As I write this, it’s August 31 and the temperature in Minneapolis is near 90 degrees. High humidity, drought-dry lawns and fields, and yes kids, climate change is real. Weather be damned, it’s time to turn the calendar page for a new season, and the real “New Year” in most of our lives. In my house, we’re bringing lots of new beginnings and changes, and I am here for it all.

If I could, I would buy you bouquets of newly sharpened pencils. Isn’t that the line from You’ve Got Mail? Meg Ryan, aka Kathleen Kelly, walking to work in her autumn-androgynous but cool-girl outfit of skirt and tights and a chunky sweater with scarf, naturally. The Cranberries crooning to the beat of New York waking up on a crisp fall morning. Pumpkins, fall flowers, coffee, book stores, and everything charming we love about the change of season.

Sigh.

One week very soon, I’ll dress like Kathleen again and feel energetic and alive again; maybe it will hit when I’m back in New York.

So what’s up at the Holter house? Plenty!

Karl, who was “between opportunities” since January, will start a new job at the State of Minnesota next week. He’s glad to be getting back to work, and I am in the mixed-feelings camp. I loved having him around, our house and gardens have never looked better, and we had fun playing pretend-retirement. However, when I retired last fall, I anticipated a quiet house with him at work, kids at college, and plenty of time to write my books and enjoy a new routine. DENIED. So, we celebrate the new job and I will dive deep into that new routine and writing life asap.

Kids! Sally is moving out, tomorrow! Number 5 of 6 is leaving the nest, moving to her first grownup apartment, and finishing her last year of college at the U of MN. I’m so proud of her, and I already plan to have sleepovers there. Wesley is still here, finishing his college degree locally, and we barely see him between school, work, and golf. Two of the older boys just moved into a very nice suburban house with a friend who made his first home purchase. We visited yesterday, less than 10 minutes from our house, and it’s super exciting for them.

Everyone but James will be in attendance next Monday for the annual Labor Day Clam Bake, and several will hit up the Minnesota State Fair with us later this week. So many end of summer things to do and eat and see and experience.

I’ve always loved fall the most. All summer, I’d dream of cooler temps and cuter clothes. My mom used to give me shit when I was younger, because I would want to wear all my new school clothes the first weeks. It would still be in the 80s in Minnesota in early September, but you could find me wearing a turtleneck sweater, new khakis and button down, or (in 1980) a knickers and rugby shirt outfit, complete with matching knee socks and probably loafers. I wish I had a photo of that look, honestly.

Because I am grown up and really hate feeling hot, I’m still wearing linen and lightweight things. The Seasonal Closet Switch ™️ will have to wait a few weeks.

There are purges on the to-do list, but waiting for the chaos of Sally moving out to pass. I have been picking away at my pantry, and recently filled a big bag for our food shelf. I always love who I was when I bought some of those packaged items, believing I’d use them.

But Jill, are you writing?

Why yes, yes I am. I’m writing this, aren’t I?

I am also picking away at my novel, and will do some real research in New York in October.

More importantly, I am working on my memoir in earnest. While that is happening, I’ve got a big series getting ready to publish here on Substack. A preview, if you will:

Many of you know I have lived a few lifetimes in 59 years. You’ve read my adoption story (starts here) hopefully, and I’ve given peeks into my kids and my work and passions. But there’s an 18-year section of my life where I was a different person, led a different life, and have spent the many years since undoing and unlearning and healing from it all.

It is a very vulnerable, very personal tale, and I’m grappling with feelings of fear, shame, inadequacy, doubt, anger, and foreboding. I’m also excited to bring this to life in the real, written word, and am even excited to see and hear the reactions to it all.

Thus far, my Substack has been free to subscribers. That’s going to change. Some posts will continue to be free for everyone, and some parts-of-posts will also stay free. But I’m a writer now, and I believe that creatives should be paid for their work. I also believe that the sharing of very personal stories, pictures, and realities are deserving of a paywall, and so I’ll be moving to a paid subscription model next month.

I hope you’ll stay with me.

You can also find me posting and commenting a lot over on Threads, and coming soon, yapping on TikTok. WHO AM I?

Thanks for reading everything, and thanks in advance for embarking on a new chapter with me and my writing.

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Reading, Watching, and Doing

READ:

• Finally getting to Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I got it some time ago, but then Elsa borrowed it and I forgot all about it. Back in my hands, a bit dog-eared, but worth the wait. If you want to write, or organize your thoughts, or just be inspired, read it.

• The New Yorker is a new subscription for me. I love love love getting a magazine in the mail, and though it comes weekly and is hard to keep up with, I really enjoy many of the articles. Of course, it makes me feel a little like a New Yorker IRL, so that’s fun.

• Speaking of magazines, I’ve re-subscribed to Vogue and I am loving it. A magazine like that is a far cry from its former self, but I still enjoy the photos, articles, style, fantasy, and peek into a world in which I do not live.

• A Little Bit Extra is my new favorite cookbook! If you don’t follow Chef Reilly Meehan on Instagram, you surely should. He’s darling, cooks beautiful food in the Hamptons as a private chef, and his first cookbook is gorgeous and fun.

• A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz. I love everything Jane, of course, and never tire of a new book or viewpoint. I am planning a solo trip next year for my 60^th and it’s shaping up to be an Austen and Shakespeare pilgrimage in England.

WATCH:

• The Shards on Hulu. I’ve been a fan of Bret Easton Ellis and his books for decades, and this story is just as vapid, freaky, intriguing, exciting, sexy, and queer as everything else he’s written. It’s fun to see it as a series, and really fun to see Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere (hi mom and dad!) in the lead roles. The fashion and music of the early 80s in Los Angeles are *chef’s kiss* for real.

• The Handmaids Tale is something we watched when it first came out, but I am doing a rewatch. Funny, the first time through was trump’s first term in office and it was frightening. This time watching it, in his second and more horrific second term, is even more terrifying. I am a person who, in times of stress and worry, prefers to watch horror and thriller and crime and dystopian things. It’s how I manage, I guess.

• Still working our way through ER. Just finished season 5. Karl loves it, and I am re-loving it as well.

• Thought both The Four Seasons and Five Star Weekend were fun and funny.

• Death of the Pastor’s Wife is a docuseries on Netflix that has the internet exploding. Many people not familiar with Christian fundamentalism, and the harms of complementarianism, are mortified and shocked. Others of us are not. Watch it with a strong stomach. And then keep reading my Substack 🧐

DO

• Eating and walking our way through the Minnesota State Fair. Once isn’t enough, so we’re taking some of the offspring later this week. My favorites from last week were the crop art, cheese on a stick, lemonade, everything in the ag and horticulture building, all the creative activities winners, and a super sloppy gyro washed down with the crispiest diet coke.

• Filming B-roll for TikTok, and getting to know new equipment. Yikes.

• Planning the menu and fun of our annual Labor Day Clam Bake. Fresh seafood, lots of Old Bay seasoning, crusty bread and butter, cocktail sauce, watermelon, and ice-cold beer for those who love it. We dump the boil down the center of a huge table and eat with our hands.

• Nailing down the specifics of our New York trip later in October. So far, we’ve got tickets to the Lost Boys on Broadway, and A Few Good Men (starring Bradley Whitford!) at Lincoln Center. We cashed in all our hotel points to stay at The Algonquin Hotel, and I will be channeling the great minds and pens of the raucous bunch that graced the famed Round Table.

One martini, two at the most

Three I’m under the table

Four I’m under my host

~ the great Dorothy Parker

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Starting in June this summer, and with anticipated events through Labor Day, no fewer than 120 people will have come to gatherings at our home. That doesn’t count family dinners with extra friends or neighbors! Fundraisers, holidays, and all our specific family and food traditions make up a very busy summer calendar here.

Parties are the norm at our house. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small, quiet family with a mother who loathed entertaining, or maybe it’s because I’m a Gemini sun, Libra moon, and Cancer rising. It’s definitely because I love to cook and people love to eat what I cook. It’s also absolutely because we have a beautiful but unfussy home filled with love and acceptance. It doesn’t hurt that we have six children and their friends have adopted our home as theirs over the years.

When we looked at this house, in January of 2015, we were at the end of an 18-month survival living situation, in a very crappy three-bedroom townhouse with mold and small rooms and nowhere for the kids to stretch out and relax. Karl and I were both newly divorced, decided to throw in together, and that shitty townhouse was what we could afford. Being ready to buy a home 18 months later was a miracle. And when we stepped into what we affectionately call “The Woodland House” we knew we were home.

Favorite season in our pretty yellow house, after an extensive remodel

It was a mess in every way possible. But a house in Minnetonka at a very low price, and a very handy husband made for an easy decision to buy now, fix later. On that dreary January day, I stepped out onto the large deck and walked to the railing. As I scanned the yard, marked with snow and ice and mud and general winter yuck, all I could see was parties. Graduations, weddings, birthdays, impromptu bonfires, beers and sodas and watermelons and ribs and music and kids and joy.

Life and fate have a way of mocking your dreams sometimes. Three months after moving in and remodeling the wonky outdated kitchen into the culinary space of my dreams, we woke up in the middle of a July night to a fire in our home. Everyone got out safely, including the cat, but we were displaced for five months while 75% of the house had to be rebuilt.

July 1, 2015, a pretty terrible day, after living here for only three months

Lemons::Lemonade? Many of the remodel and update projects on our ten-year plan got ticked off the list in the restoration and rebuild. I’ll be forever grateful for good insurance, great friends, and a safe and sound family.

Over the last decade, that handy Karl of mine has worked tirelessly on making this beautiful house even better. We’ve both created and expanded perennial, vegetable, and shade gardens. Karl built a pergola over our patio. He installed a nice stone patio around a better firepit. He ripped out on old, extra kitchen downstairs and built my dream library from scratch. A few years ago we had a new deck put on, and Karl built a large storage shed and a cozy “lower deck” area for more seating and relaxing. There are landscape and party lights everywhere. It’s magical.

The patio / pergola area. Charlie loves it.

We took out dead trees and added new ones. Splitting hosta and other perennials and sharing with gardening pals is a lot of fun. Over the years, we have harvested hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beets, and other fresh vegetables. Bounty to share with friends and neighbors, goodness to appear on our tables all winter long.

The parties? So many. Obviously there have been several graduation parties! Even one in 2020 where eight friends of my son flopped in the backyard, separate yet together, eating delivery pizza and wondering what their pandemic future might look like.

My 55^th birthday party, which all my children and my best friends attended on a lovely June evening. Karl’s 60^th birthday last year, with a DJ and catered Italian dinner. Everyone was home for the 4^th of July this summer, so we made “Bumpa’s Ribs” and feasted with lots of extra friends and family. I’m still apologizing to the neighbors for the (cough cough) fireworks from Wisconsin we blasted for hours.

Karl and our friend and DJ, Jake Rudh

Inside, there have been Thanksgivings of epic proportions. The first one took place the weekend we moved back in after the fire rebuild. In fact, I told the lead contractor in no uncertain terms that our house WOULD be finished by Thanksgiving because my children needed it, our family needed it. Our favorite holiday could NOT be celebrated in a temporary rental. They came through, putting on the finishing touches of paint as we were moving our things in on that Wednesday. We shifted the dinner to Sunday that weekend, and we feasted with tears of gratefulness for our good luck and abundance of love. I guess that’s what Thanksgiving is, right?

Beyond that, my favorite Thanksgiving was the year we got active after dinner. We always put a call out to extras to join us for the day – if you’re lonely, hungry, missing family, traveling through, or just needing a place of acceptance, you’re welcome to join us. That year, my friend Sonja and her family joined us, having just moved back from Arizona, plus six Venezuelans arrived, and then a few assorted strays. The Venezuelans brought food, and after dinner one of them led us in “digestion yoga” in the living room, which eventually turned into everyone salsa dancing. I don’t make the rules.

6 Venezuelans, 6 Swedes, lots of Norwegians, and plenty of Irish sass, Thanksgiving 2016

Every year we have a Christmas party for friends. There’s a theme around the food and beverage, sometimes cheeky, sometimes about where we’ve traveled. We can easily squeeze a good 40 people in for a cocktail party. Some years, the night ends with a whisky/whiskey/scotch/bourbon tasting, sometimes with our older kids finishing up the drinks and then playing FREEBIRD on the guitar and piano. Again, I don’t make the rules.

