part 1 :: long weekend in berlin :: gracious hosts

i went to berlin with a friend. she wanted to visit some old friends who she hadn't seen in nearly 20 years, so we hopped on the train (at 5:30 a.m.!) and headed down for a long weekend. on the first afternoon, we happened upon a super cute little bar called misirlou and had a cocktail. it was so nice, we made it our "regular" and went back every day of our trip. emmy hadn't tried aperol spritz before, but she was hooked. i had the mezcal sour. yummy!

her friend, gertraude pohl, is an artist. she and her husband were famous artists in the old east germany and in fact, the last time emmy was there was for his funeral. gertraude is still a working artist and her two daughters are carrying on their father's woodworking legacy in a studio at the back of their home.

they live in the loveliest home - half of a huge, three story house on the line between lichtenberg and pankow. they were the most gracious hosts and we enjoyed a beautiful lunch when we arrived - a delicious balsamic potato and tomato tart and elderflower lemonade.

 

the home was filled with objects collected over a long lifetime and it was so comfortable and inspiring. there was something interesting to see and be curious about, no matter where you looked.

shelves filled with interesting books, big windows with plenty of natural light pouring in. 

art - made by gertraude and norbert and others on the walls and shelves. there's even a candlestick by my favorite danish ceramicist in the middle of the shelf. 

a mix of furniture collected over a lifetime, which somehow just all worked together.

small collections and gatherings of mementos that invite you to have a closer look and ask to hear their stories.

gertraude's work on the wall in the living room.

norbert's woodwork on the top shelf, photos, books, and just a warm, cozy, inviting feeling. it was really inspiring to be there. gertraude didn't speak english, but her daughter, who lives with her, did and so we muddled through in a mix of english, german and danish. we had a lot of interesting conversations and i learned so much about east germany and how life was in east berlin. 

out of travel practice

after two and a half years of pandemic, i was out of practice traveling when i went to valencia the other week. lies. actually, i had done another trip to amsterdam a few weeks before. but still, i felt out of practice. when i went to amsterdam, i flew from billund, which seems like it doesn't count, since it's kind of not a real airport. anyway, i digress. this time, the trip started in copenhagen, which is still my favorite airport. 

since we were filming and recording a podcast, i had a lot of gear, so i had to have tickets where i could check two bags, despite flying shorter distances within europe. that meant that my ticket was business class. on air france. the very first time i ever flew business class was on air france, so i had good associations (that one was from atlanta to paris in about 2000, so a little different), but being out of practice, i didn't really know what to expect. and one hears so much negativity about air travel after the pandemic. 

and i have to say that air france has done nothing but up their game. the flight attendants were amazing, as was the smoked salmon croissant, the yogurt and the champagne. they were friendly, not snooty, very service-minded (topping off the bubbles, yes please!). it is amazing what great service and the feeling of being seen does for your stress levels. i was so relaxed when we arrived.

it was so fun looking out the window and being ahead of the engine. that's the mediterranean down there, as this was on the trip home, as we left valencia. i'll admit i feel a little shallow when i think about how much i enjoy being in business class. it's the same plane. we all get there at the same time. but the extra smiles and topping off your bubbles make a difference, they really do. plus, all the bags made all the flights and came off the belt close to the beginning. it just felt like luxury. and air france rocked it. i would never have expected that, but it seems they've really stepped up their game after the pandemic. too bad none of the other airlines seem to have done the same (i'm looking at you air canada and lufthansa).

the business class tickets even entitled us to the air france business lounge at charles de gaul during our four hour layover on the way home. what luxury! it was a great trip. and even if it's a little bit shallow of me, i really did enjoy flying business class. it had been too long. 

watching the sunrise from a plane

i had the privilege of watching the sun rise over europe as i headed from copenhagen to paris (and on to valencia) last week. it went from purple to pink to purple again and pink again and finally, as we were coming in to land at CDG, i could even see the eiffel tower. and i felt consciously aware of the profound privilege of getting to travel again. the world is a wondrous place if we pay attention. and i'll admit it also helped my appreciation that i was in business class, even if it was a short flight.

valencia stole my heart

 

after two long pandemic years, it was so nice to travel again. and even better, i got to travel somewhere new! i went to valencia in spain. it was for work, but happily it coincided with spain's national day (they also celebrate columbus, apparently), so i had one day off in the midst of it. or actually, not really, since i sat at the hotel and worked for most of that day. which wasn't really that bad, because it's quite energizing to work from a different location. and at least i got to experience the festive atmosphere of everyone having a day off mid-week. and i ate some truly delicious food.

