Round Trip to Auschwitz

The train to Auschwitz left from Platform 4.

Peron 4. A sign pointed the way.


It had been a leisurely morning. A cheerful voice greeted me with a seven o'clock wake up call. I hit the snooze button twice, finally shambling off to a warm shower at seven thirty. The small hotel in the Kazimierz district of Krakow served a marvelous breakfast -- scrambled eggs, perfectly prepared, with chives and bacon, a warm croissant with sweet Danish butter, crisp fresh pineapple, orange and grapefruit, salad (Europeans always need some sort of salad for breakfast), a bit of brie, a chilled glass of freshly squeezed pulpy orange juice exactly as I like it, and perfectly brewed rich black coffee.

I took a direct route to the train station, stopping only at a Bank-o-Mat -- in this case a German bank -- for yet more zloty, and dodged the occasional car heading up onto the sidewalk, where parking is customary. The street was torn up as new tram lines are being laid down but that has nothing to do with why cars are on the sidewalk. Cars are always on the sidewalk in Poland. The narrow streets leave no other choice for parking.

I strolled on, happening upon shop owners cranking out their awnings and sweeping the stoop, readying to open for the day. I passed students hurrying back from a quick trip home to the villages, barely in time for a new week of classes at Jagellonian University, one of the very first chartered universities in Europe. These students dragged suitcases, lugged awkwardly heavy backpacks. I followed a smartly dressed businesswoman of my own age, who knew exactly the most efficient way to navigate the maze of paths and obstacles through construction zones, one way streets, and tunnels. We bridged a ten-foot-deep trench on a sturdy plank and stepped around the worker in his royal blue and, so far, neatly pressed overalls. He was laboring to level ground for new paving stones.

The sky was clear blue with only a faint hint of the early morning haze, dew rising from the rolling fields just beyond the city. The sooty dank coal smell that I remembered from visits in the 1980's was conspicuously absent. It felt fresh and new and good to be about.

I arrived at the railway station with twenty minutes to spare. I bought a round trip ticket to Auschwitz/Oswiecim for 22 zloty. Coke Zero cost 3.5.

The train left precisely on time, at nine fifteen, as Polish trains do. We stopped at the Krakow Business Park, a skyline of red and yellow cranes putting up a score of modern office buildings to join the gleaming multi-storied corporate offices already there.

I believed I'd found a forward facing seat in the front car of the train, my choice. But when the train began moving, my mistake was obvious. I was in the last car. Looking back.

Did my unconscious will out after all?

No matter, I moved forward at the first stop and found a comfortable place across the aisle from two young women speaking in their animated, cheery French about friends, travel and ordinary things, about life. (I love eavesdropping.) The older man facing me read a succession of periodicals, a daily tabloid newspaper, a more serious newspaper, a magazine about Formula One car racing, and finally another lightweight weekly. His briefcase sat on the vinyl seat next to him. He got up, then checked the time on his cell phone several times, apparently anxious to get to an appointment on time. His grey tweed sport coat, stylish striped shirt and smart tie put me in mind of an architect. His glasses were new and of the very latest and highest fashion and his serious mien seem ill-suited to his choice of reading material. Of course, I never did figure him out. A journalist, maybe? Nah. Who knows.

Another, younger man in the last row of our car looked like one of Sarah Palin's 'Joe Six Pack' fixtures. He spent his time with a book of crossword puzzles, or else staring out the window, his arm resting on a small, brown canvas duffle bag.

The countryside from Krakow to Auschwitz ranges from gently to bigger, then big rolling hills, from woods and forest to patches of farmland, some villages and small towns. We passed through Dulowa, a sprawling village of two-story stucco houses, set at the base of a small hill surrounded by woods. A modern church, built to resemble the prow of a ship rose from the midde of nowhere, between this village and the next one.

Homemakers were out, taking advantage of a warm dry spell, hanging laundry to dry, digging around in gardens. It was wash day in Galicia: brightly colored blouses and skirts hung like flags and waved freely in the pleasant breeze.

We passed through Trzebinia, the biggest town on the route. A power plant with a tall red and white tower rose like a lighthouse. A railworker stood in the weeds of the trainyard, curly blond hair tossing rings around her face, talking on a cellphone. Several people got off in Trzebinia. A few others got on. The railworker was still on the phone.

