Water stories: Part 1

They say blood is thicker than water, but I say watery bonds can wash in and refresh you when you least expect them, and that counts for something.

For this week, let’s swim back together to 2022, to our first summer in our new home.

If our slough of a swimming hole—er, pool—had been a real person that year, you might say we cajoled it for weeks to behave and please pull it together asap, okay? for Dicka’s high school grad party in early June. Prayers and pleas splashed together in my swirling thoughts, but we couldn’t get the situation sorted out in time for the partygoers to swim. I smiled anyway, hoping our tropical theme with inflatable palm trees, plastic leis, pulled pork on Hawaiian buns, and pineapple upside-down cake would distract from the swamp in the center of our back yard, but I’ll never know.

Weeks later, we learned things about our personal bog, and those things pushed us to hire Dolf, the electrician, to rewire the shed to power the pump to filter the pool to bring us near perfect swimming adventures. But as August drained away that year, so did our pool water because of the vinyl liner growing a wider and wider gash near one of the jets.

In July’s sweet middle, though—after Dolf and before The Leak—we dried off from our daily dip one day to go to a picnic next door. It was a small gathering of ten of us neighbors, and it was there we met Beatrice and Wilson.

We humans are an inquisitive lot. We want to know the reason a person died when an obituary won’t say it, what an infant’s legs look like under all that swaddling, the ages and salaries of those around us, and how a stranger decorates the inside of her house. But we can’t ask to know or see these things (and more) because our culture says we shouldn’t.

Before our ownership, our home was the talk of the cul-de-sac. As the story goes, the house was a gutted work-in-progress that didn’t really progress, and at least five years ticked away with not much to show for them. We came on the scene with our purchase agreement in 2020, though, and renovations clicked one notch faster. Meanwhile, the neighbors watched, waited, hoped, and worried. Trucks and trailers had blocked their mailboxes and lives for years. And then it all went away—except for their questions—when we arrived, humping our boxes through the front door in early 2022.

After we tucked away our burgers and salads that day of the picnic, I sensed all the questions our new neighbors had but couldn't ask and assuaged their curiosity with an invitation to walk through our place. For years, they had only seen the undone outside and seemed eager to peek around on the finally completed inside. They had put in their time of wondering and now deserved a little wandering (on our property.) I waved six of them around the interior of our house, and then our tour spilled into the back yard.

We regaled them with pool stories, grim tales of what had once been.

“Come over to swim anytime,” Husband said at the end.

“Oh, really,” one of the neighbors said with a smile and nod, but I don't think she believed us.

“We mean it,” I said, hoping to convince.

“Oh, really?” Beatrice and Wilson said. They smiled and nodded too, and they believed us.

Embracing our open invitation, Beatrice and Wilson swam through the remainder of the 2022 swim season and joined us for the next summer too. If we weren’t home on their swim days, we’d return to fresh garden veggies or clippings of herbs on our patio table—little gifts they left behind to refresh us.

One day, Husband and I swam with Beatrice and Wilson, but during our time together, the sun hustled off to somewhere better. Maybe it eyed the same charcoal skies we did, the same raindrops that soon pricked the surface of the water.

And then came the downpour. No lightning, just rain—heavy rain. The torrent drenched our upper bodies as much as the pool water soaked our submerged halves. Should we stay in or get out?

“I'm sure it'll let up soon,” I said, but it didn’t let up soon.

“It’ll pass over any minute,” Wilson said, but it didn’t pass over any minute.

“It’s gotta clear up any time now,” Beatrice said, but it didn’t clear up any time now.

“Looks like a little patch of sun coming,” Husband said, but a little patch of sun wasn’t coming.

And for forty-five minutes, we laughed over the waters, we talked above the deluge, we wiped the blinding rain from our eyes, and we outwaited the cloudburst.

A snapshot of our swimming pool made it into Beatrice and Wilson’s 2023 Christmas card, garnering a mention in their accompanying newsletter. That once dilapidated hole, now noteworthy neighbor, kept sloshing reminders of its existence into the snowy months.

And summer would come again.

*****

Come back next week for Water stories: Part 2—more pool times with Beatrice and Wilson, a visit from Poseidon, and a ship that didn't sink.

Left to right: Wilson, me, Husband, and Beatrice

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Healing

Month after month, I push through list after list. The day job bleeds into the second job. Activity blocks in different colors fill every minute in my Outlook work calendar. Full work weeks flow into fuller weekends. On Sunday nights, despair creeps in because it’s almost Monday, and I’ll have to do it all over again. Zero downtime. The mental load is heavy, the proverbial plate heaping.

Rest.

Yeah, yeah, my mind says to the still small voice, I will. But I don’t.

“When I’m not at work,” I say to a new friend, “you’ll find me at work.”

Truth—from everywhere—pings into the inbox of my life.

“Your caseload is heavy,” my supervisor says, looking at my schedule. “Watch for burnout. It can happen fast.”

“Mom, you should just rest for one whole day,” Ricka says, noticing my entries on the family calendar.

“I wish you didn’t have to work,” Husband says, seeing me scurry everywhere always.

“The idea is you take your rest into the week,” Flicka says when we talk about the Sabbath.