Christmas morning, 2018-ish, piled on the couch, Offspring & Spawnpoint

I miss the Halloween garage parties of the kids’ younger years. Decorated spooky-ish, sloppy joes and orange jello and orange everything to eat and drink, where kids fueled up and headed out for trick-or-treating, returning hours later to spread out their loot and trade ruthlessly. A day or two after the holiday, we still gather on the deck for the Great Pumpkin Toss, everyone pitching their jack o lanterns off the deck and the winner is the one with the biggest splatter of pumpkin mess. The loser picks up the pieces and trots them to the compost.

Even teens came to hang at the Halloween Garage Parties

Our home is where some kids (mine and others) got drunk for the first time. Wrecked a couch with puke. Smoked some herbal things. Got into shouting matches with friends and lovers. Were brought home by the police a time or two. But also, could live and breathe and be openly queer or different, quirky or nerdy, sullen or loud, because their own homes were not safe. Some have let themselves in our back door to crash on our downstairs couch because their home just wasn’t ok right then. There have been many tears and hard conversations at my kitchen counter, sometimes just the kids and friends while I quietly cook and bake, seeing if they need a mom-hug or some gentle advice.

All are welcome, all year long

The art messes, the craft sessions, the impromptu kitchen dance parties, and the billions of shoes piled up on the rug, all made up the sights and sounds and smells of the last decade. How could so much life be lived in only a few short years?

Why am I writing all this? It’s not a boast, nor intended to feign superiority in our type of hospitality. We never want people to feel anything but joy and comfort in being here with all of us. If anything, I count myself and my family very privileged to get to share our love and space with others. This night, in the afterglow of a lovely gathering, I feel immense gratitude and awe, really. The presence of family and friends comforts me.

I guess that’s what this house is all about, and why we keep making it a little better. My own children are moving out. This fall, we’ll be down to the last one! Each “first move out” is a big event, and I weep a little weep to mark the passage of time. I know they’ll be back, though, because the lights are on and the fridge is full, and you can still be your own self at my counter or on my patio. Their friends will keep coming, too.

The first to move out, summer 2016, last dinner on the deck, not the last smooch from mom

Karl will never stop improving this place, and we’ll never stop growing things and people. The old cats sleep most of the time now, and we are sometimes achy getting up from the couch after a big party. That’s ok. There’s a soft bed waiting, and a quiet house for sleep. The windows are open and you can hear the owls hooting the deer walking through, eating my plants.

You’re always welcome here. This is home.

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I’ve written a lot about the writers that influenced me, and the books that altered me in good and challenging ways. Most of the writers are women, but I’ll keep Wilde, Hemingway, Adams, and Shakespeare close, always. I never know – is it the writer? the character/s? Maybe it’s the location (looking at you, New York) or the era.

At present, I’m on a journey of rereading books that shaped me in my youth. There is no “low” to the reading level – I’m all in on anything that comes to mind or nudges at my heart. When I was in Denver last week visiting my friend Stephanie, I told her about this flashback reading project of mine, and we talked for hours about books and authors and formative texts. Shocking scenes! Sex! Swear words! Forbidden books! She encouraged me to write about it.

Still so much room for more books on these shelves . . .

Oh, Judy Blume. We all inhaled her books in the 70s and early 80s. Everything I wanted to know about periods and boobs and bras, I learned from Margaret. Plus: Jewish grandmothers. Masturbation? Deenie. Winnie and Iggie taught me about the horrors of racism, barely hidden in plain sight in white suburbia. And who among us in Gen X doesn’t have memories of passing around Forever and Wifey? Maybe I was too young to read those books when I did, but they didn’t harm me at all. I just reread Deenie and Shelia the Great, and have Forever and Wifey coming from the library.

Funny story: I had eye surgery when I was 10 and I couldn’t use my eyes at all (READ!) for several weeks. Torture. My darling mother read to me every day and we worked our way through Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. Yes, even the nocturnal emissions parts, both of us blushing. Miss you, mommy.

I am due for a rereading of Harriet the Spy, because maybe more than any other, she taught me to listen to conversations, develop characters, find stories everywhere, and live to regret speaking/writing about your friends in hurtful ways. I still feel the pain of Ole Golly announcing her departure and Harriet feeling utterly lost. Maybe this year, when I go to New York, I’ll finally order a chocolate egg cream at a lunch counter somewhere.

Did our parents know what was in those V.C. Andrews books? I bet not. In 1979 I was 12 years old, reading Flowers in the Attic and grappling with the horror (mom and grandma poisoning imprisoned kids with doughnuts), the incest (oh Cathy and Christopher), grooming and pedophilia (Cathy and Dr. Paul, yikes). What the actual fuck? Yet, I could not look away and I read them many times through. They are on my short-list of TBR this summer, because I need a fresh dose.

One book I’ve read 20 times and once again this year, is The Grounding of Group Six by Julian F. Thompson. Nearly impossible to find, but it was just as great as I remembered. Five rich, spoiled kids are sent to a special boarding school where their parents paid a little extra to have them executed and disappeared, mostly for being troubling teenagers. I wondered if it was real and also if my parents had considered it because I was a pain the ass a lot of the time. (Spoiler: my parents loved me and I wasn’t so bad, really, and am still alive, thankfully).

Speaking of forbidden books, I recently reread Scruples. Remember that? Wooof that was not for children, yet I snuck it out of my mom’s closet and read it in secret bits while she was at tennis or the grocery store. Generally, if a book was hidden in her closet, it must be good, amirite? Same for The Thorn Birds. I read it way too young, again, and wondered if indeed a girl could get pregnant from a man kissing her breasts. Meg sure thought so in the book. (Spoiler: you cannot get pregnant from that, but it will make a man marry you I guess?).

Back to Judy Blume – I reread Summer Sisters recently. It’s beautiful and haunting and relatable and sad, covering a lifetime of girl/women friendship without a very happy ending. Those beach reads, whether frothy or emotional, are always worth it.

I’ve just reread The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood for the millionth time because I will never stop trying to understand mother and daughter relationships. I reread The Testaments because we’re watching the Hulu series and clearly living in Gilead in 2026 America.

Homer? Sure thing. We saw The Odyssey movie a few days ago and will see it again next week. I read The Iliad and The Odyssey to the kids when they were young – first a children’s picture book version, then a very abridged chapter book version, and then bits of the real thing. In our homeschool, we prioritized Shakespeare and Greek Mythology, plus Latin and Greek root words, and all the classics and real history. I was not your typical homeschool mom, see?

Other books I’d like to open again: A Taste of Blackberries, Julie of the Wolves, definitely the Little House series, Little Women, probably some Hemingway refreshing before we head to Paris next spring.

However, the book I’ve read the most, that has the most food-and-tear stains on the pages, is Watership Down by Richard Adams. When people ask me my favorite book, this is the one. Like my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, it shocks people. A book about rabbits? Really, Jill? They have something important in common.

Why yes. All y’all reading thick tomes about dragons and middle earth and shires and murderous families and cyclops and sirens and long, complicated, dangerous adventures? Same. That’s what the story of Hazel and his rabbit companions is all about. It’s one of the most beautifully told hero-journey-stories ever written.

Writing this, I see an obvious theme from my whole bookish life. It’s the forbidden. Hidden books in my mom’s closet. Novels passed around in secret in junior high. Sneaking a title off the library shelf and reading as fast as possible before someone comes around the corner. Well-worn paperbacks consumed by flashlight under the covers. Books beyond our maturity level, reading comprehension level, grade level. I read whatever I could get my hands on, yet most of it was appropriate and benign and incredibly important for my development in those years.

Remember the movie You’ve Got Mail, and Meg Ryan’s character Kathleen Kelly talks about books from childhood? She says “When you read a book as a child it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.”

That truth is really truthing for me.

p.s. get a library card, and read everything for free

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Boz Scaggs is crooning on the record player. “Look What You’ve Done to Me” still makes me ache with that familiar longing of my 13-year-old self in 1980, applying the lyrics and feelings to whatever boy I currently believed to be the love of my life. They never loved me back, back then, and thank god for songs like that to identify my angst and walk me through it.

“We’re All Alone” is my favorite Boz Scaggs song. He first wrote it in 1976, but Rita Coolidge made it a huge hit in 1977. However, the best cover of it that you’ve never heard is by a young artist named Kennedy Ryon. It’s featured in episode 5 of the 2024 series “Expats” and as soon as I heard it, I had to add it to my JH Feelings playlist on Spotify. Woof, if you’d like a peek into my brain, heart, and history of love and loss and ache and just downright longing you should ask me to share my playlist. It’s very personal, maybe even a little bit embarrassing, but it’s my music, so yeah. BUT please listen to Kennedy Ryon HERE and then open your window and take a big, longing breath of life.

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I’ve been in my feelings lately, which usually happens around my birthday. Gemini season is over now, you can all come out from hiding and enjoy being nurtured and fed by the Cancer’s in your life. My rising sign is Cancer, which means you can be nurtured and fed by me, too. Those feelings, though. I get nostalgic in the summer, missing my childhood and my children’s childhoods. I was lucky enough to grown up on Lake Minnewashta in the 1970s and 80s. Idyllic is too light of a word, too smarmy. It was beyond perfect, thus, there are no words. I was also lucky enough to be a mom-at-home when my kids were little, so between my parents’ house and all the other local beaches, being in a lake, any lake, was the move. Speaking of weepy, if I catch a whiff of lake water on the right evening and in the right moment, I will burst into tears and miss everything and everyone.

The Fourth of July is coming up. It’s America’s 250^th birthday, and as a kid who fondly remembers the Spirit of 1976 and the bicentennial, it feels like it should feel like something. I love my country, but right now the whole thing looks and smells like a stinking pile of rotting water and gold-plated garbage. I don’t want to watch or celebrate any of the nonsense going on in official capacities. We’ll find our own way.

Instead, James and Chelsea are coming up from NOLA and it looks like we’ll be recreating the magical July Fourths of my and my children’s childhoods. Hank Arneson’s ribs, absolutely, which you can read about HERE. I have so many photos of my dad and his ribs over the years. I’m very grateful Karl restored Hank’s grill from the 1960s, so we can make the ribs exactly the right way because drinking a Coors Light and making ribs on the 4^th is a god damn religious experience. If you set up a woven plastic folding chair where the driveway meets the garage, even better.

My kids and their cousins at Bumpa and Dodo’s, July 4, 2016, Lake Minnewashta

So ribs. And watermelon. Potato salad, beans, rolls, mac and cheese. And Klondike Bars, because that’s what we always had at my parents’ house on the 4^th. I wish Qik-n-Ezy was still open in Excelsior, as they had the best potato salad in their deli. I’d like a word with the branding team that came up with the spelling of the store name, as I had to google seven different ways to find the correct letters. I’m pretty sure we bought our ribs at Axel & Bob’s in Navarre, which was a proper butcher shop that included sawdust on the floor and enormous butcher blocks. As a kid, I didn’t know why they had sawdust on the floor . . . but here we are.

I’m excited for all my kids to be together. Holding out hope that Elsa can make her way down from Duluth, because it’s never quite the same when one is missing. Yes, I realize that having six children excludes me from neat and tidy gatherings where everyone is always available. The heart wants what it wants.

Karl just changed records and, god help me, we’ve moved on to Percy Faith and His Orchestra. My parents had a nice record collection, and as they were married shortly after the war, the selections are exactly as you’d imagine. The orchestration of Percy Faith’s music is ludicrously heavy-handed with strings, designed for love and dancing.

Worry not, I’ve preordered Madonna’s new album that comes out next month, and I’m also listening to Olivia Rodrigo’s latest, along with a steady diet of Billy Joel. I can’t help but feel like his time with us is limited, and so I honor him by prioritizing him. We have balance here.

Those are the rambling thoughts and deep feelings of a 59-year-old woman, at least for today on this perfectly rainy Tuesday afternoon in June.

What I’m reading:

• Just finished reading Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” which is brilliant and hilarious and only a wee bit depressing in the most relatable ways. She makes the Jewish-writer-in-New-York life sound so perfect. I miss her.

• Highly highly highly recommend “The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe. Written in 1958, it’s about the lives of some young women just starting their careers in the publishing and theater worlds in Manhattan. It’s modern and funny and touching, and has some Mad Men vibes and a sprinkling of Sex and the City audacity.

• I suffered through “The Wedding People” after waiting for it from the library for months. It was not great, but I finished it.

What I’m watching:

• “Widow’s Bay” and “The Testaments” are both done for the summer. Sigh.

• After watching “The Pitt” Karl asked if we could watch ER from the beginning. YES PLEASE, so that’s what we’re doing. Damn, it’s so so good.

• My friend Stephanie just recommended we watch “The Americans” so it’s in the queue. Cold war spy stuff set in the 80s? Yes, yes please.

