Branching Out

I spent the morning wrestling with Turbo Tax and shuffling through our year's worth of financial records. Ugh.

Since a chilly rain was still falling this afternoon, I delved into another sedentary task: geneology.

My father's mother invested countless hours in The Record of My Ancestry, a massive leather-bound tome tracing each branch of our family tree into the distant past in her tiny, spidery script. My cousin Gale pursued my maternal line, creating computerized trees that also lead back to our European roots.

I compiled my own short version, back to my great-great-grandparents, and was reminded that I am the namesake of one: Amy Storm North, born in Brooklyn in 1818. How grateful I am that this was the ancestral name selected, rather than Adeline, Harriet, Finetta, Rhoda, Matilda, or Ecedra. Sarah, Emma, Louisa, or Eliza would have been fine, too, I guess. But I have always loved my short, simple name: all angles in print, curvaceous in cursive. The most alphabetically balanced name I know: A=1, M=13, Y=25.

As I reflected on my day, I plunged into my craft bin in search of these tree of life beads that I bought from a clearance rack a year or so ago. I wondered what use I could make of them...

Cheers to my grandmother, Emma Matilda Ashhurst, who disliked her name so much that she announced at the age of 10 that she would henceforth be known as Maud. And she was.

Tonight, I have another sedentary activity in mind: Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss sounds like it should fit right into the themes of my day.