“Oof,” Dicka says when she hears what time I wake up to start my day.

Rest.

How can I? I say back to the voice. And when?

But as I rush to the car on Sunday morning, July 14, and misstep, landing on the cement driveway on my arm, I might see how and when. I sit there for a beat, my water bottle glugging out its contents, and I’m angry at my platform sandals for hitting a loose stone I didn’t notice over my frenetic thoughts. Now I have to heal, and who knows how long that’ll take?

I go to church anyway, my arm throbbing, and whisper to Husband during the sermon to please schedule an appointment at MedExpress for me. I would do it myself, but my right arm—my writing arm—hurts too much.

“Pickleball?” the nurse says when I take a seat in the exam room.

“Dumb shoes,” I reply.

“No broken bones,” the doctor later tells me after the radiologist reads the x-rays.

“Oh, good,” I say, but it’s not. It still feels like a fractured radius. And it still feels like life will need to slow down.

I sit here this morning at 4:30 a.m., writing this blog entry for you, still unable to open a jar, and wishing I could end my story with a tidy takeaway from my skirmish with the concrete. I'd like to say I’ve learned my lesson, I always heed my loved ones’ advice, and I obey the still small voice whenever it comes. Well, I'm trying.

In the past two weeks, I've looked up the difference between burnout and compassion fatigue, studied more on the Sabbath, watched I Can Only Imagine and two episodes of Virgin River with the family, and canceled social plans twice.

And I'm healing.

How are you?

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Rest? Hmm...

The to-do list pushes me into an unsustainable pace. I decide to practice self-control and not do every last thing, but I forget.

God drops me a word more often than you can imagine—Rest—but I don’t listen.

Here’s a blog entry from 2018 when I was at the height of one particular scrambling season. I’ve learned this much about myself since then, though: I’m not a quick study.

This week, I’m taking a little forced rest, but a story will come out of it later. Count on it.

*****

A crushing to-do list is all fun and games until someone smashes her pinky toe on a chair in the basement.

But let’s start at the beginning…

In late March, it all began innocently enough with a list—soon to be called THE LIST. I scribbled down the tasks I needed to accomplish before Flicka’s high school graduation reception. But she’s not my only kid, so I added what the other two girls required to complete their school year. The to-dos and to-buys spanned pages. I dove into The Painting of the Basement—the biggest job of all. And while the painting would one day be cosmetic, for now it was utilitarian, calling for us to brush the cinder blocks with endless coats of a special viscous goo to prevent any more water from seeping in during heavy rains. While each layer dried, THE LIST jerked me around the house to other things.

My low back hurt. I slapped an ice pack on it and kept going. Between phone calls required to run a household, I repainted almost every room in our home. I filled out forms for school and doctors and summer camps. I ran vehicles hither and thither for bodywork or oil changes, acted as therapist for friend crises, watched badminton matches and track meets, prepared food for potlucks, and scheduled doctor and orthodontic appointments.

Slow down.

My bully of a list shoved me around some more: print, address, and send graduation invitations; shop for grad clothes; coordinate dog care for Memorial weekend; call the insurance agent, electrician, and a doctor about my back; clean up the yard (pick up dog poop, plant, mulch, mow.)

Slow down.

A school volunteering gig, more painting, physical therapy, sorting, second-hand store runs, ice packs, and finally, an MRI for the back.

“This is what happens when you get old,” my doctor at TRIA Orthopedic said, but in fancier terms.

“Hm,” I said.

Slow down.

Then one day last week, I scurried around the basement in flip-flops, dodging tools and paint cans while heaving a laundry basket. On the way to dump the clean clothing onto the couch, I whacked my foot on a chair.

I dropped the basket and crouched to assess the damage. My left pinky toe had flopped to the side. “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.”

I shoved the toe back into place, hobbled upstairs for the first aid tape, and wrapped the injured one up with his buddy next to him. Grabbing an ice pack, I headed back to the couch. I plopped down, propped my foot up on the pile of unfolded laundry, and bawled.

Husband hurried downstairs to me, his eyes wide. “What happened?”

I explained the accident, mascara-blackened tears splashing onto my old paint shirt. (And good thing, because dashed expectations can stain fabric if you’re not careful.) Memories of the broken pinky toe on my other foot eight years earlier whooshed to mind. I had limped around for six weeks before shoes felt good again.

“Does it hurt a lot?” he asked.

I waved away his question. “Now it’ll slow me down for the next four to six weeks.”

“Maybe that’s the idea.”

“I’m a mess.” I sniffed. “You better turn me in for a newer model.”

Compassion edged his half-smile. “It’ll be okay.”

But for a week, it didn’t feel okay. I blamed myself for the incident. If I had worn more protective shoes, this never would’ve happened. If I had paid attention to the placement of the chair, if I had neglected the laundry one more day…

I sat down often, iced my back and toe at the same time, and imagined the clock ticking away precious minutes. But I also heard the birds chirp outside the window and remembered I had a little something called breathing I could once again practice.