What I’m eating:

• We made our summer drive to Chef Shack in Bay City, WI. It’s an hour drive, very pretty I might add, and it’s a trip everyone should take this summer or fall. Lisa and Carrie are our friends, and it feels like stepping into their home. The food is French in sensibility, but heavily influenced by their travels to SE Asia, Peru, Italy, or wherever the road has taken them that year.

• I made some peach strawberry ice cream last weekend, and it tastes like creamy summer. If you’re a Prime Days shopper, scoop up this ice cream maker and get cranking. (groan - writers, man)

• The garden is bursting with kale, so this salad is on heavy rotation, all summer long.

• We’re grilling everything, as you likely are, but let this be my opportunity to remind you to grill a cut lemon, lime, or orange, every time you grill. Squeeze that warm, smoky citrus juice on your meats, vegetables, potatoes, salads, ice cream, pizza.

Happy summer, friends.

Me, waterskiing on Minnewashta, after many many years, circa 2010 or so?

We’re recently home from the longest trip I’ve taken – three whole weeks! Where did we go, what did we do, and what did I learn? Read on.

Special thanks to Dani, aka Thyme is Honey for her Copenhagen guide, and on-the-spot reccos and chatter. She’s a real one, so if you’re going to Denmark, or need life organization tools and guides and systems, connect!

Denmark! Maybe you read my piece about my lifelong Danish friends? If not, here you go: Remarkable Danes I Know

On May 18^th, my two high school besties and I set off for Denmark, and hot damn if we didn’t see most of the country.

Tina, me, and also Jill

Flying into Copenhagen was easy enough, and we were happily picked up by Tina’s cousin Magnus. He drove us the 90 minutes out of the city to his dad’s house – Tina’s darling Uncle Claus. The home was all ready for us, we each had our own bedroom, and Uncle Claus was a delightful host. He’s been set back some with health problems, so we enjoyed cooking for him, taking care of our own messes, walking his dog Emma, and sitting in his kitchen drinking endless cups of coffee and talking about everything. He lives in the medium-ish city of Slagelse, which we explored. The local museum had exhibits about the town and its history, several period rooms to walk through, and an impressive exhibit about Denmark during World War 2. Big museums are great, but don’t sleep on smaller ones in smaller towns, you’ll learn a ton!

After two nice days, we said a tearful goodbye to Uncle Claus. The dear man is lonely in his big house, and our stay was a big lift for his spirits. Yet off to the train station we went, and after a few technical glitches, we were on the train to Aarhus. Imagine, if in America, the entire credit card processing technology went down for several hours. hahahahaha

I loved Aarhus! Cobblestone streets, very fashionable young people, charming shops, and the most delicious cardamom latte and cardamom bun I’ve ever had. Tina’s cousin Mette joined us for the day, and then we went to her house outside the city for dinner, an amazing meal prepared by her Iranian husband Farid. Incredible flavors, gorgeous to look at, and a nice departure from the traditional Danish food we’d been eating every day.

After two nights, we ventured on by rental car to Aalborg. Driving was easy (same side of car, same side of road!). We took a side quest to a small town and had lunch with Tina’s uncle and aunt (Mette’s parents). Late afternoon, we arrived in Aalborg to a surprise “carnival.” No rides in sight, but hundreds of young people in various costumes, all drunk since early morning, and stumbling their way through town to get drunker still. We found a quiet café and had a nice dinner. I hope they all got home safely.

The next day we drove up to Skagen, the northern-most tip of Denmark. It is charming in an east coast seaside town sort of way, but it’s much more than that. Fishing village, shops and quaint streets of cute little houses, very fresh seafood and fish. We walked, ate, shopped, and marveled for a few hours. After that, it was time to drive the rest of the way to the spot where we could walk out to the tippy top of the country.

We trekked the mile out to the point in the whipping wind, and watched as the North Sea and the Baltic Sea crashed together. The light was magical, the waves and water and sand and ships and fellow-marvellers were all magical. I will never forget it.

Skagen was the coolest

The next day, we dropped our rental car at the Aalborg airport and flew to Copenhagen for the last week of our trip.

The most important endeavor of this trip was to bring Tina’s dear dad, Bent, back to his home town of Brede. His ashes traveled safely in Tina’s suitcase, and then on the train to this charming little town. Bent was born and grew up there, and swam in the lake as a child. We got off the train, walked on the lake path for a bit, and came upon a little bridge. The three of us stood there, crying a little cry, and right as Tina started sprinkling Bent’s ashes into the water, a few gentle drops of rain fell, which we understood to be her dad, thanking us for making this journey and honoring his memory in this way. I’m crying typing this! What a privilege to experience this moment with two friends that are like sisters.

The lake in Brede, where Bent’s ashes have come home

After a few more days exploring Copenhagen, my husband Karl and Jill’s husband Matti joined us. Our Airbnb was in a great location, three nice bedrooms, a big bathroom, cute patio, and even laundry! Now we were five.

Harbor tour by boat, museums, delicious meals, fun conversations – we were a group well-suited to travel together. Our favorite day was taking the train to Helsingor to visit Hamlet’s Castle (Kronborg). I’ll take Shakespeare any day, in any way. Such a cute town, the castle was really cool, and then our plan was to take the ferry to Sweden. Silly kids, most of us didn’t think to bring our passports, so we stayed put, exploring the town and having a great lunch in the breezy sunshine.

I am the dork that will pose with the cheesy tourist skull at Hamlet’s castle (Krongborg)

Then it was time to say goodbye, as Karl and I ventured on to more cities. Tina, Jill, and Matti stayed on in Copenhagen for a couple more days. Sad to part! It was a friend-trip with little stress, lots of laughs, and amazing memories.

Amsterdam! It was nice to be in a modern hotel with all the pleasant amenities. I’m not going to lie; I’m a girl who loves nice things and being comfortable. Good plumbing, soft big bed, fluffy towels.

We did so many things! Canal tour, Dutch food, French food (I ate lamb tongue), vintage shopping, red light district, big museum with Rembrandt and Van Gogh and Vermeer, and a funky little museum called “Our Lord in the Attic.” What? A typical Dutch home, preserved living spaces, and then a huge (surprise!) church on the top floor. Again, don’t skip the smaller museums, they’re always worth the effort.

I ate lamb tongue, among other delights

After four nights in Amsterdam, we finished our trip in Antwerp, Belgium, a new country for me. Antwerp reminded me of Florence – walkable, flat, old and new, young people, diverse, touristy in some places, and full of small streets, a castle, and huge churches to explore. Yes, we had plenty of French fries with mayo. And Karl enjoyed a few local beers.

Hello, Antwerp!

We arrived home to a clean house, happy cats, and two grown kids who missed mom’s cooking. This trip was the longest I’ve ever been gone!

Ok, my tips and observations!

Packing & Product Recommendations:

• I didn’t overpack! I could have skipped a couple things, maybe. We had some warm weather in Denmark, so I was grateful for linen pants and t-shirts. Lightweight layers were perfect.

• I did buy some new things for the trip, and I was not disappointed. I do not have affiliate links or earn money from anyone, so take my recommendations as genuine. The brand PACT came in clutch for a great travel set that looks polished, a sleeveless tie-waist dress, the softest t-shirts ever, and some loungewear pajamas. I will be buying more from them! I also snagged a couple of items from QUINCE that Zoe Francois recommended from her trip to Italy. Read her whole packing post: Zoe’s Packing List

• It’s worth having a few converters/adapters for phones and curling irons and such. Never bring just one.

• This trip taught me I’m done with the big, multi-pouch, hanging toiletry travel bag. I’ve already purchased and stocked some new, individual pieces of various sizes so I don’t have such a monster thing to deal with. HERE

• Good shoes are worth every penny. I have problematic feet (arthritis, bunion, mild plantar fasciitis) and good shoes are a must. My trusty Sorel sneakers (no longer available, sigh) go hard all day every day. I also got some Vionic sneakers and some sandals. I will buy more from that brand.

• This crossbody bag was my favorite new purchase. I have one similar but a bit smaller, so I went with this larger size. It’s durable, cute, and holds everything – sunglasses, personal care items, credit cards and cash, passport, keys, small sunscreen – everything I needed for a full day out.

Musings:

• In Europe, streets and stairs are no joke. I mean, NO joke. Cobblestones are the norm and I can’t stress enough the need for good shoes AND to always watch where you’re stepping. I love the charm, my feet complain a bit. And the stairs? The steep narrow staircases in homes and businesses in old buildings stress me out. The Airbnb we stayed in in Copenhagen was technically 4 floors – main with kitchen and living, one floor up with two bedrooms and a single bathroom, and the upper level with another bedroom/office/loft. All those steps were narrow and steep. The basement? Terrifying steps, “not up to code” as we might say. Yet, that’s where the laundry lived. What happens when you get older? Or have an injury? My musings.

• Open windows with no screens! Amazing, loved, no bugs, so much fresh air. Not a lot of air conditioning or ceiling fans. I wonder if climate change and rising temperatures will cause some updates?

• All the people we met were amazing – interested in us, helpful to a fault (especially in train stations!), and genuinely curious about America. Some brought it up and shared our contempt and disgust for our current presidential administration, and many asked “how could he get elected?” In Denmark especially, we learned to quickly say “we didn’t vote for it, we don’t like him either.” It’s hard to explain American politics, voting, electoral college, etc. After seeing a country like Denmark function, I found myself jealous of everything they have. Everyone is housed, fed, educated, has health care, parental leave, and retirement. It’s clean, safe, and happy.

• Everyone speaks English everywhere, but knowing a few words and phrases is helpful and shows respect to different people and cultures. No one wants to be the stereotypical American tourist, right?

That’s it! This was truly the trip of a lifetime. Thanks to Tina, Jill, Karl, Matti, and our wonderful travel agent Sherri from AAA. And to my kids who held down the home front. And to this amazing world we call home, and all the people that are more like us that we know. Other than reading, travel is the single most important thing you can do to learn, grow, and be changed.

I’ve been friends with Tina and Jill since 7^th grade. That’s no small thing! We met at Minnetonka West Junior High in the late 1970s. Tina and Jill were already friends and then I met Tina in Home Ec class, which was right after my gym class. Me, being the sporty little girl I was, with short slick swimmer’s hair, came bouncing into Home Ec to learn some sort of nonsense, and I plopped down at a shared table, across from Tina. She looked at my slick hair, and in her dry and witty way, said “Hey Fonzie.”

Props to the ones that get that reference.

We became fast friends, and I met Jill through her, and these were the friends I needed at this exact time in this exact place. Surviving junior high, and then high school, was possible because of these friendships. We are all so very different – I am outgoing, confident, sassy, always in trouble for talking too much, and full of rebellious good fun, where Tina is brilliant, dry, hilarious, more cautious, and wise beyond years, and Jill (the other Jill!) is serious, smart, focused, utterly unwavering in her values, and has a fire to match her gorgeous red hair. We were an excellent trio.

Top photo 1985, high school graduation. Bottom photo 2025, still fabulous.

Being friends with Tina meant becoming part of her family, and here’s where today’s story goes . . .

Tina’s parents, Bent and Anne Lise, were born and raised in Denmark. They were married for a million years, immigrated to the US, had three kids, and settled in the suburb of Chanhassen. Their household was the exact opposite of mine, and I could not be more fascinated with how their family lived. Bent was a club/restaurant manager, which meant he worked late most nights, arriving home when my parents would have been going to bed. Anne Lise would be puttering around, ready for a late dinner and music and conversation. Theirs was a truly European household, filled with music, laughter, books, good food, drinks, where the vibes grew higher as the night went on. Compared to my strict, quiet, early-dinner early-bed low-noise don’t-sit-on-the-good-furniture household, Tina’s house felt like heaven.

Her brother was a musician, and would get home late from gigs. While we were messing around, watching Friday Night Videos or SCTV or SNL and eating bowls of sugary cereal, Mike came in after midnight, and would either put on records from his massive collection, or practice his trombone until the wee hours. The house was always, always full of music.

Tina’s parents were happy to see us girls, and always glad to provide a space where we could be ourselves – loud, silly, calling boys, going for midnight walks, and driving to the gas station late to get more shitty snacks. We were as safe and cared for as any home of the era, but felt a freedom of trust that was rare for me to find.

We grew up. Jill went far away to college and it nearly killed Tina and me. We chose the U of MN and were roommates freshman year. It was great to live with my best friend – no awkward figuring out of space and habits. What a year we had! I joined a sorority, Tina made new friends in the dorm, and we stayed close. It was me that introduced Tina to her first pot smoking adventure, and she was there to talk to me after my first sex with a stupid frat boy. We called Jill regularly from our dorm phone.

