flashback friday

Flashback Friday

Hanson Family Portrait circa 1970

Front row: Anne, Jeff, Gwen, Jeni, Chris

Back row: Jackson, Matt, Shirley

One of the reasons that I love this photo is it illustrates what the following statement really means:  6 kids in 9 years. Chris was born in June 1960 and Matt in July 1969. My mother was alone with the six of us much of the time, and I can only say (with the benefit of hindsight) how grateful I am not only for everything she DID, but also for all the things she didn’t do — like lose her sanity (held on with her fingernails a few times!), take up child abuse, put us up for adoption when we got mouthy…

Happy Mother’s Day to the woman who taught my siblings, by example, how to be such great parents!

Flashback Friday

Happy Easter!

In this photo, my Mother attempts to corral the “originals”: Chris, Jeff, Gwen (back to camera), and me.  I’m in some world other than the one in which my picture is being taken! In fact, one of the things I love about this photo is that not a single one of us is paying any attention to my father as he attempts to take it. We are all in our Easter finery, Jeff looks especially dapper, but our attention spans are not boding well for Easter Mass, which I am certain is where we were headed!

Flashback Friday

Obviously, the 1980s. Christmas.

Left to right: My sister Annie, my cousin Sarah, me, my cousin Stephanie, my sister Gwen. The odd passerby in the background, my brother, Matt.

I’ve been thinking about the 80s quite a bit recently. For one, when Anne and I had dinner together on Saturday, she told me about her recent experience working on the Oprah “Rock Divas of the 80s” episode starring Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett and Sisters Sledge. Quite a line-up!

From both the hair and clothing, I can tell that this photo, taken in my parents’ home, was snapped during the latter half of the decade, when four of the Hanson siblings lived in Iowa City (for a brief time) at the same time. And yes, that is a cigarette in my hand — proof positive that it is possible to quit, since I would venture a guess that many of you didn’t know I was ever a smoker!

Flashback Friday

In this photo:  Jeff and Gwen

There were a couple of times each year all six children were dressed up and forced to pose for photos: Christmas and, as above, Easter.  Both Jeff and Wendy are dressed in their Easter finery (I am certain Wendy’s dress was made by my mother, Shirley). I know it is a holiday because, in addition to the clothes, Wendy’s hair has been pin-curled.  These details are all part of the charm of this photo for me. However, it must be clear to everyone looking at the picture, that the real reason I love it is the look of mutual adoration being shared between these two. Jeff is the protective and loving big brother to Wendy’s trusting little sister. Regardless of any changes their relationship may have undergone as the years passed, there can be no doubt that they loved each other!

Flashback Friday

Remember that fresh-scrubbed, pj’ed-up, ready for bed feeling? The three happy children above: Me, in the festive clown pajamas; Jeff, the pensive child in the middle attempting to figure out how his new toy works; Chris on the right with the dazzling smile.

The six children in our family have been divided into two groups for most of our lives: the big kids (above) and the little kids (Gwen, Anne, Matt). Never mind that the baby is over 40 now, we maintain the groupings as verbal shorthand. We were reminiscing a couple of years ago, and one of my parents, instead of calling the three oldest the “big kids”, accidentally called us “the originals”. You can imagine the uproar that caused!

On a completely different note, I still love getting ready for bed and putting on my jammies. Visiting a friend last fall, I went into the bathroom to wash up and change. When I came out, my friend said, “Don’t you look festive!”  I used that word to describe my childhood circus clown p.j.s, and I would like to note that its a great word for a three year old clown. In my current stage of life, let’s just say I’ve decided that particular pair of p.j.s will now be reserved for home, not travel!

Flashback Friday

On the stairs at St. Raphael’s Cathedral following my confirmation. This was the day we were to become “adults” in the eyes of the Church…didn’t look or feel very much like an adult! However, I am the only one in the photo maintaining the prayerful attitude we were instructed by Sister Irma Mary to present all the way out of the church.

Throughout my school years, I wore four different Catholic school uniforms, but this one was the best (way better than the red and gray plaid at St. Anthony’s)! Wool, all year. No pants, no shorts, no long-sleeved blouses – no matter what the weather or temp.

What does it say about me that, of these children I went through five years of school with, I remember the names of both boys in this photo but neither girl? The boy behind me was my nemesis in classroom competition (especially Iowa Tests of Basic Skills; our scores were posted in order from highest to lowest, with names, at the front of the room). The grinning one in front was a regular in our recess games of “Batman and Robin” (I was Bat Girl. Though I longed to be Cat Woman, we all knew I couldn’t pull it off!).

