Sunday Salon: Friends and Family edition

Three sisters. The sightseers. Traveling with my sisters was so special. 

Weather: Overcast, occasional rain showers. Temperatures in the low 60s. Yesterday we had a few hail storms followed by sunbreaks.

Trip update: Last Sunday I promised I would give a fuller account of my recent trip after I recovered from jet lag. I did that in my Top Ten Tuesday post, Favorite Moments from a Recent Trip. I have received lots of positive comments about that post which made me realize that the format of showing photos and making brief comments is one that my readers enjoy more than talk, talk, talk. Please take a look at that post if you missed it. Today I decided to fill in a few more details of the trip and the week following the trip by focusing on my friends and family.

Reason for the trip: my siblings and I wanted to reconnect with our family in Norway, especially so our youngest sister, who hasn't been to Norway since 1969, could see the sites in the homeland of our grandfather. We also wanted to spend time with our niece and her family, which included spending time with her two-year-old son we'd only met for moments before it was determined that the family had COVID and we shouldn't be around them. Of course, sightseeing was a bonus.

We all wanted to make the trip to visit Hroar, our mother's third cousin, and his wife Astri (left) and their daughter, Eva. When Mom made the initial contact with her father's family in Norway in 1969 she didn't know about Hroar and his family. We visited with other family members, most who have passed now, including our grandfather's second cousin who looked just like Grandpa. Later, when Mom learned about Hroar, she struck up a friendship which led to visits both directions: Norway to USA/ USA to Norway. Hroar has done a lot of research on the family line and has everything printed out so we can see our family connections. His grandfather and our mom's grandfather were brothers. Eva, Hroar and Astri's daughter, is our contemporary. She and her husband Guttman very generously housed, fed us, and showed us around during our stay in Vikersund.

Here is Eva with my sisters, Kathy (sitting) and Grace. We were waiting for our order of delicious and famous waffles. The weather was mostly lovely during our whole trip, with sunny skies worthy of all the beautiful photos we took.

The waffles were as delicious as they looked. Eva joked that the local paper had reported some people thought the waffles weren't as good as last year, rolling her eyes at the level of news in the paper.

In addition to being toured around the county by Eva, her cousin, Per Ole, took a turn showing us around. Here he is with his mother, She is Astri's sister-in-law. Per Ole is not really our cousin but he is related to our cousin, so we claim him. We met Per Ole Bøe when he was going to school at Washington State University 25 years ago. It was so fun reconnecting with him. We not only got to see the old Fossen family farms, we also got to see the old Bøe farms as well. Norway has a remarkable system of saving family farms and it really gives the countryside an old-timey feel. At the end of our touring around the countryside, Per treated us to a fjord-view lunch. I had trout and it was delicious. In 1979 when I visited Norway with my friend Anne Marie, my relatives took us out for a fancy meal and I had trout. It was so yummy I've never forgotten it. Now I've had two yummy trout meals in Norway. Keep that in mind if you ever visit.

When Per Ole dropped us off, Eva was sitting on her porch with her son, daughter-in-law, and her darling and very social granddaughter. Hroar assigned each generation a number on his family document. Eva and my sisters and I are 'sixes.' Our children are 'sevens.' And our grandchildren are 'eights.' We don't think his numbering system lines up with the numbering system on heritage.com but it works for us. Eva didn't think her son would like to visit us in the US until we mentioned our children (other 'sevens') being at the same stage of life he is. We are so lucky to have connections with our Norwegian roots through Hroar and Eva and her family, and vicariously through Per Ole, our friend.

A few items in the Fossen gård store. I think the owner said some of the furniture was from the old house.

The Fossen family farm (gård) is no longer owned by anyone in our family line but it is still being run as a farm. The women who owns it even runs a little shop full of foods she has grown or foraged. I only bought little trinkets for my grandsons but my sisters both bought some dried mushrooms to carry home that were foraged from the woods near the old farm. 