Time moves on, people go different directions, and sometimes changes are huge. Jill went to Finland to teach math, and met and married a Finn. Tina had a baby not long after college, and I got married, joined a cult, and had six kids in rapid succession. Our friendship waxed and waned, and when I was on the other side of some pretty bad life experiences, these two were still there for me. Tina quietly accepted all my nonsense, knowing I would come back to myself eventually. Jill held my feet to the fire in the way I needed most, but beautifully opened her arms and heart fully when I was me again.

And now, 45 years after we first started our friendship adventure, we are about to embark on an adventure we’ve talked about since 10^th grade.

When we were 14, Tina’s parents invited both of us Jills to join them on their annual summer trip back to Denmark. I was beyond thrilled, and for a completely unknown reason, my parents agreed to let me go. A flight across the ocean! A new country! Unheard of things in my sheltered life!

But, as things went with my mom, she changed her mind and squashed the trip for me. Something about not liking the idea of three young teenage girls getting in trouble in another country, blah blah blah. I was devastated. The other Jill got to go, and I stayed home.

HOWEVER, time heals all and in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty six, the three of us girls are off to Denmark in a few weeks! We’ll visit Tina’s family, explore some smaller cities, scatter her dad’s ashes (sadly, he passed away a few years ago), and then meet up in Copenhagen with my husband Karl and Jill’s husband Matti. It will be a grand, grand adventure!

So what about the luncheon I opened this with?

Yesterday, Tina’s mom, age 90, invited me, Karl, Jill, and Matti to her house for a very Danish lunch at 2pm. Tina’s brother Rene was there as well. The seven of us tucked into a three hour lunch of Smorrebrod (open-faced sandwiches), rye bread, herring, smoked fish, shrimp, ham, chicken fricassee, aquavit, Danish beer, fruit, cheese, and so much dill. The table was set beautifully, each course was served with an introduction, and we even sang a song in the middle. Anne Lise wrote lyrics set to the tune of “On Top of Old Smokey” several years ago for a friend, and we had song sheets on the table so we could all participate. And participate we did! I think the aquavit helped with some of the voices . . .

The sweetest table

We talked about growing up, the wonderful days and nights in this home where we now sat at nearly age 60, and laughed about the fun and naughty things we did. I told Anne Lise, as I have many times before, that their home was a welcome respite for me, a place to be myself and not worry about breaking rules or making a mess. It helped me tremendously in those awkward early teen years of finding identity, wondering where we all fit in, and understanding who we might become. The Paulsen home was a place for all of that, and I will be grateful my whole life for knowing these beautiful people and being loved by them.

We left the table and our friends very happy, very full, and very excited for our trip ahead. Tina’s mom and brother, who have been to Denmark dozens of times, wished us a very hearty bon voyage, and we promised to take a million pictures and text them along the way.

All these years later, being with people like this is a balm to my soul. We are a like-minded bunch who share the values of human rights and common sense. We can talk about anything and everything, and we are all well-read and duly informed about the goings on in the world. Do we agree on everything? Absolutely not. But on the topics that matter, on the basics of human decency and the interest of democracy and peace, we are aligned. It’s a relief to not walk on eggshells with people, and never have to skirt topics. No uncomfortable silences. Just love and laughter and ideas and art and beauty and plenty of sass.

Thank you, Tina and Jill, and Bent and Anne Lise, for these memories and the ones to come. Thank you for loving me just as I am, and was, and am still becoming. I am glad to belong at your table.

On a walk, a couple weeks ago

So, if you enjoy the minutiae of someone else’s life, take a look and maybe find some inspiration, or something new to add to your eyes, ears, or stomachs.

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January in Minnesota was awful, and I am not talking about the weather. The fascist regime of the federal government sent a swarm of highly untrained, deeply cruel, and horribly stupid agents to our fair cities to terrorize immigrants. And, as it turns out, murder a couple of US citizens exercising their rights to exist. We were all stunned and sickened, and most of us tried to do what we could to help.

We donated to small, scrappy fundraisers trying to feed and house vulnerable people, and one day got to take a windfall of pull-tab winnings and hand it over to a chef friend making meals for families at risk. That was fun! I also got tapped to help drive folks to and from their jobs or appointments – folks who are targeted because of their skin color, their immigration status, or their place of home or work. I was honored to be asked.

In the midst of it all, we were lucky enough to spend time in some other places, seeing, doing fun things. Highlights include:

January

Grand Marais – Popped up for one night to see Elsa’s band Cigarette Picnic! Of course stopped at New Scenic Café on the way up. My highlight was a refreshing NA cocktail that had cute little lingonberries in it.

San Diego – Toured the Midway (highly HIGHLY recommend), had an incredible meal at Animae, visited the seals in La Jolla (they stink so bad!), spent a day on Coronado Island and saw the gorgeous Hotel Del. San Diego is beautiful, quiet, and a perfect quick getaway.

Karl, anchors aweigh!

February

Fargo for a long weekend, just me and two girlfriends talking nonstop about shared trauma. More about that to come later this year. Doesn’t that sound intriguing?

Valentine’s weekend was spent at the cabin of one of our dinner club friends. Needless to say, we cooked and ate. We also played games, slept in, did Legos, listened to music, got a little silly.

The next weekend was VEGAS BABY! We got a great deal through Delta Vacations that included airfare and a cheap room at the Bellagio. The main reason we went was to see the Wizard of Oz movie at Sphere (the original movie). It was perfect, amazing, breathtaking, and far surpassed my expectations. Worth the trip! We also had some fun meals (Mon Ami Gabi at Paris, Lemongrass at Aria), went to a Titanic exhibit, shopped a little, and slept in most mornings.

Dorothy’s face was mine the entire showing. Incredible!

Early March found me on a flight to LAX for a thrilling, exhausting, inspiring, super fun week at Expo West, repping one of my favorite Minnesota brands, Maazah! I was honored they invited me to join them as a brand ambassador, and I got to experience Expo from a brand’s point of view. It was fun to help them reach their goals for the week! I talked about my experience on the Weekly Dish radio show.

All my Zesty Besties - Maazah at Expo!

On the heels of that, I went to Seattle with Sally. We shopped, at oysters every day, discovered new things like the ferry to Bainbridge Island. We also peeped at the UW campus as a grad school possibility for Sally. Favorite things we ate: Biscuit Bitch for breakfast; Oysters at Half Shell; Hi-Life poke and udon on Bainbridge; Monsoon for amazing Vietnamese food; and a fantastic late lunch at the TikTok famous Din Tai Fung .

Sally Krantz, loving oysters. Not pictured: her first of two filthy dirty martinis.

And now I’m home for a GOOD BIT, until a big trip to Europe at the end of May!!

What else?

Watching:

The NASA Artemis launch, exploration, splashdown. Our son James was on the Artemis II build team, so that was amazing to watch.

Paradise on Hulu – holy shit and wow, we love a post-apocalyptic show

The Testaments on Hulu – sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale and exceptionally great and maddening

The Pitt on HBO Max – finale for season 2 is this week and I am unwell going into it

Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV – why is Jon Hamm perfect in everything, and has me rooting for the good/bad guy all the time?

Reading:

Reading a lot this year, writers gotta read, right? Follow me on Goodreads and you’ll see my lists.

On my nightstand you’ll find Balzac’s Omelette and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. On my TBR sits Conversations with Friends and Crying in H Mart. Books I’ve loved lately are The Women of Wild Hill, Last Twilight in Paris, The Midnight Library, Disco Witches of Fire Island, and Writing Down the Bones. Fact: this is my first read of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – and it’s nothing like the movie!

Listening:

Of course, Cigarette Picnic! They got into the Blue Ox Music Festival this summer, and I am officially going to my first event like this! It’s bluegrass/folk/Americana music and what on earth does one wear to such a thing? Please don’t suggest cowboy boots, ain’t happening.

Cigarette Picnic: Ricky Francois (vocals), Madi Phyle (vocals) and Elsa Krantz (vocals, electric guitar).

I really like Jeremy Messersmith’s new album Fox/Coyote. I met him recently and he’s as funny, smart, and delightful in person as he is in his music.

Podcasts I love: Every Outfit, because I’m not to proud to say I’m obsessed with Sex and the City; the Pop Culture Preservation Society which is a group of three GenX women preserving the history of the best generation – music, tv, holiday nostalgia, toys, food, everything; and Conspirituality, a podcast really needed today that explores the intersection of wellness influencers, pseudo-science, cults, politics, and more of the crazy shit out there.

Supporting:

If you’ve got funds to spare, I’ve got some great suggestions! The Salt Cure Fund is helping restaurants in Minnesota recover from the ICE occupation earlier this winter. This fund hopes to be a sustainable operation that continues to support restaurants through the ups and downs of business going forward. We all eat, right? Support the restaurants you love, before they’re gone.

The Trevor Project could use our help fighting the bigots these days, and supporting LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender kids and adults really need our love and support right now, as their mere existence is threatened on a daily basis.

The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Clearly, there’s a real need in our country, especially here in Minnesota. Immigrants are awesome, they make our country better and stronger, and FYI, unless you’re Native American, you are the offspring of immigrants. Act like it.

That’s all for now! Be kind to your neighbors, plant something this spring, compost and recycle, and get outside! xoxo

It was now 2002, and I had been in touch with my sister Susan, though that would fade away. I talked to her on the phone a few times and her voice sounded like mine. A big sister, how exciting! I had many reassurances of getting together and being a family of sorts, and I really looked forward to that. Learning later the struggles Susan had with her mental health helped me understand why she eventually disappeared and stop returning emails and calls.

John Thomas, my brother, and John Henry, my father, turned out to be open and reliable to have that in person meeting I so craved. My brother and I chatted on the phone, and we agreed to meet in St. Paul at Cossetta. My father lived in Wisconsin and brother in Colorado, so part of John’s visit to our dad included making our meeting happen in September of 2002.

I was horribly sick during this fourth pregnancy, and I was incredibly nervous for this meeting. My then-husband Eric joined me and we anxiously waited by the door of the restaurant for them to arrive. I told John I’d be wearing red, and they came right up to me. The physical bodies of my blood relatives were in front of me for the first time in my life, and being pregnant and overly emotional, I hugged them both and probably said a lot of silly things. John and John seemed to take me in stride and we sat down and had a very long conversation. They studied me as I studied them, and they agreed the way I talked and how my mouth looked was very similar to Susan my sister. I hung on every word.

At the end of the two hours, there were hugs and tears (mine) and promises to stay in touch. As much as I tried to kid myself, my dad was very hesitant with anything concrete, and there was a barrier I would never break through. He made it very clear that I was not to contact him, as his third wife didn’t know about me and he “didn’t want to upset her.” If only people know what words like that meant to an adopted person. The idea that my existence is or could be upsetting, when I had absolutely nothing to do with most of the people in their lives, I was in my 30s and a mother of three and hardly posed a threat or scandal. Whatever. I agreed.

A week after that meeting, my father called me to check in. How was I feeling after the meeting? Was I ok? I was touched that he cared, maybe I had been wrong. But in the next breath he reminded me that we had to keep this quiet, not let his wife know, I couldn’t show up at his house, he would be in touch again sometime in the future.

Of course he never was.

But John, my brother, the one who turned out to mean so much to me, did stay in touch.

Over the years, he sent me boxes of things that belonged to our family. Photos, so many photos. My maternal grandmother’s tea cup set. My dad’s baseball glove from when he played in the minor leagues. And best of all, a huge folder of ancestry research about our Irish family my aunt Norma had put together 20 years before. Parish records, marriage and birth and death certificates. Names and places and people I would, many years in the future, travel to Ireland to meet. Such a wonderful, wonderful gift.

John also introduced me to my Aunt Helen, or “Aunt Sis” as they called her. Helen was my mother’s younger sister who had always been curious about me. A couple years later, Helen was in Minnesota and we met for dinner. She filled in so many blanks, helped me understand my mother and who she was and why she couldn’t keep in contact with me. It really eased my hurt and gave me a bigger perspective on what it all must have been like for her.

Helen and I have stayed in touch, but sparingly.

In 2011, I got a letter in the mail from her. It was a brief note, and included another envelope with the words “sad news” written on it. Hands shaking, I opened it to find two obituaries – my father, and my sister. John Solberg died of pancreatic cancer on June 17, 2011, and Susan Solberg took her own life on June 18, 2011. I was sick and sad, and felt so forlorn all over again. I knew Susan struggled with mental health, and drugs and alcohol over the years, and I knew she and our father had been mostly estranged for years. Maybe his death was a grief she could not bear, and she sought her own way out of the pain.

