Freya, there is so much I loved about this post - the recognition of foremothers and their cellular influence on each individual generation right up to you. How both you and your great-grandmother loved poetry, scribbled your own, and had a commonplace diary. Your recognition goes beyond the actual written words to an acknowledgment of the energy that swirls in her creativity. I loved those pictures; thank you so much for sharing them with us. They must be such prized possessions... those written words, a timeless tangible part of your ancestor. I am so touched to see you honor a foremother whom you never knew but admittedly are connected to because she has carried you as well, like how you carry her now - each generation exchanging skins to tell their collective story.
Also, the relationship between Södergran and Olsson made me cry tears of joy. I can feel their sisterhood and love across centuries still. They really did understand each other, fanned each other's flame when the world couldn't care less about who they were. That right there gives me hope and makes me believe in our connection and sisterhood even more, and the indelible respect and gratitude that I feel deepens. And at the end, there is always Dickinson's ghost murmuring poetic epiphanies, breaking our spiritual stupor and propelling us into the practice of love and sisterhood.
Swarna you are truly the best, I am so happy to be connected with you and find a sister--I thought of it a lot while reading about Södergran and Olsson too, how magical it truly is to find another writer who recognizes themselves in each others' work. It makes me believe too, exactly as you say--of the immense gratitude and hopefulness it brings. So so happy to find that we are kin in writing--there is nothing else like it. And always....Dickinson. Thank you dear sister. 💜🧚🏼
Yes to all of this and thank you sister for bringing these obscure women writers and their stories into daylight. Sometimes the numen speaks to me, it tells me that we won’t be forgotten 💜🧚🏽♀️
How beautifully poignant to read this gorgeous essay just as I have been pondering once more how lucky I am to live in a place of my choosing (I'm French and I live in Ireland), when, as you say, "the world seems intent on making exiles of all of us". Now I need to find out if there are any letters from my grandparents. Older ancestors were most likely illiterate.
I love that you live in a place of your choosing. And I often think about the many ancestors I have no real link to, how many have had ties cut by oppressive forces, poverty, etc. It seems like some of it is just the luck of things persisting somehow, in a world that doesn't often care for the past, especially ephemera, etc.
What a treasure. I love seeing mormor written across the pages. My ancestors stories (what we know of them) are similar. I also think of what they left behind, who they never saw again, the language and culture and land they were separated from, and who they displaced. Every tradition I hold fast to or try to reclaim, every Swedish word I learn or hear feels like a kind of a healing. Thanks for sharing.
I love that too--and another aspect is the delight in finding others with similar stories, ties to countries our ancestors left that still hold meaning for us in different ways. I loved seeing mormor in that handwriting too. 💜
Circumstances the exile us from ourselves, and intentionalities that connect us to ourselves. Beautiful! ❤️
I also write by hand every day across a couple of notebooks, besides keeping multiple sketchbooks. I think the digital versions of ourselves are necessary today but they cannot be the only way we exist. They must not be. I think only about how they connect me to myself because I haven't allowed myself to think about what they will be after I'm gone. But there it is. The world will last much longer after me, even though it will also end with me. We were not meant to see too far ahead.
Thanks so much Nishant! I love your drawings, and that you also write by hand each day. There is some kind of magic about the intention and thought that goes into it, the way thoughts move differently for me when I hand write. And I agree--there are so many ways I could never access or do without the digital world, the speed and immediacy of it has, like everything, benefits and losses. Both/and. I like the idea that we were not meant to see too far ahead...but that the world will continue on. 💜
An utterly beautiful essay, Freya. I've recently been feeling this kind of dialogue with the past through my reading, and it's an eerily wonderful feeling.
Thanks so much Jeffrey. I feel that too with reading--how many lives magically live on our bookshelves! It is an eerily wonderful feeling, completely agree. 💜
So beautiful Freya: made me cry. The physical touching of your female ancestors through the letters is so very poignant.