Autumn was in its waning moments. Leaves turning from gold to brown, falling, drifting, like lilting notes of a completed season, or sonata. The trees looked bleached out and tired. The willows drooping, pulled down by the weight of life. Beech trees, cottonwood, all spent.

The man across from me checks the time evermore frequently. Pulls out a presentation folder. A printed document. Is it a lecture? A business proposal? His phone rings. He seems relieved to have made contact.

Ten eighteen. We stop in Chrznew.

The man is restless. He pulls out a well-worn gold appointment notebook, very old-fashioned. Then his wallet. Then he reviews all the documents contained therein.

Getting close.

We are now surrounded by woods. A few fir or pine, I can't quite tell which. We go under a bridge being constructed as an overpass for local cars. Life must be picking up around here. The train bed becomes rockier, then so much so I have to stop writing. The train bed is sitting up fifty feet above the forest floor. I'm a little freaked out.

Did everyone brought to KL Auschwitz arrive by train? On these tracks? Didn't I read that the first, Polish political prisoners arrived by truck transport?

There are freshly painted gray coal cars sitting, empty, on a siding.

The French girls who were laughing earlier have become more serious. The man combs his hair. Again. A few minutes later he does the spit and polish on his hair, using the cell phone's face as a mirror. Now he's checking the packages in the big Bass (brand) bag he has alongside.

Clutching both bags. We're not late. Why the restlessness? Is he coming to be interrogated? Tested?

Or is he on a pilgrimage too?

We pass a lovely large yard with rich green grass, an ornamental windmill, trees heavy with fruit, a small orchard of trees well-pruned. A big house is nearby, still under construction, the roof beams exposed.

The man across from me finds and checks another wallet but he doesn't seem frantic, searching for some lost item, just perusing. He checks a credit card or two, then reviews some business cards.

He reminds me of myself on some of the business trips I used to take, fumbling out of nervousness, low-level anxiety, boredom, eagerness to get on with it. I think ADD or something like it.

Now I see that all of the trees are completely washed out. Nature is past its peak. Even the pines look faded, bleached, tired of holding on.

But here and there, a brilliant red or gold band of trees stand out among the barren. Occasionally, the silvery trunks of birch gleam in the sun, which has been playing hide and seek all morning. We move along very slowly, bumping over the rocky train bed.

A French girl yawns. The other one, with darker hair, is quite quiet, pensive.

The man checks his watch again. And fidgets with his pockets, pulls out a slim red lighter. And a cigarette.

Forest on either side of us now. I think, it would be easy to hide in that forest, even now, with all its dense undergrowth.

We approach another tall smoke stack, painted red and white, another lighthouse. Full coal cars sit on the siding.

It is ten forty. We have stopped just short of, in sight of the Oswiecim/Auschwitz station.

We will arrive on time.

The girls take out packets of candy and each have one, their talk now strangled in the chocolate. They chew heavily, their jaws working like presses on the sticky candy.

We speed the last few kilometers, rocking rather wildly from side to side. A fringe of red oak lines the edge of a clearing. A large corn field extends beyond the woods into the distance.

More houses, small plots, typical edge of town. A big yellow Caterpillar sits on the next track, obviously rebuilding it, laying down steel rails. Whose equipment was it that helped the Nazis build the extra rail lines they required to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau?

Now we are wobbling across a bridge that spans what reminds me of a northern Colorado irrigation ditch, like the one where my father learned to swim and carouse with his cousins. We pass old, faded red brick, two-story square houses. They all have satellite dishes installed on their sides. There are newer stucco houses too, even a lime green one. They have satellite dishes too.

And we're here. Auschwitz/Oswiecim.

We're late.

I wonder, did that happen a lot?




My trip by train to Auschwitz.

Does anyone do this and not think. Not think about what was. About what was then. Was horrific. Terrifying. Brutal. Inhuman, inhumane.

How did a simple banal train trip become, in time, at one time, evil?




The last train back to Krakow today leaves at 19:17. I don't want to miss it. I take a photo of the schedule so I don't get mixed up. I get to go home. Today.

Blue Numbers and White Lace

The tablecloth was lace. The candles were lit.

Sunday dinners at this family’s table were times for playful political bantering, and for poignant history lessons. Parents, children, different views, differing priorities, common values. I was glad to share dinner with my friend and his family.