How lucky are we? Three American women who have such a loving family to visit and get to know across the Atlantic in the homeland of our grandfather. So many people have told me that their grandparents were also from Norway but they don't know any of their Norwegian relatives. Thank you Mom and Hroar for doing the work of making connections.

After we left Norway, we flew to Munich, Germany to visit our niece. We experienced a new side to our relationships: Great aunts with a new member of our family and solidifying our connections with Samantha and her husband. We did some sightseeing but the best part of the visit was hanging out and getting to know the little family better.

Samantha (left) and Kathy kissing our grand-nephew on his head. We were asked not to share any images of the little guy and I will honor that!

Here we are at beer garden not far from our niece's home. It was a lovely evening and the service the best we had in all of Germany. Traveling helps us to not only to learn about other cultures but also to appreciate the positive aspects of living in other countries. Samantha shared many positive things about her life in Germany like the excellent health care and the low food costs. I would add public transportation and amenities like having a grocery store and a beer garden just down the block!

We had a fantastic trip and it was made more wonderful by the people we interacted with along the way.

After I arrived home just a week ago it was hard to slip back into the rhythm of life at home. Thankfully I had a few happy events to look forward to:

Lunch with Gail, Rita, and Anne -- best friends in junior high school days. It was a delightful reunion of old friends. What stories we had to swap!

Attending the 6th birthday party for my cousin's grandson. What a Star War-sy celebration. Love, love our family!

After the party our immediate family came over to celebrate Father's Day together (a day early). We ate t-Bone steak, a rarity, and laughed together. Our eldest grandson told us next to his parents he loves being with us best. (But my youngest grandson told me he didn't love me, so bad news tempered good news!😀) We didn't take any family photos of the event. How many times do we celebrate our togetherness without memorializing them with photos? But I will share one photo taken by my daughter of our young grandson who got into the raspberries set aside for dessert -- they were are big as strawberries!

Photo credit: R. Adams

This coming week our whole family will gather to say goodbye to one of us. Our dear cousin-in-law died earlier this year from esophageal cancer. This coming Saturday we will gather to celebrate her life.

I know that I am lucky to have so many loving connections in my life. 

I have been reading, blogging, and finishing books but I'll save that update until next week.

Love to you, my blogging friends!  Have a lovely week.

-Anne

Review: THE SWIMMERS: A NOVEL

Several years ago I read a National Book Award finalist, The Buddhas in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. I liked it very much for its uniqueness. The author used a technique where all the Picture Brides coming to America from Japan speak in one collective voice. "Some of us are from the city, some of us are from the country..." Readers meet these women as a whole and confront biases as they look at the whole. It was a very clever book and I appreciated it a lot.

In The Swimmers, Otsuka uses the same technique. The swimmers at this underground pool speak in unison, a collective "we" about their swimming experiences. See the example below from page two of the book:

There is one exception to the collective, only one person is named. "One of us -- Alice, a retired lab technician now in the early stages of dementia -- comes because she always has." After the swimming pool is closed permanently because it is starting to crack apart, the focus shifts from the swimmers to Alice as she is moved to a memory care facility. For a while the chorus shifts to the care facility itself as it reviews all of its many rules and advantages but ultimately the focus returns to Alice as she sinks further and further into dementia.

 

As with the earlier book by Otsuka, one has to be willing to suspend reading expectations and settle into a very different reading experience. With The Swimmers I came to appreciate how helpful it is to be involved in a physical activity and how, by contrast, devastating dementia is over time. Reading is is almost like reading poetry with very artistic prose. The book is very short-- I'd consider it a novella -- and I think it is worth your consideration.

 

2024 Twenty Books of Summer Challenge

2 / 20 books. 10% done!

 

 

-Anne

Review: GO AS A RIVER

Title: Go As a River by Shelley Read

Book Beginnings quote: 

I imagine what lingers on the black bottom of a lake.

Friday56 quote:

I startled when she reached out, two snow-white palms with splayed twisted fingers thrusting toward me as if to push me to the ground. I recoiled and sped away as best I could. As I did, I noticed her ramshackle black bicycle flung among the dead daisies in the roadside ditch.

