tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15333663085147117112024-03-19T08:34:38.738-04:00Christina Wible, AuthorChristina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.comBlogger209125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-71692209313586569422021-06-19T22:53:00.001-04:002021-06-19T22:53:34.469-04:00The Gentle, Sweet Man<p> Like on the day before Mother's Day, I took a Zoom writing workshop with Laura Lentz. This one encouraged us to write About Your Father. This is what came from this workshop today.</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I lived in
the shadow of my mother and that long shadow obscured my father and I really
never saw him or knew him. So now I write a love letter to him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ecY8w7YwoyA/YM6tT6hMPXI/AAAAAAAAB6M/-fDCXe9uRGAXm36JyXxJ6iwPTJToKPnTACLcBGAsYHQ/s1292/Father%2BLabor%2BDay%2B1942.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1292" data-original-width="704" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ecY8w7YwoyA/YM6tT6hMPXI/AAAAAAAAB6M/-fDCXe9uRGAXm36JyXxJ6iwPTJToKPnTACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Father%2BLabor%2BDay%2B1942.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dearest
Willy Walt, Poppy,</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Sweet artist
never realized,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Handsome<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Athletic
(you tried to teach this uncoordinated girl tennis)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Troubled<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Resurrected<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I cherish
the few stories you told me about your life:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">About
leaving your art to become a bill collector during the depression and learning
the hard way to never ask a debtor “where is your dog?”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Singing war
songs around the barbeque as if you had been there, but Washington was far from
the front.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">The change
in you that you told me about when you, the staunch Republican, was assigned to
the most hated Democratic of men only to learn respect for the man in the
wheelchair who expressed concern for you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">That’s all I
knew of your past.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">But even in
my ignorance about you, you kept from me all your troubles<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Your
disappointment<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Your
disagreements with Ruth<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">The loss of
your two older sisters to a diphtheria outbreak only two months before you were
born and the sadness of the house for years in your childhood<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">The loss of
your beloved kid brother to TB only months after he was best man at your
wedding<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I never knew
until I began just now to research your life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m sorry I
only saw you as someone to fix, to cure of your alcoholism<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m sorry a
nurse had to show me how you longed for your art studied so passionately in
your youth in the haunts of Cooper Union and the Art Student’s league (another thing
I did not know) and help me bring you back to it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m sorry I
never acknowledged your true nature:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Shy<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">So sweet<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">So gentle<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">So kind<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">So lost<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">An artist
never realized<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">That brain
tumor that took you from me, that was what made me truly see you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I wish I
could tell you how much I loved you. I hope you will forgive me my sins of
omission<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KBzXJMwPAvs/YM6tfgiZ5yI/AAAAAAAAB6Q/QLF9C5firhQ7QYT95BH6K5ERY8Sg-727gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/WWCK%2B1973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1614" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KBzXJMwPAvs/YM6tfgiZ5yI/AAAAAAAAB6Q/QLF9C5firhQ7QYT95BH6K5ERY8Sg-727gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/WWCK%2B1973.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-30009592681796203662021-05-20T23:08:00.000-04:002021-05-20T23:08:04.611-04:00For Anna Belle<p><br /></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the day before Mother's Day this year I took a (Zoom) writing workshop with Laura Lentz. The best $39 I have ever spent on a writing course. (Note: I started a free six session course with another writer also this Spring but the less said the better about that one. I only made it through three sessions.)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">In this Laura Lentz course we were encouraged to write for 13 minutes "About Your Mother" but I found myself very stuck and, while I produced a stilted story, I was dissatisfied and the next day I sat down to write for 13 minutes about the woman who was not my mother but who (as one of the commenters later said) "mothered" me.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For Anna Belle on Mother's Day</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I can still smell the odor of your Yardley’s Lavender powder and the Nivea cream you used on your age-crippled hands. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When we slept in the same room, in the blackness of night and the naivety of my age, I thought you sang in your sleep. Now I know that that high pitched sound was the animal cry of keening for your two daughters, dead very young from diphtheria, deaths you blamed yourself for because you had nursed other children in the neighbor in the throes of the same deadly disease. You believed you had brought it home.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So, late in your life, past the age when you had finished mothering your surviving boys, you found a difficult young girl to love and you threw yourself into the job as much as your Edwardian upbringing would allow.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You knew I needed the calm, quiet and understanding that was unfound by me in my stern and unavailable mother, wrapped up as she was in her own blaming life. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You never scolded but you painted my world with a soft glow of evening lamplight, of peace and love and permission to be me, not the Spock-perfect child that my mother wanted.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Even now the sight of house dresses and black brogues or starched white nurses uniforms and thick stockings bring me comfort. And my own hands becoming crippled with arthritis make me remember how much you were able to do with yours.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You died only two years after my mother in a far away town. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Your patient work was over.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I hope that in me you found a place to love that you were denied by the deaths of Anna and Elizabeth.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Know, that even if I can’t tell you, I loved you so much.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(Pictured: Anna Belle in 1960 at the age I am now.)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fYHNcyhDhEc/YKcjsXexcYI/AAAAAAAAB3c/vZWONri5cocrde5HArBLHpHjgXdCIqgvACLcBGAsYHQ/s1868/Nana%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1868" data-original-width="1866" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fYHNcyhDhEc/YKcjsXexcYI/AAAAAAAAB3c/vZWONri5cocrde5HArBLHpHjgXdCIqgvACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Nana%2Bcopy.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div>Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-74655873968873819332020-09-18T12:16:00.000-04:002020-09-18T12:16:05.439-04:00On the River in the time of COVID<p> I try to get to the River at least once a day. Usually it is when I venture out to buy my lunch. I'm not much of a cook nor do I care to be. Low on the "to learn, do or moan over not doing" list.</p><p>Now, in the fall, is the time I come alive. I am largely Scandinavian and find the hot weather totally intolerable. Ask my favorite horse trainer about the ice water bucket when she would unglue me from my horse at a show in the heat of the summer. So the cool weather, cloudy, breezy day and brilliant fall colors attract me like a 1000 pound magnet to the Water Street parking lot where I can sit in the parking lot just a few yards from the South Branch where it joins the mill pond and think.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0xnNsJaBwZ8/X2TaZ1XqlhI/AAAAAAAABqg/C7wdz_JaYJoIe0sgc3Wt0p8hjRhFZigUACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG-0244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1965" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0xnNsJaBwZ8/X2TaZ1XqlhI/AAAAAAAABqg/C7wdz_JaYJoIe0sgc3Wt0p8hjRhFZigUACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG-0244.