The woman who, one year ago today, was rifling through her storage unit looking for The Writers Book of Days as her daughter flew to Africa, is today in St. Louis, walking up and down rows in Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery, looking for her lost grandparents’ graves. One was located: Her father’s father’s stone, with his Hebrew name: Elazar ben Avraham Moshe. There is more searching to be done tomorrow, in the neighborhood where they lived (the Ghetto), for the sites of their homes and the synagogue where they were married.

A year of blogging from The Writers Book of Days comes to a close. I have missed days, and many days the writing was just plain. But it wasn’t meant to be masterpiece writing — just a sort of sketchpad and most of all, a year of commitment. And here I still am.

In this year — well, half-year actually, as I started in January — I wrote 200 pages of rough draft of a manuscript. (I still have plenty more to go.) It is the product of another sort of daily practice: 500 words a day, M-F. Very doable. Since my crotchety, flimsy printer can’t handle such a job, I sent the file to Kinko’s, where they printed it and put it in a nice brown box. It sits on my table and looks like something. I try to keep believing it could be true — that I could finish a book. But that’s daunting, so I’ll keep doing it in daily bits. I’ll let go of the outcome and concentrate on the practice. My job is to “just show up.” The important stuff, the connections, the inspiration, when it comes, it comes as a gift. And very importantly, I’ve been engaged with this idea and excited about it for years.

In the fall I am registered for a class on Beginning Writing for Children, and I’m excited about that, too. And I keep working children’s books into my reading list.

All in all, it has been a decent year in the world of writing. Nothing published — OK, never mind — my first published poem, which was in Southwest Journal, will be in an anthology of SW Mpls. poetry, coming out in September. It was inspired by the subject I started my blog with: the flight of my daughter across the world.

But what has made it a decent writing year has been not finished product, not polished pieces, but a habit of daily practice. Musicians know they need to do it. Writers do, too.

After a rocky late summer and autumn of ’09, I am grounded again, for the most part. My grief at my various losses has calmed, though the emotions, the awareness, the passions, the lessons, thank God, still live. I am grateful for so much.

Thank you, blog, for being there. Thank you, Sun candle, for awakening my senses, for bringing me back to moments of coziness and peace. Thank you, readers, who have checked my blog every day. I think there has only been one day of these 365 that no one has checked, and that felt lonely. So thank you for being more faithful than I have been, for reading these often mundane little blog entries, because it means you have cared about this project, that you cheer me on, you’ve kept me going. If no one read, I don’t know if I could have kept writing.

I may be wrapping up Promises to Keep, but no, I don’t think I’m done blogging. I’m a lifelong journaler. But this year I think I’ll do something different, pure fun. Look for a cooking blog, one that is peppered with odd fun little things. I’m thinking of a title, and when I do and when I start, I will post the link from here.

Adieu to this sweet year. — Barbara

On the other side of the world, Wayne is grinding grain in Senegal with the ladies in their bright African prints; they are enjoying the scene immensely. On the other side of the world, Sarah has no doubt dispensed many bangles and baubles from Claire’s, and I wish I could have witnessed the scene. I am glad Kate has the two of them there now that she has put in one whole year in Africa. Me next!

But I have my own adventure. On the other side of my family — the side I didn’t know nearly so well, so much of its history lost to time and distance — were five orphaned siblings who turned out to be, among them, exceptionally fine, kind, sweet, gregarious, down-to-earth, funny, athletic, hard-working people. From their parents, Lazar and Sarah, who died so tragically, way too young, struggling immigrants, came this fountain of fine people, and I get to meet one of these cousins I’ve never seen. We are both excited, as we represent the two halves of the family that went different ways and knew little about each other. Lazar and Sarah, whose lives turned sad, if only they could have known what they created down the generations. Maybe they do. As Cheri said, “I feel their spirits are calling us.”

Sadie didn’t know why she took it, the plaid cloth-covered journal that belonged to Karen. After all, she could have gotten one herself, either with allowance money or by asking for one for her birthday.

Karen’s grandmother had given her the journal at the beginning of summer vacation. Her grandma gave it to her with a hug and said, “Go, child, and write about this life around you while you have time to do it. Write, like Ray Bradbury, about the feel of brand-new sneakers in June, write about the sound of a slice of watermelon being broken off. But I don’t need to tell you what to notice. I can see that you already observe so much.”