And THE LIST turned back into the list.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The run

Everybody gathers to watch THE VERY BEGINNING. The starter pistol blasts, and my running partner and I take off. Those fresh first steps—larger than life—garner admiration. It’s really a significant something to start the long race—to commit to doing it in the first place. Heavy preparation leads up to it: hours of training, instructional books, needed counsel, planned attire.

The crowd applauds and shouts encouragement, but early on, they go home. No one waits around for the end. They have their own lives, see.

And still, we run.

We grab energy gel packs here or there, squeeze them into our mouths, gulp some water, and keep moving. At mile seven, a kid jumps into the race with us, and it’s harder to pay full attention to my running partner, but he’s there.

At miles nine and twelve, two more kids join us. Along the route, the second two do things with the first one—things like squirm and dash and whine—and I wonder if they’ll make it. But yes, they will, and out of the corner of my eye, there’s my partner, still matching my stride.

I look at my watch. The young ones hamper our pace, but I’m happy for the slowing. We’ve got a long way to go. Does speed even matter? The distraction of them brings humor, light, and more purpose to our run.

But where are the onlookers? No one waits around for the end. They have their own lives, see.

And still, we run.

There’s a wall at nineteen miles, they say. A mental wall. Some people give in to the difficulty, collapse under the pressure. Some make it through, of course, while others drop out earlier. There are always reasons—reasons I can’t judge because I don’t know. And I struggle to breathe too sometimes, but I don’t want to stop.

Today we’re at the thirty-two-mile mark, and the crowds are far away. And what of our three little running companions? They’re big, strong, able-bodied, and efficient. They still log steps with us sometimes, but mostly, they race on their own.

I smile at my running partner, our worn shoes, our methodical strides, our similar pace. The unnecessary has dropped away, and though long, our run together has gotten smoother, sweeter, softer.

People are aware we’re still running, but no one waits around for the end. They have their own lives, see.

And still, we run.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Of salads and sparklers

On June 26, I remembered the Fourth of July. Husband and I planned the festivities, came up with the menu, and invited Todd and Trixie to join us. They said yes. All of our celebration planning occurred within a five-minute window.

This patriotic holiday—loaded with nostalgia for me—is one of my favorites, and what pairs better with nostalgia than yesteryear’s recipes? I told Todd and Trixie about our food ideas, and they were quick to comply.

“Todd says we’ll bring the ambrosia salad,” Trixie said. “And at a minimum, we need sparklers.”

I forgot what the old-fashioned “salad” contained and said so.

“I think it involves Jell-O, marshmallows, and possibly asparagus,” she said.

A quick Google search showed me variations on the dessert, and she wasn’t far off. Mandarin oranges, marshmallows, coconut, pineapple chunks, maraschino cherries, pecans, and bananas were popular ingredients. And whipped cream, sour cream, or mayonnaise held them all together.

“I thought there was elbow macaroni in it too,” Husband said.

“It isn’t saying that,” I said, reading the ingredients aloud, “but it seems possible.”

We discussed the other parts of our meal. No sundried tomato and feta brats or butter burgers with caramelized onions and gruyère this year. Nope. We’d enjoy plain ol’ hot dogs on plain ol’ white buns.

“No fancy chips either,” I said in case Husband was getting any crazy ideas. “Just Old Dutch potato chips. With French onion dip.”

We decided classic pea salad, watermelon, potato salad, Jell-O poke cake, and rootbeer floats were invited to the party too.

Todd and Trixie arrived on the big day with homemade pulled pork, sangria, and fireworks. We hustled out to the pool as the skies darkened. No hope of sunburns from our summer holiday this year, but we took a rainy dip to mark the occasion anyway.

Hours chased away the raindrops, giving us the chance to smoke up the atmosphere with fireworks that looked and smelled exactly like the 1970s. And they spun me back to the days when sparklers inspired oohs and aahs and those “snakes” stank like sulfur and stained both the pavement and our memories.

“Did you read the instructions first?” Todd said to the girls about each item they lit. “You should read the instructions first.”

Trixie struggled to ignite an extra-long sparkler. “This isn’t American’t but American,” she said when she had success.

And she danced with the dazzler in the hazy dusk.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Poconos

While we’re preparing our Independence Day food, here’s a story from yesteryear. Happy 4th of July, everyone! (Come back next week for our holiday menu and pics!)

*****

We cranked down the car windows, letting the hot summer air blast our faces.

“Ready?” Husband said, glancing in the rear view mirror.

“Yeah!” Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka, ages seven, five, and three, hollered from the back seat.

“On the road again,” we belted out, “Just can’t wait to get on the road again, the life I love is making music with my friends, and I can’t wait to get on the road again.”

We sang the next part of Willie Nelson’s song with Husband’s amended lyrics. “Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway, we’re the best of friends as long as we do things my way, on the highway, on the road again.”

We had already spent a week in New York City at my brother’s place in Queens, venturing out each day to perform our touristy duties of consuming pasta in Little Italy and making Flicka’s wishes for a funky haircut come true in a basement salon somewhere in Greenwich Village. We narrowly escaped the temptation to purchase miniature turtles at a shop in Chinatown, opting instead for paper parasols and silk pajamas. And we took the Staten Island ferry to Lady Liberty’s place to say hi.