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I am also not a morning person. NOT NOT NOT. But today I was up early, so early that I thought Shop Rite might not have my salad bar open. It was. I pulled in to a perfect spot in time to eat brunch and watch a heron freezing stock still out near the edge, looking for her morning repast.</p><p>If I come here on weekends it is a never ending parade of masked parents and children getting in and out of cars, walking in the park by the river, and coping with the various life shattering disasters that befall children (dumped ice cream cones, "I wanna go home" and "Why can't I hold the dog's leash").</p><p>This morning was different. </p><p>A car pulled up beside mine with the obligatory kayak tied down on top. I expected the usual guy, flexing his muscles and, well, being guy.</p><p>Instead a late middle aged woman pulled the kayak off, checked her paddles, put on her hat and mask, and slipped into her flotation device. Without words and in a semblance of an orchestrated ballet, cars pulled in one by one and disgorged late middle aged and older women who silently equipped themselves and slid their brightly colored water vehicles into the river.</p><p>It was such a refreshing sight.</p><p>I might even get up early to see it again sometime. Maybe not.</p>Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-24249495392766861282020-04-21T16:25:00.002-04:002020-04-21T16:25:34.706-04:00Being a Christian in the time of labeling<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I recently responded in this way to
a post on a friends page that implied that all of these people protesting the
lock down were sociopaths: “Granted it could be just sociopaths but I think it
goes deeper than that. Are we raising generations of people who do not believe
in caring for each other? Are we emphasizing to our children individual liberty
without tempering that with social responsibility? There just can’t be that
many sociopaths. They must be “carefully taught.”</span>” (Okay so now I’ve
taken to quoting myself.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I have thought about this a lot lately
and want to expand on what I said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As a Christian it behooveth me to
look at all people as God’s children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now
granted, many of God’s children suffer from mental illness but are we becoming
to quick to label people as having mental problems?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that becoming the easy way out for
us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It is my belief that we, as a nation,
have, for far too long been deficient in two areas of our process of educating
our youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">First we tell them that this is a
country of individual liberty without telling them that that liberty requires
certain things of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We frequently
ignore what it takes to implement the phrase in the Constitution when it states
that it was ordained to “promote the general Welfare”. Promoting the general
welfare often requires at times that we surrender part of our liberties so that
others may have equal liberties to those that we enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past this happened, for instance, when
men were drafted to fight in WWII. In this time of pandemic it is happening
when first responders daily put their lives on the line for their fellow human
beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Secondly we fail to educate them in
the love of their fellow human beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We might call some of these lock down protesters “sociopaths” but can we
honestly say that we, in this country, have done all that we could to help them
to understand, no matter what their religion or even if they have none at all,
that we are in this for the love of each other?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are one body as a country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countries
that live under democratic socialism of some kind recognize that their citizens
are not rugged individuals living only for themselves but that everything they
do is for the good of the body of people that make up their country. Perhaps we
need to take a long hard look at ourselves and our country’s ethos before we
take the easy way out and label people as being mentally ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a Christian I am required to do this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-41567318162331564862020-04-13T19:00:00.002-04:002020-04-13T19:00:46.761-04:00What they did for love...<div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Writing about these incidents to a friend today I thought I might share them here too. They are examples from the past of the self sacrificing mindset of those who care for us now, during this pandemic.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
In 1910 there was a minor diphtheria epidemic in Jersey City. Despite the fact that she had a newborn boy (my father), two girls 2 and 6 and a 7 year old boy at home, my grandmother, a community nurse, went out to care for others who were coming down with the disease. One nig<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">ht she got home to find a quarantine sign on her door. Her two year old and six year old girls were down with the disease. The other children were closeted in her bedroom. Despite her care both of the girls died. I believe that, even though she had two children after that (one named for the six year old who had died) it haunted her the rest of her life, yet she continued on.</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
When I was planning on going to nursing school my grandmother sent me to visit a younger nurse friend of hers. Her friend had been in her nursing school's class of 1919. She had two pictures on her mantel. One was of 20 girls in their striped dresses with leg of mutton sleeves and aprons on the day they entered nursing school. The second was her graduation picture two years later in her white graduate nurse's uniform holding a single rose. When I asked her if she had a picture of her graduating class she said "that's it". She was the only one left, the rest having died nursing in the 1918 flu pandemic.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
This is by way of saying, I think, that these things happen. We can't control them however much in this day and age we think science is able to, and we simply must live through them as best we can and pray that things might get better someday the way it did for my grandmother and her friend.</div>
</div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-25826755684459712912020-03-19T16:21:00.001-04:002020-03-19T20:06:31.553-04:00Lotte Ohlenberg-Booth 2020<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I know I haven't written in a while. But I can't hold back Elizabeth much longer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">This won't be in the book so you get a taste of an epilogue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Lotte Ohlenberg-Booth 2020<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Grey and dismal day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From her desk at the back of the Estate
office, Lotte Ohlenberg-Booth stared out the window at the clouds passing
by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep a distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Huh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In an English Village of this size that would be an impossible
feat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her daughter, in the front desk was heavily
into some accounting program on her laptop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The phone, which today her daughter had delegated to Lotte to be answered,
had been silent for hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The fir trees hissed a bit in
the strong March winds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She needed to be
outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outside had been her refuge
ever since she, her mother and father had journeyed on foot from western
Germany, across France and then ventured in a small boat, just the three of
them across the English Channel . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jews
fleeing Germany in 1936. It had been a windy day like this when the boat had
caught her father as he was trying to beach it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It had been a windy day like this when her mother had taken his battered
head in her arms there in the surf as he died. It had been a windy day like
this when her mother had carried Lotte off the beach and they began their
furtive 150 mile journey across England on foot again to find some relatives in
Wales.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">They had almost made it too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had been a windy day too when her mother, coughing
up blood, sat down beside a tree to rest and could no longer rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Lotte, her six year old body so cold and
thin that she looked as a four year old, ran for help and encountered the woman
