“Home to Me” Week One Round-up: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 37)

November 20, 2015 / Julie / 1 Comment

A week ago yesterday, I introduced a blog-hop called “Home to Me.” Over the two weeks from Friday, November 13 through Thanksgiving Day, more than a dozen bloggers are writing on what/where/who meant home to them. So far seven women (including myself) have published posts on the subject, and let me tell you – they are just beautiful! I am so proud of how this little series is shaping up and I look forward to seeing what its second half holds in store.

I hope you’ll join me in revisiting the posts from week one and eagerly anticipating those in week two. (Please also stop over to Kelly’s to check out the rest of this week’s 7 Quick Takes.)

—1—

Day One: That Time I Rang a Stranger’s Doorbell and Found Family (Part One) by yours truly

The (first part of the) story about how I visited the rural German village from which one of my ancestors had come and ended up befriending a family distantly related to my own:

[O]ff the train, and off the platform I stepped into a pretty little village. I don’t remember seeing any people at all. I looked at my map and the street signs, got my bearings, and took off. I walked those three miles with a sense of wonder and a spring in my step: this was my homeland. (Well, one of them.) My ancestor might have walked these very roads more than two-hundred years before.

The landscape was beautiful – rolling green hills, fields, streams and woods – not unlike the central part of Maryland where my Hessian soldier ancestor ended up. I wondered whether the similarity helped him feel at home in America.

As my walk neared its end, I found myself up on a rise overlooking Oedelsheim. It took my breath away. Hundreds of red roofs sprawled outward (the village wasn’t as small as I’d assumed), a ribbon of blue river wound just beyond it, and gentle farmland and hills surrounded the lot.

I was home. For the first time since Johann Philip had been loaded onto a ship and sent across the Atlantic, one of our family was back in the place from which it had come.

—2—

Day Two: My Forever Home by Leslie of Life in Every Limb

Leslie shares her experience of finding her truest home in Knoxville, Tennessee. Circumstances change and with them, addresses and family make-up – so for Leslie, her city is her forever home:

[T]o me, home has come to mean something other than a house. When I think of home, I think of Knoxville, my hometown, where I have spent all but five years of my life, the place where I was married and where all my babies were born. Whenever I return from a vacation, my heart feels a little lighter as soon as I cross the Tennessee line. The road sign that reads Knoxville – 12 miles always lifts my spirits. And probably the most welcoming sight in the world to me is the Knoxville skyline, with my own parish church at the very front, visible on the interstate as we drive through town.

My roots in this town are deep–my father’s people have lived in this area since the 1700s. Even though my husband has only lived here 25 years, he has put down roots as well. I may not know in what house we will be celebrating the holidays five or ten or twenty years from now, but I know the party will be in Knoxville, my forever home.

—3—

Day Three: Home to Me by Ashley of Narrative Heiress

Ashley invites readers in with a cozy, warm post that paints a picture of home via a series of small scenes:

Home is comfort. Warm mugs of tea. Soft blankets for cuddling on the couch with the kids. Bowls of soup familiar. Cold winter nights, dark enveloping us early. Dim lights and soft music. Candle flickering, encouraging me to keep bright my own flame.

Home is loud. Saturday family dance parties to Metallica (+orchestra) songs. Three small boys shooting invisible guns and roaring their lion jaws. Paul stomping in to tackle & tickle & destroy. Music streaming through all the speakers: Taylor Swift singing us through pick up time.

Home is humble. Popcorn ceilings and blinds to be replaced—someday. Tiny fingerprints on the windows & a dining table with happy scars from lingering meals with loved ones. Our things made beautiful by our use of them. This is no museum home. This is the real thing. Wooden floors that know our dancing feet. Walls that listen in on our reading voices. A counter that has held a thousand meals.

Home is intimate. Vulnerability lays her head here with us. We are challenged & split open. Spilled milk. Long days. Whiny kids. Disappointing each other & saying sorry & trying again and again to love with our hands pouring coffee and setting the table. This family here–we know, we see each other & ourselves–this is our chance to come to harbor & drop anchor only to be shaken on shore just as we were rocked at sea, to get so close that we can’t help but understand more, know more, to see truth and set pain free.

—4—

Day Four: Home to Me… and to Our Children by Rita of Open Window

Rita shares about how her oldest son, who is adopted, found his home in hers:

“Home is where the heart is,” goes the phrase. And it’s true. But for children who are adopted as toddlers, it isn’t as if you can easily explain that a strange, unfamiliar place is home.

When we met our sons as toddlers in China, everything was new and different. We were strangers to them. We spoke a language they had never heard, fed them unusual foods, and expected them to eat and play and sleep in a different place.

For the first two weeks—for each of our adoptions—we lived out of suitcases in hotel rooms…

Our older son stayed in two different hotel rooms in China and a hotel room in Chicago before we finally arrived home together at our house in Baltimore.

He had just turned 2 and, even after only two weeks of hearing English, he understood almost everything we said to him. But there was no way for us to explain to him that this had been our goal the whole time. This place, yet another unfamiliar building full of toys and food and beds, was our final destination.

This house, I wanted to tell him, was not just another set of rooms along the way.

This was special.

This was home…

As the days and weeks went by, our little boy started to trust that this was our special place. And one night after our long daily commute together, I turned our car into the neighborhood and he called out with joy, “Home!”

My eyes filled with tears. Yes, we were home. Home to stay.

—5—

Day Five: Home to Me: A German Student Finds Home in a Foreign Land by Svenja, guest blogging at These Walls

Svenja tells about the home she found in the United States during a high school exchange program – a home based not on conventional definitions, but on love:

My American parents treated me as if I was their own daughter. They made no difference. They went to parents’ day at school to see how I was doing, they hugged me, they gave me way too many gifts for Christmas, they planned a surprise vacation to Niagara Falls, they cared for me when I had the flu. But most of all they made me feel loved. And I loved them. I love my American parents, I love my American sisters more than any other people that aren’t part of my ‘real’ family.