it was perfect weather - warm, balmy evenings, where a dress and sandals were enough and no jacket was needed. the food in valencia is incredible everywhere we tried. they have so much local produce, so it hasn't traveled to get there, which also makes it surprisingly affordable. the tomatoes were probably the best i've had since those from my dad's garden at the height of summer during my childhood. 

it also struck me that all this talk of inflation and a recession was really not in evidence in valencia. there weren't empty stores and restaurants and bars were full and stores were buzzing. it made me wonder how much that story is over-blown by the media. i do know that inflation is real (every time i go to buy butter and milk), but i'm not sure that people are holding back all that much. unemployment is at historic lows and it seemed like the economy was buzzing along in spain. i wonder what storylines we are being sold and to what purpose.

i wish i'd had more time in valencia. i'd love to have explored a whole lot more. the cathedral there claims to house the real holy grail and i didn't get a chance to see it. since it was work, we had some long days, but they were also great and on the whole, i felt that old feeling that i used to feel - that my batteries are recharged by travel and new experiences. i will definitely be returning to valencia, hopefully with husband and the child (who is actually a young woman these days) in tow. although i will never get to experience it for the first time again, seeing it through their eyes for the first time might be a close second. it's such a chill, laid-back, secure-in-itself city, that it's definitely worth another visit.

unbidden waves of nostalgia

me and a naughty pony of my past - clearly a second place pony with that red ribbon

the past few days, i've had some waves of nostalgia washing over me. i'm not sure i can pinpoint what brought it on and i've been trying to figure that out. it might be because i'm listening to the vinyl café - the simple, but hilarious stories of dave and his family are somehow nostalgic, as many of them involve memories. if you're interested, you can find playlists of them on spotify. 

it's also listening to the new podcast that obama has with bruce springsteen (also on spotify, i swear this isn't a spotify ad). it made me think about when i was introduced to the music of the boss - on a debate tournament trip in a van to the now-long-shuttered university of south dakota - springfield - when our high school english teacher/debate coach talked of the nebraska album. i'm not even sure he played it in the car, except maybe a song came on the radio, but i think it was in the days when things were still on vinyl, so i don't think he could have played it in the car. when that teacher's name popped up, commenting on a post on facebook, i actually sent a friend request. i wanted to tell him that the podcast had made me think of him.

my cousin, normally flitting about the world for her job, is stuck at home in california and sharing old pictures prolifically in a family group on facebook. many of them i've never seen before. it's kind of strange that she has so many family photos since her family's house burned to the ground when i was 5, but i guess other family members have shared pictures with her, as she seems to have a never-ending trove. there's definitely nostalgia in that. and i don't recall having so many family photos around from that side of the family - i guess my dad was the youngest of 9, so there weren't so many left when it was his turn to get some.

i even think that my grocery delivery company has made me feel nostalgic. they're tempting me with the first asparagus of the season (it's from portugal). and that, of course, has me thinking of my dad, who was known for his asparagus. my patch is a bit overwhelmed by last season's weeds and i'm feeling a bit guilty about that. the weather is rubbish this weekend - it's been sleeting out there off and on all day - really more like slushing, if that was a thing - or i'd probably have been out there weeding and maybe digging up the roots and moving them because they're not doing that well where they are. and  i'm feeling like maybe my dad is frowning down on how i've let them go. asparagus was his pride and joy. 

do you think the pandemic is making us nostalgic? i was definitely feeling nostalgic in the past week for the beautiful holiday we had in barcelona one year ago, just before the pandemic was declared. maybe that's it. i'm so glad we had that trip, but i ache to travel again. and to see friends. and to invite them over for dinner and play board games. and to not feel like i have to hesitate. and me, a non-hugger, might even miss hugging people. no wonder i'm nostalgic. we've lost so much. or maybe we haven't lost it, but we've definitely put it on hold.

daily delights - february 9

today, the monotony of working from home started to get to me. i felt a little cooped up and just generally unfocused and mildly out of sorts. i escaped to go to the cheese truck and the fish truck to get some goodies to cheer us up. and also just to get out of the damn house. and over my lunch, i looked through all my pictures of arizona on my phone and uploaded a few to my computer to use as backgrounds for those endless teams and zoom meetings. and i found this photo of sabin and i one early morning in december 2019, before all this madness began, watching the sunrise cast its warm glow on papago. and i really did feel better. we're going to get through this, but some days, it's harder work than others. thank goodness for happy memories.

