party girl

Tonight I went to a party. Martin was out of town refereeing a innebandy tournament. So I was going alone, and he would arrive later. It was raining and I was riding a bicycle. I was laughing.

Already unfashionably late. Going alone to party of Swedes where I may know (2) people. Riding our old Norwegian-made bicycle, with a seat and a bar so high I have to stretch to reach the pedals and if I slip (raining and I chose to wear loafers) I may never bear children. I have a house plant (the housewarming gift) flying in a plastic bag from the right handle bar, a bag of chips over my shoulder, and a plastic container of French onion dip strapped to the book rack behind me. Racing in the rain on thin tires, through the forest, trying to figure the best way through the village to reduce my lateness.

I started out grumpy -- going to a party alone without Martin on a bicycle in the rain. Then it just got -- funny. Then, enjoyable. One more moment in my funny little village life.

murder most delicious

Our neighbor is pushing his sputtering choking lawnmower up and down the lawn. He's racing a pressing rain squall, the trees are bending under the wind and dark clouds pinch out the sun. The horse at the end of the garden responds to it with his own vocal raucous.

I can't believe it myself, but I sanctioned and oversaw the cutting down of a large old cherry tree in our yard last night. It was majestic, gray-barked and lichened, but it leaned in a intimate way toward our house, right over the kitchen, and pushed out the growth of the aspens beside it. And cherry trees make such a mess. Molting in the spring, dropping dark, purple-exploding cherries in the summer, and leaves in the fall. The tree is tall, so old and big, that we can't even harvest it's fruit before it splatters on our deck or heads or wherever. So, the cherry tree had to die. Isn't this the power of our lordship over nature? We can grow and kill it as we please. And so the cherry tree is now cherry wood, and after been sawn and chopped and split and dried, will heat our house one winter.

And we harvested the last of the cherries, so ripe and soft that they turned the eaters mouth purple-black, staining teeth, tongue, and lips. Martin was so happy to have the tree cut down and eat the cherries, his mouth an up-turned, purple-lipped grin, he looked the Joker, gloating over some mayhem and mischief.

from this to that

This morning the sunshine was streaming in the east windows, heating my cereal milk as I ate, beckoning to come and make the most of a summer day. We are back in our tranquil little blue house after five days in Prague, Czech Republic.

The pulse of a city is at the same appealing and repelling -- after a bit in the countryside the thrum and vibrancy of a dense human population is drawing. It's music, sirens, murmurings and thumpings, the art, magnificent architecture, and appetites for all kinds of food. People watching. Subway riding. Shop perusing. Accompanied by the sharp smack of sewage stench, broken human beings, twisted and blatant sexual "entertainment", dismal dirty corners filled with garbage and poorly executed graffiti.

My ears have become accustomed to the thick silence of little Holsbybrunn, but at moments it almost feels as if I am going crazy -- the loudest thing the ringing in my ears. But the screech and howl of Communist-era trains shooting by one another was almost too much to bear. (Martin covered his ears, but he's lived sanscity longer than I.) All possible windows of the train were down to combat the stifling July heat and the pervading, rank smell of urine.

We spent four days in the city and one day traveling about 35 kilometers outside of Prague to a smaller village and 14th century castle built by a former Czech king and Roman emperor. We walked up into the surrounding hills and nature reserve to find "little America", a 100 metre canyon with a lake at it's bottom. We passed by large poppy fields with their blue-gray-green bulbs and crumbling cement and wood houses of the bygone peasantry. Fields of yellow grain and shiny-leafed corn.

But the city life -- Czech pub food, gorgeous clothes, spires and steeples of 1,000 years of art and design, river boats, pink/blue/orange flats, warm cobblestone and beautiful light polution, has it's appeal for a few days.

avoidance techniques

I should be cleaning the house. My parents and grandmother arrive tomorrow and there are still beds to be made, floors to be done, etc. etc. Not that it really matters. They won't see how clean everything is but will just be glad to be here. But by instinct or by tutelage, I need it to be clean. That's what you do for guests. And who wants to sleep in a place with dirty floors and dead flies on the windowsills? ( I make our house sound filthy, but really, we get a lot of dead bugs on the window sills because people don't use screens here. The doors and windows are hinged on the outside, and open out, so screens are impossible.) (This also makes it quite comical opening doors, for along time I always pulled the wrong way, even in my own house.)