My grandfather wrote a book called 'From Sweden to Northern Wairoa" ( New Zealand). Like many in NZ we ended up here due to our ancestors, for me - Scottish and Swedish, who were full of courage or desperation. However, of course there were people here before us immigrants, a people who were forgotten or treated with disrespect to say the least.
I tried to read some of those letters with my memory of Swedish. The handwriting is beautiful too.
Could sit in your beautiful words all evening but must move on to make dinner!
Thanks so much Jo. That's fantastic you have a book written by your grandfather--it's those stories, no matter the content, that say so much about history in such a personal way.
“How the world seems intent on making exiles of everyone—impoverished people crossing the world for opportunities that make other people impoverished.” - What a sad and succinct account of human history in a beautiful story about your foremothers and the poets who may have lightened their load.
I wonder how long your g-grandmother felt the charm of her first Astoria 4-leaf clover.
I wonder about that too. That she noted that, saved those clovers, made me feel like she was looking for a sign that all would work out... but then those with luck already aren't often looking for charms, right?
This is beautiful, Freya, and made me cry. I chatted with a taxi driver last week about the fact that nearly all of us in Australia are migrants, whether first gen or fifth gen or somewhere in between. We have no written remains of my father’s family who came from Scotland in 1913. And precious little of my mother’s ancestor who was transported in the 1830s.
Thanks so much Michelle. Yeah, it's pretty stunning that while we may never know the full circumstances of what made our ancestors move, we still live where we do because of the actions/decisions/forces of an earlier world that believed in empire and made countries out of lands that were never theirs to own.
thanks for this -- I was going to wait and read it all, then write something. But for now, just to say -- I too have a Swedish grandmother, and great grandmother, from Aland Island, part of Finland now, and we have a few letters from my great grandfather father to Seattle. I'll read your post fully soon, just had to mention.
So interesting. Åland has such an interesting history. I do love finding that writing of personal stories always opens up connections with others who find parts of it in their own.
I see the commonplace book you have, and I am reminder of the book or journal my grandmothers sister carried with her from Alan to Seattle around 1903. It’s a wonderful story, first the oldest sister goes to Seattle, then the Klondike, works, gets gold dust enough to send for the second sister, then sends for the 3 rd sister, my grandmother. She travels alone across the ocean , by train thru Canada, on to Seattle , in 1906. I have a draft of the story written, hope to find time to get it out.
What a treasure your mother gave you, and so fortunate for us that it came into your hands for you to share with us. There's a magic in connecting with another human across a century of time. A beautiful piece.
Thanks so much John. I thought of the maps/records your ancestor made in WWI when I was writing this, of how those small fragments that somehow end up part of our own world open up such a more real history into lives before ours.
We don't know each other but your letter was send to me by my dear friend Gywllm. And indeed it is "transporting." How fortunate you are to be able to trace your heritage back so far. Personally I have an album of photographs but I don't know the names of any of "my strangers" although I was told by my mother that we were descended from them. Alas, she didn't know their names either.
This is also a beautiful piece about the value of writing the old fashioned way. I am often frustrated by the short "texts" I receive that tell me virtually nothing. I hope that actual writing survives and does not become a lost art as our planet and relationships disappear.
I love that we never can predict where our writing will go, connect with when we send it out into the world. And I so agree--small texts are expedient but don't always create the intimacy and thought that goes into a written letter, do they...
Södergran astonishes me! "I had to walk through the solar systems, / before I found the first thread of my red dress." Just wow. Thank you for this beautiful story!