Flashback Friday

The other night, a friend told me that if he could go back in time, he would choose 1973. His reasons were good ones, so I offer my own riff on his reflections: that brief period of childhood just before you fully enter into the self-consciousness of adolescence, old enough to have some freedoms and young enough not to abuse them (much). So the flashback photo is Christmas, 1972 or 1973 – whichever the actual date, this is the time period I’ve been remembering fondly all week.

Left to right:

Back: Jeff, Gwen

Middle: Jenifer, Shirley, Jack, Chris

Little ones on laps: Matt, Anne

Flashback Friday

My mother says that, as a child, I could and did sleep anywhere. We would be shopping, for example, and my mother would stop to talk with someone. When ready to move along, she would turn to find me lying on the sidewalk, sound asleep. I have struggled a little with sleep this week, which leads me to feel nostalgic for moments like the one depicted above!

Dear Diary: A Response and Reflection

On his blog, “Somber and Dull”*, my friend Randy Greenwald has posted two articles on diaries/journal keeping.  In the second entry, Randy shares thoughts on whether personal diaries or journals can be considered accurate portrayals of the lives of their authors, given the pressures of writing for posterity or self-improvement.  He finishes with this reflection, “My own journal keeping occurs early, early in the morning, when sometimes my soul is as dark as the sky is outside. It’s not necessarily an accurate description of my whole view of life!”

In the past couple of weeks, I have been reading random diary or journal entries I’ve written over the past 30+ years, with the intent of sharing some along with my “Flashback Friday” photos. As I’ve read them, I’ve been struck by several thoughts. Most prevalent is the wish that I had written more detailed content.  Many entries are quite descriptive of my emotional response to specific events, but leave out any facts about the events themselves. At 15 or 25, I apparently believed that the daily occurrences that shook my world were all memorable enough that I would only need access to the momentary emotional condition to bring them back. I clearly had not reckoned with the effects of age and immoderate alcohol consumption in my late adolescence on long-term memory!

Second, as I have looked through the assorted spiral notebooks, bound blank books, and record keeping folios in which my journals are written, I have been struck by the repetitive nature of many of my reflections. It is humbling to realize how the particular challenges of my personality in relationship to the world have been ongoing and relatively unmediated by age, experience, wisdom. In her book, The Work of Craft: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Crafts and Craftsmanship, Carla Needleman says that she used to labor under the illusion that, once she learned something, it was hers forever. But that now she sees that the things worth knowing are difficult to grasp, and must be learned over and over again. (Sorry, I can’t put my hands not the exact quotation, so I’m paraphrasing from memory here.) My journals prove Needleman’s conclusion, by showing that I cycle through the same life issues, relearning the same insights. I like to think of it as an upward spiral, because I do inch along to greater understanding each time. But it is an incremental improvement.

The third thing I’ve discovered in rereading these notes is that I have no difficulty telling the difference between when I was writing from my heart and when I was striking a pose for the benefit of some “future reader”.  I have actually laughed aloud while reading some of my more pretentious entries.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I’ve stumbled upon while reading my journals, though, has been the compassion I feel for my younger, less mature, self. Life happens, and we do our best to stay a step ahead of the tidal wave. Sometimes, we manage pretty well. But at other times, we stumble and get wet as the wave rushes past. I had no clue how to stay out of the water. Writing in my journals has been one way I’ve tried to learn from my missteps. I have often said that I know when I haven’t been writing in my journal because I feel untethered. That the time to reflect is as necessary to my life as taking the time to eat…well, ok, maybe as necessary as taking the time to exercise. I can go days, even weeks, making excuses. But I don’t really feel well without it.

At this point in my life, I find my need to reflect in prose is greater than ever. I write this blog, and keep two journals: one for normal daily reflections, and one in which I write about a specific set of life issues with which I am wrestling. Like my friend, Randy, my tone changes to reflect the moment in which I am writing, and individual entries cannot always be trusted as a true reflection. However, taken as a whole, the disparate parts tell a coherent story of one woman’s life: mine.

*Check out Somber and Dull if you’re interested in a thoughtful, well-reasoned and well-read Christian perspective. The blog’s name is meant to be humorous, and does not reflect the site’s content!