Tuesday, June 1, 2010

makin' copies

Today I went for a walk in my new shoes. That isn't a metaphor. I have new shoes. Luke's Locker, people - limp there for the fitting of your life. I just ran a mile without heel pain!

This week, things get checked off the list fast, the last grains flying through the slim neck of the hourglass: coffee with AO, doc appointment, an afternoon at the office bogarting the copy machine and hopefully taking some girls out for ice cream, and a highly anticipated dinner with DH and LW, newly minted Pollan freaks (this bodes well).

Some of the many things I'll copy this afternoon are census reports from Ancestry.com, things I want to take home to my family and in-laws as conversation starters (more on that later - there are some interesting mysteries to be solved!). This was a generally weepy weekend, so take what's coming with a grain of teary salt - but I found myself unexpectedly and deeply moved by the early 20th-century census reports from Milford Township, MN, and Mount Pleasant, PA. There on a few sheets of paper in neat (MN) or scrawling (PA) handwriting, the future lies in wait, my four-year-old grandmother on the farm and her six-year-old husband-to-be in town, other children who will become connected in wonderful and terrible ways.

The enormity of our move from Texas to Austria is hitting home, but when I look at these ancient documents, I realize that it's all transition, all the time.

dkz

3 comments:

rahree said...

my husband's family are from Mount Pleasant, PA...generations worth!

rahree said...

myslewski and wolk are the 2 last names...i think dan's grandpap worked in the hecla mine - will check!

Hector said...

Luke's Locker - bought my first pair of real running shoes there when first guesting in H-town. Big LIKE