where did you come from, where did you go

I spent today at the Fair Hill Scottish Games watching dudes in tartan skirts play bagpipes and throw logs (theoretically) in flying arcs through the air.  More accurately, kilts and caber tossing.  And as kilts and caber tossing are outdoor activities, and it was a nearly perfect day outside, I spent today in the sun and my brain is fried.  I make bullet points about different blog topics throughout my week, and maybe I should transition my post-grad blog to a "daily thoughts on" format after the 1-year mark.  But I do enjoy reflective essays.

It didn't occur to me until we were waiting in line to pay the exorbitant entrance fee that I have Scottish blood!  Last Christmas, in fact, Granma was emptying out an old Ross steamer trunk and found a tie made of our clan tartan, which she gave to my brother, much to my dismay.  Yes, I am aware that I am not a man and therefore have little use for a tie (since Avril Lavigne slipped out of fashion) but I have a lot of use for heritage, and for the stories often couched in artifacts.

According to the "find your name" booth at the fair, the first Rosses set foot on this side of the pond in 1651 and '52.  Assuming that my Ross ancestors were not unrecognized stowaways, carriers of my blood have been shaping their corners of U.S. History for 350 years.  And now some of us continue to dip our pens in that pot--for example, the pen that inscribed "Ross" in the "middle name" slot on my brother's birth certificate.  Cool.  The clan lives on!  Although sadly it does not appear to have an active faction in the tri-state area.

I've been thinking about heritage and origin a lot since coming back from the Midwest this week, feeling myself lock into place as part of that landscape, and feeling that landscape lock into place within me...  And then being rudely ripped from that landscape, with a pair of psychological bolt cutters, and feeling disoriented upon my return to the Philly airport and to my house and my job and my life in Wilmington.  Jason said I didn't "come back" to Wilmington until Wednesday--2 days after my physical arrival.  Not coincidentally, I think, 2 days is approximately the amount of time it takes to drive (fairly comfortably) from Minneapolis to Wilmington.

Thesis: Jet planes fuck up our biological/psychological clocks.  You know how our eyes take about 45 minutes to fully adjust to darkness?  And the "twilight" part of the day lasts about 45 minutes.  (At least that's what my freshman year senior counselor told me, and I am inclined to believe it.)  There's some beautiful ecological symmetry there.

As much as I would like to dwell on ecological symmetry forever, I'm straying from the crux of the current issue.  Which is, eternally, belonging; originating; coming and going.  Pinpointing the location of my heart at any given moment.

I will probably never find complete security in this realm, and maybe that's just an occupational hazard of being human.  At some point I may also stop realizing new aspects and explanations and solutions to my rootlessness.  But I can never deny value in realizing the same thing over and over and over again: Love is a decision, and homes spring up where you invest in them.

For a second there, back in Delaware and not even able to pretend I was happy about it, I toyed with the idea of cutting all ties and heading back to Sunny V, St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.  To the physical embodiment of my ideal life.  The place I felt most happy, most at home.

But life is not ideal.  In fact, as we have found, the most beautiful moments are bittersweet.  The most beautiful moments are the ones that mix tears and laughter, the ones that finish chords of sadness, anger, disillusionment, with a flourish of hope.

And I have to remind myself how long it takes to turn a new place, new people, into home.  And how much energy it takes on my part, how many moments of feeling certain I would, finally, once and for all, give up.  Funny enough, it is those moments that make new homes possible.  Those moments slap me in the face and tell me straight to get a grip and work out the situation at hand.

I almost give up a lot.

And those aren't moments of weakness.  They lay the foundation for the moments I look back on and say, "Thank God that happened."  They lay the foundation for moments of glory.

scavengers

I spent yesterday--chilly, damp day that it was--blazing through the first book of The Hunger Games (written by Suzanne Collins, for future reference).

Let me first say I haven't been that taken by a book since The Help this summer.  And before that, probably re-reading the Harry Potter series over the summer of 2009.  This is one of those books whose writer is naturally gifted enough not to agonize over the craft of the language, which makes it easy to read, but not painful like some books whose writers have a knack for plot but just suck at writing.  I would give you an example but I'm finding I must have blocked them all from my memory.  I'll let you know if I think of one you might be familiar with.

Anyway, I was so absorbed that I finished the last 310 pages in a single Sunday afternoon, about 5 hours curled up in my awesome giant green chair, completely oblivious to the world around me.  The action-packed plot would have been enough in itself, but what really got me was the layering.