Summary:

On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a disheveled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.

So begins the mesmerizing story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.

Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life forever. (Publisher)

Review: Go As a River by Shelley Read is a selection for an upcoming book club meeting. When the members were choosing books for future meetings Go As a River came up several times as an option and got rave comments by many. I mistakenly thought these members had read the book based on their comments so I ran out and read the book even before it was an official choice. As I read it I kept wondering what I was missing that the others found so compelling. Not until the next meeting did I learn that none of the book club members had read the book yet, they were basing their remarks on what they had read about the book. Oh, so maybe I won't be the only one to think the book is fine, just fine, but not extraordinary? We'll see. Then, before I had a chance to write my review, I went on a two week trip to Europe with my sisters. After my return I sat down to write this review and I realized another problem with the book -- I could barely remember it. You know all those important things that make up a good story -- plot, characters, setting -- were poof, gone! I had to review the book in order to write a review! Ha! Now I understand that probably any book would have come in at a lower volume in the wake of the wonderful trip I had, but gone? (Ha-ha. I just noticed the quote on the book cover, "Completely unforgettable." I guess I beg to differ.)

So let me just say this -- Go As a River is a fine story. It is set in Colorado. It involves family drama, trials, loneliness and racism, yes, racism. It is a sad story, but also a redeeming one. My advise, if you read it, don't leave the review to simmer for long, especially with a wonderful trip in between. And if you do select it, will you circle back and let me know what you think of it? I am terribly curious.

-Anne

TTT: Favorite moments from my recent trip

The Three Sisters. Photo taken atop the Fortress in Salzburg, Austria.

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Moments from a Recent Trip

I am not only off topic today, I am not even talking about books. Here are my top moments on a recent trip to Norway, Germany, and Austria with my sisters. 

We called it the Three Sisters Trip.

1a. We found the actual waterfall from which my grandfather's surname was derived. On previous visits to Norway we had found the falls but without much water. With a wet spring before our arrival, we were treated to this view, which felt like a victory since we had to search for the trail to this vantage point. Our mother has an oil painting of the falls and it matches almost identically.

1b. Connecting with our Norwegian relatives. My mom's cousin, Hroar (center), his wife (Astri) and daughter, Eva. Hroar has done exhaustive research on our family lines and has written it all down. One evening Eva, my sisters, and I went through the document with a fine-toothed comb to really draw together our connections to one another. Here we had tea together as we talked about family stories and how we "found" each other.

1c. This is the view from Hroar and Astri's apartment window in Vikersund, overlooking the Tyrifjorden, a fresh body of water which is called a fjord anyway. The landscape in Norway was beautiful anywhere we looked. Our cousin Eva took us on a tour of the family farms one day, and her cousin, Per Ole, took us on a tour of more family farms and cabins the next day. What a delightful country.

2. Visiting our niece and her family in Munich. She asked us not to share any photos of her darling son, so I chose this photo of the three sisters with her in the Munich Residence, the former palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria. The palace was an amazing example of over-the-top decorations in the rococo style, as you see in the background. 

3. The 12th-century catacombs of the St. Peter's Abbey built into the mountainside in Salzburg, Austria. We found the catacombs by mistake as we were wandering around in the rain looking for a way to reach the Salzburg Dom Cathedral, which you can see in this photo I took through a window in the catacombs. It was one of those serendipitous moments of delight on the trip. 

 

Here I am climbing the steep steps entering the catacombs of St. Peter's Abbey

4a. The Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg and the surrounding countryside. Not only did we see many of the scenes from our favorite movie, but much of the gorgeous Lake District of Austria outside of Salzburg.

4b. The three sisters on the same path where Maria walked as she sang "I Have Confidence" in the movie.

5. Attending a special confirmation church service at the same church where our grandfather was baptized and some members of his family are buried. For the confirmation service all the students dressed in the traditional bunads, as did their family members. We were all very touched by the confirmation service. Even though we don't speak Norwegian we caught enough to understand the importance of this rite-of-passage in the teenagers' lives.