I struggled to understand the meaning of swishing Polish consonants sweeping past, all sz's and cz's and dz's --- chshjenchtz (not a real word but a lovely sound that whooshed by time and again). Much of the conversation was lost in translation but I got the message.

One a bright,warm Sunday in June, we shared soup -- borscht -- and pork with apples, fresh bread and butter, a variety of garnishes and specialities, and a green vegetable that I assure you was not cabbage.

I don't remember all of that, I know it only because I wrote it down. But this I do remember. Can see even now.

The deep indigo numbers imprinted on his father’s forearm. A strong arm resting on white lace. He had passed me a bowl of salad, this middle-aged Polish man, and set his arm on the table between us. Numbers. What I remember now is how the typeface was so dark, distinct, easy to read. Tattooed, burned into his skin. His identification mark. From Auschwitz.

I never had the nerve to ask him directly but I did ask his son, “does he still think about it? Talk about it? Often?” “Sometimes, not very often. And not very much,” Christopher said quietly. “There are some things he cannot talk about.”

I had no idea that ethnic Poles had been sent to Auschwitz, for the crime of being Polish. This man had fought the Nazis in the forests of Poland, from encampments that were crude and barely fortified. His father had been shot in front of his eyes; as a 14-year-old boy, he witnessed the murder of his father by Nazi soldiers. As a teen-ager he fought to sabotage and undermine the crushing Nazi occupation of his country.

And he was caught. "He didn't have a gun in his possession at that moment, else he would have been shot on the spot." But he was sent to Auschwitz.

65 years ago today, Soviet soldiers liberated the biggest concentration camp in the entire Nazi system. They arrived early on a bitter, snowy morning and found dozens dead, but, miraculously, dozens alive, huddled together, hidden under haybeds, hidden even amongst corpses. 1.1 million humans were murdered on those grounds alone -- Auschwitz-Birkenau, most but not all of them Jews. But some had survived.

Including the man who passed me the salad.

Thousands of Auschwitz survivors had been force-marched in the previous weeks westward to Buchenwald and other Nazi camps. Of that number hundreds died along the way. Jews, Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and others.

The Holocaust stands as a singular event in human history. We have done dastardly, terrible things through the centuries. Even in that same last one. But, the systemmatic, scientifically organized murder, the intent to exterminate an entire race of people, the dehumanization of millions, the efficiency of the killing -- unimaginable horror -- of the Holocaust haunts us all and reminds us of the slim cord between control and tyranny. We are vulnerable to our own worst inclinations, our own worst instincts. The Holocaust reminds us of the requirements of vigiliance, and generosity, of the dangers of arrogance and, at the other end of the spectrum, and often at the same time, of fear and paranoia.

On this day, sixty-five years ago, the biggest death camp was torn open. The children who survived as skeletal heirs of an entire culture walked, or were carried out of the barracks and given over to the gracious care of the soldiers who liberated them, entrusted to the care of local Polish families, and nursed back to life. Young men like my friend's father, staggered through the snow to begin their journeys home. And the world was forced to stop ignoring the Nazi killing machines.


I've been to Auschwitz-Birkenau on two occasions. Both of them, life-changing experiences. It is eerie. It is harrowing. It is a moral "in your face" to all of us, all of us.

I've included some photos from a recent visit, photos that I could not bear to view myself for some months afterward. Yet these photos do nothing to truly convey the gravitas of the horror.

The true witness to the Holocaust, to the death camps, is best found in the stutter of the survivors, the haunted look in their eyes, the nerve damage that was permanent. The empty shtetls, the stolen art and stolen homes, and stolen lives. The cost of the Holocaust, among Jews and other victims, including ethnic Poles, is all too apparent in the next generation, as the children of survivors have paid a price for their parents' trauma.

But there is another witness that has come from this grim moment in history. The witness of human resiliency, of grace, generosity, work, dignity, and love.

At that dinner table, the strong arm that still bore a tattoo was also the strong arm that raised up a new generation, rebuilt and built new, carried and created a new society, albeit derailed for forty years by the lie of the imposed workers' paradise.

Strong arms. Blue numbers or not. Strong arms on white lace.

I figured it out!

I did.

I figured it out. What Poland really needs is my dad's cousin Bill.

Or The Judge. Justice Erickson.

Poland needs Judge Erickson, Bill, in its back pocket.

My father's cousin, Justice William H. Erickson, died last week and I've been reflecting long and gratefully about his life, his firecracker personality, his deep and abiding commitment to justice, and his faithful loyalty to what is right.

