Kurt Vonnegut used the chorus "So it goes" every time a passage deals with death, dying or mortality, as a transitional phrase to another subject, as a reminder, and as comic relief. It is also used to explain the unexplained. There are 106 "so it goes" anecdotes laced throughout the story. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
This morning it all started with a blogger writing of the Zen of Picking Berries. Another of those in your blood things passed down by Finnish grandmothers, perhaps. We northwestern South Dakota berry pickers didn't have to stand in swamps to pick cloud berries, we stood in prairie creek bottoms, swatting our own brand of mosquitoes, jumping rattlesnakes, and eying poison ivy to fill our buckets with June berries, wild plum, chokecherry and later in the summer or early fall the buffalo berries that sweetened with the first frost. I can easily understand the zen of it.
Kurt Vonnegut wasn't the only author that intrigued me; when I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," it was neither the mushroom experiment nor the repair of motorcycles that intrigued me, it was Pirsig's exploration of the meaning of the concept, "quality." He explored the term by assigning his Montana State University students the task of defining the word. Then he said it cannot be defined because it empirically precedes any intellectual construction and it (Quality or value)is the knife-edge of experience known to all. This is all out of wikipedia, and we don't know what that is worth. It fills space and so it goes.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Paralyzed by Hate Mail
Some letters should never be mailed. Our bi-polar daughter sent He Who Must Be Obeyed a 16 page letter detailing my parenting faults. A lot of hate for me was spewed out in it. Apparently she spent days on it as it was dated on various pages. "You sure picked a winner!" she told him.
She and her daughter agree on one thing; I am a mean, selfish, hateful woman. My working was among my wrongs. Apparently both of them would love to drum me right out of the family.
Have you, dear reader, ever experienced real hatred? It is difficult to get through day to day knowing that if you were not alive, it would make some people happy. I wonder if every person experiences this? If they do, I have never been told about it; if they don't, that must make me as horrible as the letters indicate. Am I the only hated person on the earth?
I wonder if I am being delusional and my perception is skewed. I was told to 'forget it.' Some insults are seared into ones brain and are not easily forgotten. I see that HWMBO burned the letter in a trash can. I dove in for the scraps of it this morning reading through and around the scorched and blackened uneven edges of the few pages that were left. I just wanted to see if what I had read a few days ago was real or my imagination. It was real. It was damning. How dare I set foot in church, sinner that I am, I was told by both of them.
She and her daughter agree on one thing; I am a mean, selfish, hateful woman. My working was among my wrongs. Apparently both of them would love to drum me right out of the family.
Have you, dear reader, ever experienced real hatred? It is difficult to get through day to day knowing that if you were not alive, it would make some people happy. I wonder if every person experiences this? If they do, I have never been told about it; if they don't, that must make me as horrible as the letters indicate. Am I the only hated person on the earth?
I wonder if I am being delusional and my perception is skewed. I was told to 'forget it.' Some insults are seared into ones brain and are not easily forgotten. I see that HWMBO burned the letter in a trash can. I dove in for the scraps of it this morning reading through and around the scorched and blackened uneven edges of the few pages that were left. I just wanted to see if what I had read a few days ago was real or my imagination. It was real. It was damning. How dare I set foot in church, sinner that I am, I was told by both of them.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Finnish Grandmothers
If it is in the Scientific American, must it be true? The article is "What Finnish Grandmothers Reveal about Human Evolution."
"The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says."
"The evolutionary biologist has also used this historical data set to ponder the conundrum of grandmothers. That is, why human women often live long after they are able to reproduce (on average around the age of 50), unlike almost all other animals. "If your ultimate purpose in life was to create as many offspring as possible or pass off as many genes," Lummaa says, "it's kind of strange that human women stop halfway."..."That suggests that perhaps one reason why women do carry on living is because they are able to help."
Me here again: What an irony to have sons, destroy your immune system, die sooner; but not before you help, or raise, the grandchildren. It is interesting that Lumma theorizes that it is the testosterone flooding the womb to make boys that destroys ones immune system. The article was interesting.
Lummaa has now turned her attention to the effect of grandfathers on grandchildren. If grandmothers improve survival odds, what do elderly males contribute? "If anything there's a negative effect," she says. This could be because of the cultural tradition of catering to men, particularly old men. "Maybe if you had an old grandpa, he was eating your food," she speculates.
"The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says."
"The evolutionary biologist has also used this historical data set to ponder the conundrum of grandmothers. That is, why human women often live long after they are able to reproduce (on average around the age of 50), unlike almost all other animals. "If your ultimate purpose in life was to create as many offspring as possible or pass off as many genes," Lummaa says, "it's kind of strange that human women stop halfway."..."That suggests that perhaps one reason why women do carry on living is because they are able to help."
Me here again: What an irony to have sons, destroy your immune system, die sooner; but not before you help, or raise, the grandchildren. It is interesting that Lumma theorizes that it is the testosterone flooding the womb to make boys that destroys ones immune system. The article was interesting.
Lummaa has now turned her attention to the effect of grandfathers on grandchildren. If grandmothers improve survival odds, what do elderly males contribute? "If anything there's a negative effect," she says. This could be because of the cultural tradition of catering to men, particularly old men. "Maybe if you had an old grandpa, he was eating your food," she speculates.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Pitchfork Fondue
This cowboy cookout served almost a hundred folks that came to the High Plains to join the family that celebrates together every other year. This rowdy bunch of Vikings stirs the souls of those of us that were brave enough to marry into the tribe. The story of their 1857 immigrants is what Western Epics are made of.
"The Norsemen, also known as Vikings, ravaged the coasts of northwest Europe from the 8th to the 11th century and were ruled by local chieftains. Olav II Haraldsson became the first effective king of all Norway in 1015 and began converting the Norwegians to Christianity. As a teenager he was given ships and men by his father to "go Viking".
Even if King Olav II brought Christianity into Norway because the Viking tribal control made it easy for him; this particular tribe brings Jack Daniel to the council fire. It seems one can control a Norse tribe, but not much. He Who Must Be Obeyed knew exactly what it meant to "go Viking."
The photos are those of a couple who were there and took the pictures to prove it. Thank you to K.B.H. and N.C. I wish I had been with you longer.
"The Norsemen, also known as Vikings, ravaged the coasts of northwest Europe from the 8th to the 11th century and were ruled by local chieftains. Olav II Haraldsson became the first effective king of all Norway in 1015 and began converting the Norwegians to Christianity. As a teenager he was given ships and men by his father to "go Viking".
Even if King Olav II brought Christianity into Norway because the Viking tribal control made it easy for him; this particular tribe brings Jack Daniel to the council fire. It seems one can control a Norse tribe, but not much. He Who Must Be Obeyed knew exactly what it meant to "go Viking."
The photos are those of a couple who were there and took the pictures to prove it. Thank you to K.B.H. and N.C. I wish I had been with you longer.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Family Reunions
Finns and Norwegians have different ways of celebrating families. Oh, we Finns are so solemn and serious. Our reunion started with coffee and pulla, then church and communion. We filled the little rural church front to back and we were so grateful to gather this way. The ladies of the church prepared our meal. In a new community center couples married over 50 years were recognized, door prizes were drawn, and the Finnish dance music began. We bonded with long lost cousins not seen for three years.
An aunt and cousin took me to my hometown for a couple days of blissful amazement. One highlight was spending some time with a bone hunter cousin who showed us his latest triceratops find. He was the finder of the T-Rex Stan in the Hell Creek formation in the Cave Hills, Harding County, South Dakota. You can check it out in Hill City, SD at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Inc.
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