People change a lot in a year.   And sometimes not.

Making observations of my relatives at some of the larger gatherings this past week has been a pile of curious and profound and amusing all wrapped into a crazy little white elephant gift and shoved underneath the tree, tape sticking out everywhere, with gaps here and there where things don’t quite meet up but you can’t tell what’s inside anyway because you used a hair dryer box to wrap up a shirt and who would ever give a blower to a guy unless he had flowing locks?

Which I do not.

I caught myself watching one cousin in particular a lot because I noticed a subtle shift in her features, her mannerisms, and her attitude from previous years.    I thought it terribly interesting because while I had watched her grow and change as time moved on this was a uniquely different morphology, a….maturing?   Perhaps one of the first times I’ve viewed her in an adult context, perhaps.

We all change all the time, of course, whether it’s the stress of work or life, we gain some pudge or drop it off, gain scars, tattoos, piercings, hairdos, wrinkles, gray hairs.   Some of us grow hair, some of us lose it, we gain in one area and have a loss in another.    Clothing changes if find ourselves flush or in a new size or maybe doesn’t if our styles stay cemented in something comfortable and familiar.    What stays the same always changes, just in different ways.

For her it was a hardening of the features and a way of carrying them, as if stress or management had moulded the skeleton to fit a lifestyle of meetings and sales numbers and monthly reports.    I often wonder if my forehead will sometime shift like play dough over time to encompass how often I end up slapping it in frustration – perhaps what we do in the daily ends up being what we are in the physically.

Or maybe it was the flashing in her eyes that signaled to me a profundity beyond the materialistic and shallow, the desire for more than a drink and a good time.   The depth of our gaze starts to match the widths of our souls as time moves on, that deepening understanding and realization of the complexities of life, the desires that can bite so deep, sheer terrible pains that detract and maim, and rewards that shine in the darkest of nights.

For we all have that – time is the teacher, experience the classroom, and failure the lesson, and it is hoped that we at least glean a shard of something worthwhile out of each notch we make in the ol’ stick, for repeating much of it is, at best, uncomfortable.  Better to move on to a new challenge, bravely clutching the user manual we’ve written on the way to our breast, hoping there’s an answer in it for everything that pops up and knowing well enough that we’re going to be wrong a good portion of the time.

We didn’t get the chance to really enter into deep conversation over the holidays and that’s not surprising, she and I rarely communicate beyond the pleasantries, but I still wonder if things have changed a lot for her, or just my perceptions.   Perhaps next year I’ll find out – or maybe I’ll just observe.

I am, as usual, strapped for time for any sort of meaningful, lengthy postings, but I did want to hammer this short one out for you folks, including the below picture.

The picture below is of my Grandpa Schermer (Mom’s dad, obviously) that I scanned last night from a very old picture that we recovered from my grandparents’ house when they both went to the nursing home.    I loved this image when I first saw it so I’ve kept it since.

The year is unknown, but given the age of the photo, my grandfather’s nice garb and youthful but mid-aged appearance, I’d have to guess this was sometime in the 1950s or maybe 1960s during the height of his farming career.   He is standing in a pen of cows in what appears to be a sale yard, if I had to guess.   My thought is that he probably had just bought these cows — or he was going to sell them, I’m not sure which.    It must have been a very cold, harsh day, as not only is he bundled up, but the steam generated by the cows’ breath is fogging up the picture.

I love this picture because I can feel how proud he is of these cows — just like how proud he was of anything he did well.   He was never boastful, never arrogant, just quietly satisfied and proud of a job well-done.    He never tooted his own horn but he never shirked, either.   He was simply solid.

I miss Grandpa very, very much.   I can still feel the warmth of his smile and hear the gravel in his voice, smell his hugs and see the sparkle in his eyes.   He was one of the finest examples I can think of in terms of a good, decent, kind human being.   If I end up even half of what he is in terms of the warmth in his heart and the sense in his head, I’ll consider myself well-off.   I hope he is enjoying himself thoroughly.

This was something that popped into my head the other night driving home.   I’m unsure of its significance, but I chalk it up to recently feeling very connected to my wife and son and our unit as a family, and how insanely important it is for us to be together and connected.    The actual vision in my head was more real than I can put into words, but here is a slight glimpse.

I can see myself trudging up the relatively steep hillock covered in long, flowing green grasses, waving fiercely in the stiff wind blowing from beyond the rise.   Burdened, thick clouds hang close to the ground, their countenance not one of rain but merely a shrouding of the land in the dimly-highlighted gray of anticipation.   There is nothing else around this place except the grass-covered hills; if there is, my vision doesn’t lead me to see it.   The bottom is hidden beyond the threshold of sight.

The vision alternatively shifts between a bird’s-eye view of the situation and a personal detail; I am in a constant flux between the closeness of my warm breath and the soft ssssshhh of the grass and a perspective floating above, watching the play unfold.    I am dressed unusually — all in white; long, loose pants, a long, flowing seamless shirt, barefoot.   I can feel the dual nature of the grass, both soft and cool underfoot and yet harsh and sharp on the edges as it slides along the top and sides of my feet.

