being nettie

i have put on more events, concerts, classes, workshops, and dinners in 2020-21 than possibly ever before.  it is both meaningful and tiring to respond to the "make things happen, lanette" but bringing people together safely and joyfully no matter the reason will always make my heart sing.

after the most recent event, i promised myself i would take time off and go to the coast.  there are no cottage rentals to be had as people take their august vacations, so delayed gratification being what it is, i decided to have a 3-day staycation in my lovely loft and pretend i was away.  sleeping, eating fresh healthy meals, reading, gardening, writing...days can go by without talking and i'm completely happy since my working life is all about hospitality; being constantly "on". 

today i dug out this beautiful photo of my great-gram nettie, whom i'm named after.  my mom captured her smiling at her birthday candles, hair piled in elegant white curls atop her head.  i even tried piling my curls like hers, without much success.  i did meet her, but it was when i was little and how i've been longing to talk with her these days as adults!  nettie, who fed people during the war from her garden pantry.  everyone said she had such a way with plants and people. how did she find the fortitude, the strength, the laughter in the face of hardship?

it's tempting to saintify still-life photos.  and so i try to remember that she was, as i am, human.  that she got tired and sometimes said or did the wrong thing. i like that she was silly and spent time with small children and read josephus despite only having a sixth grade education.  i treat her garden encyclopedia as if it were a sacred text.  i swear too much and think snarky thoughts and enjoy a good cigar now and then.  i'm proud to be named after her and hope she is, somehow and somewhere, proud of me despite myself.  

today, starting off by looking at her photo, i had what could aptly be named a "nettie-sponsored day".  i didn't use many words, instead smiling at the bees on sunflowers.  i think the only three words i said aloud all day was a blessing for the geese who flew overhead with a vaya con dios (go with God).  for some reason years ago i took to saying this to them as if they understood spanish (which i don't even speak) and it stuck.  

i didn't think about the news. even though i am constantly surrounded by people,  i notice i wake up in the morning either holding my own hand or with my arms wrapped around myself in a hug.  i pulled up small weeds of tired self-pity in my mind quickly replanting them with gratitude for just being alive and healthy.  i like to think the best parts of nettie in me kept it simple; saving me from myself by coming back to the things she knew.  be in the moment.  laugh at yourself.  cook something good.  

there's so much i don't know, but at the end of the day, here's the deal:  warm chicken eggs collected in the pockets of my shirt...dirt under my fingernails and my boots as i collect food to share...foraging from plants a deep leafy green tended with love that i'm hoping people can taste; a nourishment we can all sink our teeth into.  

yes, please.

i feel her with me in the best possible sense.

who of your ancestors would you most like to connect with, call upon, or spend the day with?