who would change her life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Lady Elizabeth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Yes, she would escape the
bounds of the office today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Viruses
didn’t scare her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, she was 90
years old and had lasted this long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
pulled on her wool coat and picked up her walking stick, her only concession to
her age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Where are you going mum?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know we are supposed to be sheltering in
place.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“At my age my place will soon
be the cemetery so I am going over there to have a chat with Lady Elizabeth.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Wear your scarf, it’s only
the first day of spring.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Hanna Booth-Furman knew her
mother was selectively deaf and wouldn’t put the scarf on if she didn’t want
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hanna wasn’t sure why she even
wasted her breath but she guessed it was worth a try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Lotte straightened to descend
the three steps from the building and then crossed the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no weddings scheduled at the hall
and it was too early for farm equipment so she didn’t look in either direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Through the lychgate she saw
the door to the 14<sup>th</sup> century St. Giles open with the lit candles
inside promising a warmth that wasn’t there. That new woman vicar had had to
cancel services at the order of the diocese but she too, here only a year or so,
had already acquired the outsidedness of the village and had invited anyone in,
not for a service but to pray on their own time and that suited most here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Instead of going in, however,
Lotte turned left into the church yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More careful now, the footing was uneven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She reached the bench that she and Harry
senior had placed in this spot almost 40 years ago to honor Elizabeth buried here
with her beloved Nicholas and their tiny son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was becoming a time when there would be no one around to have seen
them, to have remembered Elizabeth in the flesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Lotte had a mission this day.
She came here to ask a favor of Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She came to ask for a bit of Elizabeth’s courage and strength to get
her though this pandemic as Elizabeth had gotten the village through the 1918
flu. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-85297266194839263952018-07-30T22:45:00.000-04:002018-07-30T22:46:22.599-04:00"Oh no. Something went wrong." Everytime I click from my Pinterest page to get here I get this message that says: "Oh no. Something went wrong." I answer (with a bit of peavedness in my voice) "You bet it did." And then Foxfire sends me to the right page.<br />
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The first thing that went wrong was that I haven't posted here since last year.<br />
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The second thing that went wrong is that I stopped writing my books. Oh yes, I have been promising to get to the next one for quite awhile but nothing but a few little edits has come of it.<br />
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The third thing that went wrong was...oh well...just more excuses for not writing.<br />
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This time, however, I do promise that I will write, both on my book and here. I will. Really. "Oh no. Something went wrong." Perhaps Foxfire will write my book for me.Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-34374259726956604222017-10-24T16:58:00.000-04:002017-11-09T17:07:50.118-05:00What I'm reading (2)I've been obsessed with the Shetland series on Netflix lately so I decided to read a bit of Scottish mystery. Unfortunately my library only carried one volume of Ann Cleaves mysteries so I have to wait for the rest. While I was grumbling and prowling the aisles I came across Peter May's Lewis Trilogy.<br />
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If you are ready for the raw openness of the Shetland Islands and for the page turning type of mystery that leaves you wishing at two in the morning that you had gotten the next one in the series out of the library so that you could start it right away these three are for you.<br />
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Like so many of the British detective series these days, these three follow a broken detective as he tries to work his way through murders old and new in his home territory.<br />
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They are really worth the read and the caffeine needed to stay up to three in the morning reading!<br />
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<a href="http://Peter May author of the Lewis Trilogy" target="_blank">Peter May author of the Lewis Trilogy</a>Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-17034026386795303292017-10-24T16:48:00.000-04:002018-01-16T16:02:53.753-05:00What I'm reading (1)I tend to read fiction in spurts. For the last three weeks I've read four novels, three old and one relatively new. I'll start with the new one, My Sister's Bones by Nuala Ellwood.<br />
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This is a wonderful, modern psychological thriller. It is an essential read for those who want to understand those war correspondents who go time and time again into the fray in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and then come home in shreds sharing the PTSD that the soldiers who serve there also carry. It also is a cautionary tale about family dynamics.<br />
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I highly recommend it. It is at once hard and beautiful and haunting.Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-86325423158134552752017-08-12T15:20:00.000-04:002017-09-18T22:31:12.962-04:00Sweet and Swift and SummerySo my monthly book choice for August (where, you say, are May, June, and July - pfft) is a 2 hour or less read called <u>Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology</u> by Caroline Paul.<br />
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This is an awfully sweet little book with wonderful illustrations by Caroline's partner (who doesn't necessarily like cats). It tells of Caroline's journey (obsession?) with her cats Fibula and Tibia. Ahem.<br />
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If I take too long to describe it I will have expended all the time it takes to read it, although savoring it is a different matter. Just read and enjoy it as a light Summer breeze emanates from between it's covers. (If you need a review: From the jacket by Maira Kalman: "The writing and drawings are funny. Nutty. Heartwarming. Smart. Loopy. Full of Love.")<br />
<br />Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-76207180889595394292017-05-08T16:40:00.000-04:002017-05-08T16:40:12.547-04:00April's books (wherein all planning goes awry)The best laid plans...<br />
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Ah well, here are April's two books: one fiction, one non-fiction.<br />
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I'm not an anxious person per say but I do tend to overthink things. I have variously been diagnosed as ADD, "on the spectrum" and a "highly sensitive person. So when I saw <u>Born Anxious</u> by Daniel Keating I was at first not exactly ready to read it. <br />
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When I read a review, however, and a snippet of it online I wanted to read it to see if some of my childhood trauma's explained some of diagnoses in my latter years. </div>
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Spot on. He'd read my mind. This is a learned discussion of how early stress leads subconsciously to what we are now and how to try to compensate for it. He doesn't say that you need years of Freudian analysis (though someone to help you through couldn't be bad) he gives suggestions and an interesting diagnosis that I had never heard of before, Stress-Dysregulated Adults (SDR) where the body has been under stress for so long it has sustained physiological as well as psychological changes. These physiological changes contribute to the rise of metabolic disorders like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep disorders and depression.</div>
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This book isn't an easy read if you want to get something out of it (I suggest you savor it) but it was well worth my time.</div>
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Now for the fiction book, <u>Sarah's Key</u> by Tatiana De Rosnay. </div>
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I came to this one by the back door. That is to say I was looking for a movie to watch on a gloomy evening and found this and since Kristen Scott Thomas is on my favorites list and I had already watched a French film with her (this film was in French also, she is fluent in the language) and also since I am writing a novel of the holocaust, I figured this would work. I loved the film and loved the book even more.</div>