According to Merriam-Webster this place in the United Stated can’t really be my home. I am and was not a resident. It isn’t my place of origin. It is a house, yes. But does this fact make it my home? Surely not.

What is it then that makes it home to me? If I look at those three places I mentioned that are home to me, it is obvious that there is one common factor. And that is love. I love my parents unconditionally and they love me in return. I am their child. I love my husband more than anything in the world. It feels like we were made for each other. We can trust each other and rely on each other, we chose each other. Our children are my life. There is no love like a mother’s love for their children.

And then I love my American family. So much. This semester with them changed me, made me another person in a good way. And they made that possible, because they made me feel loved.

Of course Merriam-Webster’s definition isn’t wrong. But one vital aspect is missing and that is love. Just as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Where we love is home. Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

—6—

Day Six: Home to Me by Anna of The Heart’s Overflow

Anna explores the many intangible things that go into making her house her home. “It’s more than that,” she reminds us:

What is home? It’s four walls and a ceiling. It’s the address your mail gets delivered to. It’s a place to hang your hat and lay your head at night.

But it’s more than that.

It’s the personal touches, the iconography, that make it not only a house, but a home. The paint colors, the wall art, the books in your book cases. These things don’t happen overnight; it takes time to make a house a home…

But it’s more than that.

Home is all the memories of things that happened here. This is the place we came home to after our honeymoon. It’s where we brought our children home from the hospital. We’ve seen positive (and negative) pregnancy tests here, we’ve gotten grad school acceptance letters here, we’ve had string quartets rehearsals, baby showers, and New Year’s Eve parties here. This is where we plant our garden every spring and shovel mountains of snow every winter. Home is where life happens.

But it’s more than that…

More than anyone else, home is being with my husband. A relaxing morning drinking coffee together, or staying up way too late watching Netflix would be some of my favorite scenes of home. But even cleaning up the kitchen, or bouncing a fussy baby are more enjoyable when he’s around. Where ever I am, and whatever I’m doing, if I’m with him and our two babies, then I am home.

But even more than that.

Home is the little space allotted to me by God to, for a short time, bring heaven to earth. This is where we live our vocations, sowing peace, ministering love, cultivating life. Home is where we do that, until we are called to our eternal home.

—7—

Day Seven: Home to Me by Debbie of Saints 365

Debbie remembers her grandmother’s home, which was a life-long anchor for her. She mourns its loss along with that of her grandmother:

Life at Grandma’s house was like her love – stable, steady, rock-solid and unchanging.

I was well into my forties when she died, but her death rocked me as if I were a child. Reminders from well-meaning friends of the length and beauty of her life offered me little consolation. I missed her presence in my life: I missed her hugs, I missed her voice, I missed her meatballs and I missed the home that I considered one of the happiest places on earth.

A few months after her death I sat in my Spiritual Director’s office and cried my heart out to him. He patiently listened as I sobbed though my grief. When he finally spoke, he gently suggested that I was looking for my grandmother in all the wrong places. Instead of longing for her presence in the past, in the flesh, in her home – he proposed that I seek her instead where she was to be found: in the Lord, in the Spirit, in heaven. He asked me to pray for the grace to release her in this life, so that I might discover her in a new way. Finally, he gave me this quote, which has sustained and consoled me ever since: “Those who die in grace go no further from us than God, and God is very near.”

I turned over that quote in my mind for many months. I have come to appreciate the truth in its words. I thought that what I missed the most about my Grandmother was the permanence of her home and all that represented to me. What I have discovered is that her home was just a dwelling for her love, and that remains alive, well and exactly as it always was: stable, steady, rock-solid and unchanging.

~~~

These posts are part of the “Home to Me” blog hop, hosted by yours truly. During the two weeks from Friday, November 13 through Thanksgiving Day, more than a dozen bloggers are sharing about what the concept of “home” means to them. “Home” can been elusive or steady. It can be found in unexpected places. It is sought and cherished and mourned. It is wrapped up in the people we love. As we turn our minds and hearts toward home at the beginning of this holiday season, please visit the following blogs to explore where/what/who is “Home to Me.”

November 13 – Julie @ These Walls
November 14 – Leslie @ Life in Every Limb
November 15 – Ashley @ Narrative Heiress
November 16 – Rita @ Open Window
November 17 – Svenja, guest posting @ These Walls
November 18 – Anna @ The Heart’s Overflow
November 19 – Debbie @ Saints 365
November 20 – Melissa @ Stories My Children Are Tired of Hearing
November 21 – Amanda @ In Earthen Vessels
November 22 – Daja and Kristina @ The Provision Room
November 23 – Emily @ Raising Barnes
November 24 – Annie @ Catholic Wife, Catholic Life
November 25 – Nell @ Whole Parenting Family
November 26 – Geena @ Love the Harringtons

Home to Me: A German Student Finds Home in a Foreign Land

November 17, 2015 / Julie / 3 Comments

Today I’m thrilled to host a guest blogger whom I’ve known for nearly twenty years. Svenja Zimmermann was an exchange student living with family friends of ours in 1997, and she’s remained part of their family ever since. We’ve seen each other a handful of times over the subsequent years, including That Time I Rang a Stranger’s Doorbell and Found Family.

Svenja is a 34-year-old wife, mother of three boys, and high school teacher (in German and English) on parental leave. She lives with her family in a small town near Hannover in northern Germany.

I hope you enjoy Svenja’s contribution to our “Home to Me” blog hop.

~~~

When I first thought about what home means to me I wondered what exactly the definition of home was in a dictionary and whether that captured my notion of home.

Some of the definitions the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives are: (1a) one’s place of residence, (1b) a house, (2) the social unit formed by a family living together, (3a) a familiar or usual setting, (3b) habitat, (4a) a place of origin, (4b) headquarters, (5) an establishment providing residence and care for people with special needs.

To some extent, I thought, those definitions were right. Obviously number five. Whether the inhabitants of those establishments feel at home – we still call it that. Definitely number four! The place of origin will probably always be some kind of home to people. In my case number two is also correct. I live together with my husband and my three sons in our home, which leads me to number one, because it is a house. Our house.

