Things my grandmother told me: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. This week, it's "Things my grandmother told me." Here's my take.

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This was my grandmother Stewart, Guellma Gevene Flowers-Smith-Stewart, whom we called Gevene with great affection. Gram was a force of nature, her character was forged by adversities I cannot imagine but to interact with her while she was alive was a lesson in joy. You'd never know she'd been dealt so many blows.

Gevene in an unguarded moment, probably telling one of my brothers to go toss off (in terms less gentle than that).

She lost her mother to the Spanish flu and was the subject of a custodial tug of war between her father and her grandparents in the early 1900s. Her grandparents, my great-great grandparents won the battle, and my great-grandfather George took Gram's sister Dorothy back to Canada in about 1918 and Gram never saw either of them again. I know I have a fair number of Canadian readers and please, if you're from Edmonton and related to George or Dorothy Myrtle Flowers please reach out to me.

Gevene was adopted by her grandparents who treated her as a domestic servant. My great-great-grandfather Harper Smith was an amazing man by all accounts. He was a physician who was the son of a physician and a pillar of his community. Still, he treated his grand daughter pretty shabbily but he made her who she was.

I idolized my grandmother Stewart and she showered the love she never got as a kid on my siblings and me. Though she could be thorny, we always knew that she was in our corner, no matter where we ended up.

In the late 80s my folks were in Orlando and we decided that it would be a good thing for me to take Gevene down to meet them for a couple of weeks. The complicating factor was her dog Joy, from whom she was inseparable.

Gevene, Joy and my niece Sarah. Sarah you were loved very, very deeply by your great-grandmother.

So we decided that I'd drive from Pennsylvania to Florida with my Gram (who was then 85) and her dog. Gram was up for it and looking forward to an 18-hour road trip. I'd never driven that far in my life and I was anxious to see how we'd do. I made hotel reservations at the halfway point and expected to take two days to make the trip.

We left Pennsylvania at around 6am and headed south on I-95. Within an hour Gevene started telling me the story of her life. I didn't even have to pry, she had some stories to get out of her system and I was an all-too-willing audience for them. Here's some of what she told me.

When Gevene was in her 20s she was working at a newspaper and she fell in love. The man she loved was as handsome as she was beautiful and as driven as she was. However he was Catholic and my great-great grandparents decided that as a Catholic he was an unfit match and they made her break it off with a man she loved. My great-great grandparents had another plan.

Gram with a very young Sarah

The man who became my grandfather Stewart was the younger brother of my great Aunt Scharma's husband. Walker Stewart was out in San Francisco and seeking his fortune when he got hauled back to Pennsylvania to marry my grandmother. Though it was no love match at the start, there developed between them an affection that was as improbable as it was volatile. Together they had three kids.

She loved her two sons and her daughter, though a woman I'd never seen cry over anything teared up as soon as she started talking about her children. I couldn't get over her passion when it came to her kids. Bill, Ray and Nancy (my mom) were her life and in hearing her talk about what it was like to be a mother humanized that whole crew like nothing ever had before.

Gram told me stories and things about that period of her life that I've never told a soul and probably never will. She did however, ask me to repeat the stories of who she was and where she came from. I do my best when it comes to that. I tell my nieces and nephews how much she loved them and all of them know her curiously-named family tree because I tell them. Every one of those kids knows that he or she had a great-great uncle named Le Purcell Mon Monier and a great-great aunt named Zorilla Y Marille. Brothers Reid and Walker Stewart had relatively normal names when compared to the Smith clan!

Gram, Sarah and Doggie Bruno

Gevene and I stopped at the halfway point between Pennsylvania and Florida and got as far as a lunch at Shoney's. I was all ready to stop for the night but she wanted to keep going, so we did.

We made it to Florida that day and my parents were thrilled. After all was said and done however, I came away from that drive with a sense of the people who begat me I never could have had otherwise, and in addition to that, my Gram told me all her secrets. Well, some of them anyhow.

Sixteen years after her death her fingerprints are all over my life. I look like her for starters, my red hair and blue eyes are pure Gevene. Every time I turn my mattress or scour my bathroom I'm reminded of her. When I see a cardinal, I remember her love of red shoes and hats. When I see my nieces and nephews, I think about how proud she'd be to have seen them growing up and turning into adults. When I see my great-nephew Xavier's red hair and blue eyes I can't help but to think some small part of her lives on in that little boy.

A big part of her lives on in me too. I'd always loved her, but that trip down I-95 introduced me to the person of my grandmother and it's something I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

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Throughout the day today, bloggers will give their takes on this subject. click on 'em!

If I could turn back time: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks the blogosphere comes alive as blogger of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. The topic for this iteration of the Blog Off is "If I could turn back time."

When my Blog Off partner in crime suggested this topic I bristled at the very idea of it. I'm somebody who makes it a point never to look back unless it's to learn from a mistake I made along the way. Heaven knows I've made more than my share of mistakes in my 47 years and lessons from those mistakes abound.

Wishing I could turn back the clock is about as big a waste of time as I can imagine. It's easy to while away an afternoon wishing I knew at 25 what I know now. Were that possible I'd spend the bulk of my days throttling my younger self. Don't fall in love! Don't take that job! Save your money! I'm already my own harshest critic and given the opportunity to berate my younger self would grant me a hobby the likes of which I've never seen.