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This is not to say the film was not as good as the book but there are things that can be expressed better in print and that can be shaped and backgrounded better in a book. </div>
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A modern day American living journalist in Paris is about to be moved into the family apartment by her husband. That apartment sends her on a journey to find the previous owners of the flat and into revelations that will change both her life and that of many other people. It is also a cautionary tale about how people tend to bury the past selectively and what happens when it is unearthed.</div>
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Loved both the movie and the book.</div>
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Well lets see how long now it takes me to write the next two reviews.</div>
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Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-39627580896813211042017-02-01T21:44:00.003-05:002017-02-12T14:02:39.553-05:00Two Books a Month - January EditionThat was a New Year's resolution. Score for January. Two books got from the library and tossed (I'm too old to read books that don't grab me in the first two chapters). Two other books got and read fully (as below). My ratings will be on a 1 to 10 scale.<br />
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My fiction selection is the, I dunno know, 13th, 14th or 15 in the Merrily Watkins series of slightly paranormal mysteries. Rickman's dense prose always gives me a master class in description. 9 of 10.<br />
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This one took me three separate renewals to complete. It was beautiful and spiritually informative. Not for the spiritually disinclined. Will read it again and again. 9 of 10</div>
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You ask yourself, "Will she ever rate something a 10?" Well, we'll see.</div>
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<br />Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-43143709930041245592017-01-01T15:36:00.000-05:002017-01-01T15:36:53.745-05:00Happy New Year!I know it will not be happy for everyone. There will be challenges, discovery, disappointment and despair as well as joy and forgiveness. But that is what every year is, isn't it?<br />
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I woke up this morning singing five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes from "Rent." I knew right away I wasn't singing about last year as there were an extra 1440 minutes last year. I knew I was thinking about the future.<br />
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I walked long and hard in the mild day and ended up finding a shiny penny, heads up.<br />
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I have never been sure if omens are real or just the things we use to prop ourselves up but since there is no harm in this omen I will accept it gratefully and try to place everything in perspective as it happens. <br />
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I have chosen a motto for the year. <br />
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It is one I will continually test and wonder if the philosophy of it will stick.<br />
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<br />Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-2231929418203004742016-10-22T13:57:00.000-04:002016-10-22T13:57:19.898-04:00WelcomeWelcome to those who have skidded in from somewhere else today. Right now on my blog below I am exploring the journey of Matilda Serelia Wiberg from the Aland Islands to the US in the early 20th century. If you are in for the longer haul you might want to pick up one of my books (see side panel) either in paperback or on Kindle. Whichever you do on this blustery rainy day here in New Jersey, have a beautiful day.<br />
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Kastleholm, Aland Islands</div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-18481686345184458092016-10-12T17:45:00.000-04:002016-10-13T13:48:06.795-04:00The rest of Matilda<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">So now Matilda is pregnant (and married) and in NYC and it is 1911. Ruth, her only daughter, was born in August of 1911. Matilda would have only one child. Perhaps the difficulty of being one of 11 had had an effect on her. The
next year her older sister, Alma, with whom she immigrated, would get pregnant
with her daughter Beatrice and unfortunately die in 1912. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Well so much for the glamour of the big city but at least
Matilda is away from the islands and married to a good steady provider.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She’s living on an island, so not exactly away from the water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except
for a slight interruption in her life when she lived 50 miles from the sea in
Plainfield NJ and raised her daughter, Ruth Walborg Johnson, Matilda never
lived far from the sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Swen and Matilda were good providers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never one to sit still for long, Matilda
worked as a seamstress and it leaves me wondering if she ever took on work in her home
while she lived in NYC where home work for the sweatshops was prevalent in her time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Here Ruth’s memories of her childhood take over which memories included
living in grand houses in Plainfield.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What was she doing there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well
besides Swen's job as a carpenter (usually for the railroad), Swen and Matilda
were insurance caretakers for several well-to-do families living in and around
Plainfield, the Malis the DeForests and the Hydes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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The Hyde Mansion</div>
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The Deforest Mansion</div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Hydewood
Hall was a grand house at the base of the Watchung Mountains. <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Due to insurance regulations,
someone had to live in the spectacular mansions when the family and servants were away. These mansions were the fabric of Plainfield
and the wonderful task of baby sitting the mansions fell to the reliable Johnson
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swen worked at his job of the
CRRNJ or at the flooring trade and Matilda kept house and sewed new drapery and slipcovers for their employers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their introverted egghead daughter read.</span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "courier new";">Ruth wasn’t very forthcoming about
her life in these houses except for the vastness of the libraries and one other
anecdote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time Route 22 flooded by
Terrill Road she said glumly, “Well, what do you expect? It used to be the Mali
pond.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "courier new";">In 1939 Ruth, after graduating from
college and working for awhile (more on that in another post), married William
Walter Christian Kirchner and settled down to watch the war pass by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swen and Matilda moved to Staten Island two
blocks from the water where Swen could fish in his spare time and Matilda could
take in sewing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "courier new";">When Swen retired they moved to a bungalow in Stuart Florida
where Swen could fish off the piers to his heart’s content and Matilda took in
sewing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The handsome Swen died at age 73
in 1960 shortly after the above photo (front: Ruth, Tina, Walter and back: Matilda and Swen) and the hearty Matilda lived on until 1983 when she died at age 96,
infamous for her heckling phone calls berating her son in law and her
granddaughter to do her bidding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither
would give in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: "courier new";">Next time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matilda, Ruth and Christina.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-13412769270723950402016-09-29T15:16:00.002-04:002016-09-30T00:39:44.409-04:00Matilda's Journey and an Edwardian Scandal<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">A miserable rainy day outside so time to return to Matilda’s
journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">As we have seen she arrived in Boston in 1906.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the Swedish Emigration records
she was due to go to Rockford, Illinois.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now how the heck she wound up working as a maid in NYC in the 1910
census will always be a mystery but there she is, doing what a self-respecting,
farm raised Aland girl would be doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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(Not really Matilda but close enuf)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Since there was no census between 1906 and 1910 I will never know what