But I am putting it off and sitting here, typing in kitchen, looking out at the dull, drab sky and wondering what the weather will be like when my parents are here. This is my grandmother's first and maybe last trip-of-a-lifetime, and the weather needs to be good. At least a little good.

Our freezer is full of delicious vanilla buns (a sweetbread pastry made with vanilla, butter and sprinkled with crunchy sugar) and yogurt bread (all thanks to my super-woman mother-in-law!) Martin and I will be sleeping in our little guest-cottage which will be fun. Sleeping in your own garden can offer a new perspective.

We will have a full schedule: a trip to Cracow, Poland, an antiques road-trip, family dinners, a trip to the east coast to see the famous Baltic beaches and the royal summer house, shopping, berry picking, and any other number of things depending on what energy we have left. We also just need to relax and be together, drink tea and catch up on one year apart. It will be impossibly short, and it will crush me to say goodbye. Life is so short. Bittersweet. But I will savour the sweetness for every moment, and try to have a child's mentality and forget the impending goodbye. They will be here for my birthday, after all, so what more can I ask?

heredity

1 : the sum of the qualities and potentialities genetically derived from one's ancestors

2 : the transmission of traits from ancestor to descendant through the molecular mechanism lying primarily in the DNA or RNA of the genes

It's been steamy hot, high temperatures and high per cent humidity. I dressed to go out to work one morning in the garden. In a short while of pulling weeds and turning earth I was sticky sweaty and irritable with the flies that left the horse barn to come and fly about my face. I returned to the house to dig up the shorts I found in the "throw away pile" (when people throw away good useful clothes because they can't jam them into their suitcases).

Marching out of the house to do weed battle once again, I had an amusing realization. I have turned into my mother.

Not so much physically -- the Busenius side (my father's) is by far dominant in that regard -- though when we are together there would be no doubt we are mother and daughter. For the likeness I am referring to, a "transmission of trait", seems quite nebulous.

I'll explain.

As I was walking towards the flower beds, I laughed aloud as if someone placed a mirror before me. I could see my mother in the garden working: Running shoes (you can't heft a spade properly with sandals), socks, shorts, tank top. Muscular legs, bug-bitten (with a slight allergic reaction to each bite), broad straight shoulders with a slight hunch at the back of the neck (this goes back to my grandmother). Dirty hands (I can't recall her working with gloves) and a deep, almost effortless summer tan. Strong of back, strong of will. She is a workhorse, and there's no insult in saying that because I am, too. She keeps a beautiful garden and neglects the houseplants. (My houseplants are often brown at the edges, although I can't claim the years of hard work she's put into her garden.)

Martin said recently that I had a "farmer tan", a working tan, I guess, that leaves various tank-top lines, belly and upper thighs pale, white, or at least shades lighter than the shoulders, forearms, face and knees. I am ashamed to admit, when I was young, I was a bit embarrassed about my mom's working tan. We lived in the "California of Canada" (I say this oozing sarcasm and irony) where it was body beautiful all summer. I didn't realize as a child that real people didn't have perfect bikini tans, because real people have to work and raise children and do things besides lay in the sand or drive around in a speedboat. I just remember being slightly embarrassed that my mom's tan ended where her gardening shorts did. Now I look back with admiration that she didn't bow to the preening facade of others, and was simply her natural self. This I guess I take after, too. I haven't worn much makeup, or any, really, in years.

Now I guess I start to sound full of that opposite kind of vanity--looking down on the vain. I am describing what went through my mind as I was walking down to resume weeding.

I began to think of other things of heredity or family culture. My brother and I use the word "interesting" as a variable tool of conversation. "Interesting" (you are stupid) "interesting" (that's really interesting) "interesting" (I am actually not listening to you) "interesting" (I am bored)... the list goes on. As a family we have violent tendencies, not cruel but sometimes brutal. We laugh in the same explosive raucousness, doubling over if we really get going. We are strong, able, athletic, with that thick softening that can belie toughness. My brother, sister, and I are throwbacks to our Slavic roots -- born blond, dark-eyed, darker-skinned.

Now this probably quite boring, I realize. But having spent a year apart from blood family these things come up clearer and with more importance -- more draw, maybe the desire for connection. My trip to Bosnia in the spring made me think of these things, too, being surrounded by people that looked like my brothers. I guess it's always easier to see who you are like when you aren't with them.