And I've been gratefully thinking about his kindnesses to his family.

At the Memorial Service today there was some conversation about nomenclature. Some of his former law clerks can't think of calling him anything but Judge Erickson, or even The Judge. He was on the Colorado Supreme Court for 25 years and was the Chief Justice for part of that period. So some colleagues can't but call him Justice Erickson.

To me, he was Bill.

In the past few years we had been working together on some family history (see above, Sex With Kings) and he told me stories that had as much to do with the practice of law and his own father's stealing apples from William Jennings Bryan's apple tree and the great legal cases of the century as with our own Erickson clan. It was a lot of fun. And we even managed to get a product completed!

But my most grateful memory of Bill was the morning he sat in my living room and respectfully invited me to rehearse the sordid, disgusting history of my experiences at the church here in Littleton, the experiences that resulted in my becoming badly injured and leaving, experiences that are simply evil. There's no other word for it.

I was still at the point of not quite being able to believe it myself. "Things like this don't really happen, do they? People don't do these things, do they? Am I making it all up?"

He listened patiently. And he nodded and validated every single experience I described. He'd heard it all before. He knew it was possible. I didn't say anything that shocked him -- except insofar as it happened to me. He was disgusted and angry.

And that meant the world to me.

When outrageous things happen to us, especially when they seem to come right out of left field, unexpectedly, from sources we didn't think could be capable of such hideous crap, we don't believe it. We doubt ourselves.

When injustice occurs, when we are trampled, when we're blindsided by hatred and fear and incompetence, we often feel that we're misreading the situation. But we know we didn't. We have transcripts. We have data. We have witnesses. But still, we don't quite believe it.

It is so urgently important in such a case to have a person of credibility and authority who can sit and say, "Yes, this happened. You're not crazy. You read it correctly. You did everything you could. You don't deserve this, you are better than this."

Bill wasn't quite as vigorous as my friend, Christopher, whose reaction was, "Where do they live? Where can I find them? I'm gonna beat the hell out of that man." I loved it.

Bill was an expert on the law and the law doesn't smile on taking matters into one's own hands.

But he respected me. Given the complex law governing Church/State issues, we decided not to launch a civil suit. He would have been there for me had it been appropriate. Had it been any other profession I was in, it would have been a slam dunk. Knowing that was empowering. Knowing he knew that, believed it, was empowering and terribly heart-warming.

Being validated, respected, believed, affirmed is a critical part of the healing process. Justice Erickson, Bill, did that for me.


As Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, he wrote the opinion in 1993 that found the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado liable with respect to a civil suit filed by a victim of clergy sexual abuse and awarded a few million dollars to her in damages. That opinion shocked and scared the shit out of church officials who realized for the first time that they would be held accountable for passing along to other parishes the clergy they knew to have been sexually involved with parishioners.

I loved it! And it was the landmark case that caught the attention of church leaders overall and helped to change the dynamics so that most Protestant churches now have policies that are respectful of victims and have a bias toward preventing abuse rather than covering it up. Sadly, that message didn't get through to all leaders --- ask me! --- but, hey, we're working at it.

How odd, from very different professional positions and responsibililties, Judge Erickson and his cousin's daughter collaborated on moving this along. How cool is that! At the time I was the ELCA's churchwide point person for responding, and teaching bishops, to respond to clergy sexual abuse. Chief Justice Erickson and the Colorado Supreme Court did part of my work for me.

So, Bill, thank you. For the character and inspiration you've provided over the years, to me, to hundreds of others, for the kind and generous spirit you shared, for being an advocate of justice. And thank you for that morning when you asked and I answered and you listened and I finally began to take it in.


Poland -- back to Poland -- is still waiting for the world to validate their WWII experience, all they suffered, how valiantly they resisted and fought, and for someone with the same relative authority and credibility in that arena that Bill offered to me in mine.

Poland still needs to be loved, respected, believed and acknowledged for what happened to them. Maybe in my own modest way, I'm using this blog to do for the Polish people what Bill did for me.

Listen up!

It's a wonder

It is a wonder she hasn't done this before.

Kaia is doing the major clean. As in clean out her room in preparation of giving it up rather sooner than later.

The books will stay, of course, and the trophies and the goofy little troll with purple hair and a jewel in its belly that Annika "gave" her on the day Annika was born, a Happy Big Sister present.