path sent her to working for William (a stock broker) and Mary Oliver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the person who sponsored her in Rockford was just
a foreign help broker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can only speculate. </span><span style="font-family: "courier new";">But at any rate, there she was in 1910 working for this
couple at a swank NYC address, 71 Central Park West when the census taker
knocked on the door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Suddenly, in February 1911 she was in the marriage license
bureau with Swen Olaf Johnson, a handsome Swedish laborer she had met (by
family tradition) at the Vasa Orden in NYC. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Vasa Orden, or Vasa Order is a
Swedish fraternal organization that aimed to acclimate the vast number of Swedish
immigrants to this country and now serves as a repository of Swedish-American
culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all likelihood there was a
chapter on 22nd St. at the Gustavus Adolphus Swedish Lutheran Church. (Which by coincidence I used to walk by almost every day when I was living in NYC)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">So this is where the story gets interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long ago and far away my husband and I were
going through my parents “stuff.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being
young and unaware of what it meant to keep “stuff” we, of course, didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the conversation sticks in my
memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Barry: I found a marriage certificate in Swedish from the
Gustavus Adolpus Swedish Lutheran Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Were Swen and Matilda your grandparents?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Me: Ya.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Barry: Well I don’t read Swedish but I think this says
February 1911.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">(I scoot over to look and confirm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then turn red.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Barry: Perhaps our elopement wasn’t the only family scandal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Yepers, he was right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My mother was born in August of 1911.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Family scandal confirmed to me later by her first cousin, Beatrice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1911 was Edwardian, after all, not Victorian.</span></div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-68784914824452522122016-09-25T11:05:00.000-04:002016-09-25T11:05:19.150-04:00Where writers come from<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">This morning I read a passage on Facebook from one of my
favorite spiritual guides, Bishop Steven Charleston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says in part, “On some journeys in life it
is necessary to leave the luggage of our past behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot run to catch the train leaving the
station if we are loaded down with old memories and heavy hearts.”</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">While I agree with him in part, I also understand that one
cannot leave that past behind until one examines it to understand what it has
to teach us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">My, you say, you have suddenly turned from a writer into a
preacher.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Um, we all, whether we acknowledge it or not, are the sum of our parts.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Some of my readers may know that I have other lives as my
bio mentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make no excuses for
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently I took a course on
spiritual journaling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made me think
about the convergence of novel writing with the path of the writer’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A writer cannot write in a vacuum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their writing is the sum of their past
experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Rather than leaving their past behind I think we must integrate it into a place within ourselves that, while not weighing us down, it helps to inform our understanding of our actions in the future. </span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">That is why I have taken the diversion down Matilda’s
path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it is giving me the
experience of looking at life through an emigrant’s eyes, it has also begun to
teach me why I write about the things that are at the heart of my writing,
strong women and their drive to become what they were meant to be and to
discover and make peace with the things that have guided them in their lives.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Bear with me on Matilda’s journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may lead to more novels.</span></div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-54294337178216982672016-09-20T12:15:00.001-04:002016-09-20T13:07:06.111-04:00A small digression with a link to Matilda's journey<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Last night I wrote about Matilda’s journey, at least some
of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I am a writer and I tend to
go back and criticize and edit so this morning I reread what I wrote and
realized that I had left out so much that was important.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Matilda came over on the SS Ivernia a workhorse of a ship owned
by Cunard that made many trips brimming with immigrants between Liverpool and
Boston and Trieste and New York between 1901 and 1914.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was then hired by the British government
to haul troops to war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1917 commanded
by Captain William Thomas Turner (who had, by coincidence Commanded the RMS
Lusitania and was in command of the Ivernia when my grandmother sailed in her)
she was attacked by a U-boat and sunk south east of Greece. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were 2700 troops aboard, her capacity
was listed as 1964. 120 souls were lost more than half of them crew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Captain Turner was henceforth assigned a desk
job.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ezsIYVrmKhk/V-FgUOaa0HI/AAAAAAAABNc/pQGagpRJshkpy853ZhH7s7Lh60oqw-ghACLcB/s1600/Ivernia-old-01a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ezsIYVrmKhk/V-FgUOaa0HI/AAAAAAAABNc/pQGagpRJshkpy853ZhH7s7Lh60oqw-ghACLcB/s320/Ivernia-old-01a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Those facts send me to wondering about immigration in the
early 1900s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though not as perilous as
much earlier crossings had been, crossings that took months or as dangerous as
crossing during wartime, the 13 day trip was still a journey of souls at sea and
all sea travel was dangerous.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">People take sea journeys these days because they either
want a slow, luxurious vacation experience or because it seems a safer
alternative to air travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure
the latter is true what with Noro virus and captains who can’t seem to navigate
the coast of Greece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">There is a third reason they take sea journeys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They take their journeys in leaky boats or
rubber rafts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are fleeing political
oppression or the complete dissolution of society as they know it or the bombs,
the constant bombs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many of them don’t
make it, and when they do they are locked into detention camps or must run for
their lives across Europe to an uncertain future under the threat of
deportation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Now Matilda was probably only looking for a new life or
perhaps an adventure, I will never know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CM9tSjVrqIg/V-FggCRwdCI/AAAAAAAABNk/xpx622lhA5ssYMKSmyjW__LK2tM_AWDoACLcB/s1600/Ivernia%2BPassenger%2BList.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CM9tSjVrqIg/V-FggCRwdCI/AAAAAAAABNk/xpx622lhA5ssYMKSmyjW__LK2tM_AWDoACLcB/s320/Ivernia%2BPassenger%2BList.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But what I do know is the greatest number of us in the US, somewhere
back in our history, came to this country, by ship and by airplane or by land and with a
stubborn determination to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
looking into Matilda’s journey I have even more empathy with those modern
immigrants who want a better life for themselves and their children and who
risk death at sea for that life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">I will remember this the next time I hear someone who wants
