mother

Because I Love Her

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After many, many years putting it off, I am finally reading Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen’s wit, plot line, character development and use of the language is challenging my lazy brain.  I have spent so many years skimming over internet junk, reading the highlights of blogs, watching movies while trolling Pinterest or Instagram, my brain is lazy.  It wants the quick hits of dopamine, not the toil of paying attention and encounters with new words. 

But there is a lady in my life whom I love most dearly.  She adores this book and has read it more times than she can count.  Because of her, I am working my way through the chapters.  Our daughter with her quick wit and brilliant mind continues to challenge me to reach further and not be lazy.  It is for her, I am toiling.

I plan to watch at least one movie version of the story when I am finished.  I will try to see her recommended one.  I am considering getting Cliff Notes or Spark(?) to go along with my reading.  Perhaps it would help me appreciate the appeal of the book and the story turned into cinema more fully.

I think the thing I am struggling with is how rude nearly every character seems.  I have my moments of speaking inappropriately, but they are usually accidental due to my not paying attention to the scene I am involved with.  To be openly and deliberately rude continuously would have my mother out of her grave pinching the mess out of me.

 I have said before I wished sometimes for Julia Sugarbaker’s ability to tell someone off, but in reality, I fear my mother more.  She has been long gone, but her voice still comes to me letting me know when something is “tacky” or “ugly”.  To act or speak in such a way would get “the look” or when I was smaller, “the pinch”.  And to acknowledge I had been pinched would have been certain death.  Or at least, I thought so. 

My mother never mistreated us at all, but never allowed us to act out and embarrass her, either.  We had a certain quality called respect for our mothers.  Our children have it, too.  Don’t say anything negative about the younger generations around me.  There were as many smart mouths in my childhood as now and just as many fine, respectful young people now as then.

Good night, somebody kick this soap box out from under me!  About this book I am reading, I will likely fall in love with it, too.  Right now, it is as annoying as Mr. Darcy!!

Photographs

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I have been trying to get photographs moved from photo boxes to albums for 20 years.  Really. Twenty years. 

They haven’t been spread out all over the whole time.  I have gotten them out, sorted, discarded some, and boxed them back up more than once.  I couldn’t find photo albums I wanted until two or three years ago.  I got the albums and additional filler pages.  Eventually, I started loading photos only to find the first groups were too small to stay in the pockets.  I got black acid free paper and cut it to fit in the pockets and stabilize the photos.  Sometime in August, I set up the folding table and cleared the kitchen table and went at things again.  I have made very slow progress.  Slow progress is still progress. 

I find the task of sorting and deciding how to load them and the actual loading into the pockets tedious. The real challenge is seeing my tiny children in the prints.  I miss those little people so terribly much. 

I am trying to get this task complete because I do love mine and Rock’s two people and I want them and their girls, the Duchesses, to see all these pictures.

I want all of them to see all the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, too.  The family connections and where we come from.  Roots matter.  That is one of the major lessons I learned from Granny Sally.  She taught it through family stories, through visiting cemeteries and explaining the family behind the names carved in granite, through cooking her mother’s dumplings for me when she could and pinto beans when she couldn’t.  

Mother was always pulling all of us together.  Family ties matter.  Something about knowing our people creates connection.  I try to get our children together whenever we can.  We have several friends who are closer than a lot of our family members.  They create an even richer connection for us. They are included in my party tribe these days. 

I don’t remember to take pictures enough when we are all together.  I am in very few of the photos scattered on the table because I was always behind the camera. We all have phone in our pocket to take pictures.  Yet, I forget to do it.  Another thing that I don’t like is having everything digital.  I would like to have a lot of the photos saved on the computer or my social media account or a thumb drive printed into those ready-made photo books.  One of my sister friends is scanning her old prints of photos on to her computer.  It’s all a bit overwhelming for me.  There seems to be no end to this project. 

Oh, well.  I will keep progressing.  Slow, no doubt.   Slow progress is still progress.  I will keep reminding myself.