So Merriam-Webster is right. All those definitions are definitions of home. But still, I am not really satisfied with them. Something is missing. The definitions are ‘lifeless’, unemotional. They don’t suffice.

So, what is home to me then? What is the determining factor? What would I write if I had to define home?

There are three places that are home to me.

Number one is easy. It is my parents’ house. The house my parents built and I moved to when I was three months old. I moved out when I started college in a different city (where, by the way, I never really felt at home). In this house I grew up. I learned to walk and talk, I went to kindergarten, I started elementary school, went on to high school. I found friends, I lost friends, I found new friends, had my first boyfriend (and some more).

Number two is also easy. It is my home. My and my husband’s house. We had it built the way we wanted it. We chose every bit, from the color of the roof to the floor tiles in the hallways, even the socket-outlets. We definitely love our home. Our house. We are raising our three children here, we enjoy spending time on the street chatting with neighbors. We are a family. A mom, a dad and three little boys, living in their house. What else could be more of a home than this?

But then there is a third place I call home. And it is not that I only call it home. Because it was my home for a period of time, I feel it is my home.

The first time I ‘came home’ was in March 1997. I was in 10^th grade here in my German high school and went on an exchange to the United States. It was just three weeks, not far away from Washington D.C. with a day trip to New York City. How exciting! I was 15 years old at the time, about to be 16 on March 29^th. I celebrated my 16^th birthday in the U.S. Back then, long before the real globalization as we know it now, the U.S. was a country so totally different from mine. Of course everybody had an idea of what it would be like from movies and TV shows: Beverly Hills 90210. This was what it was going to be like in the U.S.

When I got there I realized pretty quickly it wasn’t quite like Beverly Hills, but it was still nice. After a long flight our group landed at Washington Dulles International Airport, where the exchange group waited to pick us up. My host sister and I sat next to each other on the bus and we chatted all the way back to school. I immediately liked her although she obviously was not a lot like me (on the outside). I liked tight jeans and make up. She was in her school uniform, not wearing any make up and definitely did not seem to care much for such things. But still it felt like we had known each other for a long time already. When we arrived at the school, her parents awaited us. They were so nice. They weren’t at all like my parents, but they seemed to honestly be happy to get to know me. They were so lovely and cute and I immediately felt very welcome and well taken care of.

Time flew and faster. Sooner than I expected, the exchange was over. I had had a great time at this family’s house. I had spent a lot of time with them: the parents and the two daughters. I hadn’t missed a thing, even though it was not like I had imagined it to be (Beverly Hills 90210) and it was not at all like my home in Germany. My parents were very liberal. I went to parties on the weekends, slept in ‘til noon. In the U.S. I didn’t go to parties. I didn’t sleep in as long. We went to church on Sundays, something I never did at home. Nevertheless, I liked it so much, I wanted to come back. For longer. And that summer I came back, for one whole semester. I came back home.

My American parents treated me as if I was their own daughter. They made no difference. They went to parents’ day at school to see how I was doing, they hugged me, they gave me way too many gifts for Christmas, they planned a surprise vacation to Niagara Falls, they cared for me when I had the flu. But most of all they made me feel loved. And I loved them. I love my American parents, I love my American sisters more than any other people that aren’t part of my ‘real’ family.

According to Merriam-Webster this place in the United Stated can’t really be my home. I am and was not a resident. It isn’t my place of origin. It is a house, yes. But does this fact make it my home? Surely not.

What is it then that makes it home to me? If I look at those three places I mentioned that are home to me, it is obvious that there is one common factor. And that is love. I love my parents unconditionally and they love me in return. I am their child. I love my husband more than anything in the world. It feels like we were made for each other. We can trust each other and rely on each other, we chose each other. Our children are my life. There is no love like a mother’s love for their children.

And then I love my American family. So much. This semester with them changed me, made me another person in a good way. And they made that possible, because they made me feel loved.

Of course Merriam-Webster’s definition isn’t wrong. But one vital aspect is missing and that is love. Just as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said:

Where we love is home.

Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

~~~

This post is part of the “Home to Me” blog hop, hosted by Julie Walsh at These Walls. “Home” can been elusive or steady. It can be found in unexpected places. It is sought and cherished and mourned. It is wrapped up in the people we love. As we turn our minds and hearts toward home at the beginning of this holiday season, please visit the following blogs to explore where/what/who is “Home to Me.”

Can’t the Answer Just Be That We Mourn?

November 16, 2015 / Julie / 8 Comments

In the two days since the terrorist attacks in Paris, I’ve seen plenty of expressions of sadness, sympathy, and solidarity for the people of that city on social media. But I’ve also seen a growing number of complaints about those expressions.

“Stop saying you’ll pray.”

“Don’t turn your profile picture red, white, and blue.”

“Where were they when we needed them?”

“Where were you when others were attacked?”

Maybe I’m naïve, but I didn’t see this coming – at least not so soon. Victims of those horrible attacks still wait to be identified, to be claimed, to be buried, and already we’re attacking each other. Why? Why can’t the answer just be that we mourn?

“I pray because I mourn.”

“I show these colors because I mourn.”

“It doesn’t matter where they were; I mourn.”

“Maybe I mourned then, unseen. Maybe I didn’t mourn and I should have. But still, today I mourn.”

I wish we would stop questioning others’ motivations. If there are ever motivations to question, they’re our own: If I say I’m praying, am I actually doing it? If I express solidarity, do I feel it? If I’m riveted by this situation today, will I be paying attention tomorrow? Will I pay attention to the next one? Do I feel that people in some parts of the world are more worthy of my grief than others?

Ask yourself these questions; don’t ask them of others.

If you didn’t read the lengthy Atlantic piece on ISIS months ago, take the time to read it now. It’s not an unquestioned account of the organization and its aims, but I think it makes an important overarching point: ISIS does not operate under the assumptions we’re accustomed to. It does not make the same calculations. It doesn’t seek the kinds of goals we’re used to confronting. It is an organization that is inherently difficult for the West to understand, let alone counter. (Also take the time to read Elizabeth Scalia’s post from a year ago: The West Lacks One Essential Tool to Defeat ISIS.)

All that said, I think we can be reasonably sure that ISIS aims to sow fear, discord, and anger. Why in the world should we help them along by questioning people who are struggling to adequately express their sorrow?

In my own piece on ISIS and evil a year ago, I said:

I’m just trying to call it like it is. When people do such terrible things to one another [i.e. the ISIS attacks against innocent civilians in Iraq], I can’t help but see evil’s mark. I can’t help but envision evil seeping like a deadly, insidious disease from the heart of one man to another. And then another, and another, and another…

Some situations seem ripe for spectacular displays of evil. Evil must find fertile soil, after all, in lands where oppression, poverty, and war have been present for generations. What terrific places to be planting seeds of anger, fear, and hopelessness. What good chances that they’ll grow in individuals’ hearts until they spill over, manifesting themselves in violence and injustice towards others. What likelihood that those fruits will begin the cycle anew.

That’s how I think of the ISIS fighters: as men whose circumstances and life experiences have made them angry and resentful… men who have sought sympathy and camaraderie amongst those who would encourage their indignation… men who feel more powerful and more right the more they work together toward a dramatic goal… men who have so convinced themselves of their righteousness that they view those who are unlike them as less than human… men who start by seeing violence as a necessary tool and end by relishing violence for its own sake. I trace evil’s influence throughout.

But that – that far-away place, in those foreign hearts – is not the only place where evil lurks. Evil would not be content to bear only a few thousand ISIS souls away from God. Evil works on the rest of us too…

Evil tells us that what we have is insufficient, that we will always need more. It encourages us to nourish our anger and resentment. It emphasizes our fears. It helps us divide people into “us” and “them.” It tempts us to seek fleeting satisfactions that harm our bodies and souls. It entices us to take pleasure in media that glamorize violence and disordered relationships. It convinces us that righteous indignation is indeed righteous. It leads us to think we’re alone and unloved.

Evil finds success in such “small” things all the time, all over the world. I can’t help but wonder whether, when evil has become sufficiently emboldened by its quiet successes, perhaps that’s when it taunts us, leers at us, with acts so glaringly evil that we’re stopped short.

We have a role here. We are part of this story. And we have a say in how we play our part.

Will we respond to terrorism by despairing? By accusing? By stoking self-righteous anger? By questioning the sincerity of those who are supposedly our friends? I don’t think we should.

I think we ought to take people’s expressions of mourning at face value.

I think we ought to pray — for the victims of terrorism in Paris and elsewhere, for those in harm’s way, for those who are tempted to do harm, for each other.

I think we ought to pay attention to events across the world and extend our sympathy to victims of violence wherever they’re found.

I think we ought to act against terrorism and fear and hate and evil however we’re able.

I think we should all feel free, when the situation calls for it, to simply… mourn.

Praying for Paris

November 13, 2015 / Julie / 2 Comments

Given tonight’s events in Paris, I couldn’t bring myself to publish a perky, wonder-filled sequel to this morning’s post. The sequel will come, but not until it stops feeling so dissonant to me.

As of my 9pm writing of this post, I’ve been listening to NPR and BBC coverage of the attacks for several hours. In that time, the numbers of dead have been jumping ever higher. Eighteen to thirty to sixty, and then with the storming of a concert hall where a hostage situation had been underway, some one-hundred more.

It’s all just too much, isn’t it?

Ever since September 11, this is the kind of terrorist attack I’ve been fearing: a series of smaller-scale attacks – one after another and another – in unpredictable locations. As I learned that day, it’s very different to be horrified by something that is happening elsewhere, in one defined and impersonal location, than to be scared for your own safety. It is, in my mind, the difference between horror and terror.

Tonight, I look on (or rather, listen in) from a safe distance. I have no loved ones who were in harm’s way. I feel tremendous sadness: I’m struck by imaginings of what the victims might have been feeling in their last moments and I’m heartsick for those who are wondering tonight whether their children or siblings or friends are among the dead. But I’m not feeling that fear of not knowing whether the attack is done, not knowing what or where could be next, not knowing whether I’m in danger.

I remember what it was to feel that way. It’s a primal kind of fear, one that strips away everything but the logistics of survival and the most elemental longings of the human heart.

I mourn the fact that so many today know that fear: Tonight it was Parisians. Yesterday (literally – yesterday) it was the people of Beirut. Lately it’s been Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, and far, far too many others.

Yes, it’s all just too much.

Lord, have mercy. Mary, our Mother, comfort and sustain your children. St. Genevieve, patroness of Paris, pray for her people.

That Time I Rang a Stranger’s Doorbell and Found Family (Part One)

November 13, 2015 / Julie / 9 Comments

Or… one of the times. I’ve actually done it twice.

As my best friend Catey says, “Only you would show up at random people’s houses in foreign villages and find out that you’re related to them!”

Both situations rank high among my favorite party stories of all time, but today you’re just getting the first one. It begins in the summer of 2000, when I was a fresh-faced (rising) senior in college, studying German at a Goethe Institut in lovely Prien am Chiemsee, Bavaria.

My maternal grandmother, who is the historian and genealogist of our family, was pressing me to visit the small German village from which one of my ancestors had come. He, a Hessian soldier named Johann Philip Fiege, was the great-great-great-(can’t remember how many ‘greats’)-grandfather of her husband, my grandfather.

Grandmom had discovered the name and general location of Johann’s home village in an old court record: The Hessian-soldier-turned-prisoner-of-war-turned-American had testified as a witness regarding some milling technology that he was familiar with from his home village of Oedelsheim, on the river Weser. (Obscure, right?)

That’s all we had to go on. I had no idea where this village was, other than that it was along the (long) Weser. And to be honest, I didn’t even recall where the Weser was. (WERMS, fellow German students, WERMS. All I knew was that the Weser was the first in the handy – literally – acronym of the five major rivers in Germany: Weser, Elbe, Rhein, Main, and… I forget.)

But I had some German friends! I had a few young German friends – Civis, for those of you who know what that means – who worked at my Institut. One of them helped me look up maps of the regions around the Weser so as to locate this random little place. (This was before the internet was what it is today. Obviously.) After what felt like forever, we finally found it: Oedelsheim looked like a pinprick. It was situated near the source of the river, in central Germany, about 45 minutes from the University city of Göttingen.

And I was in luck. (1) My grandmother so badly wanted me to visit Oedelsheim that she offered to buy this poor college student a train ticket to get there. (2) The German friend who had helped me locate the village was from a city not so far past it and he (Matthias) was about to head home for a weekend. He could accompany me part of the way. (3) I had another German friend, a girl I’d known when she was a high school exchange student living with friends of ours, who lived about an hour’s drive north of the place I sought. I could stay with her overnight.

(By the way, this friend, lovely Svenja, will guest post on my blog this coming Tuesday. Her post, like this one, will be part of my “Home to Me” blog hop. Svenja is still very much a German living in Germany, but she’ll write about the sense of home she found during her studies and visits in the United States.)

So it was set. One weekend I traveled with my Civi friend Matthias from Prien aaalll the way up to Hanover. There I met up with Svenja (and, ironically, the two American friends from my hometown with whom Svenja had lived in the U.S.) I stayed with one of her neighbors because Hotel Svenja was all booked up, and the four of us young ladies had a great time together. Early Sunday morning, I hopped on a train to head back down south. First stop: Göttingen.

When I arrived at the train station in Göttingen, I stowed my stuff, bought a local map, and walked up to the ticket counter with my finger on the Oedelsheim pinprick.

“I want to go here,” I said. In German.

(Allow me to note that this trip out of Bavaria was the first time I realized that – hey! – I could actually speak German! Bavarians are a proud people who tend to speak their strong Bavarian dialect – or at least a heavily-accented version of proper German – as a matter of course. So here was I, a month into my intensive studies and seven years into studying the language altogether, thinking that I couldn’t really speak German because I couldn’t make out what passersby were saying on the street. But all I needed to do was leave Bavaria! Up in central Germany, I was fine.)

Anyway. The woman working the ticket counter looked at me like I was crazy.

“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, that’s in the middle of nowhere. And we don’t have a train line to get you there anyway.”
“Just get me as close as you can. I’ll figure it out.”
“The closest station is three miles away.” (Distance provided in miles for the convenience of my American readers.)
“That’s okay; I walk three miles all the time. I’ll just walk it.”
“You cannot walk from here to here.”
“Yes, I can.”

Eyebrows raised, she sold me the ticket and emphasized the last return train of the day. If I didn’t catch it, I would be stuck.

So I found the right platform and boarded the train. And my memory might well have exaggerated things for me, but that was a rustic train. In contrast to the shiny, comfy German trains that I’d ridden through the rest of my summer in Germany, this one looms large in my mind as having been outfitted with nothing but wooden benches. And no doors. (Again, probably a gross exaggeration, a trick of my mind.) I know for sure that when I arrived at the station to which I was bound… there was no station. There was simply a concrete platform with a bench. I’d had to tell the conductor where I wanted to get off so that they didn’t pass it by. Now I understood why the ticket agent had been so reluctant to send me here.

But off the train, and off the platform I stepped into a pretty little village. I don’t remember seeing any people at all. I looked at my map and the street signs, got my bearings, and took off. I walked those three miles with a sense of wonder and a spring in my step: this was my homeland. (Well, one of them.) My ancestor might have walked these very roads more than two-hundred years before.

The landscape was beautiful – rolling green hills, fields, streams and woods – not unlike the central part of Maryland where my Hessian soldier ancestor ended up. I wondered whether the similarity helped him feel at home in America.

As my walk neared its end, I found myself up on a rise overlooking Oedelsheim. It took my breath away. Hundreds of red roofs sprawled outward (the village wasn’t as small as I’d assumed), a ribbon of blue river wound just beyond it, and gentle farmland and hills surrounded the lot.

I was home. For the first time since Johann Philip had been loaded onto a ship and sent across the Atlantic, one of our family was back in the place from which it had come.

This concludes Part One of my story. Now I’ve got to get dinner in the crock pot, breakfast on the table, and boys out the door to the dentist’s office. Please come back later today for Part Two.

