Happy Groundhog Day!  Nearly six years after my last post, I pop up again. I'm still here in rural Minnesota on a very cold and beautiful winter day. The blue light before dawn yesterday made me think of this Blog,and why I chose its name.   Our grandson, the baby shown in my last entries in 2007, is now 5 and he has a little sister who is 2.  They are a dynamic duo, and though they live far away, it makes me happy to think of them and know that they are out there and happy, and well cared for by their parents.  Our daughter is expecting a baby in July--she is thrilled and so are we.  This grandchild will be in Minnesota, at least for the foreseeable future, and that will be fun.  Our nephew is back in Minnesota too, so we do have some relatives here!

        This all leads me to think upon families, families of origin, families of choice, and loved family members and friends who have left this world but not our hearts--those who helped make us who we are.  We are lucky to have people to love in this life.  At this moment, I am thinking with love of my brave and spunky mother, who died 5 years ago yesterday; Jamie's Great Aunt Esther, whose birthday is today; my wise and loving father, whose birthday is tomorrow; and my brother-in-law, Mark, whose birthday is also tomorrow.  I'm also thinking of Johanna Olson, a brave and courageous lover of life, who lost her 15-year battle with brain cancer one month ago today, at the age of 33.

Happy Dad and Son

This picture is guaranteed to make almost anyone smile, but especially the newest Grandma R.! The palpable pride and love and trust just jump out of the photograph, taken by Tate's mom after our recent trip to Reno over Memorial Day, 2007. I love this photo not only for itself and its current subjects, but for the sweet remembrance of our own times past with Colin that it brings afresh to mind. Tate looks a lot like his dad did at this same point in his dad's life--at which point we were just arriving in Barcelona, Spain, to take up a year's residence, during which Jamie had a teaching Fulbright fellowship at the University of Barcelona, and Sally got to luxuriate in mommying and babying. What a great blessing that time was.

Morning light, little Tate, and long-term friendship

The morning half-light is more green and pink than blue today. The young leaves on the trees show that the impressionist dappled effect was really realist. Now the sun is coming up in horizontal stripes of pink and blue. We are hoping today will bring some good news as to little Tate's liver problem. Yesterday was excruciating, waiting for news and trying not to let the panic rise. The last word is that more tests will be done in the hospital during the next day or two. Fortunately, there are encouraging signs that the cause of high levels of certain liver enzymes may not be as complex and severe as has been under study, but nothing has been ruled out yet and we all are praying. One affirming thing for me was that I was able to reach a college friend is who now on the faculty of Yale Medical School and is Physician in Chief at the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital--whom Colin met when she was at the University of Minnesota Medical School--and she was able to put Colin in touch with a pediatric liver specialist at Yale, who is willing to consult and has provided some peace of mind in a very comforting way. Long-term friendships are a wonderful thing, and I am so grateful to Peggy.

A wonderful movie that is hard to get hold of these days is "Heartland", which was funded in the 1980's by the Wyoming Arts Commission or some similar agency. It stars Rip Torn and Conchetia Farrell, who come together while homesteading in Wyoming and , first as employer and housekeeper and eventually as Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, who are real characters in Wyoming history. At a point of tragic loss in their lives, Rip (who plays the transplanted Scotsman, Stewart) says to Conchetia, "When you get what you want, you get what comes with it." That sentence struck me at the time, and has stuck with me for over 20 years now, as I see how many times "what comes with" what we want has high impact on our lives.

Dearest Readers:

Out there in the blogosphere, maybe there is someone who will like the poems I like or have written, like to hear about the people and places in my life, enjoy the songs that move my heart, share some of my view of the world and politics, and see the life of flowers and trees and birds and sunrises and sunsets that make up our life on an 80-acre farm in rural Minnesota. Either way, I'm going to give this modern form of connection a whirl for, as Garrison Keillor says, "We need to write, otherwise noboday will know who we are."