Her very first beanie baby, Rover, and her favorite one, Bones, the dog with floppy ears, and a bear with a knitted sweater with a red heart on its chest, and the eagle she got to go with her high school basketball team, and the Mickey Mouse she got at Disneyland are staying, along with other favorite stuffed animals, on top of the bookcases, along with the silver Peter Rabbit bank and the wooden race car she made in Shop class in 8th grade. Her guitar and hockey stick are staying, and some basketball and soccer jerseys and a few favorite tee shirts from 3rd grade basketball. She has decided to keep her shin guards, but in a cabinet, not on display. I convinced her to keep her Junior High Yearbooks. And we just looked at the packets of photos she took on her 5th grade outdoor education trip, her 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C., and her summers at camp. Those go in the scrapbook box.

It will be her room, still, when she comes home but it is going to be less her room when she's gone.

When will she be home? We've been so lucky. She's spent all three summers of college living here and teaching nearby. And she's been home for a good five or six weeks every winter. And at Thanksgiving, Easter, Spring vacations.

This feels big. She's not exactly moving out but it feels for sure like she is moving on. She may or, more likely, may not move back here after she graduates from Macalester in May. It feels like the end of something important.

So, like a mush, I sit here -- as she organizes and puts folders in boxes and folds clothes to give to Goodwill -- and cry.

I am not at home with this. It went too fast. Did I miss something? Could we have a few do-overs? Not because they were wrong but because they were so right, so very right.

None of the rest of you ever felt this way, I'm sure. I'm the only one. Harhar.

We let go in stages, in inches. Since the day she was born, I've been holding on and letting go. And, as I wrote the other day, even saying, "GO!" I raised her for this. I raised her to pack up and move on. To find her place in a wider world. And she is succeeding, wildly, at that. She's ready!

But maybe we could get out the Beanie Babies and play one more time before she goes.

Don't hold your breath

Be careful what you teach your children. When we parents offer our children up to the world, to serve, to give, to go, to heal and teach and dig wells and make justice, we'd damn well be clear about what we are doing. We are giving them up. A "brilliant light" and vibrant life has been taken away from this life. He died along with the poorest of the poor, the desparate, precious people of Haiti. A young man whose mother and father taught him to love and risk and sacrifice has paid the ultimate price for his commitment. Ben Larson is lost within the rubble of a building in PAP where he had gone to teach. His life is lost to us, to his wife, to his friends and family, including his siblings and his parents, April Ulring Larson and Judd Larson. I know his mother. And I confess, it's April for whom my heart is breaking most of all. She is a great mom. She brought up her kids to love God, to give and give and give. And so they did. Be careful what you do, moms. Be careful what you do, dads. You give your children to the world and it doesn't always spare them. My daughter spent several weeks in L'Aquila, Italy a few years before the earthquake there. She was there to serve. When the earthquake struck, she was in an unreachable village in rural South Africa. She was there to learn, to serve. It was an unnerving reminder that we send our kids out into the world, honoring their commitments to justice and healing, and we are not in control. Of course, of course, we're not in control anyway, anywhere. And who expects an earthquake in Haiti, of all places? A big one? I'm probably too rattled and too overcome with sadness tonight to make this make sense. But really, I think, the point is this. We share our children, we share one another with the whole world. They do not belong to us. We nurture and guide them along, we encourage and succor them. And, if we're like the parents who are grieving tonight in Duluth, we enourage these risky behaviors, for the sake of the world. It's a good thing. Yes, it is. It is a good thing. To share our lives, our children, our gifts with the world. It can be dangerous. It can be deadly. But it is right. I never knew how much my mom worried about my bouncing off to the Soviet Union all the time when I was a young adult, until the last year of her life when she gave me her journal to read. She was a nervous wreck. But she never told me not to go. I'm grateful for being given up, to the world, to serve a larger purpose, a larger community, a higher good. And I do the same with my own two girls. Send them off, send them out. To change the world, to take risks and perhaps live dangerously. For the sake of love. It's not something to be taken lightly. And now, as the scenes of wrecked and ruined buildings and broken bodies fill the screens, stories of devastation and loss, of grief and unspeakable horror, we are overcome with sadness for every human life that has been lost and torn apart. And I am especially holding April in my heart, another mother who told her kid, "Go!" and he did. Peace to her, to Judd, to the rest of their family, and to all who mourn. Life comes from death. Every time. One way or another. Every time. Life comes from death. And it will now, too. It will.