So now it was John and me. I contacted him and told him how sorry I was about it all. We stayed in touch over email, a few times a year, sending updates about my kids and life, his dogs and peaceful life with his long-time girlfriend Lynette near Colorado Springs. When I went to Ireland in 2017 for my 50^th birthday, I brought his love to our cousins I met and to the soil and structures of the farm where our great grandfather was born. More steps closer to my story, more chapters written, important connections to people and lands.

In 2021, my Elsa chose to go to college in Denver, and I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to meet up with John in person. He was delighted to know we’d be driving her out to school, and we set a date to meet. He would bring Lynette and we’d have breakfast. Karl and I, Elsa and Sally made the trip to Denver, and I got to introduce two of my kids to blood relatives on my side for the first time. We spent several hours together, talking about everything and nothing and brushing aside any remaining awkwardness as the morning went on. As chatty as I am, John is the same amount of quiet and serious. Somehow, it all worked.

Lynette, John, Me, Sally, Elsa

We sat under a tree in the grass after breakfast and kept talking. I was go glad to get to know Lynette, and John had brought more treasures for me. Our grandfather Solberg’s ring plus his discharge papers from World War 1. Many more photos.

Best of all, he really opened up about our mother, and in his kind and gentle way, got very vulnerable about who she was. John loved our mom, and our sister and dad. He carried many heavy feelings of grief and regret, but helped me through my own with insights into everyone’s frailties and imperfections. He and Susan had had a good life, but also trauma and stress. John was able to take more in stride, but Susan experienced it all in a big way. I understand that so much.

And what of our mother?

Ila, John said, was a good mother who loved her children and did her best. She was brilliant, a match for the mind of anyone she met, and was proud of the adults her kids had become. He was glad, he said, that she wasn’t alive to see Susan die so tragically.

And then he told me something that I had never heard, didn’t dare to hope for, but needed like I needed air and water.

“Our mother would have been proud of the woman you’ve become,” John told me.

It was a perfect day.

Several months later, I was in Denver visiting Elsa. I emailed and texted John that we’d be coming out, hoping to see him. I didn’t hear back, but that wasn’t totally unusual. But that afternoon, in our hotel, I realized I hadn’t heard from him since Christmas. Wait. Did he even respond to my Christmas email? He always had in the past. So I searched my sent box, and my junk folder, and no indeed, I had not heard from him.

I tried calling. Texting. Nothing.

I went on Facebook, where he had never been a minute of his life, but I was connected to his girlfriend Lynette. I scoured her feed and then saw something that made my heart shatter, again. Someone had posted how much they missed Lynette, couldn’t believe she was gone. And in another post, “and her boyfriend John.”

It couldn’t be.

I found a name that ended up being Lynette’s uncle, and I sent him a message with my phone number. He called me almost immediately, and we talked for two hours. And Uncle Chuck told me that both Lynette and John were gone.

In October of 2021, just a month after we were all together, Lynette and John got Covid. Lynette wasn’t vaccinated; John was. She got very sick, he recovered. And he got the call from the hospital that his beloved girlfriend was dying and he needed to come and say goodbye.

John Thomas Solberg, my big brother by blood, went home from the hospital, and in his horrible grief, put his dog on the porch, sent a text to Uncle Chuck saying “I’m sorry. Lexi is on the porch, call 911.”

And put a gun in his mouth like our sister Susan had done a decade earlier.

In my grief, I felt so betrayed, and so left behind. What about me? Why hadn’t he wanted to stay in this world because of me, his sister? Wasn’t I anything to live for? He had six nieces and nephews from me. We could have been his family, after Lynette was gone! Didn’t he think of me and believe that living meant something?

No, he didn’t think that. Time and therapy have taught me that sometimes, you just can’t make someone stay. Life is deep and wide and love is complicated and messy and pure and enormous. John’s heart was so deeply tied to Lynette’s, he couldn’t stay.

Chuck left me with a beautiful idea, in the midst of all those thoughts of my grief and heartbreak. John had not told him about me, so my call and mere existence was a surprise to him. As the story unfolded, Chuck knew that John had kept me to himself because I was that important to him.

“You were the secret of John’s heart.”

And so they are all gone.

John, Susan, and Lynette’s ashes were scattered on a mountainside in June of 2021. Chuck read a eulogy I wrote and sent ahead, as I could not attend in person.

Through the Ancestry app, I connected to some more cousins here in Minnesota, and we are slowly getting to know each other as family. I am grateful for all of it.

My other family gave me the gift of life and many gifts along the way, but my real family – my adopted family – gave me the gift of MY life. The life I got to live, filled with the love that surrounded me, the memories that are so dear, and the choices and directions they freely offered.

Having two families is complex. Being adopted is really terrific. MY adoption was really terrific, and just what I needed. The universe knew that, kept the information and people and stories safe until I was ready to take them unto myself. The timing was perfect, always.

I have no regrets. Hank, Dolores, and Jim Arneson were/are my family. The Solbergs and Bairs and Ryans and Lassers and Gillespies and Runyons gave me blood and heritage and history and a connection to the past. I know who I am, and I am as complicated and beautiful and messy and outrageous and good and loved and valued as they all were.

I’ll continue to carry their identities and stories with me, all of them, as I move through life. I share them all with my children, so they too can know from whence they came, and how we are all shaped by a million things.

In the end, we belong to everyone, but more importantly, we belong to ourselves. We take it all in, pour it all out, and find our belonging in the everyday hours with ourselves and the secrets of our own hearts.

Lutheran Social Services contacted me after I submitted my application and paid the fee, letting me know I was in the queue and they would start the search soon. No guarantees! Maybe they would find my birth mother or father and the answer would be a resounding “hell no, we closed that door more than 30 years ago” and it could also be “I need to think about it.”

So I waited. And wrote and rewrote and then wrote again my “Dear Mother” letter. This was an anonymous letter all adoptees wrote, in case the answer was “yes, I’d like to be in contact.” But what the hell do you write after all those years? I am neither patient nor cautious, but I really wanted to get it right. LSS had advice about sharing information but also asking a few questions. Keep it fairly matter of fact and then if contact is made, work through the emotions slowly and let the story unfold naturally. UGH that’s not easy for me.

I wrote my letter in black ink on white notebook paper. And waited.

In the fall I got the phone call. “We’ve found your birth mother, she lives in Texas, and she has agreed to have contact. You have other family members, but you’ll start with her. We’ve sent your ‘Dear Mother’ letter to her and now you’ll just have to wait for her reply.”

UGHHHHHHHHHH more waiting.

So each and every day, I ran to the mailbox, hoping to see a letter with a Texas postmark. It was agony, but in reality, it was only a few weeks.

And then one day, it was there. A white business letter envelope, addressed to me, from Ila McNulty in Winnsboro, Texas. It was thicker than just one sheet of paper! This was IT – my MOTHER – had written back to meeeeeeeeeee.

I didn’t walk back to the house, but instead ripped open the letter at the mailbox and devoured it right there. She had written back to me on white notebook paper using black ink. Was it on purpose? Or were we the same practical women who didn’t immediately have their hands on some pretty stationary? (I never did own pretty stationary.)

There were photos! One of my mom, one of my mom and her husband (4^th), and one of my two siblings, John and Susan. Talk about devouring! I searched and searched and searched their faces, eyes, mouths, hair, body language, everything. And in an instant, my fantasy of looking like someone went “poof.” I looked like no one*. This absolutely crushed me, but I moved on to reading the letter, which gave me so much hope.

*25 years later, as I’m older and my kids are adults, I see some similarities. My brother John looked a lot like my oldest son, James, which Ila confirmed even when she saw baby pictures. I look a little more like my mom. I have since seen many pictures of my sister Susan, and in some of them we could have been twins during our young adult years. Ila’s high school graduation picture looks so much like a female version of my son James, it shocks me. I am grateful for these little connections.

Ila, and Susan and John. Ila was ~ 62 in this picture, my siblings in their mid-late 30s

My mother Ila sounded very practical, smart, not very emotional. She wrote in all caps, which struck me immediately. My (adopted) dad and brother, being engineers, wrote in all caps. She worked in insurance and software and project development so I made that connection. I read into absolutely everything. She agreed to proceed and work toward a meeting, which was beyond my wildest dreams. I imagined traveling to Texas, wondered how we could as we were living on (and over) the edge all the time in my first marriage. But I believed if it was supposed to happen, I’d damn well make it happen.

Ila gave me her email address and left me with the wise words, “Let’s make haste, slowly.”

Thus, we embarked on an email journey of only a few months. I asked a million questions, and was a little over the top in my enthusiasm. She provided lots of answers, and asked questions of her own. I learned hard things. She didn’t remember my birth date as June 16, she thought it was the 12^th. She knew I was a girl, but never looked at me nor held me. She signed my birth certificate and her divorce papers, left the hospital, and never looked back. When pressed, she confessed she struggle feeling motherly to the two children she kept, enjoying them more as they got older. She had a fraught relationship with her own mother, I would learn, which gave her a thickness of skin that felt impossible to really penetrate. And I finally asked “what about abortion?” and cried a little bit of gratefulness when she told me she had scheduled an abortion but changed her mind at the last minute. Shocking but not. Grateful, always.

Then, after three months of back and forth, some misunderstanding, and obviously many terrible feelings resurfacing, she asked to go back into anonymity. We never did speak on the phone. And now I would never meet her. I was crushed. Was my mother giving me up again? Another rejection. Another admission of inability to be my mother after all. Ila told me that my brother and sister would like to know me, and she passed my email address on to them. But for her, at this time and with my needs being greater than hers, she chose to retreat again, forever.

I’ve had 25 years to think about all of it, go to therapy about it, talk and write and cry and analyze it all to death. Though I was in my early 30s at that time, when I reread my emails to Ila, I sounded like a child with something to prove, and also an empty hole to fill. I came on very strongly, and wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted that stranger-mother of mine to know I was smart and good at sports and had a happy life and had beautiful children and I was good enough for her to like, maybe love, and definitely want a relationship with some day.

I see now, it was all such a protection of me and of my adopted parents and my children. I was in a very different life, marriage, and world at that time, and had things progressed with Ila, I may have hurt the people I loved most. My need was too great, it seemed, and I can freely see and admit that now.

Adopted people often carry a hurt in the shape of rejection and unanswered questions and love. We make up stories about who our parents might be, what our lives could have been, and it’s usually more fantasy than reality. We imagine the Lifetime Movie version of meeting our birth mothers, declaring it’s like looking in a mirror, falling into each other’s arms, and forming a strong familial bond. I guess that happens for some people, but it’s such a complicated mess, this adoption thing, and I imagine my experience was more normal than I knew.

Less than 2 years after I found Ila McNulty, my birth mother, she died of cancer. She gave strict instructions to my brother and sister to not contact me or let me know when she was diagnosed. She thought I might show up on her doorstep, maybe? I would not have, but I understand why she thought so. So, in one email, John wrote that our mother was sick and then days later he let me know she was gone.

What did I feel? I don’t even know. Regret. Sadness, grief. Anger, that petty kind of feeling I’d been robbed of something. Resentment about the whole situation. Bittersweetness, because I had found her and she gave me the gift of information. And a finality of knowing that was that. It was over.

Next time, I’ll write about meeting my brother and my dad! And talking to my sister on the phone! And then many more opportunities for grief and regret. It’s been a long journey. More soon.

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Ila was smart, educated and ready to work in what was mostly a man’s world at that time. Having a mathematical and technical brain (and using it) wasn’t the norm for women then. It turned out to be her superpower.

Yet the desire to be “settled” often included a man in the house – a husband, step-father, provider, partner. So, Ila married again not too many years after divorcing my birth father, and that new marriage meant a move to Texas. To this Minnesota girl, learning that news made me extremely grateful I was adopted. Alright, lots of things have made me grateful for my life trajectory, but I cannot, simply CANNOT fathom what growing up in Texas might have been like. Of course, I would have known no different, but still.

The information is a little foggy from there. Ila was married a total of 4 times, so between my birth dad John, and her last husband Al, there were two others. One was a John McNulty, and that was the last name Ila took for the remainder of her life. Perhaps the third husband was just a blip? Either way, I imagine my mother struggled to find love, an equal companion, consistency and security for the kids, and something entirely different than what she knew.

I like to imagine John and Susan as kids in Texas. They both played lots of sports, and were great students and all-around athletes. John maintained more of a relationship with our dad, but Susan and our father were estranged at some point.

