the dream life

A weekend with the force

It's been a strange sort of weekend around here - one where things happen and time passes but it seems like there's no time, or that everything is happening quickly.
On Saturday, I did my first Reiki healing session for another person and I was honored that the other person was my own beloved. It was a pleasant, relaxing experience for both of us and I'm looking forward to continuing a practice of healing with him. (Maybe you can convince him to guest blog and tell you about it.) Other than that, it seems the whole day was consumed with cake baking and birthday partying. That can't be true, but if I did something else, I can't remember what it was.
Tracy and I spent this morning with the girls, then we came home and dealt with flood-damaged belongings for a couple of hours. This involved sorting through wet, ruined, mildewed things, piling them into garbage bags and carrying the bags up the rickety basement steps (I didn't do that part). When we'd had enough of that, Tracy helped me do my taxes (I only had a couple of small breakdowns), I completed some other required tasks, and here we are. Day over.
Of course all there is to it is never really all there is to it.
This weekend has also been punctuated by the original Star Wars trilogy - A New Hope on Friday night, The Empire Strikes Back last night, Return of the Jedi tonight. (My method of watching Star Wars is to ask Tracy a lot of questions - "Who is the Emperor? That face that sometimes talks to Darth Vader?", "Why does Darth Vader wear the mask?", "How did Luke and Leia get separated in the first place?", "Did that look like Fraggle Rock to you?", "Were the Star Wars movies based on books or are the books based on the movies?", "How much of the Star Wars movies do you think George Lucas had in his head before he made the first one?", "Do all Jedis disappear like that when they die, or just masters?","Did that green woman get eaten?", "What did Yoda just say?" That sort of thing.)
Even though I don't particularly like movies about wars and space and all that good vs. evil jazz, I've found that I like watching these because they're tied to my childhood in a particular way and I like revisiting that territory, especially with Tracy (perhaps exclusively with Tracy) and that realization leads me to the other thing about this weekend.
Because he knows I'm working on my big genealogy project (I want to know everything about everyone I'm related to in all directions of time), my dad let me borrow his mother's family bible for a few days so that can scan things and copy lists of names and dates. My grandmother has kept the family record in this bible - births, deaths, marriages. It's filled with newspaper clippings, photographs, florist's cards - history.

It's an incredible thing to turn the pages and know there's so much information there and mostly information that I can't see, but can only feel. I'm grateful to have a few days with it and honor my connection to the flow of time.

Since you asked...

Mari asked about Ancestry.com, so here's what I know so far.
When I worked at the public library, Ancestry.com was free to use on our computers, so I looked at it a lot. I used it to research the family that had built our house. I enjoyed it and thought about signing up for my own membership, but it was pricey, so I never did it.
There are some free geneaology sites. Roots Web, which is actually part of Ancestry and Family Search, and I'm sure many others. I don't really know much about them yet.
Ancestry offers a trial period, so I figured I try it out and then decide if it's worth the money. It's changed since my library days, is more user friendly and prettier to look at.
I am mainly using the family tree feature which allows me to enter names, birthdates, deathdates, marriages, children, stories, audio, research notes for my family members and displays them on a tree. As soon as I enter a name, Ancestry automatically begins searching public records and other member trees for possible matches. When matches are found a little leaf icon appears on that person's name. I click that leaf and the possible matches come up, I read them and if it does seem to be the right person I attach the record to that name. If not, I ignore it or save it to my shoebox, which doesn't attach it to the tree, but keeps it for me to review later.
I've already made a lot discoveries that way - by essentially letting the website do the work for me.
Of course, I can also do my own searches for names, places, events. I can search for photos and I can search for other members and I can see which other members are searching for the same names that I'm searching for.
(The privacy levels of the tree are changeable but public viewers can't "see" living people.)
I haven't even experimented yet with the massive community discussion boards.
There's also a store for ordering prints or bound copies of your tree.
I'm loving it. It's like blogging for the ones who went before me.

Where I come from

My grandfather was very interested in genealogy and compiled extensive research about his family. When he died in 1998, my grandmother gave his booklets and files to me. For almost ten years, I’ve cherished this information, but done little with it.
Suddenly on Sunday, it seemed imperative that I continue that research and begin mapping my family tree in all directions. I registered at Ancestry.com and got to work. Now, I am completely obsessed.
These are my grandfather’s grandparents James and Tabitha.

I think James looks a lot like my grandfather. My mom thinks he looks just like “Pap”, her grandfather.
I’ve read stories about my great great uncles and aunts, discovered hidden first names I never knew about, unearthed questions and found out that two of my great grandmothers and I have birthdays all in a row -February 14, 15, and 16. No one else seems to find this as magical as I do, but I feel closely bonded to them now, almost like they're winking at me from the other side.
I’m planning to go on investigative trips - to conduct interviews with my family members, and scan their photos, but mostly listen. I want the stories, the stories of joy and triumph but also the tragedies and failures.
I’m not sure for whom I’m working on this project. For myself, also for Ava and Emme, but for some other reason, too, that I can’t quite touch.
I can feel the spirits of my ancestors gather around me as I sift through the papers and put the pieces together. I can feel them gently guiding me and I like having them around.