She astonishes me too--it was hard not to fill the pages with more of her poems, I had to spend time and read more of her work again and was reminded of her power. So glad to share and find others as moved by her words as I was. 💜
Hola , Es Muy Triste Tú Historia Familiar. Mí Familia Estuvo En Él Exilio Más De Cuarenta Años , Mí Abuelo Luchó En La Guerra Civil Española 1936-39 , Con Los Republicanos , Y Tras Perder La Guerra , Cruzo La Frontera Dirección A Francia , Donde Los Amables Gendarmes Lo Llevaron A Un Campo De Concentración. Tras Pasar Varios Meses En Unas Condiciones Infrahumanas , Le Dieron Ha Elegir , Luchar Contra El Fascismo Y Él Nazismo , O Morir De Hambre O De Alguna Enfermedad. Eligio Unirse Al Ejército Francés , Y Luchar Por La Libertad De Todas Las Personas , Sean De La Condición Que Sea , Raza O Religión. Ocho Años De Guerra , Dos Campos De Concentración Y Mas De Cuarenta Años De Exilio Pagó Mí Abuelo Y Su Familia Por La Libertad. No Conocía A La Poeta Que Mencionas , Pero Voy Ha Buscar Algún Libro Suyo Traducido Al Español. Un Saludo.
Lo que tanta gente ha pasado para vivir en este mundo nunca deja de sorprenderme. Qué persona tan increíble fue su antepasado al pasar por todo eso, cuánto han pasado tantos para llevarnos a donde estamos nosotros, sus descendientes. Me enferma ver que no podemos escapar de esos bucles, y al mismo tiempo me llena de esperanza y convicción de que otros han luchado por mucho antes que nosotros. Muchas gracias por compartir la historia de tu familia. 💜
I've left small poems I come across that I thought my son would like and tape them to his door--he leaves them up and when I asked about one he confessed he can't really read them. 😂 I do miss letter writing--it's such an amazing gift of attention and exchange with others.
Freya, there is so much I loved about this post - the recognition of foremothers and their cellular influence on each individual generation right up to you. How both you and your great-grandmother loved poetry, scribbled your own, and had a commonplace diary. Your recognition goes beyond the actual written words to an acknowledgment of the energy that swirls in her creativity. I loved those pictures; thank you so much for sharing them with us. They must be such prized possessions... those written words, a timeless tangible part of your ancestor. I am so touched to see you honor a foremother whom you never knew but admittedly are connected to because she has carried you as well, like how you carry her now - each generation exchanging skins to tell their collective story.
Also, the relationship between Södergran and Olsson made me cry tears of joy. I can feel their sisterhood and love across centuries still. They really did understand each other, fanned each other's flame when the world couldn't care less about who they were. That right there gives me hope and makes me believe in our connection and sisterhood even more, and the indelible respect and gratitude that I feel deepens. And at the end, there is always Dickinson's ghost murmuring poetic epiphanies, breaking our spiritual stupor and propelling us into the practice of love and sisterhood.
Swarna you are truly the best, I am so happy to be connected with you and find a sister--I thought of it a lot while reading about Södergran and Olsson too, how magical it truly is to find another writer who recognizes themselves in each others' work. It makes me believe too, exactly as you say--of the immense gratitude and hopefulness it brings. So so happy to find that we are kin in writing--there is nothing else like it. And always....Dickinson. Thank you dear sister. 💜🧚🏼
Yes to all of this and thank you sister for bringing these obscure women writers and their stories into daylight. Sometimes the numen speaks to me, it tells me that we won’t be forgotten 💜🧚🏽♀️
How beautifully poignant to read this gorgeous essay just as I have been pondering once more how lucky I am to live in a place of my choosing (I'm French and I live in Ireland), when, as you say, "the world seems intent on making exiles of all of us". Now I need to find out if there are any letters from my grandparents. Older ancestors were most likely illiterate.
I love that you live in a place of your choosing. And I often think about the many ancestors I have no real link to, how many have had ties cut by oppressive forces, poverty, etc. It seems like some of it is just the luck of things persisting somehow, in a world that doesn't often care for the past, especially ephemera, etc.
What a treasure. I love seeing mormor written across the pages. My ancestors stories (what we know of them) are similar. I also think of what they left behind, who they never saw again, the language and culture and land they were separated from, and who they displaced. Every tradition I hold fast to or try to reclaim, every Swedish word I learn or hear feels like a kind of a healing. Thanks for sharing.