~~~

This post is part of the “Home to Me” blog hop, hosted by yours truly. During the two weeks from Friday, November 13 through Thanksgiving Day, more than a dozen bloggers will share about what the concept of “home” means to them. “Home” can been elusive or steady. It can be found in unexpected places. It is sought and cherished and mourned. It is wrapped up in the people we love. As we turn our minds and hearts toward home at the beginning of this holiday season, please visit the following blogs to explore where/what/who is “Home to Me.”

Home to Me

November 12, 2015 / Julie / 10 Comments

Over the summer, a beautiful post by Laura Kelly Fanucci got me to thinking about the concept of “home.” She writes:

Right now I am home.

Sitting in the house that we own. Where we are raising our children. Where mail arrives daily bearing my name. Where we welcome family and entertain friends. Where I pull weeds and paint walls. Where my car pulls into the driveway and my shoes slip off in the doorway.

And I am writing about going home. Which is not here.

“Home” is something I’ve spent much of my life thinking about: Growing up in a state where my family has been for hundreds of years (and so having a strong sense of place), but in a part of the state where I had no family (and so feeling disconnected from that place). Moving out of the home in which I was raised. Watching the land around my family’s homes sprout housing developments. Trying to find something to call home as a young adult, when I had no immediate family to bind me to the communities in which Iived. Building a sense of home with my husband and then my children. Working to feel like my physical, legal home is one on an emotional level too.

(Overthink things much, Julie?)

So I wrote my own post on home, trying to process it all. When I shared it, I found that the topic resonated with people. Friends and readers had had similar experiences – or different experiences, but similar struggles in coming to terms with what “home” meant in their lives. A couple of friends even suggested that they would like to share their own stories.