comfort baking and other effects of the coronavirus

these are very strange times. companies asking everyone to work at home, restaurants and bars closed, public gatherings limited, libraries and other "non-essential" public services closed as well, at least here in denmark. i laughed when i first heard the term "social distancing" last week, thinking that the danes had perfected that long ago, so it would be nothing new around here. but it's not really the time for ironic laughter. the fact is, we owe it to those in our society who are immune compromised or in a high risk category in relation to the virus because of their age, to stay home and not risk exposing them the virus, should we be walking around with it, not knowing we even have it because we are asymptomatic.

just a few weeks ago, i was thinking that life had to go on more or less normally because living in fear is no way to live. so we went to barcelona as planned months ago, to meet up with the child and have a holiday together. i think if we'd known then what we know now, we would have canceled the trip. that said, i'm very glad to have had the time together. i'm glad to have seen the salvador dali museum in figueres, la sagrada familia, park güell and other gaudi buildings around barcelona, the maritime museum and the picasso museum. i'm glad to have found a super cute local bar, cuba de janiero,  that became our nightly hangout. i'm glad we ate ramen twice and tried the patatas bravas in every tapas place we went to and discovered the coolest healthy breakfast place and explored all those thrift shops. i guess if i had it to do over again, i'd still go. i wouldn't trade that time with husband and sabin for anything. it fits my lifelong ethos of "what are you gonna remember?"

none of us seems to be getting sick, so perhaps we were even lucky (knock on wood). spain too is on lockdown now, with curfews and closed restaurants and bars. i don't think barcelona is hit that hard as of yet, it's madrid and the canary islands that are fighting the battle, so perhaps we just chose the right destination. but denmark's borders are more or less closed now too, so we are lucky we got home as well.

and in the middle of all of this, i started a new job. late last week, when i started, there were no restrictions and social distancing had just been coined as a phrase, so i went to the office as planned. we had a team breakfast so i could meet everyone and i got a bouquet of flowers, which is always the tradition in denmark. and then, on friday, the word came down that we should work at home from monday and for the foreseeable future. that was a little bit weird, to have been in the company for two days and not even have everyone's names straight and have to be on my own at home.

so, i began this post this morning, before my working-at-home day started, and now, i'm writing at the end of it. it absolutely flew by, filled with countless online meetings via skype and teams. i definitely did not have to worry that i wouldn't be included or have anything to do. i have been cast into the middle of a very exciting, business-critical project that's been put in motion due to the effect the coronavirus is having on trade. what a great way to jump into things with both feet and and not waste any time. i'm finding it very energizing and it's very encouraging to see how very skilled my new colleagues are at their jobs. i'm impressed and feel very much that i have landed in the right place, even though i'm not actually able to go there right now.

i've read that the coronavirus is having a big affect on CO2 levels and pollution in china and in italy, where things have been brought to a standstill. and i can see firsthand the affect its having on ways of doing business. i wonder if it's going to make us rethink the way we do all kinds of things? and i wonder if those new habits will stay with us - will we travel less? will we cook more at home? will we keep stockpiling toilet paper? will the danes continue to hoard yeast? will we continue to engage in comfort baking? so many questions. not the least of which is, how long is this going to go on?

* * *

tough times call for historical fiction, like daniel kehlmann's tyll. 

back at the computer again

appropriately out the front window of the car, since that's where i've spent so much time of late.
somewhere between payson and phoenix.

i didn't mean to disappear, but a fried battery on my laptop intervened. i'm home again, the laptop is on its way to the hospital and i'm back in front of my desktop computer. what a trip it was! i extended my stay by 10 days in order to get everything done. and it is all done. mom is buried, all the paperwork surrounding the estate is notarized and filed, a headstone is ordered, we drove about 2500 miles, found an apartment, bought everything for it and settled the child into her first home, got some new ink at black sails tattoo, ate a lot of great food, swam in a pool to cool off, enjoyed the arizona heat, and just generally made a whole lot of things happen. i'm pretty exhausted, but glad to be home with husband and the cats. it's been grey and rainy all day - about 12°C and 97% humidity, as opposed to 42°C  and 22% humidity in phoenix. it's all a bit of a shock to the system. i slept as if i were still in arizona, waking in the early afternoon our time. now it's headed towards 11 p.m. and i'm still not tired. i guess that's how it goes.