to build walls or close boarders and I will help them to remember too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">"Eternal Father strong to save</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Whose arm has bound the restless wave</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Who bidst the mighty ocean deep</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">It's own appointed limits keep</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Oh hear us when we cry to thee</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new";">For those in peril on the sea."</span></div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-58027853105321267692016-09-19T19:45:00.000-04:002016-09-20T13:07:30.828-04:00Tracking Matilda<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pot8iDRJD8w/V-B3czUC6yI/AAAAAAAABM0/Il1cyYg_ogQDgn9VI9oCI7DUUIRFsJa_wCLcB/s1600/festival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pot8iDRJD8w/V-B3czUC6yI/AAAAAAAABM0/Il1cyYg_ogQDgn9VI9oCI7DUUIRFsJa_wCLcB/s320/festival.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Harvest Festival, Skördefesten, is over now in the <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Åland</span><span lang="EN"> </span>Islands.
Winter comes early and the tourists leave like flocks of migrant birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their backpacks and bicycles fill the
departing ferry boats that take them back to Stockholm, Tallinn or Helsinki. I’ve
never been there, I’m not sure I have the time left to get there, but I’ve
learned so much over the past days that I feel a kinship that must only be
explained as genetic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">It has been ten days since I wrote about my journey trying
to find my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The journey has
changed as all good and productive journeys do. In order to understand my mother
I followed my Grandmother, Matilda Serelia Wiberg to her roots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was no easy task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When last I talked about her I said that she
was the youngest of seven children and that I had no clue how she got to
America.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Genealogical research is not for the faint of heart even if
you have Ancestry.com to help you. But with due diligence, I found that the 19
year old was actually the tenth of eleven children and that she followed her
nearest older sister Alma over here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Alma made it straight to New York City but for some reason Matilda
landed in Boston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Well I might.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
see I believe that even the young Matilda was hard headed and bent on having
her own way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spoiled?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does an older adult’s character offer a clue to the young girl?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she was unable to follow her sister,
(illness? ran out of money?) she would get here however she could.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">I feel that they were both running away: away from a rather
harsh land of boulders and subsistence farming, a land where your brothers and
sisters disappeared from your family’s genealogical chart within a
few months of their appearance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps a land where you
were meant to marry a distant cousin and as a woman produce 11, 13 or 15
children in the space of as many years, the last one being born after your
husband died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is all there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right in her chart.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RhJFy4aARhg/V-B4TpTbGDI/AAAAAAAABM8/xrmpv5-zgQs8UvmjlahuqcmW0cIj7iD7gCLcB/s1600/red%2Bhouses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RhJFy4aARhg/V-B4TpTbGDI/AAAAAAAABM8/xrmpv5-zgQs8UvmjlahuqcmW0cIj7iD7gCLcB/s320/red%2Bhouses.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">These days the <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Åland</span><span lang="EN"> </span>Islands are out there on Facebook looking Summery, with
beautiful beaches and quiet roads where your bicycle will take you to charming
cafes that sell local handcrafts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back
then it was not so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living on tiny <span class="factitemlocation">Andersö, in the parish of Geta, there was not much to
attract a young girl in the early 20<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span class="factitemlocation"><span style="font-family: "courier new";">She made it to the big city,
in the land where the streets were supposed to be paved with gold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What made her so afraid later on that she
became bitter?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was the freedom she
craved too much?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did she long for the
cool nights and the sound of the Baltic Sea? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span class="factitemlocation">I have much more to write
about Matilda and what I think made her the way she was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that will wait for the next installment.</span>
</span></div>
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-18544921815332340522016-09-08T18:08:00.001-04:002016-09-20T13:07:47.217-04:00I Remember MamaI've never been one to write memoir, my life has been way too complicated and void of self-exploration, but recently I have been doing the Ancestry thing, for reasons described below, and I have decided to publish here this little memoir clip to see if this is something I want to pursue.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">I Remember Mama</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Last night I
followed an Ancestry rabbit hole and a batch of memories cascaded out with me
when I was done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">For some time now
I have been researching my mother’s family, trying to understand her complex
and difficult personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biggest
rabbit hole in this research was my grandmother, Matilda Seralia Wiberg, a
harsh, always judgmental dynamo whose English was barely understandable and
who, when she walked pounded across the floor like an oncoming Rhino instead of
the 110 pound bird she was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I
thought her an undocumented alien, there was so little information about her
and her journey to America from the Aland Islands (look them up, all 6757 of them;
they have a fascinating and dark history).</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"></span></o:p> </div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"></span></o:p> </div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"></span></o:p> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">But then the dam
opened up, and though I still can’t pinpoint how she got into the United
States, I did find the documentation of her birth through Finnish records (ever
try reading Finish?) and finally her US Passport application in 1919.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was the youngest of seven children, the
daughter of a “lake man, dependent lodger”, someone who ran a ferry and owned
no property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I assume with that many
islands his was a popular occupation.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">But I only knew
her when she lived in a house on Staten Island that I visited quite often as a
child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last night I decided to look for
that house and through a series of memory chains I found out where it was (I
really had no idea of the address), that it hadn’t been damaged by Sandy, and
that it looked exactly the same if not better than it had in the 1950s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">As I stared at it
on the screen (and attached a screen shot of it to Matilda’s Ancestry profile)
music began playing in my head and I began to remember a strange practice of my
childhood, the habit of my mother of calling me in from play to sit in front of
the television every time both the TV series and the movie of I Remember Mama
were on the screen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Don’t get me
wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I liked both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spoke to an era of immigration and new
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Set in the early 1900s San
Francisco, it followed a Norwegian family in their daily struggle to assimilate
and still remain a part of their own Scandinavian culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not too deeply explored but in a loving way
with Irene Dunne (in the movie) and Peggy Wood (in the TV series) as the wise
and loving earth mother.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">My mother seemed
to identify with Mama but I identified with Katrin, the oldest daughter and the
writer and narrator of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
always started out (abbreviated version): “I remember the big white house on
Steiner Street, and my little sister Dagmar, and my big brother Nels, and Papa.
