Birthdays

Warning: This post is longer than was expected.

(If you're wondering what my Mom looked like when I was little)
(and if you're wondering what Minnesota looked like when I was little)

On her blog Emma talked about being nine and being barefoot and being in the Midwest.

Which is funny because whenever I think of how perfect a place the upper Midwest is to grow up, I always think about being nine. I don’t usually think about being barefoot, but that’s because it’s such an obvious expected thing. I only think about when I had to wear shoes.

Like when Kristine and her Grandma and I went walking down the middle of a calm part of the Mississippi behind her Grandma’s house. She made us wear shoes so we wouldn’t cut our feet on unseen things and I ruined a pair of tennis shoes by getting them wet.

I think I ruined a pair of tennis shoes every summer by walking in rivers or sloshing through ponds.

Or stomping in mud.

There’s water and mud everywhere so it’s not really hard to do. Mom would make us put our muddy shoes in the garage until they dried out and try to make us wear them the next time some grown-up dictated that we wear shoes, but we always thought they were too gross to put back on.

I guess this is a post about Mom somehow. Even if it’s about Minnesota, too. They have the same birthday, Minnesota and Mom, it’s today: May 11^th. Happy Birthday.

I think about them the same sometimes, which might be weird for my mom. But they’re so beautiful, and better than anyone or anywhere else, they completely shaped me as a person.

When you were little did you try to imagine what it was like for your mother to be little like you? I grew up so close to Mom’s home town that when we drove through I used to try to picture her walking down the street. I would associate stories with actual places. She would say that she grew up with a tire swing that swung out over Lake Silvey, and I would imagine her swinging out and dropping into that actual lake.

I would go swimming in Lake Silvey and think of her and of my grandma and me and how we all swam in the same lake and how it made us the same.

I think of summer days when Mom and Kim would stand in our kitchen with windows open (and screens shut, of course) and it was so hot inside because they were boiling tomatoes.

They made so much salsa every year. We would play outside and run in and they would be filling dozens of cans with delicious mild salsa.

I would try to grab a chip and dip in to the half-way made salsa and sometimes Mom would let me. Sometimes she wouldn’t.

Summertime. Summertime is almost upon us.

We used to go berry-picking until we burst. We would weave in between the rows, instead of staying in one like we were supposed to. The berries were always warm from sitting all day under the hot sun. The soft skins would burst and warm red juice would explode in your mouth and Mom would tell us to pick them, not eat them.

We’d come home then with buckets full and Mom would freeze a bunch for smoothies and desserts.

Then she would get out the cans again and Kim would come over and they’d spend the whole afternoon and maybe the next making strawberry jam. Mmm, just thinking about it makes me want toast with homemade jam.

Most nights after that, when Kim and her girls spent the whole day at our house anyway, Dad would get out the barbeque and make burgers and brats for all of our families.

We’d spend the evening running around the yard, barefoot, and covered in so much bug spray it’s a miracle we could taste the brats.

And I can picture Mom in a lawn chair or on the front steps laughing and talking and not caring that we were covered in mud.

And not caring if we ran through the neighbors sprinklers with our clothes on.

And knowing that when it came time for the Haggen’s to go we would cry that we needed to have them sleepover, or we wanted to sleep over there and we wanted to set up a tent in the yard.

And she would shrug and say fine, and the next day we would wear the same clothes, or no clothes at all except a swimsuit and it would all start over.

Until the very end of summertime.

* * *

I love you Mom. Happy Birthday and thank you for being so good, and raising me so well, and teaching me about all the important things, like friends, and swimming and bug spray.

And I’m sorry I never learned to dive as well as you.

Happy Birthday Minnesota, I love you and miss you and hope that you are not embarrassed that I talk about you on my blog all the time.