She hadn’t even had a chance to write in it before Sadie slipped it in her bag. But what was she going to do with it? Write her own thoughts in it? Somehow she didn’t feel that was going to make her very happy. Or just put it in her dresser drawer imagining she had a grandmother who would do that for her? That felt, I don’t know, thin and flimsy because she knew it wasn’t true. Why didn’t her family notice her the way Karen’s family noticed Karen?

Meanwhile, Sadie held Karen’s journal, looking at the pink and green plaid cover as she thought what to do.

Those who know me have heard about this, but I’ll recount it here. St. Joseph’s School, Bellmead, Texas, in the early 1960s. It was a rural area outside of Waco, and the school was so poor we didn’t even have school uniforms like all the other Catholic schools. We were so small we didn’t even have nuns! So the first couple of years I had teachers who I’m not sure had college degrees, and finally in fourth grade we had Sister Mary Alexia, who was well educated and a fine teacher.

I was thrown into a situation I couldn’t handle very well, starting out at that school. The little school was in the middle of a Polish farming community, and except for the few of us from the Air Force Base, the students were mostly farm kids with long Polish names. They’d known each other forever. And here I bounced in, joining in in second grade when friendships had been formed, with my worldly ways from having lived in Japan and my nice dresses and bows in my hair. And all those “A”s on my report card.

The other kids were envious, but I couldn’t have known that. I thought they were the ones with the upper hand. Unfortunately, our grades were announced to the entire class when report cards came out. Father Walsh would stand at the front of the class, read off each person’s grades, and make comments. So for me it was, “Barbara, straight “A”s, as usual.” I would have been proud and happy, but the other kids — at least a little group of snooty “mean girls” — accused me of cheating. The teacher did nothing to stop this. In fact, she said the only grade that mattered was Religion.

I can still feel the shame and the anger, and above all, that I was completely misunderstood.

Everything changed the day she got the Microplane Zester. Guys have their hardware stores, but women and men who cool have kitchen utensils! The thing about this zester is it scrapes lemon rind off lightly and easily, no skinned knuckes! And it’s just right for Parmesan, as well. When you have a tool like this, it makes you realize that life doesn’t always have to be so danged hard. For example, rather than heaping your arms with books and odds and ends that are falling on the floor as you go down the stairs and across the parking lot into your car, you could just put all those things into a bag and it would be so much easier. So many of us are used to just “putting up with” rather than getting an inexpensive proper tool for the job.

But back to the Microplane Zester. She would have skipped the lemon or orange zest in a recipe because it was such a pain to grate, and then she got this $10 gadget, and the chore became fun! Chocolate, too. Chocolate can be grated over whipped cream on a cup of steaming hot chocolate. Just the finishing touch it needs.

This zester was modeled on a tool for woodworking that someone saw and got the idea that it could be used for the kitchen, as well. Why did it take so many years, decades to discover this simple thing?

So, with her Microplane, she started making madeleines with the subtle flavor that makes them what they are. She produced fresh Parmesan for the table; it lay in light fluffy ethereal piles on the cutting board. She didn’t curse at having to haul out the old tin grater. No no no. And she felt powerful swishing it into and out of its plastic “scabard” like a sword of the kitchen.

And this is why the Amazon kitchen tools section is so much fun to look at, with its reader reviews. This one got hundreds of five-star ratings, and this is how it landed in my utensil collection.

Norell. The scent of sophistication, the scent of Manhattan, the scent of my Aunt Ann — that is, Ann Joyce.

I associate with, first, the winter of 1975, during holiday break from the UFW. It paved the way for what would, in 1977, be a longer visit, and finally moving to New York City and living there for six years.

After a few years of living a spartan life in the hot dusty farm areas of California, Manhattan was magical. I shared Amanda’s bedroom, and I’d sit beside the big window in that room at night, on the 15th floor of 75th and Broadway and watch the gleam of the Hudson River and the light of the New Jersey buildings on the Palisades.

Ann and Dennis had bright colors in the living room, and in the kitchen, wallpaper in pale green and silver — all very pop art and contemporary — and she had a framed photo of Patrick McGoohan over the kitchen sink.

I brought her some buttons from the UFW — there were so many varieties for so many occasions. For the holidays, we had silver buttons with “Boycott Lettuce” and the UFW eagle, some in red, some in green. Just picturing those buttons, I hear the Isley Brothers song I kept playing, feel the peace of that high Hudson River view, and remember the scent of Norell.

… and it’s at Disney World, but it’s actually the Carousel of Progress in Tomorrow Land — it’s sort of a theater. It’s one of the few “rides” you’re brave enough to go on at Disney World, so Carousel of Progress it is.

