And so it starts...

Dear Miriam and Sarah,

I was driving home from work the other day thinking about you girls and how crazy things are with all these budget cuts in the schools and the surreal state that California has gotten itself into and the whole mess over health care and the crazy meanness I see splashed all over the news and whether or not we will ever be able to send you to college. You get the point. You know your mom is a bit of a worrier. But then I began to ponder how essentially breathtaking the two of you are.  Jeez, it just astounds me daily to think that you came from me and your Dad.  And I began to think of all the forces that are going into shaping the lives of Miriam and Sarah--all the historical forces, social forces, economic forces.  I know, that seems weird, but I am an historian and archivist and that is what I do when I am driving!  It comforts me somehow to look at the big picture, to search for context and relationships. So, I found myself thinking about the context of Miriam and Sarah. 

Actually, I think endlessly about context. I think I have some pathological need to contextualize my life.  I remember reading biographies and memoirs when I was younger mainly because they somehow helped me gauge where my own life was going.  I know, that seems crazy narcissistic. But what can I say? So, now I am contextualizing my daughters.  It was inevitable. But now my contextualizing habit is worse than ever because I am doing the genealogy thing.  You see, in the past few months, I have begun to create a family tree for you girls.  I know you could not give a fooey (or whatever) about this right now.  And maybe you will never give a fooey about it.  That's OK because, just between you and me, I am really doing it for myself. Shocking, I know.  I am really doing it to explain myself to myself.  Somehow, I became an Irish-Scottish-English-Danish-possibly French-Jewish wife, mother, archivist and historian living in the Bay Area of California at the beginning of the 21st century.  I really just want to know how the heck that happened.  So, bear with  me girls as I try to figure it out because it might tell you a lot about yourselves and all the amazing forces that built you. And who knows? In the process, maybe I will figure out the history of everything. I can try anyway.

Love,
Mom