Rocks & Roots
Donna Salli
Signs and Portents: A Search for Meaning
The man in this photo is my grandfather. He’s just lit a fire in the sauna. You’ll notice the sauna has no chimney—it’s a savusauna, a “smoke sauna.” The smoke from the stove swirls around the building’s interior, then out the door. My family is Finnish by descent. I’ve been doing a lot of meditating lately on the importance to us of “sauna” and “the family farm.” My grandparents bought the land in the early 1920s. My mother was born there, and she and my dad eventually owned it for forty years. After Dad died, Mom made a hard decision—to sell the farm and relocate close to me. The whole extended family felt wretched about her selling, but we were accepting of reality. I was the one who walked the house a last time. It felt symbolic, a thing to be done with reverence, putting that key into the lock for the final time. Losing the farm was a family trauma, and of course, the mind needs structure and meaning to deal with such things—and equally of course, with structure and meaning, things that happen become signs and portents.
Study Hall: On Love, Part III
My mother passed away in November, and ever since, I’ve been writing about her and my dad, who passed nine years ago. This is the third such blog post in a row. These last months, I’ve been writing in threes. I expanded one of my poems into three parts and called it a triptych. Then I put three thematically linked short stories into a chapbook—sub-titled that too, “A Triptych.” The number three has always seemed magical to me. Now, I’m aware that most readers will scroll on by when a writer is talking literary-crap, especially when she gets metaphysical. But this isn’t about writing in threes. It’s an apology to those who follow my blog, for writing yet another piece about my mom and dad. If you accept the apology and stay with me, you’ll get to meet my parents when they were young. In fact, you and I can sit behind my mom in her senior year study hall! We’ll think about love, about the people who raised us. Even when we’re adults, we don’t really know them. In those familiar people are (or were) people we never met. In them, there were lovers, people seeking and growing in intimacy. That part of them, we can’t quite imagine.
The Clear Dark Sky: A Season of Grieving
The photo above is of the dormer window in my mother’s apartment. Her little nest felt so festive that afternoon, with the star in the window and holiday lights on the table. None of the personal belongings you see in the picture are there anymore. Nor is my mother. She passed away in that room, last November. You wouldn’t know, to see me on the street, that I’ve been moving through a season of grieving. I haven’t garbed myself in black, or covered my head, or slashed the hems of my clothing. But I’ve felt as if I could, if times were different. Mourning feels to me like walking chest-deep through water, each step held back by the drag of the water. But on the early morning of March 12th, I looked up into the clear, dark sky, and everything changed.
The Christmas Eve Candle
It’s Christmas, the darkest time of the year—and I’ve got my Christmas Eve Candle out and ready. This Christmas is the first since both my parents have passed on. The photo was taken on their honeymoon. It’s faded and creased, but that doesn’t hide how sweetly in love they are. Mom passed a month ago, just before Thanksgiving. Dad left us the week before Christmas, nine years ago. It was at the time of his passing that the candle first became the Christmas Eve Candle. It had started its life as a unity candle—but it’s not a run-of-the-mill wedding candle. No, this candle has a history.
My Father’s Mother: Looking for Isän Äiti
This photo is of my father’s mother—my Isän Äiti, in Finnish. Grandma Olga is the second woman from the left, standing with her cast mates in some sort of play. The others, I don’t know. An older cousin sent the photo to me, without details. I don’t know when it was taken, but from the style of the clothing, it could have been in Finland before she emigrated. I was only twelve when Grandma passed, and it’s bothered me that there wasn’t time for me to know her. As I write this, it’s Thanksgiving week, and that has me thinking about family. It’s important to me to know who my people are. For many days now, I’ve been searching my memory for Grandma Olga. What I’ve found is that I know her more than I knew. I’ve also found that, in looking for her, I found myself.
A Summer of Turkeys
It started May 25th, when a hen turkey walked her slow and careful walk past our patio. The trees in this photo border our narrow back yard. They loom above the house. Our dog loves to sit out on the patio, on my husband’s lap, and gaze into the woods. There’s a gully hiding there, with a stream that drains a nearby wetland. We’re close to the Mississippi, and the water in the gully flows to the river. All sorts of wildlife move through the yard, just outside our patio doors—deer and bears, squirrels and chipmunks, an occasional skunk and a diversity of birds. Watching those wild creatures go about their lives reminds my husband and me that we’re part of that leafy world. Our window on nature reminds us of our own humanity, the impulse in us toward compassion and sympathy. That reminder has never been more needed than this summer, 2021, a summer mired in pandemic, but also, thank God, a summer of turkeys.
