Living History

In the last year, all the oldest generation of my family has all but died. I have no grandparents left, and since I started out with 3 sets thanks to a complicated family tree, that's saying something. My great aunt Shirley is the sole survivor in the 80+ crowd of my bloodline. (She's a great one to have left though. Any of you who know me well have heard me talk about Shirley. She's one serious kook and someone not to be trifled with. She embodies sentiments of another time when she says phrases like "great scott" or "my heavenly days, Alli" or "it's on the Boulevard" --meaning Foothill Blvd. She is a keeper and a true family matriarch now.) We are so lucky to have her with us still.

Holidays make me think about family. And this year, it feels a little strange not having the older set to anchor my family to our usual traditions and events. I can already see how not having my grandmother Mere around is going to mean seeing my uncles, aunts, and cousins much less. Time passes and family traditions evolve. It makes sense, times change and families grow, but I picture how difficult it must be for the person in their twilight years, who was once at the center of a family, to suddenly feel more like a leaf on a much larger tree. In one way I suppose that's what we all want when we start a family of our own, to witness something so much larger than ourselves taking shape, but it is easy to fantasize about that when you are stuck in your prime years, little family emerging and growing. It might be a bit more bitter pill to swallow when you are the old one at the table struggling to keep up with the conversation about ipads and Facebook and Toy Story 3.

One of the things I admire about traditional cultures is the way elderly people are revered and honored. Even once you die, you are still an important piece of society because the concept of respected "ancestors" is so central to many of these cultures. Some even believe the ancestor spirits are ever-present influencing for better or worse what happens in the daily life of the living. I like this belief that those who went before should inform the decisions you make in your life. It seems so comforting and smart, kind of like listening to a life coach or something. But it's simply a foreign notion in American life. I'm not saying we don't mourn our dead, of course we do, but we don't collectively spend much time thinking about what the previous generation would want us to do. It feels irrelevant in our world of personal choice and fixation with progress. Looking back isn't an American, or some might even say Western, direction of thought.

I can't say that I always listened rapt when Mere or other grandparents were telling their tales or doling out advice, but now that I can't hear it, I miss the chance to. I'd really love to ask Mere some questions about her carmel sauce technique and hear my Grandma Lou say "Raoul and Felipe" (her names for the 2 elevators in her building) in her best tongue rolling Spanish accent. I think it's difficult not to see our elderly as stereotypes. We forget to look past the wrinkles and bad Christmas sweatshirts and see their former youth spent full of days that probably really resembled our own. I wish that I could have looked further past Mere's critical eye for decadence and material possessions and focused more on the reasons behind her criticism. What was it like living through the depression and having your mother sew wedding dresses to put clothes on your back?

I find it a wee bit ironic that we fixate on our kids knowing factoids of history like "1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue", and yet most of us couldn't probably give a significant personal family history date like when our parents were married or the year our grandparents were born. Living history, that's what or older family members are. I'm a fan of living history. I know I'm always referencing, nerd-like, radio shows, but I truly adore the tiny segments on NPR made by Storycorps. Usually less than 5 minutes, they are snippets of interviews between family members or friends. It's just one person asking another person about their life and significant (or not) moments from it. I love hearing these intimate pieces of a stranger's story and how the interviewer relates to it. It is surprisingly hard to interview someone you know well. I took my Dad into a Storycorp booth a couple summers ago when they were traveling through SLC and we recorded an interview. It was an experience I treasure-emotional wreck of an interviewer though I was- and I now have a documented, recorded piece of our shared living family history. It makes me proud. But why haven't I extended this experience to pretty much everyone I know, particularly those I know who are likely in their last years?

Storycorps motto is "Every life matters." I believe this too, so this holiday season, when I am sure to see my family, old and grey and young and dewy alike, I am going to challenge myself to think like an interviewer and find out some facts and life history about those around me. Storycorps has a list of great questions to use as a stepping off point. It might not be the usual cocktail hour conversation but it is something I know I can fell good about doing. Check the list out. Maybe you will find out that you want some of these answers for yourself at your next holiday shindig?.....