Ila worked, read, and raised kids. She had a long successful career in data programming, software sales, and technology marketing, rising to a VP level. In matters domestic, she told me in an email that she never relished the title Mother but was just Mom. She claimed to not have a strong maternal instinct, and instead had a friend/mentor relationship with her kids. Both my siblings loved and respected their mother, so I’ve always believed she did the best she could. I wonder how she would have mothered me, with my huge personality, always chatty and busy, needing lots of affirmation and attention, and generally just taking up a lot of space. I think I’m glad I’ll never know. But again, would I have been that way growing up in my birth family? How much is nature, how much is nurture?

Over the years, as I grew up in my idyllic world, I wondered about my birth mother. I always knew I was adopted – I never didn’t know. My parents must have told Jim and me from the earliest days, because it was just part of our identities. I rather fancied it to be super cool to be adopted, thinking someone WANTED me. My very young brain pictured a baby store. My maturing brain asked a million questions and I learned how straightforward adoption could be in the late 1960s with an agency behind the process.

As I experienced the usual preteen and teen angst, I would fantasize about my birth mother. She was undoubtedly cooler than my adopted mom. I assumed she was a teen when she had me, so she would have been a cool mom, not “older” and serious like my adopted parents. When I was little, I thought she might be a queen or princess, when I was 15 I hoped she’d swoop back in to save me from what I claimed was a boring and strict upbringing. What a silly girl, because I had a wonderful family and home.

My adopted mom always said she’d understand if, one day, I decided to search for my birth family. She said she and my dad would be hurt a little, and worried, but ultimately, she knew I might need to know, and that they would support me in whatever way they could. Time passed, high school led to college, led to work and marriage and then kids (lots of kids). It was during my third pregnancy that my need to know burst into the foreground.

For a reasonable fee of $50, I got my “non-identifying background information” and hoooo did it rock my world. I got that letter in the mail and I read it and handled it and read it so many times it nearly fell apart. It did nothing to satisfy my curiosity, only fuel it further.

My parents were 28 when I was born! Married! I had two siblings, who were four and three when I was born! My dad had two sisters, my mom had one. I was Norwegian and Irish on my dad’s side, German and English on my mom’s side. I would later learn that I was not German at all, but Jewish, but that’s a different story.

I learned a bit about their professions, height, weight, eye color and hair color, hobbies and interests. Lots of sporty folks, high intelligence, everyone happy and healthy. Suddenly, I wanted to know them and felt very jealous of their little family unit, and also my aunts and uncles and cousins I would never know. At that time, I had no idea there was not a happy family anywhere, but I felt a jealousy that shook me.

That worn piece of paper became a lot to me, and I held on to it, rereading it over and over, until a couple years later when I was ready to take the leap and write the “Dear Mother” letter as part of the full search for all the answers.

I’m glad I had that time to prepare.

This post was originally published as a blog on my website about a year ago, right after the inauguration and when every day was a fresh new hell. That it’s gotten so much worse in 12 short months is horrifying. So.Much.Worse. Reading below makes me sigh quite a bit. I’m still struggling with relationships with friends and family, and with “not talking” about it to preserve harmony.

Reader, we are way beyond agreeing to disagree. Or Live and Let Live. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Someone quoted jesus (as he was being murdered) saying “forgive them for the know not what they’re doing” and to that I say bullshit. The murderous goons in my city know what they’re doing, and the people who still support this president and administration, they know, too.

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February 23, 2025:

Much has been written about the time/s we live in. Charles Dickens told us that two things can be true – the best of times and the worst of times can absolutely coexist. Relationships of all kinds, including family, friends, lovers, parents and children, are often praised for standing the test of time, but can they really stand the test of these times?

Can friendships survive fascism? We could go back to 1930s Germany and ask how that went. Guessing there were plenty of families who split over the rise of a fascist dictator like Hitler, and whether or not the “final solution” was really about exterminating Jews or just maybe only re-sorting society in a different way. Neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, husbands and wives and brothers all facing down the choice to fight, hide, help hide, flee, or just turn a blind eye and hope it all ended soon enough.

We know how that ended. But we also didn’t learn a god damn thing.

In the year of our lord 2025, the blind eyes are being turned so quickly they’re rolling back in their heads. One third of our country voted for a fascist dictator who happens to be a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and an all-around monster of a morally bankrupt human being. However, the price of eggs seemed a little high, and maybe all those migrants keeping our agriculture, hospitality, and many other industries going were all really criminals, and let’s not forget about the millions of trans women trying to wreck sports. The next third of our country voted for Harris or at least against Trump. And then a full, and maybe worse third simply didn’t vote. Because reasons.

We find ourselves in late February, one month in, with an even worse reality than the smartest among us feared. Eggs are not, in fact, cheaper. America isn’t looking great again, and it’s definitely not looking healthy again. The face-eating leopards are out in full force and some really surprised people are wondering why THEIR FACES are being eaten, since they voted for those cheap eggs and “the economy.”

In these times, friendships are being tested, including mine. During the campaign, I generally unfollowed, unfriended, and even blocked a bunch of despicable people that really showed their true colors. I kept some of my conservative friends on the social platforms because they were either not posting or generally apolitical in public. After the election, I just couldn’t bear to live out my grief in front of conservative folks, and I definitely didn’t want to see their bs so I cleaned up a bit more.

What do you do, though, about people you’ve been friends with for many decades? Friends who have been with you in thick and thin. Friends who loved the very best version of you and also the absolute worst version. Friends who love your kids and have invested in your life in every way possible. I count myself a coward for not having hard conversations during the election, and I am still disappointed in my cowardice in addressing our current state of affairs. This is the TIME of fascism and danger and harm and fear, and I, too, am afraid.

I’ve dipped in a bit. I tried to avoid one friend who is an avid, ardent, loyal trumper. She called me on ghosting her, I caved, and we went out to dinner as couples. Until a few hours before dinner, I was definitely going to bring it all up, and then I sat there and ate my steak and talked about kids and the weather and sports. All while my trans friends were being erased and my kids’ coworkers were fearing deportation and eggs just got more and more expensive. I am a coward.

Other friends voted for him, too. Or maybe they didn’t vote for him but they believe both sides are equally bad and they just hope “the economy” improves under FOTUS (felon of the united states, informally). How do I reconcile that? I have two queer kids, and these votes (or not-votes) advanced a terrifying agenda against my own children. With some friends and family, I have tried to approach the topic and I was met with not wanting to talk about it, or giving some answers that just made me a little bit more sad. Once again, I chose the cowardly route and let the conversations end.

So what do we talk about? See above – the weather, sports, our kids, the next trip we’re taking, maybe our jobs, and one friend’s nasty divorce proceedings. That’s all we’ve got that isn’t a land mine that might make the table uncomfortable.

The leopards might come for their faces, too. My demographic is pretty well insulated by zip code, wealth, race, and mighty mighty privilege. But at some point, their favorite nonprofits might go under and their kids might have a queer friend that is harmed, or maybe their housekeeper/lawn service/favorite taco joint might not be able to meet their demands because they don’t exist any longer. I had the perverse glee of laughing in the face of a man I know, because he voted for “the economy” and just learned his taxes are most likely going up $1,500. It felt petty and terrific.

Whether or not this country survives this time of fascism remains to be known. Whether or not friends move forward, whether families survive, or communities stay standing depends upon a lot of factors. It’s so bad one month in, maybe it won’t take so long for most folks to learn what has happened or what they have done. It’s likely some will remain blissfully contented with their vote and their president, believing better times are just around the corner. I don’t want anyone harmed, truly. But I want to know there’s more to friendship in this time than the price of eggs and this elusive economy.

The story unfolding here is a big part of the title of this Substack “Belonging” and may be the title of my book someday. It’s a story of lost and found, of sadness and joy, and of coming to terms with the fact that families are complicated and mothering is hard and making decisions that are best for everyone aren’t always best for everyone. Yet here we are, in the end, doing our best.

>>>

At the reasonable hour of 6:23 a.m., on the morning of June 16, 1967, in a Lutheran hospital in Minneapolis, a baby girl was born. This was her mother’s third birth, and I hope it was easy and otherwise unremarkable.

They told Ila Bair Solberg “it’s a girl” and then took the baby away. Ila never looked at that baby girl, never held her or examined her tiny fingers and toes. She never breastfed or cuddled or cooed in any sort of way. I picture her squeezing her eyes tightly closed, while she resigned herself to the aftermath of birth and recovery, and thought about her other two children – a boy, 4, and a girl, 3.

Later that day, Ila Bair Solberg signed her divorce papers and the baby’s birth certificate, and never looked back. So much so, that 34 years later when the baby girl came calling, the memory of the birth was logged into June 12 of Ila’s mental calendar. The 34-year-old baby girl was offended that this woman who had carried her and decided to give her life, and even give her up to a better life, wouldn’t or couldn’t even remember the date she was born.

Of course, I am that baby girl. Adopted by two wonderful parents who loved me and gave me everything. I had a magical childhood of privilege and access, friends, skinned knees, a perfect older brother who was also adopted, swimming in every pool, lake, and ocean offered, while many lessons and clubs and teams were laid at my feet to become the very best version of the baby girl that was WANTED by someone.

Over my 58-year journey of life, that birth mother and the unknowns of her story have woven in and out of my mind, solidifying greatly more than 20 years ago when we finally made contact. I conjured up so many versions of her over the years. When I was little, I sometimes got scared she might be a mean witch that would come and steal me away if I was naughty. As I got older and it became very apparent that I was nothing like my adopted family in looks, personality, interests, passions, and spirit, I imagined my birth mother to be maybe a beautiful queen or regal figure and I was quite possibly a princess of some sort. Deposed, of course, but still Very Important. And as the teen angst set in, I lashed out at my adopted mother verbally, and internally I just knew that my birth mother would have understood me better and been less critical and overprotective.

Nothing could have been further than the truth.

Ila divorced my birth father after 2 (ok, 3) kids and a lousy marriage. I was conceived during a brief reconciliation period, which only confirmed to my mother that she did NOT want to stay married, and she definitely didn’t want to have three kids. She scheduled her abortion, that late fall of 1966, and woke up the day before the procedure astounded that she felt compelled to cancel it. “I am a staunch supporter of a woman’s right to choose,” she told me in an email. “I still don’t know why I changed my mind.” Me either, lady, but I’m really glad you did.

Ila fearlessly went on her way as a single mom of two little kids. The life she chose got very hard before it got better. I think she always, firmly, and unquestionably knew who she was, and wasn’t afraid to keep going.

Identity, and belonging, are ideas that haunt me and also give me endless energy. I like being. I like being me, and I think I’m pretty great most of the time. When I don’t, it gets dark and cloudy and I wonder why I feel like I’ve missed out on so much in developing myself and who I am.

This is Ila’s story and it’s Jill’s story. It’s also the story of Hank and Dolores, my adopted parents. It belongs to my birth father, John Solberg, and my birth siblings, John Solberg and Susan Solberg.

I have a lot to go on, but there are deep gulfs of missing information and gaps of many years of silence.

I’ll do my best to share our story, because I’m the only one left to tell it.

Ila Bair was raised by an unhappy mother who gave up precious little emotional connection, and a quiet father who loved books and gardening. Her relationship with her mother was difficult, as these things often are. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s, girls and young women were training for marriage and motherhood. Ila had a brilliant mind for math and a curiosity of the world around her and the people in it.

Ila Bair, High School Senior Year, circa 1955?

She met John Solberg when they worked bagging groceries at a supermarket in St. Paul. He was good looking, so much fun, a big flirt, and never really worried about the future. He excelled at sports, playing a turn in minor league baseball, and becoming a golf pro at a country club. They married at 19 and had their first baby five years later, and second baby only 13 months after that.

The marriage was bad. I’ve been told there may have been a wandering eye and maybe a little too much drinking. One thing was sure, and that was my birth father John was a big kid who never really grew up, and Ila was restless and worried, wondering how it would all shake out with two young kids and no real solid or serious vision of the future of their family.

At some point they separated. And then as moths to flame, they tried a reconciliation “for the sake of the kids” which apparently included sharing a bed again, because in the fall of 1966, that third pregnancy (me) was a huge surprise.

I don’t know how long after that positive pregnancy test, but Ila said hell no do I want another baby or stay married to this man. In 1966, abortion was illegal, but could be had with the right connections and some cash. Ila scheduled her appointment and focused on what was to come after that. As previously mentioned, the morning before the scheduled appointment, she woke up and was absolutely certain she should not have an abortion, but she should carry and birth this baby and give it up for adoption. Being pro choice didn’t stop her from this decision, even though it confused and rattled her.