I stewed on that thought, wondering how I could encourage others to share their stories of home – where they’ve found it, how they’ve sought it, or whatever else feels meaningful to them on the subject. A couple of months later, chatting with some connections I’ve made through blogging, I settled on the idea of a blog hop. That is, of a series that is shared by a number of bloggers, each of whom contributes one post on her own blog.

So that’s what we’re doing. Now. This here post is the introduction to the blog hop, which we’re calling “Home to Me.” During the two weeks from Friday, November 13 (tomorrow!) through Thanksgiving Day, more than a dozen bloggers will share about what the concept of “home” means to them.

They include women who have moved from home to home every couple of years and those who have said final goodbyes to homes in which they’ve spent their whole childhoods. One woman is actually raising her own children in the home in which she was raised. Some are figuring out how to raise their families in proximity to their hometowns, some far from them. One watched in wonder as her adopted children found home with her. A German friend of mine will write about the sense of home she found here in the United States while a foreign exchange student. I, in turn, will write about the sense of home I found in the small German village from which one of my ancestors came some two hundred years ago.

“Home” can been elusive or steady. It can be found in unexpected places. It is sought and cherished and mourned. It is wrapped up in the people we love. As we turn our minds and hearts toward home at the beginning of this holiday season, please visit the following blogs to explore where/what/who is “Home to Me.”

Worth Revisiting Wednesday: A Tale of Two Soldiers

November 11, 2015 / Julie / 3 Comments

Given that this Veteran’s Day oh-so-conveniently falls on a Wednesday, I thought I’d try my first link-up with Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Allison at Reconciled to You. The following is a post I wrote a couple of years ago after visiting my husband’s stepfather, Ed, during one of our visits to Minnesota.

Ed has since passed away, but I continue to think of him on Veteran’s Day, along with other members of our family who have served in the armed forces. All three of my older boys’ namesakes served; one died in action in France just days before the end of World War I. My husband, my father, my grandfather, many of my uncles, cousins, and friends served. I grew up in an Army town and spent much of my young adulthood in a Navy town. I consider myself fortunate to have known and loved so many who have given of themselves in that way.

