All around Austin's place

 

Life goes on but it doesn't for all of us.

 A terrible thing happened this past week.  A school shooting in an elementary school in Texas.   So many people's lives are changed forever.  When they try to sleep they will think of their loved ones, now gone.  When they wake up, they will hope it was all a bad dream.  But it doesn't go away.

There will be marches and memorials and funerals.  And then, time passes.  Nobody forgets.  But life goes on and a new normal sets in.    Normal.  what does that mean?

And I feel great sadness.  Despair.   Anger.  Grief.  And then, I go on living.

We are still in Maine.  We went into town and I bought some yarn.   We recycled and took trash to the Transfer Station- what the dump is called here.

We drove through McDonald's and learned that they don't sell salads any more.

Doing laundry last night ns this morning.  Working on putting new plastic on the green house/ hoop house on Austin's property.

The other day we went sight seeing  looking for the Owls Head Light House.  We found the parking lot, but discovered that there was a bit of a walk to get to the lighthouse.  More walking than I can do. So we did not see the lighthouse.  We did see the Owls Head Post office and Penobscot Bay though.

We worked on patching the green house/ hoop house on Austin's property and now we are tired.    Life takes a toll.   I don't have the stamina or strength or balance to do what I want to.  I want to be able to climb and run and walk through small spaces without feeling like I am going to tip over.

Of course all of those children and teachers who were gunned down will never experience aging.  And my life goes plugging on.   Why?

 

 

Ten years have passed and some things are not any better than they were

 On our drive from Virginia to Maine, we passed this sign and remembered the horrible day of the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.  This is from Wikipedia:

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and six were adult staff members.

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Then this week, this happened:

• Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, the Texas Department for Public Safety said.
• The 18-year-old gunman was on the school premises for up to an hour before law enforcement forcibly entered a classroom and killed him, officials said.

Warren Maine- our son's home

 Austin bought this old house here in Warren, Maine about a year and a half ago.  I probably wrote about it at the time, but I don't remember.

Austin originally came up here (yes I am in Austin's house as I write this) to study at the Maine Media Workshop-https://www.mainemedia.edu/.  He has made friends here and has really been doing interesting work in filmmaking.  I am one of those parents who is proud of her children even if I cannot exactly explain or sometimes even understand what they are doing.

Austin had the opportunity to attend SOAK, a regional Burning Man even that takes place in Oregon.  Austin flew out of Maine to Seattle where he spent a few days with his older brother, Morgan- who lives there.  Then he took the train from Seattle to Portland, Oregon where his sister Courtney lives.   All three of them will be attending SOAK together.

Morgan and Austin being silly

Maine is so beautiful,  and Austin's 200 year old house is very cool with lots of character.  And it could be a full time renovation job if you are into that.  Here are some of the photos I have taken.

When I attempt to label each picture individually they shift around and get skewed, so, I am just adding them and describing what's what.

What you see here is the garden shed; the house with the sun setting behind it; the side of the barn; view of the house from inside the garden shed; Nick and Austin in front of the house-on the left and the attached barn on the right; a nice picture of Austin when we were having a nice lunch on the pier (not sure what the body of water is called);  Austin's house after dark and last but not least, the amazing ferns growing behind the house 

Maine. We went to a car show in Union, Maine

 We went to car show in Union, Maine.   So many familiar car models.  The car with fins is a 1961 Chrysler Newport.  The same model car we had when I was a kid.  The car we drove across the country and back in.  The  to car my sister learned drive on.  Our was white though.

There's a picture of a bright yellow car that is a 1967 Dodge Dart.  The same model I learned on.  But my mom's Dart was a dark copper color with a black roof.

The orange and white Volkswagen bus is the same color combination as the one my son bought.   The one we saw today was a 1974 model.  So was my son's- but his was a well worn and well loved one called "Smudge" because it burned so much oil.

The music played at the car show was classic 1960s music and so great to hear.

It's so strange. funny that those "antique" cars are the ones we knew as kids!

Maine in May 2022

 We drove up here from Aldie, VA stopping overnight to break up the trip,  It's Buddy's first car trip.  In fact, this is the farthest we have ever driven with any of our pets.

Maine is beautiful!   I was here last July, and Nick has been here to help Austin when he first moved here.

It is so different than anywhere I have ever lived and I marvel.  As the children of US Government workers, Nick and I grew as suburban kids with parents in pretty regular, stable jobs.  We both think of the Washington, DC are as "home".   