that said, my head is filled with plans - an exciting writing project, a job search, a local writing group starting up, plans for making part of the house airbnb-ready, including yet another new kitchen, tidying up in the box room (aka, having a major purge), a bit of sewing, some mending and a weaving project or two. in other words, it's a whole new season...of the year and of life.

what's on your agenda for the new season?

layers of history

while in istanbul a few weeks ago, i visited the ayasofya. it must be one of the most magnificent human made structures in the world. built by justinian starting in 532, it has stood stoically through regimes and wars and earthquakes and fires, shifting religions and rises and falls of empires. it remains, implacable, its scars visible, but none able to mar its beauty.

the layers of its history are there to be seen - mosaics of kings and saints side by side with enormous quotes from the quran in arabic. tiles on the floor that saw the coronation of emperors and sultans. stone staircases worn smooth by the feet that trod on them for millennia.

we got in at the very end of the day, so there weren't many people. it was quiet and monumental. and in the quiet it felt like if you listened hard enough, you could hear the whispers of the stories that vast, ancient place had seen - the multitude of voices which had passed through, the games played, palace intrigues conducted, prayers said, speeches and sermons proclaimed. all of those stories whispering from the walls. i wanted to hide in some corner and stay after closing, to hear them all...

* * *

i'm so sad - andrei bitov is dead. 

i wrote my master's thesis on pushkin house and

had i finished my Ph.D., i would have written on his work.
but 81 is no bad age. my dad nearly made it there as well.
and today he would have been 85.

venice for the first time

sparkles in the water. sunshine. a winding maze of streets. earthy tones, laundry on lines hanging overhead. gondolas. glass. coffee. pasta. buffalo mozzarella. bacalao. art, architecture. canals. dead ends. did i mention the sunshine?

venice is spellbinding in its beauty. it's been there so long, you feel it resting in itself, rather oblivious to the hordes of tourists. and yet still overrun by them. there's no escape really. i myself was acutely aware of the excess noise my suitcase made as i wheeled through the ancient pavement towards my hotel. i wanted to be quieter, more gentle than that. to step lightly, and i did, after stowing my bag at the hotel.

once again, i had that sense of awe in the face of the first time. this was it - my one and only first time visiting venice. i may go back, but that will be with this experience under my belt. i'll never see it again as a venice virgin. i'll never feel the duality of the weight and the lightness of that experience again in exactly the same way. and i did my best to be conscious of it. to look around, observe, enjoy, savor, bask. there is so much beauty, so much history, so much awesome coffee. i tried to just take it all in and just BE in it, no filtering, and no processing, just enjoying. i think that for a change, i was able to do that.

and on that cloudless autumn day, venice must have been at her very best and it made me feel that i was too.  what an amazing experience it was.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 3 :: the road

on our summer holiday, we drove 2,875 miles in our rented toyota sienna. that's 4,627 kilometers if those are what you relate to. no matter how you think of it, that's a lot of asphalt. luckily, the sienna was roomy, so it accommodated our suitcases and our snacks and a cooler of drinks and everyone was comfortable, so there wasn't any fighting or complaining about who was sitting where. we took turns driving, but husband did do the bulk of it.

i have found myself reflecting on the many roads we traveled and how that's true of life as well. and despite us all being in the same vehicle, traveling down the same roads, we undoubtedly each had our own experience of them. for my part, i told myself stories of the places we drove through and past.

in northeast alabama, i looked out the window at the countryside flying by. it was dotted with shabby, flimsy trailer houses with broken down vehicles and too many dogs in the yard. houses where it looked like people didn't have the energy to care about the junk on the falling-down, tacked-on porch. you could feel that life wasn't easy there, just driving past it. then there was a road in mississippi where the houses along the way were small, but built with care. they looked much more charming and kept up - with inviting porches that had chairs and plants, you could feel a sense of community and that people lived there, rooted in the place. then there was the gulf coast near mobile, alabama and on towards pensacola. the sandy beaches were beautiful, but ugly high rise buildings gave it an uninviting soulless quality.

the roads in the bywater neighborhood where we stayed in new orleans were in a very bad state of repair. but yet, i'm not sure i've ever seen a more charming place. colorful houses, long and narrow, but adorable - with shutters in contrasting colors and loads of gingerbread. each one unique, but somehow also harmonious - sort of like you would like to be as a person - your own individual style, but also playing a melodic chord - signifying belonging, yet room for individuality. what more could you ask in your road.

