I haven’t written because I am having good family time in Wisconsin, celebrating the Fourth the way I like to: bratwurst and sauerkraut, good cheese and beer.
During summer, my dad lives in a camp trailer at The Playful Goose just outside of Horicon, on the Rock River and not far from Horicon Marsh. It’s a cozy place cluttered with hobbies: woodworking tools, winemaking, a ham and bean soup in the crock pot.
It’s a great time for family stories, with my dad and my Uncle Ron telling their adventures from childhood (and the time Uncle Ron set off illegal fireworks years ago on the lawn of the house on Beloit Avenue). Storytelling is an important part of relating in my family.
It’s much easier to be around my family since I’ve been on my mood management medications. I used to feel so much pressure to talk that it was hard for me to be there. Now I’m relaxed, and I enjoy it a lot more.
I’ll leave on Sunday with more stories and more appreciation for my family.
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I’m in Camp Nano right now, and I’m trying to maintain two hours per day to keep up. My family’s accustomed to me ducking out to write. I’ll keep you posted.
Tag: family
Christmas Eve — a little on the prosaic side
I write this from Ottawa, Illinois, where I am visiting my father and sister and her family for Christmas.
Things I’m thinking about:
1) I wish I could drop Northwest Missouri State (my place of employment) onto Ottawa. This would unite a college town without a college (Ottawa) with a college without a college town (Maryville). I miss the river and the beautiful state parks and the invigorated atmosphere of a town that attracts people from Chicago and the suburbs,.
2) I still have to adjust to being 55. The hardest part is that it’s now unseemly for me to get crushes on younger men (maybe it was before, but I didn’t notice). I’ve gone from being flattering to being an embarassment. This is a major adjustment for me.
3) I can be with my family without talking much. This is a relief.
4) I’m editing Voyageurs, and the big problem is that I have to “fill in” with 34,000 words. I have NO IDEA how to do this. Think good thoughts.
Merry Christmas to all my readers — please keep in touch!
To my family
I don’t get to see my dad and sister often, owing to the fact that I’m about seven hours’ drive away from them. I see them twice a year, at Memorial Day and Christmas, and Christmas is a bad time for my dad since my mom died at that time.
I’m very different than my dad and sister, having collected a few college degrees along the way and having a larger vocabulary (I can’t help it, Lisa, I like using the right words). And the fact that I’m an extrovert, and I couldn’t tell if they were listening to me because I wouldn’t get much of an answer. It was hard to be around them, then.
But now, I get an inkling of who they are when I come visit. I am reminded of the family I came from, full of compassion and anger banked into sarcasm. The family whose fortunes turned sour when a fifteen-year-old Gerald Leach chose the farm rather than the foundry which now makes most of the garbage truck hoppers in the United States. The descendants of both Michel Cadotte (the spelling varies) and Iksewewe. Child of a man who served in the army and became a pacifist. A family that accepts me without marveling at me, which makes me happier than could anything.
Thanks, Dad and Lisa. I had a wonderful time.