First we admire them, then we eat them

Denver has an extra season. It's called Stock Show weather. From the beginning of time the frigid icy weeks in January when the National Western Stock Show is going on have been designated as wweather weeks from hell. There are nights when the Nine News forecasters simply tell us, "well, it's Stock Show weather." And we know what they mean. Dreary gray overcast, bitter winds and zero temperatures. Enough said. It is Stock Show time and I am all about cows. Or, rather, cattle. And horses. You will not believe how many breeds of cattle are out in the fields, and pens, these days. Limousin and Red Angus, Simmental, and the up and coming Gelbiveh. And Lowline and Maine-Anjou and South Devon and Tarentaise. Our Estonian Intourist guide told us years ago that, "here in Estonia we have two breeds of cows: the black ones and the brown and white ones." I remember those days two: Herefords and Angus. And, for exotica, Charolais. There are a few magical memories mixed in with the mundane from childhood and many of mine involve trips to the Stock Show with my dad. I miss him. I miss him telling me for the umpteenth time about how to 'get ahead' of the steer and get it roped and penned. I miss his funny story about his "Catch It Calf" contest win when he was 16. My kids have now heard them umpteen times from me but I tell them anyway. The idea is, you're a kid in a big arena with a bunch of other kids, and they open the chutes and turn loose a herd of cattle. With their bare hands, the kids struggle to catch and wrestle a calf to submission. There is an art to this. And a science. And grit, strength, and a bit of luck. In my dad's case, grit played a larger part. He caught a calf. Quickly. He turned its head to the side and wrestled it to the ground. He held it for 18 of the requisite seconds required. But it fought him like a mad cow. And wriggled and twisted and almost got away. My dad caught it again --- by the tail. And my dad held on, please do picture this! for three rounds around the dusty arena, the calf running, straining, pulling my dad on his butt, cowboy boots dug into the dirt, being dragged around in circles again and again and again by this recalcitrant beast. And on each pass, dad pulled himself up a little more, edging over the hind end of the calf until, finally, he got his arms wrapped around it again, wrestled it down, and held it for all 20 seconds this time. The crowd whooped and hollered, cheering for him -- not the animal -- and when he finally had it, they went nuts! His picture made the bigtime newspaper with a quirky headline that I've forgot, like "Lucerne 4-H'er hangs on for the ride of his life." His jeans were worn clear through the bottom. And he was sore. But he'd won his calf. And raised it for the next year, tending it every single day, feeding, brushing, training it for the show ring. He loved that calf. And then it was Stock Show time again. He brought a half-ton steer back to show, won a prize, sold it, and gave it up. Somebody had some mighty fine pot roasts and brisket that year. We admire them, then we eat them. Being at the Stock Show does a number on your omnivorous inclinations. I sat in the arena watching gorgeous Angus yearlings being admired and judged from quite literally every angle. Enjoyed seeing the boys I'd met earlier in the morning, as they scrubbed and vacuumed and brushed and shaved their animals and got them all ready to show, using a special prodding stick to hold their legs just so, take the blue ribbons in their class. Their steers were damn weird looking. A newer breed called Gelbiveh. See photos. I read later that one of its best features is "biggest scrotal circumference." I don't think I've ever been to an event before where that came up. Besides these cattle, the arena was crowded with black angus and red angus and cows that, I must say, were really beautiful. You get up close, you look in their big black cow eyes, and you feel their sweet soft fur (hides, okay). And then you head into the Cattlemen's Grill and eat them. Or not them, but their daughters and sons. I had brisket. Where else but the Stock Show would you count on getting the best prime beef you've ever eaten. Amazing. Lean, and very tasty. What a weird world. The Omnivore's Dilemma, indeed. This is not exactly my daddy's Stock Show anymore. "World's Best Semen" signs fought for my attention as I walked through the cattle barns. The emphasis is on breeding. The cattle are shown for the sake of establishing breeding lines, of selling 'product.' Most of these cattle will not be sold for food, not yet, but for stud, or breeding. It doesn't feel quite so warm and cuddly as it did when I was a child. But I will walk up and down every aisle, ponder every bovine beast, marvel at the variety and the abundance of creatures that share the planet. Then, it's time for horses, ranch horse riding, steer roping, cattle cutting and penning, range riding. I could watch horses gallop all day. Um, come to think of it, I did. And go back for more.