in savannah, we arrived in the evening at our airbnb and got turned around and started following the roads into a less prosperous neighborhood, where the main businesses seemed to be the liquor stores and greasy takeout joints on every corner. just a few blocks in the other direction was savannah's utterly charming downtown - filled with shops and cafés and restaurants. we managed to find our way to a most amazing chocolate café, where we ended our long day on the road with chocolate fondue, cheesecake and chocolate cocktails. such contrasts just a few blocks apart. the same road able to take you two very opposite directions, both literally (obviously) and metaphorically, all in the space of a just a few blocks.

all these roads represent so many stories, it was a veritable cacophony, i want to go back and listen to each one. and make more of my own.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 2 :: school bus graveyard

alongside a georgia highway, we were looking for a stand to buy peaches when we came across an amazing sight - a line of graffiti-clad old school buses.

it was part of an auto mechanic shop and we went up and asked if we could have a look. a rather crotchety man with a heavy southern drawl directed us back out to the highway and a path you could take to walk up along the row. he very sternly warned that we shouldn't try to go beyond the row of buses or climb on them in any way. we assured him we wouldn't.

it would have been impossible to do so anyway, as they're very well blocked-off in between. there are multiple warnings to stay off, so it's not the most welcoming place.

there are some cool old cars up on top as well - i suppose to add discouragement for climbing them.

i don't know the story of it, as i think it's primarily a working mechanic & junk yard and only incidentally a bus graveyard, but it seems like proper graffiti artists were involved in painting the buses. at least some of them.

the starkest warning was one about snakes. i'll admit that worked on me and i didn't want to get too close to the buses.

it's quite a large area and it would have been cool if they'd had an observation tower you could climb up to get a better view.

i couldn't help but include this shot of this really cute guy i saw there. gotta love that scruffy beard.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 1

we had a family road trip in the southern united states this summer. we visited 6 states none of us had ever been in before - tennessee, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, florida and south carolina.  the others hadn't been in georgia before, but i had. and technically, i flew through miami in 1988, but that doesn't really count as being in the state. this time, we visited beaches and the state capital, so it must count. i expected to have heavy exposure to trumpanzees, but we didn't actually speak to a single one. that surprised me quite a bit, but then i saw this piece in the nytimes - it seems we followed that blue route through the south, perhaps guided by some subliminal survival instinct. or maybe we just didn't really talk to enough people along the gulf coast. but we also ran into a surprising amount who vocally volunteered their embarrassment at the mangled apricot hellbeast.

a quick list of impressions/lessons/thoughts:

~ two weeks was just the right amount of time, even tho' we did have our occasional flagging moments. at the end, i was both longing to go home and wishing we still had a few more days and that's exactly how it should be.

~ cheesecake for lunch is awesome in the moment, but come late afternoon, proves not to be such a good idea.

~ way-finding and map-reading were the biggest challenges, even in this day and age of ubiquitous gps. we didn't have a phone plan where we could roam, so we were constantly looking for wifi to help us do our route planning. in the morning, we would plan our route in google maps while on wifi and then the gps does actually follow where you are, but if you deviate from the route you planned while on wifi, the google maps app doesn't handle it well. also, husband was horrible at being the navigator if i was driving, which is weird, because he spent 18 years in the military and is otherwise good at maps. everyone stayed happier if i did the map-reading and husband did the driving. tho' even then there were a couple of kerfluffles. lesson was that maybe we should just know where we are in a general sorta way. and we did buy a big atlas of the united states. it helped out on the highways and byways, but not as much within cities.

~ several of the best things we found were quite random -  a cooling creek/waterfall (mardis mill falls) on a hot alabama day, windsor ruins off the natchez trace, which we found by talking to an older couple at another point of interest along the way, and the space museum just over the louisiana-mississippi border on the way towards biloxi.

~ we actually stuck to our budget and we didn't really deny ourselves much to do so.

~ since we were five more or less adults, we needed two hotel rooms, so we were looking for rooms on the budget end, since we were mostly looking for a good night's sleep and not a place to hang out. plus, we wanted to save our money for great coffee, fun experiences and shopping in goodwill! after a few days of disappointment in the mid-range ($65-$80/night) hotels, we looked to airbnb, and we felt much, much happier. there, we found quirky places with personality, a bit more luxury and charming hardwood floors, still in our price range. if you haven't tried it, i'd be very grateful if you used this link when you do.

