I guess I have a longing for an interesting family history. I’d love to come from a long line of rebel women who were maybe part of the suffragist movement, maybe I have witch blood, and cast spells around evil men who cause so much harm to others.
I am now remembering my great-grandmother dressing my great-uncles up as girls when they were young – I will need to find that photo again. There is another black and white photo of a great uncle riding an ostrich. Which great-uncle was the one who would sit at the dinner table and scoop up his spaghetti and meatballs in his eyeglasses to make the kids laugh?
I miss large dinners. Around large dinner tables. We would always finish eating first as kids and then crawl under the table to tie or untie shoelaces. Sometimes we would poke toes and pull leg hairs and then ‘sneakily’ crawl to the other end of the table so we wouldn’t get caught.
I wish I had met and known my grandmothers. My mom and I have had a sparse relationship and I find grandparents add a lot of context – oh ya – my mom is that person’s kid. Sometimes I feel like I was my mother’s mother in a previous life. She calls me for advice on my sister – she is a blunderer and really sticks her foot in her mouth a lot.
I think she is a badass though – a sort of secret confused feminist who thought she was suppose to please her husband, raise kids, and manage a high-level job.
Hmm… fantasy – circus freaks in my family? There was a story I did in Grade 4 about a Ukrainian great-great-great-aunt/grandmother? Bonnets and floral embroidery – is that in my lineage? I feel like there was a small town where my ancestors fled in once South Russia – Lutheran church colonies persecuted those for being protestant and ‘ethnically cleansed’ the area. So my ancestors fled to Germany for safety.
where rivers are born 