This has been a quiet weekend, with time to get caught up on, well, life. A recurring theme with thoughts and what is transpiring around me is the neighborhoods people grew up within, traditions, and returning to our roots. I grew up in NE Minneapolis, attended Lutheran church, and tried to survive the taunting of being an overweight child. Swedish meatballs and lefsa are not good for there waistline. Those lazy summers between the end and the beginning as time brought more challenges, responsibilities, and questions.
Even the roots holding the things we wish to forget, are necessary, and contributed to where we are to today. The experiences laying a crucial foundation, that is fluid for a finite amount of time, while we figure out how to respond, react, and how best to utilize them.
I am child of the 80s (how else to explain listening to “Soulfly” while typing these words) and wish to forget the entire decade, but key moments, highs, lows, loss, love, and ingrained images beneath the towering elm and maple trees, return to my consciousness at the precise moment I need them. A reminder, a gut-check, a motivator when needed. Every so often I drive past the old house on 41st and take in the current landscape, and replace it with the sights, sounds, voices, barking dogs, passing vehicles, and snow forts of years gone by. With the passing of time, the angst and fear have soften, and I am more willing and ready to accept with humility and respect, where I cam from, and what I have been given.
These feet walked amongst and with the roots of this life. This life defined by all proceeding experiences and how I choose to react.
My next post in a couple of days will be about traditions, their importance, and why we hold them dear.
Peace.