The car now gobbled up the miles along I-80 until we caught sight of a chalet, our timeshare for the week, nestled in the Pocono Mountains.

“‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner’,” I quoted Patrick Swayze’s famous line from the 1987 flick. “Fun that the movie was set here.”

“Pretty sure it was the Catskills,” Husband said.

I circled back to the eighties. “I think you’re right.”

We climbed forty-plus steps to our lodging, dumped our luggage on the living room floor, and the girls scattered to their new rooms. Dicka took a spill, though, catching her nasal septum on the edge of the coffee table. Blood pulsed from her nose.

“Oh, wonderful.” I darted into the kitchen, grabbed swaths of paper towels, and returned to the scene of the accident where Husband was cupping his hands under the deluge.

The bleeding finally stanched, we tugged on our swimsuits and set out for water. We located the pool, teeming with vacationers, and jumped in. My ducklings, clad in swim wings and goggles, bobbed in the deep end with Husband and me.

New York accents mingled with Southern drawls. And was that German? Italian too? A sampling of the world floated in the pool along with us.

“I’ve never seen a suit like that before,” Flicka said, gazing at a Muslim girl in full-body swimwear.

I nodded. Then I peered at the water and wrinkled my nose. “And I’ve never seen so much hair in a pool before.”

Husband cringed. “Can’t be good for the pool’s filter.”

The next morning in the fitness center, I lowered myself into another pool for aqua aerobics class. My classmates, a handful of older ladies decked in floral swim caps and Long Island accents, chattered amongst themselves, their raspy voices betraying their habit which I had seen them stub out into the ashtray by the door before class.

We worked our arms using Styrofoam noodles, gripped the edge of the pool for our leg lifts, and hop-twisted—Jack LaLanne style—through a few songs. The women chitchatted again during the cool-down, and I wondered if I could: 1. say ‘Larry’ in a Long Island accent like the woman who so often mentioned her husband, and 2. find a swim cap as cute as any of theirs.

“Let’s run to Blockbuster,” Husband said when I returned to the chalet.

Since the family was ready to go, I slipped on my long grey sweater over my swimsuit and trekked out the door with them. We drove to a nearby town, but as I stepped inside the video store, reality smacked me: we were no longer in the resort, and my attire was utterly inappropriate for the setting. What was I thinking, not getting dressed? I squared my shoulders, closing my sweater tightly around me while we perused movie titles.

We found more than an afternoon’s worth of entertainment and proceeded to the checkout line. A male voice wafted to me from behind.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?” said the voice.

Was he calling me? I turned to face a young man. “Hm?”

“Your dress is up, ma’am,” he said, like he was pleased to save me from embarrassment.

My face heated. I extricated the hem of my sweater from the leg hole of my swimsuit—how had it gotten there anyway?—with a harrumph. “Thanks.”

I whirled to face forward again. ‘Your dress’? It’s a sweater, thank you very much, I felt like saying. To cover my swimsuit, if you don’t mind.

We remember our trip to the Poconos in 2007 as one of our favorites. We’ve still never witnessed a nose gusher like Dicka’s. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Your dress is up, ma’am” is a well-worn quote in our house now. And I shudder every time we recount stories of the hairy pool.

But would we go back to that timeshare in the Poconos? In a heartbeat.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Target

“What are you doing tonight?” Dicka said as we swam together at 7:00 p.m.

“The blog is due tomorrow,” I said, “So probably writing it?”

“The blog is always due tomorrow,” she said, and I laughed. Even though it was only a weekly assignment, she wasn’t wrong.

I dog paddled next to her and knew I should get out of the water and apply myself to writing the thing, but I find pool time sweeter when fueled by writer’s guilt and compulsion, so I flapped around longer in the deep end.

On Monday, I thought I’d only write a short missive and that to introduce a recycled piece from 2016 or something—an article I hoped you wouldn’t remember—but I didn’t have a legitimate excuse for the slackery until this morning, Wednesday, at 5:00 a.m. when I awoke to an email from my modeling agency.

The message was time stamped from late last night, 11:49 p.m. (Tuesday), and the words URGENT, OVERNIGHT, and TARGET shouted at me from the subject heading. It was an availability check for a shoot that would start at 10:00 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) and end at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday). Nights are when clients schedule shoots at big box stores because real customers are at home sleeping. My deadline to respond to the email was 9:00 a.m.

I flew into sudden accommodation mode. Nothing says “happy emergency” like a sudden, potential Target shoot. Ten years ago, I attended a casting for the bullseye store and feigned interest in an invisible item while shoving a shopping cart around in front of a panel of strangers who ultimately didn’t choose me. I loved every second of it. Maybe this time the fake shopping would turn into a reality?

At 7:30 a.m., I messaged my supervisor at the regular job, relaying the details of my possible booking, and she said, “For sure! Do whatever you need,” agreeing I should take tomorrow off to catch up on sleep. My fingers then sprinted across my keyboard to inform my agent I was free for the big all-nighter.

While I tended to needs at work, I recalled the 1991 movie, Career Opportunities, where the two main characters, Josie and Jim, were accidentally locked in a Target store overnight. She was the popular, rich girl at school; he was the store’s irresponsible teen night janitor. Their worlds collided—and they did too in the roller skates they took from the sporting goods section. Romance broke in and also a couple of criminals they captured together during the night.