A multigenerational Norwegian family in their bunads.

6. A visit to Frogner Park (Frognerparken) in Oslo. We were charmed by the more than 200 sculptures of all stages of life and other artistic touches by the artist Gustav Vigeland. Here the three sisters pose in front of an iron gate of three sisters (at least we think they're sisters!)

6b. Me peeking out of one of 200 of Vigeland's sculptures. It was a beautiful day in Oslo.

7. Norway in a Nutshell Tour. This tour involved a train ride from Bergen to Voss; a coach ride to Gudvangen; a ferry/boat ride on the Nærøyfjord to Flam; a historic train ride to Murdahl; and one more train ride to our final destination. Here we are, the three sisters, before we got wind-blown and cold and had to bundle up in our coats and hoods on the boat ride up the UNESCO preserved fjord portion of the trip.

8. A tour of old town Bergen. We didn't dedicate near enough time to Bergen and the Norwegian West Coast. We got a nice introduction to Bergen with a walking tour and will have to return some day. 

8b. Bergen, Noway. The second morning after arriving I couldn't sleep so I walked around our hotel alone from 4:30 to 6:30 AM and saw a bit more of the city by myself. The sun rises early that far north. I captured this shot of the Bryggen Wharf, another UNESCO Heritage site, without mobs of tourists that early in the morning.

9. An organ concert at the Salzburg Dom Cathedral. The church has seven pipe organs and the concert involved the musician moving from one organ to the next and playing a piece on each. We had to leave before the organist made it to the largest of the seven, a pipe organ once played by Mozart himself! It was a moving experience (in more ways than one.) The picture is one of the seven smaller pipe organs.

10. A visit to the Folk Museum in Oslo where we were able to go inside a Stave kirke (church) built in the 1200s and later moved to this site at the museum. We didn't have time to explore the Folk Museum as much as we would have liked, so it's on the list for a return trip some day.

11. A personal tour of the Kittelsen Museum by the art curator, a friend of our cousin Eva. The exhibition was of Norwegian art/artists on the theme of nature and forests. It was fascinating to not only learn about the artists but about the process the curator took to obtain the pieces of art for the show. The Kittelsen Museum is part of Blaafarveværket which is associated with the cobalt mine, which we didn't tour.

12. The cuisine. We loved the food everywhere we went. The above photo is a pasta dish I ordered at an outdoor cafe in Salzburg. It was delicious but the setting was spectacular. We also enjoyed our smorgasbord breakfasts and our lunches of trout and potatoes in Norway; our Bavarian breakfast of Weißwurst (veal sausages), pretzels and sweet mustard and dinners of schnitzel and spaetzle in Munich; waffles at the Blaafarveværket. We really enjoyed the breakfast offerings at all our hotels. I even got up my second morning back in the US and went out and purchased food for a good Norwegian smorgasbord breakfast: veggies, soft cheese, smoked salmon, boiled eggs and good bread.

13. One of the best parts of traveling is getting home, of course. Here are the three sisters (and two of three husbands) at the Portland airport after a full day of traveling homeward. Now we are all posting our favorite photos on Facebook, doing laundry, catching up on mail and the news from home, sharing our gifts with our family members. There's no place like home.

I'm sure I left some things off. It was a whirlwind trip. I'm also sure my sisters would reorganize their favorites list, but, hey, I'm the one who is writing this post! Ha!

-Anne

Sunday Salon: Home from my journeys abroad

Weather: It is a lovely day in the Pacific Northwest: sunny and not too hot. The whole time I was in  Europe we experienced warmer than usual temperatures with a lot of humidity. (A bad combination.)

The three sisters trip: My sisters, Kathy and Grace, and I journeyed to Norway to connect with our distant cousins and the homeland of our maternal grandfather. We also visited our niece and her family in Munich, Germany. What a fabulous trip. We arrived home yesterday evening.  I am still clearly impacted by jet lag so I will not even attempt a play-by-play account today, opting to fill in details later this week.

