What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

I’m a kind person, almost to a fault. However, even with people I no longer like can I be kind. It takes talent to walk away with your head held high after you’ve encountered a toxic person.

I feel that my kindness serves me well, but don’t mistake it for weakness or that I’m a doormat. I also don’t take lightly to people that lie, cheat & steal. But that’s for another entry.

I look at my kindness as a soft weapon, by being kind most people at least where we live now don’t know what to do.

By greeting someone who’s hostile with kindness makes them look bad & sometimes they change how they feel about you.

But like I said it shouldn’t be taken as a sign of weakness or desperation because it’s neither.

Kindness is a gift that I learned much later than I’d like to. In my 20’s I was short with people & judgmental but I learned that judging people is something one can be Very wrong about.

I’d like to think that I’m more open minded & kinder than I was then & that by being my friend actually gives you perks. Because I’m in the city I live in, I don’t care about what people think in my neighborhood. Hey, they think some pretty petty stuff. But like I wrote before that’s for another entry. Maybe it should be titled “30 year olds that act like they’re in high school.” Cause they do. Pathetic. Really.

List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

1. A teacher of English for grade school students. It’d be fun to influence young minds. Plus, I really enjoy reading so it’s no brainer.

2. Working in a food pantry feeding the poor. I’ve done it before & really liked it. As it makes a difference in people’s day to day lives.

3. Opening a literary café with focus on open mic readings & reading book groups. With excellent coffee of course!

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

My Farmor who lived to be 103 was a power house. Not only was she a teacher in her town up North but before WWII broke out she traveled to Germany for what she always told us was “vacation.”

She had an album of her trip with girlfriends down to Germany prior to the war breaking out. She was stunning in her 20’s & a real catch. But I think she was on assignment from the government. Everyone in Europe knew how dangerous Germany had become & she traveled to the belly of the beast, Berlin & Frankfurt.

She’d often take out that album & show us grandkids all the flags that were hanging in Berlin & Frankfurt. I think she was so beautiful the government thought she could con her way out of a situation if it became dangerous. Something she in fact did during the war & the occupation when my grandparents had Nazi soldiers living with them.

She battered her eyelashes & spoke fluent German so the soldiers would look the other way. She was in the Resistance & came to my grade school once to talk about what that was like. They used anything to disguise their messages to one another & my grandfather was honored by the King after the war with a medal, however we were never able to find out for what. My guess is that it had to do with him smuggling people to Sweden during the war, as he knew the mountains better than the soldiers. He also knew all the positions they were in & managed to circumvent them.

I’m proud of my heritage for this reason & you can still find remnants of where the soldiers were in the mountains by her town.