Two hours later, word from my agent bounced into my inbox. The client had selected other talent for the shoot this time but thank you for your quick response and flexibility. The disappointment of being released from consideration felt like when one forgets to put the last dirty cup into the already running dishwasher.

Now here I am at 9:38 p.m. on Wednesday night, pecking out this week’s blog instead of preparing to start my Target shoot, and it feels nice that instead of not sleeping at all in an after-hours retail setting with a crew of new-to-me people, I can sleep in my own bed at just the right time next to my not-so-new-to-me Husband.

But I’ll say yes to the next chance I get to lose a night of sleep with Target, and it’ll be ridiculous fun, I’m guessing. You’ll be the first to hear about it.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

In the garden with Coco

Flicka weeded the dill field by hand, and Dicka pinched potato bugs to death with her bare fingers. And that was just yesterday at Waldoch Farm in Lino Lakes, a place with acres of plants, a garden center, greenhouses, farm animals, honey bees, and later in the season, a corn maze and pumpkin patch.

I don’t understand the appeal of gardening on this scale, but my girls do. And they love it.

“Maybe you’ll find your Boaz,” I said one day, “and he’ll leave some extra grain—or kale—for you to pick up and bring home to me.”

My farmhands begin their work in the fields at seven o’clock in the morning and return home by two in the afternoon. Though lively, the recap of their days sucks the energy right out of me. It’s because Flicka planted all the okra or labored in the tomato tunnel, and Dicka hoed for four hours straight, and I can feel it as they talk, and now I’m back in the 1970s and 80s, and I’m hot, thirsty, itchy, and lazy all over again in Grandpa’s garden.

Way back then in our childhoods, my sister Coco and I “worked” the long rows of vegetables because we weren’t given a choice. We stuck together, squandering our time as close to each other as possible, while Mom, curved like a hairpin over the green beans, toiled in another area of the garden. As she bent over, the bottom of her shirt parted from the waistband of her pants, exposing a sliver of skin across her low back that browned nicely in the sun, and we could mark the passage of time by it, knowing when it was a rich bronze, we’d have to go back to school.

Coco was a better listener and follower of instructions than me and set to the task of weeding with a marginal level of commitment. I dug up pebbles with little sticks or nibbled the white roots off blades of grass or scrambled away to the old pump to fill one of Grandma’s metal drinking glasses with sediment-laden refreshment.

“Hey, try this, try this,” I said after logging a solid two minutes of work in the garden. I clambered to my feet, folded forward at the waist and let my head hang between my legs, gazing through them and behind me at the long rows of plants. “Now you have to run as fast as you can.”

I demonstrated my head-between-the-legs run, always plunging headlong into the soil and getting a dirt-packed scalp to take home with me. And maybe I talked Coco into trying it too, but I don't remember that part—only her laughing.

Mom straightened to standing now and again and thoughtfully evaluated all the progress we hadn’t made. “Girls, you only have five-thousand more rows to weed,” she calmly said.

Or at least that’s the number I heard.

Nowadays, I lack green thumbs and a vegetable garden, but at times I imagine tilling up the lawn and scattering seeds for cucumbers, beans, and peas anyway. Will Coco move in to weed my lettuces and carrots while I amuse myself by running willy-nilly around the property, though? See, that’ll determine if I do it or not.

I’m spending this weekend with Coco up on the farm. Maybe we’ll walk where that garden once sprawled, and we’ll tell more stories, the haze of the decades obscuring them, coloring them, and maybe I’ll drop them on your doorstep next week, ring the doorbell, and run—just like what you do with too much zucchini in August.

Let’s just see what happens.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Scraps

Good ideas flutter by. They don’t choose opportune occasions to land—like when a person is poised before a notebook or sitting in front of her keyboard. No, they pick the worst times and places to inspire, and if they’re not caught instantly, they die.

When lively words flit through my brain or fly around me, I fumble for a wrapper, napkin, envelope, or receipt; here’s hoping I have a pen too, but I’ll manage with a broken-down pencil or almost dried-up marker if I have to. What do I do with my little pieces of creativity after that? I cage them up in my purse, my wallet, my nightstand, my glove compartment, my junk drawer. And maybe they die there too.

Or maybe they don’t.

I clean out my purse one day, reread a scrap that’s a little sticky from an old cough drop, and smile. Can I make something of it? A story? A blog installment? No, it’s not long enough. Another scrap emerges, this one from an old notebook. Is it usable? Maybe, but it ends abruptly. A third scrap springs from between two business cards in my wallet. What about this one? It’s kind of embarrassing, and what’s the point? Now my scraps make a small stack. 

A thought comes. If I release the scraps into the wild, I’ll have them out there. So, here I go. They’re free now.

*****

From the wallet: 

Ricka and Dicka romp around, almost breaking the furniture.

“They’re like two puppies,” I say. 

“Put ‘em in a bag with a rock, Little House on the Prairie style,” Flicka says. 