A few photos from the trip to Norway, as a teaser:

A beautiful Norwegian Fjord village

The meat house and barn on the property where my grandfather lived before moving to the USA at age two with his family.

The actual waterfall from which my grandfather's surname was derived.

The three sisters with cousin Eva at the waterfall (Fossen).

The church (kirke) where our grandfather was baptized and some of our forebears were buried.

The three sisters in front of the sisters gate in Frogner Park (Frognerparken) in Oslo.

What I read on the trip:

• The Great Divide by Henriques. I finished this audiobook on our flight to Europe. Set in Panama during the time period when the canal was being dug.
• The Tenth of December by George Saunders. Short stories by a favorite author. I was pretty confused by most of the stories and didn't even finish the last one before abandoning the book at the airport on the way home.
• The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. Very similar in format to another book by this author: The Buddha in the Attic. I liked both. I listened to this audiobook on the flight home.
• Too Much Happiness: Stories by Alice Munro. This collection is much more up my alley than the stories by Saunders. I started it on the flight home. 32% complete.
• Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy. Another audiobook. I just listened to an hour of this book when I was getting pretty tired of being on the long flight. 8% complete.

-Anne

Review: THE GREAT DIVIDE

Title: The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez

Book Beginning quote: 

Somewhere off the Pacific Coast of Panama, in the calm blue water of the bay, Francisco Aquino sat alone in his boat.

Friday56 quote:

It cost one shilling a week taken out from what little she earned, but when they were old enough Lucille insisted on sending the girls to school.

Summary:

An epic novel of the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there. Searing and empathetic, The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers—those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course. There is Francisco, a local fisherman who resents foreigners from invading his country and Omar, his son who signs on as a laborer on the canal because he wants connections with people. Ada Bunting, a 16-year-old from Barbados, arrives in Panama as a stowaway, coming to make money to send home. John Oswald and his wife Marion are invited to Panama to try and conquer the dreaded mosquito that spreads malaria. Each has a very different story to tell about what life in Panama was like during the greatest engineering feat of all time -- the successful building of the Panama Canal.

Review: My paternal grandfather was a carpenter and he helped build the Panama Canal. When my siblings and I visited the Canal this past year in an attempt to walk a few steps in his footprints, we all marveled at the construction and the enormity of the project. It took over ten years to build, from 1903-1914 during the years of the US involvement and final push of the project. One of the reasons that they finally had success where the French before them did not, was because the dreaded malaria mosquito was finally conquered. Before that happened nearly half (?) of the workers died from the disease. That is an unsustainable labor loss.

The Great Divide is a novel about this time period in Panama from the vantage point of different types of people and it gives a fuller accounting of what life was like for all of them. Francisco, the fisherman, lived on this daily catch. If he couldn't fish, he couldn't eat. Ada Bunting, the teenager from Barbados, made more money in a month as a nurses aid than her mother made in a year. Marion and John Oswald wanted to live the life of American elites but their books and instruments were moldering away in the damp tropical climate.

I loved this book where the fullness of the real story is fleshed out by looking at the lives of people. It gave me a broader feel for this important historical moment.

The Great Divide was selected as a 'Read with Jenna' book in March of this year.  Cristina Henriquez, the author, said she wanted to write about Panama since it is his father's place of birth. She has visited family every year of her life. In her interview with Jenna, she said,

"We would go every summer and spend time there in Panama. Often on those trips, my parents would take my brother and sister and I out to the canal, and we would sit there in the blazing sun and watch ships kind of make their way through the locks," she says. "It wasn't until I got older that I became fascinated with it and saw that maybe there was the potential for a novel in it."

"Panama is so much a part of me," she continues. "And it’s why I write about it in my fiction, because it’s a part of me, and because writing about it helps me feel more connected to it." (Today Show)

I look forward to hearing from all of you. If you have read the book, what did you think of it? If you haven't read it, do you enjoy reading historical fiction? Does this sound like a book you would enjoy?

 

 

2024 Twenty Books of Summer Challenge

1 / 20 books. 5% done!