iGap

My daughter spoke to a friend on the phone. This, please be clear, is news. Had it been the 22-year-old talking on the phone, I'd be surprised but not shocked. But this was the 17-year-old. Talking on the phone. To only one person. At a time. Granted, now, it was simply to clarify directions that had become too complex to explain via text messaging or Googlemap. But still. She talked. On the phone. To a friend. I noticed the emerging iGap three years ago. Older daughter chatted on the phone with friends, deciding on plans, arranging a meeting place, the usual back and forth: where do you want to go? what time? but maybe we'd prefer to.... At the same time, her younger sister, by only four years and a few months, not even a meaningful fraction of a generation gap in years past, had stopped talking on the phone altogether. Gone were the delightful specialized ring-tones that each of her favorite friends had created, "Pick up the phone, pick up the phone! Annika, this is Hanna, pick up the phone, pick up the phone!" I even got one, "This is your mother. You need to talk to me. Now." It was great fun! We haven't heard one of those ring tones in years. When Annika and I made our first trip together to NYC in 2008, she spent more time texting her friends than interacting with me. "I'm on 5th Avenue," "I'm at Michael Kors," "I'm on the Staten Island Ferry." And she was kept up on all the local gossip; she had might as well have been right there at the pool herself every afternoon. She was absolutely, entirely, virtually in two places at one time. When Kaia and I made our first trip together to NYC in 2005, the only time her phone came out of her pocket was once or twice -- to call me to check on a meeting time and place. When Kaia was admitted to college, in the spring of 2006, Facebook was a brand new phenomenon. To think, kids going to the same college could begin to connect before they got there. How cute. How clever. Sometime during that summer, she and her classmates began finding Facebook -- and what a different Facebook it was then. It felt exclusive, you could join your university's network and that seemed just about all there was. When Annika received her Early Decision admittance to NYU a few weeks ago, the first thing she did -- after hugging us and screaming for a full five minutes -- was text all her friends. It was viral within half an hour. At one point she had 28 new text messages. The second thing she did was look online and sure enough, there were already two new Facebook groups for early admits to NYU Class of 2014. Thanks to technology, she now 'knows' future classmates from around the globe, including two she's met, from Vail and the Ranch, just down the road. They are 'talking' constantly about the relative merit of various dorms, scanning virtual floorplans, and choosing roommates. They text constantly. And it is simply a part of their social arrangement that it's okay to be texting others while with some. They multi-task, she does, anyway, perhaps 16 things at a time. I'm doing good if I can listen to classical music and concentrate on writing this. The NYTimes comments on this change, this quickening in the technological gap, today, citing a forthcoming book by Larry Rosen, calling children born in the 80's, now in their 20's, the Net Generation, and those born in the 90's, still teens, the iGeneration. I confess, I sure like these monikers better than the Gen X and Gen Y that has been used in the past. So, the NetGen and the iGen. I buy it. But that gap is closing fast. As older young-adults get hold of iPhones and other new generation technology, sometimes out of fairness, before their younger siblings, they are quickly changing from tone to text. I see Kaia texting far more now than she used to. And with an iPhone, her adaptability to new applications is remarkable. I have 12 extra apps on my iPhone. She has about 30. She too is multi-tasking, maybe eight things, at a time. The other night at dinner, she whipped out her iPhone seven times to collect info from the 'net about matters ranging from sheep (!) to geophysics, to NY style pizza. I smugly proved that Hayden Colorado was where I thought it was, way out northwest, by googling it and pulling up the map. And history. I have to say, it does tend to keep us from running out of things to talk about. Remember when complaining about the remote -- and surfing channels was new. So last century. We want information, and we want it now. And we get it. Now. No waiting. Dr. Rosen wonders what impact this will have. I think I have some idea. Already, we are more and more impatient, expecting data, contact, change to occur immediately. Think about -- whatever you think politically -- the evaluation of Obama's first year in office. The 'war on terror' is not won: Fail. The economic catastrophe he inherited is not fixed: Fail. A new health care plan is not in effect: Fail. Are we serious? Do we really expect that much that fast? We do if we are living according to the iWorld, where everybody is instantly accessible, I read the NYTimes this morning in bed from my iPhone (not even my laptop), and send out an instant commentary before I'm done with my second cup of coffee (still in bed). We expect instant change when we live in a world where we can touch Yemen and Tadzhikistan and the latest images from the Hubble all in three minutes. I remember taking a business class about 15 years ago -- geez, where did that time go? -- where it was news -- new news -- that technology was turning over so quickly that generations of technology were new every few months. That trend is unending. My exercise routine is now an iApp, my weight loss program is LoseIt, I read the latest Sara Paretsky on my iKindle and before today is up, I will have read at least four newspapers from around the world, including my beloved NYTimes Weddings stories (thank you, Calvin Trillin) on my iPhone. I'll take a photo or two, record a few notes for the novel on the voice memo and do the "old fashioned" thing, write a few memos on the iPhone's legal pad. I can check the scores -- like I care! -- of playoff games, and listen to an NPR podcast. I'll check Facebook, update my status via Twitter, and send a few text messages. It is not likely that I'll talk on the phone. I too now prefer texting to talking. In the past week, I've sent 62 text messages, including some to my family in other rooms of the house, and have spoken on my phone five times. I've sent and received hundreds of emails and well, I wonder if, for some of us geezers, the iGap is closing. I'm in the process of buying a car and plan to do it -- all except the test drives --online. Even the financing. It is unlikely I'm telling you anything you don't already know, and do. But the point that strikes me this morning is that we're going to have to keep our expectations out of line with our capacities for communications. There is this uncontrolled variable. I think it's called human nature. And as long as that is in play, it will take longer than a year to enact comprehensive health care reform, win the war against terrorism, convince Wall Street banks to end the practice of usury, and put an end to stupidity on television. In the meantime, I've got to go. Annika is awake and I need to text her to find out what her plans are for the day.