It’s been told to me that she carried out her pregnancy in a very matter of fact manner. Little John and Susan were too young to even know mom was pregnant, so that part was easy. In so many cases and places during those years, young women would be squirreled away at a sympathetic aunt’s house in the country, or sent to live with a friend or other relative where no one knew her. She’d hide away, grow a baby, give birth, hand over the baby to a social worker, and go back home. Shame and guilt weighed heavily, because most people knew and whispered and snickered about young Lisa getting “in trouble” and having to “go away for a few months.” Thousands of those Lisas came home with a slightly different shape and a sadness in their eyes. Let’s just not talk about it, ok?

That wasn’t Ila’s experience. As I said, she went about her business. Worked, raised her kids, went to family gatherings, socialized, paid her bills and taxes, and bought groceries. Her attitude about everything was to not really care what people thought about her, and she never owed anyone an explanation. I like to picture her with an enormous belly and telling people with breezy confidence, “I’m giving this baby up for adoption. Let’s talk about something else.”

What drove me to find my birth family two decades ago was the unanswered question of “how could a mother give up a baby?” At that time, I had three little boys of my own, and during each birth as I felt their tiny bodies slip from mine and then held their warm, fresh selves, I silently wondered what it was like for my other mom.

The need to know became my obsession, and I started down the path of searching for my birth mother and my origin story.

The searching and finding are its own story.

I knew when I quit my job, sort-of-retired, that my life would take some adjusting. And adjusting we’ve been doing alright! Moving from a life of work and commuting and team leadership and strategy, plus raising kids and doing the most all the time - oooof.

We had a wedding, and I had a cold that wouldn’t let go. I joined a fitness center and am really enjoying a variety of classes in and out of the water. WHO KNEW? Seeing and feeling changes in my body, regaining strength and flexibility and balance has been amazing. Reader, this is not “new year new you” diet and exercise bullshit. This is life-saving work of the preservation kind.

Towel, suit, flip flops, parka, on the way to Aqua Yoga

There have been a few birthdays and holidays, obvs. I can’t begin to express how lovely it’s been to map out cooking, decorating, shopping, and organizing plans without the pressure of wondering how to get it all done. Falling back into domestic felicity came very naturally. So much so, I got my hackles up a few times feeling like “what the hell am I, nothing more than a trad wife?” Hahahahaha. My family doesn’t treat me that way, that’s all on me/in my head.

Carlton wanted Birria tacos for Christmas, so that’s what we made. Photo cred: Sally Krantz

At this writing, my house is undecorated save the (fake) tree with just white lights and a bit of greenery and candles. The cookie table is in the dregs stage, and if you come through my door in the next couple of days, you’ll be force-fed the last of this year’s baking. Most likely with an offer of cocoa and candy canes, too. January 1, the stragglers will be tossed in the trash. It’s ok, they’re getting stale.

I love the freshness of a post-holiday house. It feels bigger, cleaner, and brighter. The fresh piles of snow outside add to the feeling of readiness to turn the calendar and start 2026 with a clean slate.

This morning, I tried on every pair of denim I own. Sally, bless her, petted the snoozing cats on my bed and gave me feedback on all of it (more than a dozen pair). Three duds have been added to the donation bag and someone who shops at Able Light in Minnetonka is going to find a few nice pairs of jeans. Have fun!

Ah yes, the writing. Has Jill accomplished anything? Is she using her brain AT ALL?

I’ve focused here on Substack. I know I need to build a community of people who are interested in what I have to say, so when I do put something larger out into the world, people will want to buy it, read it, and beg for more. I’m grateful to everyone here reading this right now!

I have two friends, both writers, that I hope to meet with regularly starting in the new year. One is shopping her first novel out into the world, the other has been published and is still writing. Both are avid readers, which is a huge plus.

Speaking of writers, I came across a really cool resource. The 92nd Street Y in New York, specifically the Unterberg Poetry Center, has a vast archive of audio recordings dating way way back of some of the greatest writers, poets, and thought leaders of all time. From their website:

“ . . . has provided a showcase for established and emerging talent, a platform for literary retrospectives and a testing ground for works in progress. Its reading series is one of the oldest and most revered in the country and has attracted some of the world’s most distinguished writers over the decades. In a renewed effort to share with a contemporary audience some of the great literary moments the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this project aims to increase the accessibility of 92NY’s literary audio archives.

With recordings from notables like E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Nadine Gordimer, W.H. Auden, Tony Kushner, Galway Kinnell, Cynthia Ozick, and many others, the collection covers poetry, literature, storytelling, criticism, biography, journalism, and scholarship.

This archive project, generously funded by the Mellon Foundation, features over 850 recordings from 1949-2021, with more to come. For access to additional search tools, please visit our research portal. For access to additional recordings please contact the archives.”

I am really excited to dive in. I might start with Truman Capote because I’m extra like that. Followed by Tom Wolfe. And Arthur Miller, for pete’s sake. Enjoy!

As I’d hoped, I will be doing some freelance work for a sparkling new local woman-owned agency. Staying in the food ecosystem, but moving away from co-ops and into restaurants and brands. I will scratch my marketing itch and am excited to work with some really great people!

My little library space is cozy, stocked, and providing me with inspiration. I also plop at the kitchen counter, coffee shops, my sunroom, and anywhere else that is warm and has access to coffee and a bit of ambient noise.

I don’t do resolutions, or Word of the Year, but I am intrigued by the 2026 Lunar New Year. 2025 was the Year of the Snake, and I did plenty of shedding and rebirthing. Beginning February 17, 2026 is the Year of the Horse and what I’ve read tells me we will be stepping - HIGH STEPPING - into the new year. Chest out, head forward, and coming into our strength and power. I really love that, and am ready for whatever that looks like in my life.

Read a little or a lot more here about Chinese / Lunar New Year

Whether you’re celebrating our calendar new year, getting ready for Mardi Gras season (have fun NOLA fam!), burning some shit on New Year’s Day or Burns Night, breaking dishes or old habits, sweeping out dust and dirt and toxic people and thoughts, or just snuggling in for some serious Hygge, I wish you all the best.

The light is coming and will get brighter every day. It always does.

Dolores Flavin and Hank Arneson, engagement dinner, 1946

So here’s the story of how one Christmas demonstrated that partnership of care and love more than any other. I was lucky to get to be the helper-elf in the story. Miss you, Mom and Dad.

Christmas of 1988:

My dad had just been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and would be having surgery after the holidays. My brother and I were in college, my mom was a wreck, it was a scary time. It was so advanced they hoped surgery and other treatment would buy time. (It did, he lived 30 years more.)

My dad was not a shopper, and I often had to call him or his secretary the day before Christmas, Mother’s Day, Anniversary or Mom’s birthday with a reminder that gifts must be purchased. This Christmas of 1988, he was not up for shopping so he asked me for help.

“You go get a bunch of things for mom, whatever you think she’d like, more than we would usually get, take my Dayton’s card, and then wrap everything and write the tags from me to mom. You can get yourself something, too.” Of course I said I would.

Separately, my mom took me aside and said “I don’t want your father worrying about gifts for me this year. Let’s you and I go shopping and I’ll pick things out I want and then we’ll wrap them and you can write the tags from him to me.” She didn’t know my plan with my dad, this was all her own plan.

On Christmas morning, my mom opened up all her gifts and exclaimed with delight how perfect each one was, and how did my dad ever find time to shop and do such a great job, and my dad glowed and winked and me and was so proud that we had pulled it off and my mom was surprised.

Neither of them ever knew what the other did, or that I co-conspired in the middle of it all and kept that secret all these years. My dad believed he and I had made my mom really happy, and my mom believed that she and I had lifted the shopping burden off his mind and schedule.

I’m glad we got another 30 years with him, and I’m glad I got to be secret elf, and could gloriously lie to both of them without getting in trouble for a change.

That Christmas felt so dark at the time, but now lives in my memory as one of the best Christmases ever.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that in this season of contrasts - darkness and light, good and evil, life and death, joy and fatigue, that you find the rest and peace that you need.

I am of the Happy and Merry Everything camp, because I’ve loved Christmas always. Of course, it’s easy to love this time of year when you have a wonderful spouse, great kids, a warm home, a stocked fridge and pantry, and friends and community. I don’t downplay for one second all the privilege I have, and the love in my life.

But! I am surprised at the waves of grief that still come, 4 and 6 years after losing my parents. Adding to the grief is the fact that my only sibling, my brother, hasn’t spoken to me in 3 years. Won’t return phone calls, texts, mail, email - he has completely cut me off for reasons I still do not understand. Also, my whole birth family has passed away. My very small extended family is mostly gone. Thank god for Karl and my loud and wonderful brood of offspring!

My mom was the mom who made Christmas magical and we had such lovely traditions. Many gifts, Christmas Eve church service, dinner at Aunt Lucy and Uncle Jim’s complete with ham loaf and “Aunt Lucy Potatoes” and my cousin Mike’s cranberry pudding with hard sauce. All so good. Yet, in the midst of the perfection, my mom would usually have one giant, epic, crying, yelling, door slamming meltdown as the 24th neared, completely worn out from doing everything herself and trying to make it, yes, perfect. Poor Dodo. She was, like all of us, a complicated woman.

Read more about her, and me, and grief, and food, in my guest post for Pickle by Stephanie March — Grief in the Belly, Grief in the Heart.

Miss you mom.

So now I am the mom, making the magic and buying the gifts and baking the cookies. I don’t do too much, I rarely feel stressed, and I really just like to have my people around me and something delicious to eat, always. Happy and merry to you all, however you celebrate or if you don’t, and may your plate have enough and your glass be at least half full, and you never feel shame in watching at least 20 Hallmark Christmas movies every season.

In April, I made my decision to retire this fall. The I asked of Karl, very nicely, “my darling, will you please build me a library?” And then he did! Our mostly-unused extra kitchen downstairs is now the gorgeous library of my dreams.

Swoon! And yes, that’s a pink feather tree.

2025 was my year to get back to reading. Writers read a lot, right? In theory, sure. But like all of us, my eyes and brain have been on that little screen in my hand wayyyy too much of late which really sucks. So I renewed my library card, downloaded the Goodreads app, and have (at this writing) read 30 books this year. My goal for 2026 is 75 books. Daunting? Nah. I retired in October and I have and will make the time.

My 2025 faves:

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy - Moms and daughters, woof.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan - This is a beautiful, beautiful story.

The Change by Kirsten Miller - three women in or post menopause who come into their full witchy powers and fuck up some pretty terrible men. I have reserved the next book, The Women of Wild Hill.

Without Reservations: the Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach - This made me want to travel alone for the first time ever. I loved the gentle writing style. I didn’t like her other books, but this one is terrific.

Educated by Tara Westover - an awful lot of familiar things from my former cult life, almost too hard to read, but what a brave girl and woman. Must read.

There are many many more! I aim for 50/50 Fiction/Non-Fiction which I think is good for my brain. I read ONLY paper books I can hold in my hand, no screens or readers for me. If you need me, I’ll be in my pretty little library. And tell me your favorite books!

I’m in my baking weeks. SO many cookies! We have a dedicated table, called The Cookie Table. It’s full of tins and jars and boxes and I usually bake 10-12 varieties of cookies. Peanut butter balls - aka Buckeyes. Brown-eyed Susans (butter cookie with a dark chocolate mint wafer not be be confused with Peanut Butter Blossoms). Those Pretzel - Rolo - Pecan things. Sandbakkles which means “Sand Tarts” and I have my Norwegian grandmother’s tins. On deck are sugar cookies which I bake and others decorate. Pepperkaker - aka Gingerbread. Peppermint bark. Orange Cardamom shortbread. And then for Christmas morning I bake Kringler which is a pastry that has more almond extract that ought to be allowed. If you’re near Minnetonka, swing by for a plate!

2026! I don’t make resolutions per se, but I am resolved on a few things.

• I’ve picked up some freelance work in the restaurant and local food space, which makes my heart happy.

• I will start writing books in earnest in January.

• I am enjoying water fitness classes at The Marsh in Minnetonka, namely water yoga and something called Ai Chi which is like Tai Chi but in the water. I have a goal to work my way up to swimming laps by Spring or early Summer! This girl loves being in the water, and the smell of chlorine on my skin is weirdly nostalgic.

• A few trips are planned for the first half of the year - San Diego in January for a fun long weekend with Karl. Las Vegas in February to see The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere! Plus Barry Manilow. And then an epic trip to Denmark in May with my two best friends from high school, one who is fluent in Danish. Karl will join us in Copenhagen toward the end and then he and I are going on to Amsterdam, Antwerp, and flying home from Brussels. Those are all new European cities for me!