But most of all, I remember Mama.”</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "courier new";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Now, as I look
back on it, I realize that my mother wanted, in the worst way, for her family to have been that family and for us to be
that family, to somehow drop back to when she was growing up in that Scandinavian/American
culture, to be kinder and gentler and more family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We weren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We were a mid-twentieth century family with a far more complex history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">But now, at
least, I respect her longing for a harder yet easier time in which she grew up;
a close knit Scandinavian family, a loving quiet father and a mother she
perceived as somewhat like the Peggy Wood character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would never be that character. She was
the first in the family to go to college and would spend her life working while
the neighborhood mothers were all disapproving, though perhaps secretly
envious. She was a distant mother; I much preferred my sweet father and his
kind, Victorian mother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new";">Explorations of
this sort can never reveal to you the motivations of a person in their entirely
but now, at least I can say that I better remember mama. </span></div>
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Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-43242666415395658992016-01-12T09:15:00.002-05:002016-01-12T09:15:58.159-05:00Editing...slowlyI'm reading a fascinating book, <u><a href="http://smile.amazon.com/Art-Slow-Writing-Reflections-Creativity/dp/1250051037/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452608034&sr=1-1&keywords=the+art+of+slow+writing" target="_blank">The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity</a>, </u>by Louise DeSalvo. For the past three books I have written I considered the edit the last thing I wanted to do. Once I wrote I was impatient to get to press.<br />
<br />
But this book has changed my thoughts on editing. Let me examine this term "slow writing."<br />
<br />
In the past I have been a "dumper." I dump 1000 to 2000 words a day into my computer until I have a book. I always let someone, some unconnected editor, deal with the detritus that I have created. And yet, I have always been vaguely unhappy with the final result. It is not really the editor's fault, here's why.<br />
<br />
GIGO. Oh you know. I've given them garbage and they have made a superhuman effort to make sense of it.<br />
<br />
This all came to a head a couple of years ago when I submitted about 100,000 words of sheer mess to an editor friend who endeavored to tell me what was wrong with the pile of manure by cutting out about 35,000 words.<br />
<br />
I was indignant. How dare she?<br />
<br />
Well she was right, of course. GIGO. <br />
<br />
I have written very few lines since then. I seemed blocked. But really I was fighting with myself about the importance of self editing before it even hits an editor. <u>The Art of Slow Writing</u> has changed that. It has taught me that the best writing comes with contemplating what one has written no matter how long that takes.<br />
<br />
I've carefully selected a novella that I almost finished about 17 years ago (and started 25 years ago.) Going against my impulse not to print it out to edit it (I'm awfully cheap when it comes to paper and printer ink), I am resolved to look at a maximum of only 5 pages each day, and edit it with a pen. Yes, folks, that 19th century tool.<br />
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Perhaps it will be, when I am done many months from now, a present to you, my readers. Stay tuned.Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-22217630777510155972015-12-04T17:38:00.003-05:002015-12-04T17:38:58.405-05:00Just because you are all so patient...