From the junk drawer:

The American Legion in Cable, Wisconsin, has a potluck: venison and taco bites, chili in a crockpot, dilly beans (pickled with hot peppers), and warm pretzels. “Win a gun,” a sign says. It’s a Remington 770 bolt-action 30-06. “No profanity,” says another sign, but I hear talk of “good s*&%” (manure) for the garden.

“Welcome to Cable,” one woman says to us. “Where we bury our own horses. But I wanna dig mine up.”

“Why?” another woman says.

“Because I like the skulls.”

From the notebook:

I think of soil and seeds, fruit and harvest, these days, and I wonder where I am. I remember the kids in our old neighborhood and how I watched them grow up on our driveway—or slab of cement out back, rather—swishing basketballs through our net over and over again on days of sun and warmth and clouds and coolness. Those kids made their metamorphoses there. Teenagers to adults right in front of us. Over the years, I gripped the shoulders of one or another of them, speaking truth into their faces—“I love you. I believe in you. You have a big calling on your life”—and I wonder if anything I uttered made it past ears and into hearts because I only heard about the juvie, the murder, the gangs, the prison sentences. 

My hope flickers; it’s a delicate thing close to extinguishing. What good did it do? I know the fruit can be long coming, the harvest even farther off. People say, “Well, you planted seeds anyway.” Today, I don’t think so. Maybe in a tiny way we helped, along with others, in the very first step. Maybe we only tore rocks from the soil to prepare it.

Flicka says, “Maybe you’re looking for the wrong kind of fruit. Maybe you’re looking for plums when God planted a grapefruit.”

From where we’re standing in the field, it’s impossible to see what’s happening under the dirt. “What’s going on under there?” I say to my garden, and of course I don’t know.

Am I going to cooperate with the Gardener or not? 

“It’s the process over the product,” I hear in my spirit. God’s ways aren’t my ways. 

A man from MN Adult and Teen Challenge told his story in church one Sunday morning. He had

(and my scribbling ended there.)

From the purse pocket:

11/8/21: In my dream last night, Flicka said, “These days will take your faith.”

“Do you mean steal your faith or require your faith?” I said. 

I didn’t get an answer, but now that I’m awake, I realize it could be either.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The blessing

“I won’t let you go until you bless me,” twenty-two-year-old Ricka said, laughing. She squeezed me in a death-hug right there in the kitchen.

“I bless you,” I said, breathless from the crushing. She held me in her clutches, though, until I ran through the Aaronic blessing to cover the bases—just like old times when I declared the words over our girls at bedtime, along with any other little ones staying overnight at our place.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace.

For years, no one could escape a night at our house without the blessing, whether they liked it or not. Godshine, grace, and peace would be upon them—or else. But those kids always waited for it, reminded me of it if I forgot, and gazed into my eyes as I said it over their nights—over their lives, really. And peace descended on them; I could see it fall across their features before they scrambled into their beds or sleeping bags or makeshift tents in the girls’ room upstairs.

Ricka’s demand in the kitchen yesterday spun me back into the story of the man who said it in the first place. Jacob had suffered a rough go of it. Maybe that heel-grabber and supplanter deserved all the hard times he got for stealing his father’s blessing for himself in a culture where it should’ve gone to his older twin brother, Esau. But there was Jacob, now reformed and on the run—along with the women, children, flocks, and servants—into his future and away from his deceptive father-in-law who couldn’t exact enough work from him to be satisfied.

Word came to Jacob that his brother, Esau, whom he hadn’t seen in years, was approaching with four-hundred men. Was there room for the two of them on this desert highway? Jacob’s past would face him soon; there was no evading it. Was Esau still enraged with him for stealing his birthright and blessing? Probably. Jacob sent camels, bulls, calves, and donkeys ahead as a gift. Maybe the generous present would appease his sibling.

Jacob looked around him, counting all he had. He looked ahead of him, eyeing all that was coming. His heart pumped fear through his veins. He made provisions to protect his everything for one more night. What else could he do? The next day his brother would be close enough to touch and likely kill him. Tonight there was nowhere to go but into solitude. He stepped outside of the camp alone.

In that solitary place, he wrestled in the dark with a mysterious God-man, and he tussled with Him all night long—just like we do when we can’t discern who’s with us or who’s against us. Just like we do when we can’t abandon our pasts or escape our futures. Just like we do when we know what we dread most will show up the next day when the alarm goes off.

I imagine that nighttime struggle as a wordless one—only the sounds of arms and legs thumping the soil, grunts and heavy breathing punching the darkness. As the story goes, that blessing-chaser, Jacob, struggled all night long, and not even a displaced hip could stop him. Orange ignited the eastern horizon, sparking the beginning of a new day.

“It’s morning now,” the mysterious competitor said. “Let me go.”

Slick with sweat, Jacob clung to him. “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

And he got the blessing he fought for—along with a new name.

I’m no Jacob. I’d rather push away problems than cling to them. But maybe in my nighttime wrestling, I’ll squeeze what’s fighting me, so by morning I’ve wrung it all out, and there’s nothing left but the blessing. In the dark, maybe the death-crush is what’s needed most. No concession until there’s goodness.

I won’t let you go until you bless me. Yes, let it be so.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Your senses

Last week, I asked you readers which of your five senses you would choose if you could pick only one to keep for the rest of your life. Here are your answers.