This has been a year. I am grateful for health, family, warmth and comfort, good friends and laughter, two ridiculous cats, billions of books waiting to be read and trillions of words to be written. My country continues to break my heart, and I am worried about my immigrant friends, my trans and queer friends, and my Black and brown friends. It feels so very unsafe for so many people right now. One day it will be time to rebuild, and I hope those days come soon.

Drop me a note, tell me what you’re reading, baking, and thinking. Thanks for reading my words!

I started, as usual, in the rocking chair, watching my favorite movie of all time, “The Wizard of Oz.” It’s the mid 1970s and the carpet is a soft dark purple. The bedspread (didn’t we call them that, then?) was a purple and red tangle of swirls and shapes. Red velvet pillows. It was damn near opulent, and I think we were all relieved when my mom entered her pastel era of the 1980s that would carry her through until her death four years ago.

We always watched Dorothy, as I called this movie, every year. My parents’ bedroom was big and had a rocking chair that Jim and I would share when we were little, and then I got kicked off to the bed or floor when we grew because Jim needed to rock that chair by himself.

No matter how many times I saw this movie, no matter how prepared I was for the closeup of Margaret Hamilton's green face, white eyes, and bright red tongue when the camera zooms in and she cackles that terrible cackle, I had to hide. Honestly, it was pretty intense for a little kid. Without fail, I jumped up, ran behind the bed, and peeped over the top because I both had to see her, and also put a king sized bed between us.

I was glad when she melted. And always a little sad, because somehow I knew she was lonely because lonely people can be so very mean.

If you think I’ve overthought and over-extrapolated the themes of this movie, you have no idea.

In Naples, Florida, where we vacationed every year, there was a restaurant called Kelly’s Fish House - I think it’s still there. One day, my dad thought he’d be funny and call it the “Smelly Fish House” and well, that was it for me. I irrationally no longer wanted to go there, because I believed it to now be smelly and therefore bad. I was a picky eater as a kid, and one (joking) name change could set me wailing. I cried and cried, and declared I would not eat there ever again. My clever mom, who would never make up a mean restaurant name to tease me, told me on our next trip that they had renamed the restaurant “Dorothy’s” and that was it for me, again. We never called it anything else, and every year I couldn’t wait to go to Dorothy’s for dinner. I guess I learned to read at some point and definitely knew what the sign and menu said, but that chokehold that word Dorothy had on me was so powerful.

When technology provided video rentals and VHS tapes and VCRs that recorded things, I could watch Dorothy every year, more than once! No waiting for that special holiday viewing that you had to be home to see, not for me.

It’s safe to say I have viewed the movie no fewer than 60 times. I’ve read the L. Frank Baum books, read the Wicked book, watched The Wiz, saw Wicked the musical, and now have fallen in love with the new movies. I even helped a friend in college write a term paper about World War 2 using the themes of good and evil, East and West, witches and soldiers, and misfits who feared for their very lives because they were different.

But what of our girl Dorothy? Her parents are dead, she lives with her serious and hardworking Aunt and Uncle, it’s the damn dustbowl to be sure, the farm hands are silly goof-offs, and that bitch of a spinster Miss Gulch wants Toto to be euthanized. Who among us wouldn’t run away?

I’ve dreamed of over the rainbow my whole life. I know there’s a place where dreams really do come true. There are master’s degrees, best-selling novels, apartments in New York, travel around the world over and over again, fur coats and nice jewelry and bodies that don’t get old and dreams that don’t die.

What preteen girl among us, fully into our hormones and feelings, hasn’t yelled at everyone in the house because NO ONE understands them, runs to her room or out of the house, slamming doors along the way? The dreams we all share of being somewhere that isn’t here right now but it’s a truly live place, where we can be understood and appreciated, and our dreams are waiting there for us.

Dorothy knew.

It’s interesting to see Dorothy in the Wicked: For Good movie. Instantly recognizable in her blue-checkered pinafore, braids, cute little anklet socks, and her band of merry misfits. We never see her face, but those of us who are a) of a certain generation; or b) of a certain obsession level knows it’s her and she’s there for a real purpose. But as we are swept up into the story of Wicked and those two women who are terribly flawed and lost and neither all good nor all bad, Dorothy’s purpose feels heavy and foreboding. She’s there to kill the Wicked Witch of the West, so she can go home to Kansas.

Believe what you will about how the book(s) and movie(s) and play all differ, and argue with me for days about what’s canon and what’s simply filler, but the portrayal of Dorothy in Wicked felt a little cruel to me. She’s a bratty little girl, according to the main characters, who just won’t go away. She seems in the way of the story at hand.

Which takes us right back to that feeling of being in the way when we’re young and all wrong and our bodies and brains and dreams and emotions don’t work together properly. Judy Garland was 16 when The Wizard of Oz was filmed. She had a woman’s body and they wrapped and taped her breasts and gave her diet pills to make her into a little girl. Horrible, the path they put Judy on that would come to define her life and death in being lost and both infantilized and womanized, drugged and molded into something she wasn’t. I wonder what Judy’s dreams were, and if she finally found them over the rainbow.

Smithsonian, March of 2025, me-n-Dorothy.

What was it like for my mom, age 10 in 1939, watching The Wizard of Oz in the theater? Did she love it? Did she feel like Dorothy? My mom’s family was poor and the Great Depression was only just starting to ease, the world was at war and Americans knew it was only a matter of time for us. At age 10, did she know and think of these things? Did the witch scare her like she scared me? Seeing her on the big screen in Technicolor must have been terrifying.

Note: Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch, was reported to be a very kind and gentle woman who absolutely adored children and it became a real sadness to her that children remained afraid of her, even outside of her makeup and costumes.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wakes up from her dream, which I will always think was more than a dream. Everyone is there, and it turns out that over the rainbow was only in her mind. Sure, there’s No Place Like Home, but did she wake up the next day, and the day after that, wondering what she might have missed out on by coming home? Did she ever leave Kansas and go to college? Get married and have kids and travel to Paris and have a cool job and die an old woman knowing her dreams that she dreamed really did come true?

The curse of the Gemini is a feeling of restlessness. The next best thing is coming up, we think. I am, however, fully and absolutely present in the knowledge of there being no place like home. Home is the best. In 58 years, I’ve stayed very close to it, only to venture out in travel. But over the rainbow is always there, always whispering, sometimes with the melody of hope, often times with the dissonance of regret.

The real harmony is in the here right now. When over the rainbow wasn’t all Dorothy dreamed of, she put together a band of chosen family and ventured bravely into grave danger so she could get home. I’ve thrown a few buckets of water at witches in my time - cruel church men, mean-girl former friends, shitty bosses and coworkers, and my own mother from time to time so I could get home to myself.

That’s the No Place Like for me. Being home in myself, whether chasing my dreams or visiting a new city, I belong to me. Surrounded by Karl and my kids and my friends and community, but finding my own home inside my own soul and body and dreams. I can see the rainbow from right here.

A cold that won’t take me down but also won’t leave is still lingering. It rendered me voiceless for a few days, and I am still sounding a little rough. My tiredness is just on this side of total depletion and I am navigating my way to figuring out life. Does life need figuring out? I guess so, after 58 years of being very planned and very productive. Yes, yes it needs some figuring.

But first, I am letting go. 2025 has been a series of letting-go-events-and-mindsets. My last of six graduated in the spring, and that felt way more final that I expected. With that came a full release of my former spouse. Yes, we’ve been divorced for 12 years, but I have been parenting partner, manager, and facilitator in many ways since then. The morning after graduation in June, I sent him an email, transferring ownership of the relationships he has with his children into his own hands.

I could write a whole book on how to and also how NOT to manage a relationship with your ex and your shared offspring. I own that I did a lot right and a few things wrong. Divorce doesn’t end the relationship, and while we navigated ours better than most, I felt very certain about the need to really close the door on me managing it all. What those relationships look like going forward are now up to him and our adult children. I have high hopes.

The nest doesn’t really empty after high school graduation, but there’s a shift happening at our house that I like quite a bit. One college student commuting, one living on campus, the other four adult kids are launched. The weaning is gradual, but this year I declared to them all that my intense hands-on parenting will move to more of a consulting role. If that sounds cold for a mother to say, it’s a statement borne out of necessity and a need for self-care. I’ve DTM (doing too much) for so long now, this will really be better for all of us. They’re smart and capable and marvelously mature, the whole lot of them! I’m so proud of who they are. And I am still here for each of them, always. Momomomomomom.

And then I went and quit my job. I am unemployed. Retired. Relaunched. Reimagined. Needing copious amounts of rest and recalibration. Decompression and the need for slowing down is REAL. Sleep. Nourishment for body and soul. Reading so many books. Sitting in my pretty little library at home and just BEING. Doing absolutely nothing.

Today, I am writing from the Ridgedale Library, where there are people but not my people. There is a bit of ambient noise, but it doesn’t belong to me. There are no coworkers or bosses, no projects or deadlines. Why yes, I did just hit send on a proposal to do a bit of freelance work, and that’s ok. Last night at dinner with my best friends, I was asked “are you writing yet?” and also admonished “you can take a year or two before you really get into it.” Somewhere between today and a year or two is where it all begins.

Letting go of work has been hard. Not knowing what’s happening at my former workplace, with my coworkers, my team, all those projects and plates spinning in the air. I did really really good work there for a few years, and walking away from it was more emotional than I expected. What now? Who takes up the mantle? Who continues the brand? Will this or that get finished? Is everyone happy and thriving?

Let it go, Jill. You did your job well, and there are good people who will keep moving the work forward.

Let it go. Breathe. And then breathe again. Go for a walk, touch grass, release the people and children and exes and thoughts and obligations into the crisp fall air. The clouds can hold it all now. The colorful dancing sky last night can absorb all the feelings and cares.

Open.

We did a whole thing, woah!

Yesterday, I walked out of my beloved workplace of the last several years, the best job I’ve ever had, the biggest challenges and the coolest team and the most amazing work. I’ve spent a lot of years in local food, and calling it quits at the peak of everything really felt like the way to close the door.

From ages 0-17 I was a highly productve student and athlete, pushed to success by my parents and really not any worse for the wear. I loved school and sports, excelling was fun! From there, it was college, where at 19 I met my future (first) husband and began the process of being coupled and caring (to a fault) for another person. I graduated, got a job, got married, joined a cult, quit my job, had six babies, still excelling. Homeschooling preschool through 10th grade and doing a pretty great job of it. Be the best!

After emerging from a very deep fog and leaving the bad behind, I very swiftly got divorced, put my kids in public school, got a great job, and started a completley new life. Got remarried pretty quickly, too. I excel at change!

And now, at age 58, I am retired. It’s Saturday, November 1, and my last day was yesterday. I’ve undecorated from Halloween, started a big batch of chicken broth, made a delicious brunch, and have plans to go join a fitness center, run some other errands, and make soup for dinner. Oh, and write my first Substack, yay! The drum of productivity beats on.

Why though? Is it this lifelong need to be good at things and be busy? Sure, I’m a restless Gemini with an active mind and a love of change and new things. I have seemingly boundless energy and am not great at sitting still, unless I have a book open or a screen for typing words. But I am claiming that this isn’t a bad thing, and yes, I can continue as I am even when I am not in a full-time career and driving to an office every day.

I was texting this morning with my friend Stephanie, one of the many delightful Stephanies in my life, and we got to chatting about this productivity thing. She is also self-employed and a creative and a terrific writer. “Are you going to write something in your gorgeous office today????? Or just rest this weekend?” Ah, she knows me. Itchy fingers, but also trying to get over a cold before I head to NOLA next week for #1 son’s wedding. So I started listing to her all the things I am doing, but also:

“And I will say that my inside feelings today are a combinaiton of I want to do everything but also absolutley nothing.”

“And I keep remembering that I’m not in a hurry and I want to cry it feels so good.”

“The end of the tyranny of the urgent.”

Those are my truths today and I think for the rest of my life. She confirmed that I get so much time back now, that it’s on my terms now, and a resounding HELL YESSSS.

Love you the most, Smeyer.

The title of this Substack of mine is “Belonging” and it’s going to be a discovery of just that. I have belonged to birth parents, adopted parents, schools, friends, husbands, workplaces, nonprofits, churches, committees, clubs, teams, and groups my whole life. Now it’s time to explore belonging to myself.

I have never made a decision just for me. Just to please and benefit me. In 58 years, I’ve considered others always. Embarking on a full time writing career has been my lifelong dream, and I am wholly, unabashedly, unapologetically doing this now, for me.

For now, Belonging will be free to readers. I will likely move to a paid subscription, because DUH pay writers. Please comment if you want, and please share with others. It’s going to take my whole awesome village to help me launch this writing career of mine. I appreciate your support so much.

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