I love that too--and another aspect is the delight in finding others with similar stories, ties to countries our ancestors left that still hold meaning for us in different ways. I loved seeing mormor in that handwriting too. 💜
When my son was born my mom decided she wanted her grandchildren to call her Mormor, so it’s a special term for us ❤️
My son also calls my mother mormor--I've always loved that term, I love that your mom wanted that too. 💜
Circumstances the exile us from ourselves, and intentionalities that connect us to ourselves. Beautiful! ❤️
I also write by hand every day across a couple of notebooks, besides keeping multiple sketchbooks. I think the digital versions of ourselves are necessary today but they cannot be the only way we exist. They must not be. I think only about how they connect me to myself because I haven't allowed myself to think about what they will be after I'm gone. But there it is. The world will last much longer after me, even though it will also end with me. We were not meant to see too far ahead.
Thanks so much Nishant! I love your drawings, and that you also write by hand each day. There is some kind of magic about the intention and thought that goes into it, the way thoughts move differently for me when I hand write. And I agree--there are so many ways I could never access or do without the digital world, the speed and immediacy of it has, like everything, benefits and losses. Both/and. I like the idea that we were not meant to see too far ahead...but that the world will continue on. 💜
An utterly beautiful essay, Freya. I've recently been feeling this kind of dialogue with the past through my reading, and it's an eerily wonderful feeling.
Thanks so much Jeffrey. I feel that too with reading--how many lives magically live on our bookshelves! It is an eerily wonderful feeling, completely agree. 💜
So beautiful Freya: made me cry. The physical touching of your female ancestors through the letters is so very poignant.
My grandfather wrote a book called 'From Sweden to Northern Wairoa" ( New Zealand). Like many in NZ we ended up here due to our ancestors, for me - Scottish and Swedish, who were full of courage or desperation. However, of course there were people here before us immigrants, a people who were forgotten or treated with disrespect to say the least.
I tried to read some of those letters with my memory of Swedish. The handwriting is beautiful too.
Could sit in your beautiful words all evening but must move on to make dinner!
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much Jo. That's fantastic you have a book written by your grandfather--it's those stories, no matter the content, that say so much about history in such a personal way.
“How the world seems intent on making exiles of everyone—impoverished people crossing the world for opportunities that make other people impoverished.” - What a sad and succinct account of human history in a beautiful story about your foremothers and the poets who may have lightened their load.
I wonder how long your g-grandmother felt the charm of her first Astoria 4-leaf clover.
I wonder about that too. That she noted that, saved those clovers, made me feel like she was looking for a sign that all would work out... but then those with luck already aren't often looking for charms, right?
It was a long way to move from home and the known world. I’d be glad for 4-leaf clovers, too. :-)
This is beautiful, Freya, and made me cry. I chatted with a taxi driver last week about the fact that nearly all of us in Australia are migrants, whether first gen or fifth gen or somewhere in between. We have no written remains of my father’s family who came from Scotland in 1913. And precious little of my mother’s ancestor who was transported in the 1830s.
Thanks so much Michelle. Yeah, it's pretty stunning that while we may never know the full circumstances of what made our ancestors move, we still live where we do because of the actions/decisions/forces of an earlier world that believed in empire and made countries out of lands that were never theirs to own.
Absolutely.
thanks for this -- I was going to wait and read it all, then write something. But for now, just to say -- I too have a Swedish grandmother, and great grandmother, from Aland Island, part of Finland now, and we have a few letters from my great grandfather father to Seattle. I'll read your post fully soon, just had to mention.
So interesting. Åland has such an interesting history. I do love finding that writing of personal stories always opens up connections with others who find parts of it in their own.
