 1936.  what must have been your high school government or civics notebook.   That and a torn sheet with your hand written notes about nutrition and fueling the body.    A drawing of one very glamorous fashion model in a gorgeous flowing dress w. scarves cut out of a magazine.   inspiration?  

One take away for me was seeing your very neat h.s. script and your much more "affected" flowing grown up handwriting.   It was the kind of attention to every day detail that i love thinking about.   it is a link between us.   (oh, someday we'll talk about *between*) i think that small pleasure missed a generation although my dad's writing was exceptionally beautiful for a man come to think of it.

and pete has decided to change his writing.   funny coincidence.

The artistry of life mattered and matters.   It's a thread that lives on in the family tree.
Small beauties in life can be blown up whenever you need them.

connecting us

this visiting if harder than i thought it would be.... resolve again just to toss things out here until it hones itself.

The sparkles of the snow are Addie too.    She comes to me in warm weather  when the ribbon of sparkles on the wave tips  pours out to touch me across a river or a lake.  Dawn, dusk or a moonlit night. I wear a tiny Tinkerbell finger ring with her birthstone -- a peridot -- and a couple little diamond chips.   Find the sparkles there when I want to think on her.

Last night we had the sparkliest of all snowfalls and she surrounded me.

This morning, still, in the sunshine, she's everywhere.

I'm reminding myself to carry her awe today.  Manifest now in sparkles but residing in the depths of my being. Other families didn't touch holy.

the thing about threads

Good morning Olga.

threads
treds
trades
treed
tresses.
beauty.

i'm going to look at the tresses/treds/threads/trades as needing space here.   just as i did with herbert. he taught me how.

this bit launched me:

" For a long time then I seemed to live by a slender thread of faith, spun out from within me.  From this single thread I spun strands that joined me to the good things of the world.  And then I spun more threads that joined all the strands together, making a life.  When it was complete, or nearly so, it was shapely and beautiful in the light of day.  It endured through the nights, but sometimes it only barely did.  It would be tattered and set awry by things that fell or blew or fled or flew.  Many of the strands would be broken.  Those I would have to spin and weave again in the morning."

from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

Herbert's Bird Psalm said the same.
rebuild. keep at it.
beware the "things that fell or blew or fled or flew"

i understand that it's simplistic, but finding a shape and filling in the betweens is what keeps me going each day.

in the first weeks

Olga,

This will be hard at first because I've carried on so many conversations with you for years.  I feel as if I will need somehow to write what I know about you and also the many questions I've formed. Years ago I latched on to you as imagined inspiration and as good company.   Being so little like my parents, I've concluded that  the genes must have skipped a generation.   In my version of history, you were the wild thing.
Tethered by G.A. or complemented by?  

I wonder how the round you fit with the square men.



To cut to the chase, the difficult truth was that you didn't fit.    The strands came unraveled and the night won at 57.

greys

it's easy for me to love greys.  all the winter shades of grey and grey blue.  the lacy black outlines and mess of the woods against the blue grey sky.  subtle color, sunshine makes it too harsh.   i may just like it more than the riot of greens.

oh, and then the moonshadows.   they knock my socks off.   winter through a second floor window.

definitely part of the threads that i build.   it's rather an ah-ah moment to realize how much that plays into my winter eyes and how natural it comes for me.

it's like tuning into birds or wind or glistening but it's bigger and pretty all pervasive.   until last night i hadn't named it.

love greys.   literally.
k

Olga,
Almost not sure I can let a day go by without being out in it anymore.  I bet you felt the same.

a balmy 28 degrees today.

Checked in with the Trumpeter Swans over on my rowing river this afternoon.  Their presence is a balm. ee.   Swans, geese, ducks.  like royalty and commoners.    wonder if there is a hierarchy? a bit Hans Chrisian Andersen like.  There are crowns don't cha know.

spend your days with that ease and beauty naturally infused.
it's there of course.

Olga, I wonder what you would think about my sending a postcard to Obama every week.   Guess it's been 6 years now, over 300 cards.   Might be crazy but then you might not be the best judge of crazy.
k

oh my gosh Olga, what happened to your books?  They surely clothed you, covered you, shaped you.  Granpa must have had to get rid of them.
Right away?
With your clothes?

Did he love you or hate you for your differences........

Olga we've com so far passt your dear sweet compass.  It's a great loss i fear.   How ever can we find north
or calm
east
or wonder.

herburst.....you didn't say if the hat fit?

the hat fit my heart.  i thought you nneew.

kaaaren,

on a serious note.
you can write a book.
create an imaginary friend who embodies y)our dear little people in your heart
and write tiny notes to them
that are rediculoous and playful and profound and ambiguous
and in 120 pages
you will have a sometimes best seller.
think about it.
no!
do it
then think about it.
herbert

june 1, 2006

i've decided to start writing olga.  here goes.
k