It's a YA novel, written from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl.  A 16-year-old girl who is the main provider for her family, but a 16-year-old girl nonetheless.  So I was roguishly delighted by the depth of the story.  I've heard very little outcry about the political undertones or societal criticism I found hard to ignore--thrilling, in fact.  Its post-apocalyptic setting inevitably carries the values that led this society to its demise, a demise that terrifies those of us who take democracy for granted--a la 1984.  I find it hard to believe that there has been no debate on the perpetual leftism of implied apocalypse--I may have just missed it, but that would be uncharacteristic of me.  Maybe I'm just reading into it too much.

I was also impressed at how well-researched it was, and how insightful.  There was a lot of anthropology woven into the story's social scheme, and a lot of psychology.  And while Collins alluded to fairly complex concepts and theories, and in fact based huge chunks of the story on these theories, they did not interrupt the flow or drop heavily into the narrative.  She explained huge ideas, like biopower, hegemony, and cycles of poverty, in terms the YA audience could grasp fairly easily, on the ground, in a way that was important to the story.

Yes, I am a nerd, and also far too academic for my own good.  I don't blame you if you got stuck in the middle of that and stopped reading.  SKIP TO HERE: READ THIS BOOK.  It's much less dense than my review of it.  Can't wait to get my hands on #2.

I should track it down now, because I will no doubt have to reserve it or wait for it to turn up, and I already have another book lined up that I'm pumped about: Sisterhood Everlasting, by Ann Brashares.

Sounds familiar?  It should, if you are or have ever been rightfully obsessed with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.  This is the adult book follow-up to the last college-freshmen reunion we witnessed of the famous foursome, Tibby, Carma, Bea, and Lena.  So I can't wait to start this.

I stumbled upon this book on Saturday while looking for a Nicholas Sparks title at the New Castle Public Library--no, I am NOT trying to READ a Nicholas Sparks book (but if you asked me if I ever have read one and I was hooked up to a lie detector, I couldn't say no).  He has a book called Safe Haven which fit the bill of "A book with safe in the title"--an item on our list of things to scavenge and hunt.  (For a scavenger hunt...)

Scavenger hunts have unintended side effects, like accidentally learning historical facts about the place you are scavenging, or finding used syringes in the sand at the public park.  Sketchy.  We added it to our list and carefully (without touching it) removed the needle from the beach, where there were tons of little kids running around.  Kind of a rough awakening.

American flag from another era

Coin from the year someone on the team was born

Out-of-state license plate

Help Wanted sign (a little outdated...)

Business cards from REAL working professionals!

Date/time marked with Roman numerals

Animal made out of glass

Picture with someone dressed from another era

Sign with the name of a team member

Birdfeeder (bird not on the list)

Group jumping photo

(Really awkward) group picture on a slide

On a lighter note, I have some more Delaware historical tidbits for you!  Someone asked me once why Dover is the capital of this lovely state, if most of the action happens up north in Wilmington.  Turns out, after the American Revolution, the Brits were parked in the Delaware River, pointing 400 guns right at Delaware's capital: New Castle.  Now, the rebels, traitors to the crown, understandably felt very nervous about their vulnerable position; so they moved the whole operation inland, out of the way, in the middle of nowhere--to Dover, where it still operates today.

Operating from the new, non-centrally-located capital, Delaware has always been revolutionary.  The First State to ratify the U.S. Constitution, may I remind you, was the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment.  You know, the one that freed the slaves.

That story, like every other story, history or Hunger Games, is a lot more complex than just that.  But I'll leave it for now, because I could never hope to address, or even comprehend, the full scope of pain surrounding slavery and its prohibition and the years that have followed.

Speaking of pain, flogging (by bull-whip) was a legal punishment in this state until 1972.  The last incident punished this way, though, was in 1952.  Wife-beating.

Sometimes it takes awhile for things to change in law, on the books, after they have already changed in the world we live in.

And sometimes it's the other way around.

In 1970, two years before flogging became illegal in the First State, Democrats and Republicans in Washington cooperated to instate Earth Day.  Things were changing.  And now, 42 years later, things are still changing.  This year, people are still writing about the good of the earth, and about fighting for the good of the earth, and about fighting to preserve what's left of the earth.  Things are better than they were in 1970, or so I've heard, but they're still changing.

The longest-serving member of the House of Reps wrote an Earth Day post I really loved.  "This world is not ours," he wrote.  He says we borrow this earth from future generations.  I see that we're sharing it, with too many people and organisms to ever conceptualize.

What I love is that he places us "at a vital point in history. We lead, but if we fail in our leadership, we will fall into the dustbins of history."

The dustbins of history.  My favorite place to play.