*****

I put drops in my eyes twice a day to stave off glaucoma and the blindness it would bring. I love the smell of fresh cut grass, the taste of garlic (or chocolate!), the feel of my grandchildren's arms around my neck and the sound of classical music, but I think it is the ability to see the page of a book or sunlight on the lake or the colors of my knitting pattern that I would miss the most.

LeAnne, northwestern Wisconsin

*****

I would want my sight. Although the others would be devastating to lose, I have memories with smells, sounds, etc… that I can fall back on… reminisce what those great things brought me. But, sight is, to me, the most frightening to lose, especially with the advancement of technology where you need to do EVERYTHING online, plus, not the ability to see could compromise safety. Moreover, there’s so much more of the world I want to see.

Martha, Minneapolis, Minnesota

*****

I would never want to be without my sense of sight, because it is so important to me. I’m an interior designer by my degree, but work as a graphic designer. Everything I do for fun or for business relies on my sight. And then I think of all the things I’d miss out on: the perfect North Dakota sunsets, a bumblebee among lilac blooms, the way an eagle glides over water. No, I can’t lose sight.

Maybe touch? Never to feel a soft velvet or taffeta fabric, the fur on my kitty’s chin, or a really smooth piece of wood that’s been sanded so all imperfections are gone? I should probably keep that one…

Sound doesn’t seem like something to forego, I need to hear sirens and signals, I like to hear a meadowlark and my husband’s voice as he sings to me. Or podcasts, how will I solve crimes if I don’t listen to my murder podcasts? Or to never sing a hymn in church? Can’t lose my hearing.

Taste is out of the question. Popcorn, knoephla soup, coffee, etc.

I was without my sense of smell for a few Covid-days. That was weird, and I did NOT like it. To not smell a freshly mowed lawn, bread from the oven, or even just fresh cedar mulch chips on the church landscaping was so hard.

It doesn’t seem like I’m too interested in giving any one of them up, and I thank my Heavenly Father that I still have all mine. Each is a priceless gift.

Jen, Grand Forks, North Dakota

*****

The Greek Oedipus could not see who he really was—the victim in a cruel prophecy.

When the blind seer Teiresias directed Oedipus’ sighted eyes to the truth, he denied it.

Only after Oedipus gouged out his own eyes did he see clearly.

Why can’t I see what Your plan is for me in this world?

Is it a problem of visual clarity, of focus?

When abandoned and sent away by Abraham into the wilderness, Hagar called on the name of the Lord, saying “You are a God of seeing” and “Truly I have seen him who looks after me” (Genesis 16:13). God saw her, and she saw Him.

“Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee; though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may

not see.”

Lord, I cannot see You, but I know You see me.

We sing “Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus” and “Once I was blind, but now I can see. The Light of the world is Jesus.”

But I really can’t see. I need You to show me how to see with Your eyes in this world.

And one fine day, these eyes will see Him.

Until then, I need a new prescription.

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota.

*****

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Five senses

“The touch of a voice, the taste of a smile, the scent of a skin. See like a blind man and hear what lives within.” Unknown

Today, I want to hear from you.

If you could choose only one, which of the five senses would you want to keep for the rest of your life?

Send me your thoughts (along with your first name, city, and state) HERE, and I’ll publish them in next week’s blog installment. Subscribers, simply hit reply to this message. 

I’m thankful I can smell fresh laundry, taste wasabi, feel the cowhide rug under my bare feet, hear the bossa nova music playing right now, and see the future in my grown-up girls. But if I had to choose only one of my senses for the rest of my life? Hmmm…

What about you?

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Farnsworth and Jarvis

When I first spied the beast waddling through our backyard trees, I grimaced. Zooming in my phone’s camera, I grabbed a shot, catching the subject’s white face and brindle body. Weekly on our property, we witnessed turkeys, ducks, deer, and squirrels—even a hawk once—but this was a new one.

I texted the picture to Husband. Ew, look what’s in our yard!

He responded inside of a minute. He’s good for bugs and maybe mice, I think. We shall call him Farnsworth.

My man texted me a screenshot of a source extolling the creature’s virtues: “Opossums are scavengers. They move from place to place in search of good food sources and a comfy place to sleep and are beneficial for helping to control the overpopulation of snakes, rodents, and insects. Opossums act like little vacuum cleaners when it comes to ticks, including those that spread Lyme disease.”

Oh, I take back my ew, I texted.

They’re the janitors of the backyard. Maybe security guards against the rodent riffraff? Husband wrote.

My initial reaction was turned on its head. Obviously, we needed more Farnsworths.

Five days later, while the girls basked outside, offering up winter skin as a gift to the sun, Dicka alerted me by text of a new mammal at large in the yard. I hurried outdoors to witness him, but the masked one had vanished.

“Raccoons are the worst,” I said.

“He disappeared under that pile of wood,” she said.

“Just great.”

Did raccoons have any skills and talents to share with our family? They were scavengers too, but these guys were willing to polish off carcasses and sift through trash. “Urban survivors,” National Geographic called them. Gross.