Today, I remember all of them. I thank, honor, and pray for them. And if you’ve served and sacrificed for our country in the armed forces, I do the same for you. Thank you.

~~~

When we were in Minnesota last week visiting my husband’s family, we paid a couple of visits to Brennan’s stepfather, Ed, at his nursing home. Ed is the man who taught my husband about responsibility, who provided him with structure and support through his teenage years, who was there for Brennan in the difficult time after his own father passed away. Ed is also a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded just days before the war ended.

With my own parents still in their ‘50’s, it was more than a little difficult for me to get used to having a (step)father-in-law who is a member of the “greatest generation.” And I have to admit that, having seen him only once or twice a year for the past six years, I don’t know Ed very well. But I know that my husband loves and respects him. And I know that he has lived a long and interesting life, with his fair share of pain.

Some of it, of course, can be traced to his service in that awful war. Shortly before it ended, Ed found himself in Passau, Germany. In trying to rescue his sergeant, who had been shot, Ed was himself shot in the lung and the arm. He earned the bronze star for his actions. And he has lived with the repercussions of his injuries ever since.

Standing in Ed’s nursing home room during this year’s visit, I was reminded powerfully of an exchange I had with another World War II veteran, 13 years ago. Then, I was sitting on a train platform outside Munich – exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious – having just arrived hours before – by myself – for a summer studying German at a language institute in Bavaria.

The elderly, frail gentleman was sitting on a bench by himself. I’m sure he could tell I felt lost, looking around for a perch for myself and my unwieldy luggage. He indicated that I should sit next to him. Once it became obvious that I was an American (and quite possibly this was obvious before I even opened my mouth), he started speaking to me in English. We made small talk; I told him about my plans to study German that summer.

After a few minutes chatting cordially, he paused and looked at me intently. He said “An American did this to me.” Turning slightly, he revealed to me the shoulder that I could not, until then, see. It looked like a large chunk of flesh had been carved away from it. His scrawny arm hung lamely at his side. “I saw the man who did it,” he said. “I saw his eyes.”

Lightening his tone somewhat, he continued: “I don’t blame him. We were at war. We were doing what we were told. If he hadn’t shot me, I would have shot him.” (Pause – deathly still pause.) “War is an awful, horrible thing. It is always horrible. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Then, stripping away the tension entirely, the old soldier smiled and told me, “I love America. My wife and I visit New York with friends every year.” Before we parted, he raised his eyebrows at me and said, “Now, as soon as you arrive at your institute, you call your mother. You call your mother. She’ll be worried about you.”

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the experience.

Whenever I see an elderly person, particularly one who looks weak or ill, I wonder what kind of a life they’ve lived. I wonder at the events and the change they must have seen in their lifetime. Whenever I see an old man wearing one of those hats that veterans wear – the kind that denotes the ship they served on – I envision the young, strong man he must have been. I don’t know what to say or do, except to show a little kindness and maybe a little love. I want to ask, but I don’t want to intrude. I want to thank, but I don’t want to sound trite. So mostly I just wonder. And I say a little prayer.

With Ed, I know something of his story. But I still don’t know what to say. So I show some kindness and some love. I give him a hug and a kiss. I encourage the boys to do the same for their “Baba Ed.” Every once in a while, I have the boys color him a picture and we stick it in the mail. And I pray.

I still think of that old German soldier – a veteran of the same war as Ed. The war that forever damaged his shoulder and Ed’s lung. They fought on different sides. Maybe they had different aims, but I think they were probably both just doing what was expected of them. Years later, I get a glimpse of their service in that faraway time, and I wonder. Quite a thing to think about, isn’t it?

Portrait of a Good Daddy

November 4, 2015 / Julie / Leave a comment

Yesterday morning our littlest guy, nineteen-month-old Mr. Curly Head, followed his father around the kitchen, clutching a book and whining pathetically. He wanted Daddy to read to him.

The poor guy hadn’t gotten to see Daddy the night before, as Brennan had come home from work too late. And recently he’s become a real Daddy’s Boy anyway. (I wonder whether it’s my growing belly that’s prompted the change: I’ve always found that the youngest child attaches to Daddy just before he’s made to give up that precious birth-order position.)

Yesterday morning, however, Brennan was in a rush. He had to get our oldest to the bus stop and then he had to get himself to work. He really didn’t have time to sit down and read a book. So out he went, shooting a pained look towards our disappointed toddler.

But a few minutes later, Daddy came back.

Brennan had gotten our oldest on the bus and then turned right back around. He came into the house and found the boy and the book and he sat down to read.

It was a simple scene, but it did my heart (and theirs) so much good.

A small boy had missed his Daddy. He’d snuggled into Daddy’s legs while they rushed through the morning motions. He’d held up a book bigger than his own head and grunted a request that couldn’t have been clearer: “Read to me, Daddy. Sit with me and hold me and love me.”

He’d been disappointed, but then Daddy came back. Daddy scooped him up and sat down to read the book. Daddy took the time to give him love and attention.

He’s such a good daddy.

I’m grateful for my husband for many reasons, but most of all, I’m grateful for the father he’s become. Brennan, who had little experience with children before our own boys were born, has proved to be a natural. He’s jumped into diapers and baths and feedings and vomit clean-up. He teaches, he comforts, he corrects, he snuggles, he guides, he loves.

This is what a good father looks like: A man who does the big-picture hard work of providing and protecting as well as the nitty-gritty hard work of chasing down and cleaning up. A man who plays with his children, who makes them laugh, who hugs them tight. A man who will make detours for them – even the ones that seem too small to possibly be worth it.

This is a portrait of a good daddy.

I Want It All

October 26, 2015 / Julie / 8 Comments

I want to plant a garden.

I want to grow my own tomatoes and squash, cucumbers and beans. I want to see pretty little rows of lettuce and carrots sprouting up out of the ground. I want a garden for herbs: rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, mint, lavender. I want to plant blueberry bushes and strawberries; I want to pick my own blackberries for my homemade berry tart.

I want a cutting garden, too. I want to plant more hydrangeas and roses. I want to help my lilacs fare better than they have in the past couple of years. I want enough flowers to adorn my mantles, tables, and window sills in the warm-weather months.

I want to keep my home always clean and comfortable and welcoming.

I want to cook everything from scratch. I want to use fresh, healthy ingredients. I want to learn how to bake bread. I want to try interesting recipes. I want to teach my boys to try new things and I want to reach my husband’s heart through his stomach.

I want to be always hospitable.

I want to invite others – families, couples, individuals – over to dinner on a regular basis. I want to show them that small kindness and I want to enjoy their good company. I want partners for the occasional game of cards. I want my boys to hear others’ stories and to tell our guests their own.

I want to throw holiday parties and birthday parties and just-because parties, and to be well-enough organized to experience more joy from them than I do stress.

I want to visit the ill and the elderly. I want to bring meals and homemade baked goods, to mail care packages and hand-written letters.

I want to involve myself in our school and town and parish communities. I want to get to know people, to help them, and to feel comfortable asking for help myself.

I want to get my boys involved too – maybe in 4-H or Boy Scouts or sports or music lessons, maybe in some combination thereof.

I want to spend one-on-one time with each of my children, reading to them, teaching them, being creative with them. I want to listen to them and answer their questions.

I want to write.

Dare I say, I want to be a writer? I want to write essays and articles, tributes and love notes. I want to reach people. I want to sit in the quiet and make sense of my thoughts through my fingers, tapping out words that slowly fill a blank screen.

I want to use my mind.

I want to organize events and lead efforts. I want to advocate and encourage. I want to speak in public. I want to discuss and persuade and really listen. I want to subscribe to brainy periodicals and sit in a dimly-lit corner to read book after book.

I want to pray.