You enter the theater and are hit with a tidal wave of nostalgia for… Tomorrow. I miss the way “tomorrow” used to be, the way we imagined it in the 1960s: a Jetsons world of robot maids and push-button meals, jet cars that would transport us happily through space. And the thing is, this bright and shiny World of the Future would be as comfy and cozy as a family den in the 1960s. The externals would have changed, but what Disney and the Jetsons failed to realize was that technology would change so many fundamentals about our society. You can’t just slap it like a veneer on the 1960s.

But back to the Carousel of Progress. You sit in the theater, and as a grandfatherly voice narrates the changes of a family’s life through the eras of American history as we watch the tableaux, the seats themselves revolve to the next “era.” But we got stuck. Stuck in, oh, 1880 or so. We saw 1880 three times till the audience cried mutiny and exited mid-program as the loudspeaker barked, “Stay in your seats! Do not exit the theater!”

Well, three times of this family in the 1880s was quite enough, and, having been through this Carousel before, I knew they’d be the same old family doing the same things, just with new appliances. What a relief to have finally escaped the next round of the jaunty “It’s a great big beautiful tomorrrrrow!” song.

And we went out into the real tomorrow.

And my latest discovery of Progress, one of modern society’s true achievements that we didn’t have in the 1960s is… Haagen Dazs Dark Chocolate Mint ice cream.

Good topic, as I was going to do a little free-for-all tonight, anyway.

Animal sightings on Lake Calhoun in the past two days: Bald eagles I can see from my window, so big they look like small planes on first glance. But ah, the unmistakable white head and tail. Always a thrill. They fly above the lake, spotting fish, I imagine, and I saw one swoop down yesterday.

Also yesterday… I was sitting in the park across the street. Among the dog-walkers by the Lake, the swarms of them, I saw a couple walking a dog with… a flowing blond mane??? It was a MINIATURE HORSE. It was funny seeing all the double-takes.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a movie. Here’s one that made me laugh, English major that I am.

Me: On this perfectly beautiful summer day, I am sick. Boo-hoo.

Myself: What are your symptoms?

I: Temp of 100, raging sore throat.

Me: No one gets sick at this time of year.

Myself: Sure they do. How about… um… Dengue Fever? West Nile Virus?

I: Don’t be dramatic. It’s just your hinky immune system and lack of sleep.

Me: Look at Peter O’Toole on TV. It’s the end of Lawrence of Arabia.

Myself: How can anyone have eyes that blue?

I: Lawrence wants a desk job now. I know that feeling. I felt that way when I left the Union.

Me: I will wind down now, cuddle with the cats, and see if I wake up feverless.

Myself: Ooo, I hear the fireworks of the Aquatennial. I’m going to the window.

I: Can’t see them. But I can hear them, and the neighbor dog is barking.

Me: This is not a very interesting conversation, but I am slightly feverish and need to get some sleep.

Myself: At least you are writing.

I: You have to write the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. Night night.

W and I were talking about passing time yesterday, how already, 1996 was “a long time ago,” another era, to our kids. He talked of how he was realizing how soon after World War II we were born. He said that if “Back to the Future” were made today, it would go back in time to… the time the movie really was made. I remember going to see that in Columbus — I think I was expecting Sarah then. I was thinking of how music of “our” era — the ’60s and ’70s — that music today is as old as music of the Roaring Twenties was to us!

It’s all too mind-boggling. To me, the ’90s are still today’s times. But then I realize how much has changed since then. I can still remember so clearly what it was like going to England in 1992 — it shouldn’t be nearly 20 years ago. In the mid-nineties, which still sounds so contemporary to me, we were actually in a completely different phase of life. We were in the thick of raising kids — in the prime of family life, the kids in elementary school. Lots of busyness with ferrying kids to music lessons, sports, Scouts. Now these young parents, 15 years younger than I, are doing that. In 1996 we got our first internet connection at home and signed up for Prodigy. I posted to my first discussion board, which was about Keanu Reeves (I was smitten with him, having just seen “Speed.”) Message boards were run on Delphi. It was the beginning of a technology that changed our lives so dramatically. A while after Prodigy, we got America Online. But that phase ended long ago.

I think of Baby Kate — it’s still so clear to me — and her napping in my arms the way Neko does now. And baby Sarah in Columbus in her array of Oshkosh overalls.

I don’t want to live in the past. But it makes me want to cry, how it whizzes by, how you can’t go back and do it right. That there’s no rough draft of life that you get to perfect. The challenge now is to make life vibrant today. Because someday this will sound like a relatively young, vital time of life that I’ll want to have lived fully.