From <u>Remarkable Likeness</u><br />
<u></u><br />
(Which I SHALL publish in 2015)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“In spite of
everything I still believe people are really good at heart. I simply can’t
build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and
death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see the world gradually being
turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will
destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up
into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too
will end that that peace and tranquility will return again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Prologue:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the forest near Alten Frühling, Germany</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She opened her eyes
cautiously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the third day in a
row that the sound of shelling and the smell of cordite drifted from the town
below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far as Helena knew none of the
shells had hit the camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between the shell bursts the only sound was
the buzzing of flies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Always in summer
it was the flies, but now with summer ending the pests were getting meaner, as
if they knew it would soon be the end for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And perhaps also for the women around her too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There had been no food for four days and,
while it was tempting to go to the well outside, they all suspected that the
Commandant had ordered the well contaminated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was paranoia everywhere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Only a handful of men remained in
the camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The guards had left two days
ago to reinforce the fighters defending the town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the male prisoners had struck out then
toward the woods but Rabbi Cohen had argued that they were safer in the
camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the fighting spilled over into
the forest they were likely to be caught in the crossfire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of the women, and there were many, cowered in the barracks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Scratching, she sat up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why were the fleas so healthy when none of
the people in the camp could stand?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Virtually all of the women were huddled together in the far corner of
the barren room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They talked only of the
hope that the allies would come up from Alten Frühling where they were fighting
and find them here in the camp by the river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The door burst open and then
slammed shut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Helena snarled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the Commandant, the man she hated most
in this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a moment she was
ashamed of the feral woman she had become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was ashamed that her mother would have not approved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“Up against that wall, all of you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Even his voice made her furious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She rolled off the bed and tried to slide
under it but he saw her and a vicious kick of his boot and a jab to her side
with the butt of his rifle sent her scurrying across the floor on her hands and
knees biting back a scream and joining the other women near the end of the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She stood up, back against the wall next to
Alma, eyes downcast, heart racing. Outside an automobile engine was running and
then she knew his plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had heard
the gunfire from the other barracks. He would kill them all before they were
rescued, before they had a chance to identify him to their liberators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">But just as the thought finished
its journey through her brain the gunfire started. His gun sprayed quickly down
the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">But she was quicker, years of
dodging her tormentor made it instinctual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the woman before her began to fall to the floor she began to fall too
dragging Alma with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She felt the
bullet enter her arm, but it was just her arm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She lay absolutely motionless on
the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could one breathe without
moving?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She tried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she breathed there was a whistling
sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had to silence it. She had to
try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">His boots with their mirror shine
moved nearer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would kill her
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would kill her because she knew
and she would tell. He would kill her because he knew she was strong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The crack of the door hitting the
wall tested her resolve to remain motionless. The Commandant jumped back, his
weapon at the ready, but it was his assistant, Hans, who came stumbling in, grasping
his thigh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Commandant gave her one
last kick and then dragged his subordinate out of the room. In a few moments
there was a spray of gravel on the wooden steps to the barracks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">For three minutes more Helena still
held her breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, when her eyes and
her heart told her that she was safe, she lightly touched Alma who lay beside
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no response to her touch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She rolled onto her side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She knew her ribs were broken. Her breath
came in short gasps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She considered that
holding her breath was a better idea because it didn’t hurt so much but, she
needed to staunch the wound in her arm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With her teeth and her good arm she succeeded in ripping off what was
left of the hem of her dress and tightening it around her upper arm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a moment she rested against the post of
the bunk bed trying to find air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She looked around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all looked dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“Is anybody alive?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She asked tentatively.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">No response.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She sighed and tried to crawl but
that hurt too much so she pulled herself to vertical.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Methodically she checked the women
with whom she had worked for the last two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of them showed signs of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the door she collapsed sending waves of
pain through her brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she willed
herself to stay awake, afraid that she would be thought dead and buried alive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The door opened with the barrel of
a gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A boot cautiously slid across the
door jam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was ready to trip him but
looking up she saw the face of a very young British infantryman and heard him
say,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“Bloody hell, they’re all dead in
here too, Sergeant.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">She wanted to say “all but me,” but
she was afraid of scaring him and catching a bullet so she waited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">He turned to see her sitting
propped up by the door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">He knelt down with his gun as a
staff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“Who are you?” he asked, his
adolescent face crossed with amazement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">“Helena Sarah Steinberg, I am a
British subject.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">With that the world went dark for
Helena Steinberg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">© 2015 Christina Wible</span></div>
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Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-5374613410350210882015-07-16T23:29:00.000-04:002015-07-16T23:29:12.195-04:00What to do when you are blocked. Study number 1Hi, my name is Christina and I am a writer and I am blocked.<br />
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Okay, now I've admitted it, what will I do?<br />
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The first thing I have decided to do is not to think about all the books I have in my PC just sitting there waiting for me to.... Oops.<br />
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The second thing I am doing is to cultivate other artistic sides of myself. I've always loved photography so I bought myself a new (used) camera and I am doing light studies. Eons ago when I was doing this it was a whole nuther thing. You took the roll of film. You had it developed. You found someone who would let you have time in their dark room. And then you spent oodles of money on developing fluid and paper. Much easier now.<br />
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I may just concentrate on this for awhile but there may be other things in the works.<br />
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Standby.<br />
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Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-74844805271051757562015-07-12T16:32:00.000-04:002015-07-12T16:32:21.013-04:00Watchman angst (spoilers)<br />
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All over Facebook today the question is "Will you read <u>Go Set A Watchman</u>? so I sat down to answer twenty of my friends asking the question and decided to answer it here instead.<br />
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Yes. Yes, I will read <u>Go Set a Watchman</u>.<br />
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I have heard answers that range from my enthusiastic YES. To NO NEVER, EVER, EVER. In almost every case the latter is explained that they don't want to know that (spoiler here) Atticus was a racist. They say it would "spoil" Mockingbird for them or that it just wasn't right.<br />
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Now I know that lotsa people don't like change and certainly having your mind changed about someone is very hard. But I don't think that gaining a better understanding of a man and his time is a bad thing. To me finding out that Atticus is a racist is an interesting placement of the man in his profession. That he can be a racist and yet still believe in the law and justice for everyone is not necessarily inconceivable for the time in which he lived.<br />
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Now, stop there a moment. I am not condoning racism or anything that happened with regards to the vile persecution of people of color. What I am saying is that there must be, and I must believe that there is as a Christian Buddhist, a spark of the divine in everyone. Sometimes that spark only manifests itself in an individual's love for a single thing. Sometimes a person radiates love for the whole world.<br />
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In Mockingbird we were set up to believe that Atticus was a saint, the best, someone we could have to dinner without fear of a bad discussion at the table. In Watchman we find out not so much. Does that ruin my life? I don't think so.<br />
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It's a book, people. A work of literary fiction. <br />
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Read it. Find out what life is really like. So another childhood dream bites the dust. Adulthood is for finding out all about reality. Adulthood is for changing, for learning forgiveness.<br />
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Adulthood is for creating new realities.<br />
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It's just a book, people. Summer reading.<br />
Christina Wiblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771941716404937936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1533366308514711711.post-46813413385105848002015-04-04T18:44:00.001-04:002015-04-04T18:44:13.282-04:00My new business cards....Do you like?<br />
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