An early thanksgiving

I have a real affection for the radio talk show Radio West. (In fact, Jaren loves to tease me about my boyfriend being the show's host, Doug Fabrizio.) I don't listen to it daily or even regularly, but if I'm ever in the car at 11:00 you better believe I'm tuning in and likely really enjoying it. I have been exposed to so many new ideas and interesting personal stories because of this show. I think it would be a dream job to research and read about random things and people and then get to quiz someone about the who, what, where, when, and why. It's endless, really, the fascinating things we can learn about each other and this world if we choose to do so.

I was lucky to catch a good chunk of Radio West this week which was an interview with David Campbell, a guy who just wrote a book called American Grace. The book is an attempt to figure out why America remains such a religious nation compared to similar economic/social countries like those in Western Europe, and why our different religious sects don't necessarily divide us a nation. In America, we've kept our religions remarkably intact and even growing. Campbell posits that it has a lot to do with our nation's entrepreneurial take on religion-it's personal here, not a required religion adopted by the state or government, and because of that, religion is able to be really responsive and fitting to personal needs and tastes. It's rather interesting to me that this means that the vitality of religion (and perhaps our nation) still comes down to what our country's founders felt, that celebrating and honoring religious freedom is key.

One of the most compelling parts of the interview to me was when Campbell mentioned that in random samples across the US if he asked people the question whether they say any type of grace before a meal, it was pretty much universally 50/50; half say grace, half don't. This statistic was true regardless of where he was in the country, regardless of age or social status, etc. I found this surprising. I'm not even sure if I thought more or less people would still be blessing their food, but I thought the fact that it breaks down so perfectly across the country was significant and worth thinking about. What does it mean to not say some kind of thank you out loud before you eat? Is something lost if saying grace becomes a relic of the past or the fervent?

Not being a religious family, I confess that me and mine rarely say grace or a prayer before dinner, and yet in the abstract I realize how much this bothers me. It isn't about hellfire and brimstone or God per se. For me, it is really about the true meaning of grace as an expression of gratitude, regardless of what the specific words are or whom they are directed to. This is a heart of the matter subject for me since I think if I could sum up my religiousity/spirituality in one single word it would be gratitude. I have faith in giving thanks. I have faith in believing that the world around me is truly amazing and that those I interact with are unique and amazing too. As a parent, the qualities I hope to impart in my kids are kindness and graciousness. Call it Christian. Call it being all you can be. I don't really care. I just hate to think that by opting out of saying grace I might be helping to foster an environment in my home that equates to entitlement...the we have this just because we do, irrespective of the work it took to have it, mentality. We all work for our money but also someone else worked to grow it, make it, dream it into being. (And the it here is a fill in the blank, mind you. It can be anything.) Ultimately you can call it God, you can call it the Universe, or you can call it a long chain of humanity cooperatively organized to make it so....but isn't there room in all of those views for an expression of mindful gratitude? I can't see the harm in directing a few quiet minutes to thankfulness each day.

Out of curiousity, I looked up some different traditions around saying grace at the dinner table and was quite inspired by what is out there. I thought this list of Christian/God centered texts had some nice ones. I also thought this list compiled from all different religions was interesting. None of them feel quite right for me but I think I'm going to try and experiment and see if I can come up with one that suits my family. I started simply last night by asking everyone to say one thing they are grateful for. It wasn't earth shattering--Flynn's was Santa for heaven's sake--but it set a tone for the meal that made me quite happy.

It's fitting to bring this all up in the month of Thanksgiving, isn't it? I adore Thanksgiving and hate that it gets swept under the rug in the vaccuum between commerical Halloween and even more commercial Christmas. I love that the holiday is about the simple act of appreciation and giving thanks. I love the Mayflower. I love the Pilgrim story and even have a soft spot for crazy Pilgrim dress. I'd wear a pair of square toed buckle shoes any day and this is 300 years later! I intend to make these cute paper Pilgrim hats the required dress code at the Harbertson family turkey day meal. And you'd better believe it, this Thanksgiving we'll be primed and ready for grace!