Whenever it rained, I walked funny. I wore my rubber boots with pride. I liked to play in the ditch behind our farm where I caught tadpoles in spring. But when it rained, I clenched my toes inside my boots, in case a worm would accidentally find its way into my shoe. The logic of a child. My grandma let me walk funny, she knew I would grow out of it.
A little clip, just made for me, so I knew where to find the thank-you cards the seniors had crafted for us.
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Growing up in a small village in the mountains of Austria, I was raised Roman Catholic. We went to church on Sunday, because everyone else went to church. My grandma carved a cross on the back of every freshly baked bread loaf before she cut into it, and we bent our heads down before we ate, to either quietly say grace or give others the time to do so.
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I don’t know why I said it but I assume it has been on my mind and every year the voice inside me got louder. “I need to fix this!”
In the fanciest words, the most unusual descriptions, and the deepest expressions of love, people often rave about their own family members and their own mother, “The most radiant role model, the best friend, the greatest inspiration, and the most unconditional support.”
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On the 24th of December, on Christmas Eve, a customer emailed me and asked when she could drop off her sofa. When I heard the notification sound on my phone, I picked it up because I was sure it was either family or a friend who just wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas.
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A couple gets married and receives a ham as a gift from a nearby farmer. The young wife cuts off both ends of the ham and puts them in a container.
The young husband watches her and asks: “Why are you cutting off the edges?”
Christmas is approaching, the most beautiful celebration of the year for many. Many years ago, a friend of mine asked how Christmas used to be celebrated in Tyrol, Austria, and so a reflective journey into a bygone era that was very different from today began. Not much has changed in how Christmas is celebrated. With my friend’s permission, I have translated the interviews and will post them on my blog on different days.
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I had to laugh when I read today’s prompt. Like the joke about traffic, when the truck driver on the radio shouts, “There is a car driving in the wrong direction,” and the other one answers, “What do you mean ONE, hundreds are driving in the wrong direction.”