~ you should stay off the interstates and get onto smaller highways and byways. we did some of this, but undoubtedly not enough. when you do hit the small highways and byways, make sure you have a full tank of gas, as gas stations can be surprisingly few and far between. we stopped at one in a small town in mississippi where it was clear we were the only white people who had passed through in a long time. that made for some amusing conversations while we waited to use the bathroom.

~ shopping at goodwill is awesome and our child is a wizard at finding the best stuff there, no matter the location. probably the best one we visited (and we tried to visit as many as we could) was the first one, south of atlanta. maybe our eyes were freshest, but i think it also had the best selection. i got an awesome t-shirt that says, "sorry i'm late, i didn't want to come." that makes me laugh.

~ there seems to be a disturbing trend in the states - one of which i was previously only peripherally aware - from barbara ehrenreichs' amazing nickle and dimed book, but never imagined i would actually encounter (which sounds more arrogant than i mean it to). when we were staying at the lower-priced hotels, it seemed like many of the other patrons were folks who seemed to be living with what they euphemistically call housing insecurity. it appeared that the hotels were full of people who probably had work, but not enough money for the deposit on an apartment, so they were forced to live on a weekly or even day-to-day basis in these hotels. i was waiting to ask for a wifi sign-in and i witnessed two young women paying their rent, peeling the fee off a roll of one dollar bills (perhaps from waitressing tips). initially, they gave the clerk, who was behind thick bullet-proof glass, since it was nearly dark, less and he said, "no, it's $63." the second girl reached down her cleavage and got a roll of her own bills out and peeled off the remainder, saying, "there goes my fun money," and rolling her eyes. i felt a little bit shocked. others stood in their doorways, smoking or chatting on the phone, obviously very at home in the hotel. it made me aware of a stark reality in my home country. and also acutely aware of my own privilege.

and on that note, i'll sign off for now. more about the trip, with actual photos, tomorrow. i'm still sorting through all of them.

stitching identity :: kgb museum vilnius

we had three teenagers with us in lithuania, so we told them we had to visit a museum. after perusing a swedish brochure we found at our rented apartment, they chose the museum of genocide victims, mostly due to its other name - the KGB museum, owing to the fact that it is housed in the former KGB headquarters (look at me, capitalizing KGB...hmm, i'll have to ponder that) of the soviet state of lithuania.

it's a moodily-lit place, in keeping with its sober subject, and has a big focus on the lithuanian patriots/revolutionaries who resisted the soviet yoke, especially in the decade after stalin and hitler sealed their fate without consulting them in a secret agreement in the early days of the second world war. the green cells in the basement, where prisoners were held, interrogated and tortured and then, quite literally, taken out back and shot, were stark.

but i think it was most struck by the stitched objects on display. most were made by prisoners who had been exiled to camps in siberia. they obviously used scraps of fabric and thread that were at hand. stitching to hold onto their homes, loved ones and traditions. and the stitched items were made by both men and women, both having a need to cling to their home and memories.

the sign said that this little black striped pouch contained some lithuanian soil and that the prisoner had kept it with him throughout his confinement in a siberian hard labor camp. i have a jar of stones from south dakota, where i grew up, so i could relate to this. we have a need to hold onto something tangible of where we come from.

some of the stitched cloths were large and all were beautiful. each stitch holding a memory of home and comfort and family. such beauty coming out of such adversity. it's amazing.

it was also a way of keeping their religion and belief alive, as sometimes the cloths were used in religious rituals and at holidays, like easter, which they surely practiced at great peril.

there were other objects, made of materials at hand - birchbark containers and the like, but i found the stitching most fascinating. especially since it wasn't just women who were stitching, but men as well, in a human need to hold onto beauty and home.

there were many pouches, which surely held precious mementos, like the wrapped-up soil of home or a photo of loved ones or a locket. there were also sayings, carefully stitched in lithuanian, a way of physically holding onto language and culture. each stitch a small act of defiance against the oppression, each stitch a way to hold onto an identity that was being torn away.

and i wonder if my soft guns aren't a similar way of coping with the sense that my very foundation has been ripped away by that ridiculous clown that cheated and colluded his way into the white house, robbing me of any pride i may have had in being american. maybe not, but they are definitely an act of defiance and mocking of the gun culture that has so strongly taken hold. not as deep as the items in the genocide victims museum, but a small act against the regime nonetheless.