I want to find a way to sit quietly and think on God, not on the million-and-one other things that constantly flit in and out of my mind. I want to prioritize that relationship. I want to nurture it.

I want to teach my boys to do the same. I want to raise them to be more familiar with the treasures and trappings of our Faith than I have been.

My last attempt at a garden: Six tomato plants put in just before I developed a pregnancy aversion to the things.

And this – everything above – these are just the things I think are reasonable to want from the kind of life I’m living. These are the ones that fit into my stay-at-home-mom-to-several-littles paradigm.

If I could step outside of those bounds, I’d want to be a singer or an actress. I’d want to work in the halls of Congress or the United Nations or in Brussels or Rome. I’d want to be a journalist or a historian or a conflict negotiator or an event planner or an interior decorator, like my mom. I’d want to spend my spare time attending cultural events and visiting museums and walking historic cities. I’d want to travel.

I’d want it all.

I do want it all.

I just know that in this big world, with all these possibilities to choose from – all isn’t an option.

So I choose, and I try to remember to be happy with my choices. It’s usually easy enough for me to be happy with my SAHM over career woman choice. It was easy for me to be happy with my (previous) public policy over the arts choice. I was mostly reconciled to the domestic over international affairs choice.

But those things above – the ones that belong to my SAHM paradigm – they’re so much harder for me to agree to decide between. I resist choosing. I mourn my lack of a garden and the infrequency with which we have guests to dinner. I still don’t know how to make bread. (Really know – know by the feel of the dough in your hands know.) I approach parties and community commitments with a combination of excitement and dread. I blog infrequently. I rarely read books. My house is far from clean.

I don’t know how to make it all work, because again – all isn’t an option.

There are only 24 hours in a day. There is only so much activity (and alternately, neglect) that small children can take. I only have so much energy.

I’m trying to remember this. I’m trying not to mourn my nonexistent garden or my paltry efforts at hospitality. I’m trying to remember the home cooking that I do do, the stories that we read, the Halloween costumes that are sprawled, mid-assembly, all over our dining room table. (Monsters – all three are monsters this year.) I’m trying to remember that while my blog posts are infrequent, sometimes people say they’re touched by them. I’m trying to not mind the mess.

I want it all – and somehow, sometimes that makes me feel better about not getting it. When my “want” list includes desires as diverse as folk singing, international conflict negotiation, and tomatoes – well then, I feel more blessed to have such a diversity of interests than I do frustrated to not be able to achieve them all. (Pinterest/blog reading got you down because of the abundance of fall tablescapes? No worries! You’ll never achieve Broadway success either. And that’s okay.)

I suppose the key is to choose the few wants in your paradigm that seem most elemental to your peace, your happiness, your sanity. And to indulge in your other desires with some scheming, maybe, or with some wistful dreaming – but with no guilt.

Because though we may want it all, all simply isn’t an option. And that’s okay.

Frenzy, Grace, Repeat

October 20, 2015 / Julie / 3 Comments

Last week really whooped me.

It was probably more than this pregnant lady should have attempted, for each day was taken at a frenetic pace and each involved enough steps to make me regret no longer wearing my Fitbit. (Do you have any idea how much more accomplished I would feel to have had a device beeping surpassed goals at me all week?)

Fitbit or no, I’m confident that I burned enough calories to more than justify my three heaping bowlfuls of ice cream doused with crumbled-up Butterfinger.

Between rushing around the house to fit in all the cooking/baking/cleaning/laundering that had to be done before the deadlines of we need to leave and they’re almost here, and lugging my boys to and through four (count ‘em: FOUR) fall events o’ fun, I was nearly reduced to tears on Friday night. I drove home through a beautiful fall landscape, yet could barely keep it together.

I am so tired. My feet and hips ache. I think this is my breaking point. Brennan is working late, I’m on my own with three filthy, dirty little boys who still need to be fed, bathed, and put to bed – and I still need to change their sheets. How in the world am I supposed to manage it all?

I was thisclose to tears. Big ones. Great, heaving sobs of exhaustion and surrender. But then something occurred to me:

“Who do you think is the most tired, Boys?” (Waving my hand in the air) “Me! Me! Me! I win!”

“No you don’t! I’m more tired! I am! I win!”

“Nope! I’m the most tired! I think you boys had better carry me inside the house, feed me dinner, and put me to bed!”

“We can’t do that! You’re too big!”

“Sure you could! Two of you take my arms and one of you take my legs. We’ll be all set!”

Laughter, laughter, laughter.

Thank you, Lord, for that moment of grace.

Thank you, too, for the grace-filled moments that filled our weekend.

Saturday morning, without guilt or hesitation (though I knew he had plans for a home repair project), I told Brennan that I needed some time – just a little time – to myself. He didn’t hesitate either.

I eased myself into the day, then I went out. I hit the library and the town museum. I walked around downtown. On my own, I enjoyed the blustery weather about a hundred times more than I would have if I’d been carrying a 30-pound toddler in one arm and shepherding two small boys with the other.

That afternoon, instead of putting a stop to the toddler-climbing-on-top-of-me-and-my-reading-material behavior that usually drives me nuts, I caught my little guy smiling mischievously and I smiled back. We touched our foreheads together and rocked them back and forth – our little signal of love. He cooed and growled and we laughed. I pressed my face against his and held him tight.

I heard my four-year-old say, “I wuv you, Mommy. I wuv you more den you wuv me!”

“That’s not possible!” I said as I snuggled and tickled him.

I prepared dinner in the (rare) quiet. Brennan was busily, happily working outside, perched on scaffolding just beyond the kitchen window. He’d grinned at me through the glass when he got the first level up.

The bigger boys were watching a movie and (after I’d fed him a second lunch/first dinner) their little brother was happily toddling in and out of the kitchen. I stopped and stood and felt my gratitude for my family and our home and our ability to put a good meal on the table.

Sunday morning, two little boys ended up in bed with us. They wiggled and whispered and one bonked his daddy on the face. But when I came out of the bathroom, Brennan held one captive in his lap, tickling him. The other was settled in his baby brother’s room, perched on a chair just beyond the crib, “reading” aloud to the no-longer-crying little one.

We went downstairs and they played so nicely. They played something having to do with animals and serving food – I’m not sure, but I think I heard mention of a Lion Café. “I’m so glad they have each other,” I said to Brennan.

We went to Mass and the toddler was pretty difficult – he screeched and threw his bottle into the aisle (twice) and had to be removed. But the four-year-old stuck his head out of the pew so he could watch the consecration.

Without the toddler grabbing for it, I could hold my hymnal and sing in peace. Afterwards, the five-year-old regaled us with the Alleluia he’d learned in the Children’s Liturgy.

That afternoon and evening, Brennan took charge of the boys so I could work my way through stacks of paperwork and reminders. I did some of that, then I wrote the bulk of this post. The tasks were mundane, but somehow more refreshing than just about anything else I could have done with that time.

Honestly, I’m astounded when I look back on the weekend to count just how many small graces I received after a week that, while it looked good on the surface, really, thoroughly wore me down. “I can’t remember when I have ever been so tired,” I might have said to my mother-in-law Friday night, wearing an exceptionally pathetic look on my face.

I don’t know why I find it so surprising – it’s not like I forget that paces change. It’s just that the difference seemed so stark to me: One day I was suffering under the abundance of good things in my family’s life, the next they were building me up.

The key difference was… me.

Yes, physical exhaustion had a great deal to do with it. A good night’s sleep, when you can get it, does wonders. But I was still tired over the weekend. I still had (most of) my usual responsibilities. Yet somehow I also had the graces of perspective, of taking my time, of stopping to notice the little joys bound up in and between my responsibilities.

I’m so thankful.

This week is another busy one. I’m sure I’ll find myself again running at a frenzied pace, again exhausted, again stretched thin. C’est la vie. But I’m sure more graces will follow – and indeed be found within the frenzy, if I take the time to notice them.

These Walls

Sharing stories from within the walls of my home; encouraging discourse on the wider world outside them.

Author: Julie