Sex With Kings

I am so bummed. I went back to the bookstore today to get the book, "Sex With Kings" but it was gone. Somebody else bought it out from right under my nose. Is someone else around here illegitimate? Yes, it would seem that my great-great great-great grandmother had sex with a king. Half of the family is so pious they are scandalized. The other half is amused. I made myself an honorary member of the other side, the happy side, a long time ago. (Does this have anything to do with "sad Danes" and "happy Danes?") I'm playing with this notion in a work of fiction and decided it was decidedly more delightful to ponder on this Friday night than the material I'd been slogging through earlier, the shit at the church. So, don't mess with me. Don't mess with me indeed. I'm a (great great great great grand) daughter of the King. And in case you wonder why I don't look Swedish, it's because I'm partly French. No, not a French King. The Swedish Kings are French. Go figure. So. The good news of my heritage is that I have, on the one hand, a half acre of swamp land in northern Sweden, currently on permanent loan to the Swedish Defense Department for its defensive missiles. And, on the other hand, I need a tiara. Happy weekend! And if you got that book today, can I borrow it? I'm kind of curious.

The long way around

That is what's required. Taking the long way around. I am well known for taking the scenic route. Whether the trip is five miles or fifteen thousand, I am going to find the scenic route and take that. When I moved to New Jersey from Chicago, it was by way of southern Ohio and West Virginia. When classmates at Princeton finished their graduate degrees in three years, I was taking the long way around. I completed all of my professional requirements in 1983. They had been long done, in 1979. But I took the scenic route, with studies in Poland and a trip to Moscow thrown in. Mary Daly, an astonishingly brave and brilliant Catholic theologian just died but she sent me on a trek the long way around thirty-four years ago, changing my name, moving out of the mainstream, and, to my endless delight, earning me a special trip to the dean's office "because you are over-identified with masculinity." What that revealed was the quaint and well-worn trip over the same old road that apparently most women were still making, while I was seeking to work in a traditionally male field and dared to acknowledge my assertive and leadership proclivities. Proclivities. To leadership. My sweet lord. Mary Daly, peace to your soul. And thank you for sending me out into the wild lands. Epiphany is all about taking the long way around. This event, this holiday and feast day in the Christian church, is about the Magi, the Wise Men, who showed up late at the manger and got warned that King Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus. He assumed they would stop by and tell him where this baby King was. But they didn't. They took another way home. They went home by another way. They took the long way around. And so it goes. And so it goes. I just read another book about healing after great trauma and injustice. The author says, "get active, get busy, get even." I like the exhorting to busyness, to activity, but I'm still not about getting even. I'm getting odd. The long way around. I'm gonna go 'home' by another way.