I see the commonplace book you have, and I am reminder of the book or journal my grandmothers sister carried with her from Alan to Seattle around 1903. It’s a wonderful story, first the oldest sister goes to Seattle, then the Klondike, works, gets gold dust enough to send for the second sister, then sends for the 3 rd sister, my grandmother. She travels alone across the ocean , by train thru Canada, on to Seattle , in 1906. I have a draft of the story written, hope to find time to get it out.
how amazing. to think what they all felt and saw and lived.
Yes, will try putting some on substack.
What a treasure your mother gave you, and so fortunate for us that it came into your hands for you to share with us. There's a magic in connecting with another human across a century of time. A beautiful piece.
Thanks so much John. I thought of the maps/records your ancestor made in WWI when I was writing this, of how those small fragments that somehow end up part of our own world open up such a more real history into lives before ours.
Yes, I was very much relating as I was reading this. We are so blessed to have those tangible pieces of history.
There are so many beautiful parts in your work of writing. Thank you. It is like unwrapping an unexpected gift.
That is so lovely to hear. Thank you Ginger. 💜
We don't know each other but your letter was send to me by my dear friend Gywllm. And indeed it is "transporting." How fortunate you are to be able to trace your heritage back so far. Personally I have an album of photographs but I don't know the names of any of "my strangers" although I was told by my mother that we were descended from them. Alas, she didn't know their names either.
This is also a beautiful piece about the value of writing the old fashioned way. I am often frustrated by the short "texts" I receive that tell me virtually nothing. I hope that actual writing survives and does not become a lost art as our planet and relationships disappear.
I love that we never can predict where our writing will go, connect with when we send it out into the world. And I so agree--small texts are expedient but don't always create the intimacy and thought that goes into a written letter, do they...
Exquisite piece Freya. I so felt the presence of your foremothers.
I sit here in Clackamas and I am transported.
Thank you so much Gwyllm, and for sharing my words with others. It means so much to connect with others through writing. 💜
Your work really resonates with me!
Södergran astonishes me! "I had to walk through the solar systems, / before I found the first thread of my red dress." Just wow. Thank you for this beautiful story!
She astonishes me too--it was hard not to fill the pages with more of her poems, I had to spend time and read more of her work again and was reminded of her power. So glad to share and find others as moved by her words as I was. 💜
Hola , Es Muy Triste Tú Historia Familiar. Mí Familia Estuvo En Él Exilio Más De Cuarenta Años , Mí Abuelo Luchó En La Guerra Civil Española 1936-39 , Con Los Republicanos , Y Tras Perder La Guerra , Cruzo La Frontera Dirección A Francia , Donde Los Amables Gendarmes Lo Llevaron A Un Campo De Concentración. Tras Pasar Varios Meses En Unas Condiciones Infrahumanas , Le Dieron Ha Elegir , Luchar Contra El Fascismo Y Él Nazismo , O Morir De Hambre O De Alguna Enfermedad. Eligio Unirse Al Ejército Francés , Y Luchar Por La Libertad De Todas Las Personas , Sean De La Condición Que Sea , Raza O Religión. Ocho Años De Guerra , Dos Campos De Concentración Y Mas De Cuarenta Años De Exilio Pagó Mí Abuelo Y Su Familia Por La Libertad. No Conocía A La Poeta Que Mencionas , Pero Voy Ha Buscar Algún Libro Suyo Traducido Al Español. Un Saludo.
Lo que tanta gente ha pasado para vivir en este mundo nunca deja de sorprenderme. Qué persona tan increíble fue su antepasado al pasar por todo eso, cuánto han pasado tantos para llevarnos a donde estamos nosotros, sus descendientes. Me enferma ver que no podemos escapar de esos bucles, y al mismo tiempo me llena de esperanza y convicción de que otros han luchado por mucho antes que nosotros. Muchas gracias por compartir la historia de tu familia. 💜
I've left small poems I come across that I thought my son would like and tape them to his door--he leaves them up and when I asked about one he confessed he can't really read them. 😂 I do miss letter writing--it's such an amazing gift of attention and exchange with others.