But over the years I've learned that the past is just that, the past. I can't change or fix anything that happened then and wishing it were so is a fool's errand. My grandmother Anater used to say "You can't put an old head on young shoulders" and now that I'm tilting toward 50 I understand what she meant.

I like getting older and despite my bad back and crow's feet, I like most of what comes along with the aging process. It's funny that as my body starts to break down my mind has never been more alert and attuned to the world around me. Finally, I understand how the world works and I understand my place in it. I like who I am now and I'm comfortable in my own skin. That's not a statement my younger self could have made.

If it were possible to whisper all of this wisdom to the 25-year-old version of me, his head would have exploded. I couldn't have handled then what I know now.

So to answer the question  "If I could turn back time" my answer is I wouldn't.

To see how the rest of today's participants handled this topic, check back throughout today. A table with links to all of today's Blog Off blogger will appear below.

Forward or backward: a Blog off post

Every two weeks the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. The topic for today is "What are you looking forward to in the new year?"

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The topic this week was my handiwork more or less. If you click on this link it will take to the official Let's Blog Off website and on it you can read my musings on Janus, gates, looking forward and looking back.

Pincian Gate, Rome

January gets its name from the Roman god Janus. Janus had two faces, one that looked forward and another that looked back. He presided over transitions and gates of all types and he had the ability to assess the past and the future at the same time.

St. Paul's Gate, Rome

I'll let Janus assess the year we just passed all he wants to, I can't be rid of it fast enough. For me it was a year of triumph and loss and more than anything, I'm looking forward to a great big leveling out in 2012. I expended a lot of energy at the end of the last year as I set things up for the new year and now that it's the third of the month already if feels good to have passed through the gate between the old year and the new.

St. Sebastian's Gate, Rome

Here's a partial list of what I'm looking forward to, though not in any particular order.

• This year I'm looking forward to more travels, though just a bit less than last year.
• I'm looking forward to more time at home and more time with my family.
• I'm looking forward to making more money this year than I did last year.
• I'm looking forward to deepening my friendships with friends, be they local or remote.
• I'm looking forward to seeing my name in print and around the internet more than I did last year.
• I'm looking forward to more great trade events and stronger relationships with the agencies that get me to them.
• I'm looking forward to writing more blog posts and increasing the size of this audience.
• I'm looking forward to my continuing presence on the Blanco Design Council and am truly excited to be sitting on GE Monogram's Design Advisory Committee.
• I'm looking forward to becoming a great-uncle again this summer.
• I'm looking forward to taking advantage of more opportunities.
• I'm looking forward to turning 47 in May.
• All in all, I am very much looking forward to 2012.

So there you have it, the things I'm looking forward to in 2012. What about you? What are you looking forward to this year? What milestones are you anticipating to pass?

Gate of the Angels, Vatican City

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As the day goes on, a list of participating bloggers in today's Blog Off will appear as if by magic. Click on the links int he table to see how everybody else approached this topic. Happy new year!

It's Christmas

No holiday on the western calendar has the body of music devoted to it that Christmas does. Some of the greatest composers and lyricists who've ever lived had included Christmas music in their repertoires and the legacy they left is some of the most emotional music there is.

I have a bunch of favorite Christmas songs and carols, It would be impossible to pick a single favorite. One that rarely fails to bring a tear to my eye is In the Bleak Midwinter.

In the Bleak Midwinter was originally written as a poem by Christina Rossetti some time before 1872. The American Magazine Scribner's Monthly requested a Christmas poem from her and she delivered In the Bleak Midwinter.

In 1906, no less than Gustav Holst set it to music and a classic was born. Holst set his arrangement up for congregational singing and his version, the version here, is known as the Cranham. In 1909 Harold Edward Darke rearranged it to accommodate soloists and the Darke setting comes across as feeling more triumphal and is the version usually performed by full choirs

So now that it's Christmas, I want to wish all of you a merry one and I want to thank you for another great year at Kitchen and Residential Design.

Today would have been the last day of Saturnalia

The ancient Roman holiday best known today is Saturnalia. In the late Empire, Saturnalia was a five-day festival that would have run from December 17th through December 23rd. That happens to be today.

The cultural mishmash that is modern Christmas got its start with Saturnalia. The Roman god Saturn ruled over agriculture and harvests, but more than that he represented a time in the past when abundance and peace reigned supreme.

During Saturnalia, Romans reverted back to that nostalgic time that never existed. Masters served slaves and what was normally forbidden was allowed to thrive. Publicly, the festival was celebrated by a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn and unlike every other festival in the Roman calendar, Saturnalia was observed by everyone under Roman rule. It didn't matter where you lived or how close you were to the nearest temple of Saturn, you celebrated Saturnalia.

Where that festival fits into modern life is that a hallmark of it was that the Romans exchanged gifts with their loved ones during Saturnalia.

Human beings are today what they've always been and it's a human characteristic to express affection through a gift. The Romans turned it into a holiday and theirs is a practice modern people continue today.

The point of this is not to discount why people do what they do in 2011 or to pretend the cultural significance of the next few days isn't different now than it was then. Rather it's to show once again that everything modern westerners do is built on the people who came before us. Every aspect of our culture sits on the shoulders of our ancestors, be they genetic or cultural.

So while you're standing in line to buy gifts over the next few days, blame the Romans. But more than that, thank them for their legacy and for giving you the excuse to express your love for the people who mean the most to you.