[If I begin this opening passage with the path, it must begin with the repeated connection I have always had to those blond locks. Maybe because hair can live forever, long after death of the source. Somehow, then, I imagine, those locks from each tiny soul that passed my hand to a cheek, lives on somewhere else besides here. And even too, it was the locks that came before I was here, presently. My first glimpse of the western Norwegian landscape was from the air, moonlit ground, dusted with a new snow. I could see the crags filled with salt sea cavities. I was flying in from San Diego in October, in time for a birthday. I had been here before though, but not in this lifetime. That much was obvious as our plane descended. The madrugada sky gave a soft light to all, and I had an immediate visceral connection—my entire body tingled as if I had just arrived back to a homecoming, one long anticipated, but unobtainable. It surprised me, just how familiar arrival was. If cells have memories that trigger more than simply involuntary mechanisms, surely, thoughts, languages and customs also pass onward, and they are sentient, and very much alive. My grandfathers father was born on a ship as his parents crossed the Atlantic from the west coast of Norway in the late 19th Century. They settled in a northern Chicago Norwegian community but the family traveled extensively for work. My grandfather was born in 1912 in Fairview, Montana. His younger sister Cyrilla, in Fargo. My great-grandfather, Otto, died in Portland during the Flu Epidemic of 1918, leaving my grandfather, the only boy in a family of girls, one older sister and one younger, and a set of twins that eventually did not survive childhood. His mother moved back to Chicago and he began his plight and his sacrifice, at the age of six, providing income and care taking—far too young for any child to grow up. I had always imagined that journey by sea and the intensity, the cold salt air, the bodies all around, contained within an unescapable quarters for weeks. The scene was the repeated over again in my imagination, looking out upon the vast and hostile Atlantic. I have no idea how many passengers had registered nor even how many family members were in this voyage. I dont even know the name of my great-grandfathers wife. I only know that she brought with her, a new life contained within her body and the hopes and prospects of giving this child more than she was able to do where life was familiar, and hearth could be easily taken advantage of, despite the conditions of life all around her. This is the dream, isnt it, to build something that ones children can benefit from, somehow, making their labors, just a little less intense, a little more obtainable, and sacrificing everything, leaving, at that time, the poorest country in Europe, to a new place, a new language and enormous obstacles. Any of us who have followed them, and now walk this continent caught up in our personal dramas that may be altogether insignificant, owe a world of gratitude to endurance and blind faith. I dont truly know if I could tackle a feat such as this. But yet, people endure all the time. We witness it daily if we pay attention, and give a shit.]
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:20:28 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015