The wind blasts into my face, racing down the slope and nearly bowling me over; my struggle is prolific as I take cautioned breaths of an air tinged with the light smell of salt and water, catching a few molecules before they race behind me to some unknown destination.   I can barely see the breeze is so strong, but by squinting I can look around as I climb.

And I see her.

She is doing likewise; trudging slowly up the hill, leaning forward into the gale, her long flowing locks trailing behind her.    She is also all in white; a long, flowing dress of simple mediumweight cotton dances in the eddies behind her and presses against her barefoot legs as she moves, the bodice scooped and the sleeves long, yet simple; loose and comfortable.     A plain silver comb adorns her hair.

We are almost at the top now, maybe a dozen feet from the pinnacle and perhaps twenty apart but closing, as our trajectories are angled towards each other, when a brilliant light bursts on the peak for just a moment and then fades, and in its place stands a little boy.

He is perhaps two, maybe three years old, but I cannot see his face as he is turned away from us.    Brown, curly hair adorns his round head, punctuated by soft, small ears.    As we all are, he is in white;  a simple shirt, white cotton pants, his small bare feet poking out from the bottom as he stands there in the waving grasses, arms at his sides.

She and I reach the peak, stepping our last and coming to rest on either side of the boy, facing outwards as he is.   I feel a small warmth in my hand and I look down to see his short fingers entwining in mine; he has grasped each of our hands with his.    I look up and stare into the clear blue eyes of my son and he cracks the most innocent and brilliant of smiles.    At that very instant, a new energy like a slow, warm bolt of lightening runs between us and fills me from head to toe.

I look further upwards into the shining eyes and face of my wife who looks at me for an instant, then back down at our prodigy who is sharing his gaze between us.  I know she can feel the connection swelling between us, a bond stronger than mere touch, simple recognition; it is the shared connection of our family, our everlasting association with each other as parent, child, spouse.   I can feel him and her both and I know they feel me.

Our faces turn forward towards a rising sun that is breaking through the clouds, and we squeeze hands, pulsing this energy between us, ready to face whatever meets us, together.

We take a step forward towards the sun, down the hill, and forward into life.

I am not my maternal grandmother; I refuse to wash plastic tableware in order to reuse it.

But I feel her hands every time my fingers press into a ball of dough, and I try to inject deep love into food like she did.

I am not my maternal grandfather; my tools will never be infinitely repaired instead of purchasing new ones.

But I think fondly of him every time I wash my hands, remembering the care he took with every precise, meaningful movement.

I am not my paternal grandmother; I will never do my hair perfectly (in case someone should drive by) simply to mow the lawn.

But when my family and friends are gathered in my house and I am in the kitchen cooking and setting up, I feel the pride she must have felt for successfully bringing everyone together for a good, happy time.

I am not my paternal grandfather; I will never have a love for Branson, MO, within me.

But love of wide open fields, fertile land, and the bounties of harvest will always run deep in my blood because of him.

I am not my sister; I will never jump out of bed and land on the floor fully dressed and perky.

But I hope to pass onto my children the connection she and I have shared as siblings, as it is both flexible yet unbreakable, the perfect combination to last the ravages of time and change.

I am not my mother; I will never think that dealing with the sick, infirm, or dying is, “interesting”.

But I channel her every single time I have to do something considered disgusting or unpleasant for my child, as she would have drank raw sewage if it meant we would be happy and healthy.

I am not my father;  I will never be able to part with sentimental objects as easily as he can in the name of neatness.

But I can only hope to be half as fiercely loyal towards my children as he is to me and my sister.

I am not my family — but I have the best of them within me.

Today instead of something deeply philosophical or thought-provoking of my own, I’d like you to consider stopping over and visiting a new blog on the block, Corn Fed Girl, written by my very own little sister.   (Well, at 28 she’s not all THAT little, but she’s shorter and thinner, so we’ll go with it.)

She came to me the other day asking for help in setting up a blog and I can’t help but feel extremely excited that she’s interested in taking up such an interesting hobby.     My sister, like everyone else, has had her share of troubles and successes in life, but she’s really developed into a good person with a kind heart, an open mind, and intelligent thoughts.     I’m pretty darn proud of her.

I think she writes very well and many of my readership may enjoy her thoughts, so head on over and check out such entries as:

Yup, I’m Corn Fed! — Where she describes her thoughts behind exactly what the term, “corn fed”, really means.

Here I am blogging world! — Where she describes her motivations behind starting up this blogging thing.

Getting My “Needer” Fixed — Fixing her wants and needs.

Or you can simply add her to your feed reader through her RSS feed.

I hope you enjoy my sister’s blog — I know I’ll be insanely curious to see what she writes about!