We have had many homes in other countries, but in the US, the Washington area is it.

It is sort of strange to me to see small businesses and shops and think of the people working there.  There are farms.  In fact, our Air B&B is owned by the family that farms the land around it.   How do people know what to do?   Sounds dumb, but it's a thing that I think about.

Austin lives in Warren, Maine and the place we are staying is also in Warren.  We are near Union, Maine, Camden , Maine, Rockport and Thomaston.   

I usually have issues placing photos on this blog and trying to put them in a particular position on the page along with my explanation of what the photo is of.  This time, at least for starters, I am just going to put the pictures on and figure out the rest another time.

Springtime in Northern Virginia

Sunset at 8:09 pm

I went out with a couple of friends last evening.  On the way home, I was driving west into the sunset.  It was bright in my eyes, but beautiful.     It's funny how long the days are now compared to winter when it's dark before 5PM.

Spring planting

We went to a couple of places the last few days and bought some flowering plants for me to put into flower pots.   There are still more to be planted, but I got off to a start anyway

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Rose bud

Iris

I love the spring for the longer days, the warmer temperatures that are not yet too hot.  And the things that bloom.  The birds seem to like it too because they have so much to say!

And yet, with all of this beauty, there is too much sadness.  I have written about the friends who have died in the last few months.  And those fighting terminal cancers so they will have as much time as possible with their loved ones.

Then yesterday I got a text that left me feeling sad.  A woman who I met at a La Leche League meeting about 10 years ago when her first baby was a newborn.  She had a traumatic birth and cried when she tried to introduce herself.  With her second birth, she had a good, healing experience.  I saw her grow into a wonderful, happy, confident woman over the next few years.  Two years ago, at 47, she found out that she was pregnant again.  What a big surprise it was.  And it turned into the happy, welcome birth of a baby boy.  Now that baby is 15 months old and a real joy to the family.  Nursing like a champ.  And the mom just found out that she has breast cancer.   

Life can be so unfair!   I don't think that there's much I can do to help other than be a listener and understand her concerns about sudden weaning.  But she must be thinking about the future.  What will the treatment involve.   Will her kids and husband be okay.

Mother's Day reoccurring theme- pictures of my babies

 

Origins

 

This is Kari Kjørrefjord, the widow of my father's cousin Thor (pronounced Tore).   She is standing in front of the family farm house that has been in the family for over a century.  My grandfather was born in this house.

My birthday was yesterday (I turned 68) and of course that makes me introspective.  I think about my beginnings.  My birth into the world and the family.  And also my DNA  and the origins of where I come from.  At least the part of me that comes from my father.

I know that only half of my DNA is from my father and that he was 100% Norwegian.  But somehow, I have always identified at Norwegian.   Maybe because I had blond hair and blue eyes and looked Scandinavian.

My family- my parents and my siblings, and I, visited this farm in 1957 when I was three years old.  I don't remember it at all, but I have seen pictures.    

Nick and I went to Norway on our honeymoon  We visited relatives and marveled at the beauty of the country.   Some of my second cousins were little kids and we met them too- although they don't remember us at all.

We lived in Tromsø, Norway from 1984-86 and our third child was born there.  Before going there we studied Norwegian through the State Department, which was a great help.  I wanted to love it there but had a hard time.  Three little kids- one a newborn.  Post partum depression.   Not knowing anyone.  And then the sun set in November for two months.  However, I look back on those days fondly now that I am not in the thick of the drama of parenting three little kids and feeling lonely.

Later, when we were living in Perth, Australia, I visited Norway again.  It was 1997.   That is the earliest I remember visiting the family farm.   On that trip, I stood in the room that I imagined that my grandfather had been born in.  I felt the presence of him, and of my great grandmother giving birth and starting a new chapter in the family tree (maybe I should say a new branch)

Nick got a summer assignment to the US Embassy in Oslo in 2015. That offered the perfect chance for my sister and I to visit Norway with her granddaughters.   

It was a wonderful trip.  We were treated very well by second cousins.  we got to see and feel our "roots" and introduce the next generation to some of their heritage.

So now I am 68.  Older than my grandfather was when he died.  I never knew him and my father refused to speak of him and got angry  when I asked about him.  But, I have his DNA.

The Kjørrefjord family grave

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