The new critter emerged—like he knew we were talking about him—and clawed up a spot in the grass with tremendous speed, flicking dirt behind him.

“Jarvis!” Dicka hollered. So, this one already had a name too. He halted his excavation and lasered his gaze at her. “Stop it!” And for a moment, he did.

Days later, Farnsworth flashed his Sasquatch-like presence again, and I imagined him performing his vacuumly duties in our trees. I smiled. We learned his yard mate, Jarvis, however, had helped himself the previous night to a garbage bag someone had left outside our bin. I scowled.

I typed a partial question into the search bar, and Google filled in the rest: “Do raccoons and opossums get along?” A common question, it seemed. The best online answer was they had to be good at sharing since they enjoyed the same scrounging habits. Sometimes, though, they could snap and swipe at each other.

I sighed. It might be a very long summer.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Dandelion

A sunny blog from yesteryear for your Thursday… Here’s to the darling little intruder!

*****

Yellow dots the lawn. I take a hard look at those common intruders again, shining like mini suns in the spring green.

The blooms are so perfect it’s startling. As a kid, I collected handfuls, delighting in the abundance of beauty in my fist, the stems staining my palms.

Thanks to Husband’s grandma and great-aunt, I tasted the homemade wine once. The women served it in tiny glasses—the kind dried beef was sold in once upon a time—and tossed the yellow liquid back like it was nothing. I took a slower pace, sipping the bitterness and wondering if the aging vintners harvested the flowers directly from their back yard or what.

In a big jar on the counter, I store tea of all kinds, but one of my favorites is made from the roasted root of the rejected plant. The Pest of the Lawn warms my cup and stomach, and I know my organs love me more and more with each swallow.

The taproots support our livers, the leaves make an earthy salad, and the blossoms are a hue that cheers us. It spreads throughout our grass, this perennial herb, giving us more benefits than the sod on its own ever could, but we’re taught to detest it. Why?

No one is born despising dandelions; we’re groomed to loathe them. And I wonder what else—or who else—we’ve been told to hate this whole time.

The subject runs as deep as the turf’s usurper (or is it a usurper?), and I need some refreshment to go with my thoughts.

Heading for the tea jar now…

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Streams

“True faith drops its letter in the post office box and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it and wonders that the answer never comes.”

That line in Streams in the Desert plunged me into deeper thoughts on faith, and the word streams in the book’s title inspired me at 9:39 last night into the kind of writing that mimics human thought. Ah, stream of consciousness writing! How very early 20th-century Modernist movement of me.

I would’ve given author James Joyce—a master of the writing style—more thought, but I’ve been consumed with practical matters this week, scheming about how to stretch our family’s dollars. This morning during a team meeting at work that started with the icebreaker question, “What made you smile this week?”, I felt like a commercial.

“I found out we can save hundreds a month by switching our auto insurance to Progressive.”

My smile-inducing (for me) statement didn’t induce smiles in anyone else. Flat affects all around.

Lest you think most of my job is made up of icebreakers, it kind of is. And I wonder where the term icebreaker came from in the first place, but I’m too tired to look it up. I will, however, look up the video Flicka sent our family a few days ago with footage from the start of the Sea-Ice Marathon of 2024 in Luleå (No, she didn’t go to Sweden. She just shared the clip with us from her cushy spot in the living room.) I watched it again and noted the glare ice under the runners’ feet. Scary and cold. So cold. Like those ice baths everyone but me is taking these days.

And now I’m back in the arena in Thief River Falls where I took skating lessons as a kid. I glided out onto the rink one day way back when, but the pride I felt at first swish evaporated. My feet slid around under me like nothing I ever knew. No precision, no control. What was wrong with my skates? Or was something amiss in me? Half-way across the rink, I finally looked at my feet. My skate guards still clung to my blades. Just an oversight. No big deal. Only the end of the world because everyone else saw it too.

But enough icy thoughts. It’s spring.

A few in our neighborhood adhere to No Mow May and have the signs (and long grass) in their yards to prove it. They let the grass and weeds grow for the month to provide food and shelter for essential pollinators, but I heard somewhere those creatures will likely get shredded up during the first mow of the season.

And now I wonder when our 14-year-old neighbor—I guess he’s probably fifteen by now—will come over to get our in-ground sprinklers going again. He proffered his services last year, claiming he could get the system, which we didn’t know we had, repaired and running and plant the proper grass seed to eradicate our pesky bare spots out front. He delivered, dazzling us with irrigation talents we learned he picked up through YouTube when he was ten.

Last year, this young businessman—with multiple clients in the neighborhood—assessed our bleak-at-first lawn situation with a quiet authority. Then he pedaled off on his bike to buy supplies at Menards, keeping his work at our place to daylight hours, since his mom didn’t let him go out after dark, even to diagnose why geysers shot out of our lawn once during the night back at the beginning. His daytime customer service was impeccable, though, and when Dicka crushed a sprinkler head with her car while backing out of the driveway, he responded to my text for help in six minutes and had the head replaced in twenty.

This might be the point in the narrative when a traditional writer would say, “But I digress,” but that’s exactly my goal today. And it’s so breezy, this meandering way of writing, I might practice it more often to your chagrin. Or delight. You can choose.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.