 

 

TTT: Books That Made Me CRY

Top Ten Tuesday: Recent reads that made me cry, or at least the last ten nine where I mentioned crying in my review. I've included the actual quote I made about crying. (Titles are hyperlinked if you'd like to read more.) 

1. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

"We sat together in our living room listening for the last hour of the narration, me crying softly for the sweetness of the end of the story, thinking about the whole idea of endings and new beginnings, and how deeply books can make one feel."

2. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

"But the parting, when Josie was leaving for college, was so impersonal. I cried."

3. West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

"I truly loved the ending. I was blubbering big, wet tears."

4. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

"I laughed, I cringed, I cried."

5. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

"Drink plenty of Gatorade before or during the last twenty percent of the book. I didn't and I feel lightheaded and dehydrated from my tears. At one point I had to stop listening just so I could get control of my sobbing. SOBBING."

6. Star Fish by Lisa Fipps

 "I cried and cried for Ellie and for the memory of my fat-shamed days."

7. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

"But the ending was almost perfect and I think I cried for the last one hundred pages solid."

8. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

(I'm crying right now. I didn't realize how profoundly this book touched me until I started writing this review.)

9. The Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin

"I cried for the whole last quarter of the book but felt joy instead of sadness at its end."

10.    I got tired of looking at my past reviews, ones where I know I cried while reading the books but apparently didn't mention in my reviews. So I stopped.

-Anne

Review: THE WREN, THE WREN

The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright explores family bonds and the effects of a father abandoning his critically ill wife and two daughters. His leaving reverberates through three generations of women in the family. When Phil McDaragh, a famous Irish poet, walks out on his family no one could foresee the long-lasting  effects, even on an unborn generation. He was known for his love poems and how he seemingly understands women yet he is capable of leaving when his family needs him the most. 

The novel gives voice to Phil's daughter, Carmen, and his 23-year-old granddaughter, Nell, in alternating chapters. Phil left his family when Carmen was quite young though she does remember that he loved her best, even writing a famous poem, "The Wren, the Wren", for her. The poem is about a bird flying away from him, out of his hand: “her ascent/away from me/in a blur of love, to love/indistinguishable/… And, oh/my life, my daughter,/the faraway sky is cold/and very blue.” While Carmen's mother and sister seem to live in a different reality that Phil would someday return, Carmen grows up to be very independent. She raises Nell by herself, proud of her self reliance. But once when Carmen and Nell have a fight of sorts it devolves into a moment of violence. This act catches Carmen up since she suddenly remembered what it was like to be the daughter of Phil McDaragh. Her father was so big and his moods were like the weather, so she learned to stay out of reach of his swinging fists. "Her father, her father. He was...Her father was bigger than the world and a lot less wonderful."

Nell has always enjoyed reading her grandfather's poems and wants to be a writer herself. She writes pieces on the Internet as a ghostwriter for a social influencer, and is constantly searching for her writing niche and as she tries to find a happy relationship with a man.  Nell ends up touring Europe and then the world. During her travels she starts to understand herself better and finds out more about her late, famous grandfather. Both Nell and her grandfather were fascinated by the poetic beauty of birds. When Nell gets to Australia she spends a lot of time bird watching, keeping her eyes out for birds with poetic or magical-sounding names: the Splendid Fairy Wren, the Sacred Kingfisher, and the Noisy Miner. (I enjoyed this section of the book very much because I am a fan of the bird game, Wingspan, and I'm becoming acquainted with birds I'd never heard of before. All three of the above mentioned birds are part of the game!)

Ultimately both Nell and her mother, Carmen, make peace with poet father/grandfather and find meaning and love. They acknowledged when Phil said "all poetry is about unrequited love" he was probably only talking about himself. 

This is the first book I've read by Anne Enright. She is an Irish treasure and has won many literary awards. The Wren, the Wren came to my attention because it is a finalist for the 2024 Women's Prize. Ireland is an ever-present character in the novel, as is its poetry which is interspersed throughout. In a lot of ways, the book has a very powerful and thoughtful message about family bonds and generational healing.

4 stars.

-Anne