Target

“What are you doing tonight?” Dicka said as we swam together at 7:00 p.m.

“The blog is due tomorrow,” I said, “So probably writing it?”

“The blog is always due tomorrow,” she said, and I laughed. Even though it was only a weekly assignment, she wasn’t wrong.

I dog paddled next to her and knew I should get out of the water and apply myself to writing the thing, but I find pool time sweeter when fueled by writer’s guilt and compulsion, so I flapped around longer in the deep end.

On Monday, I thought I’d only write a short missive and that to introduce a recycled piece from 2016 or something—an article I hoped you wouldn’t remember—but I didn’t have a legitimate excuse for the slackery until this morning, Wednesday, at 5:00 a.m. when I awoke to an email from my modeling agency.

The message was time stamped from late last night, 11:49 p.m. (Tuesday), and the words URGENT, OVERNIGHT, and TARGET shouted at me from the subject heading. It was an availability check for a shoot that would start at 10:00 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) and end at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday). Nights are when clients schedule shoots at big box stores because real customers are at home sleeping. My deadline to respond to the email was 9:00 a.m.

I flew into sudden accommodation mode. Nothing says “happy emergency” like a sudden, potential Target shoot. Ten years ago, I attended a casting for the bullseye store and feigned interest in an invisible item while shoving a shopping cart around in front of a panel of strangers who ultimately didn’t choose me. I loved every second of it. Maybe this time the fake shopping would turn into a reality?

At 7:30 a.m., I messaged my supervisor at the regular job, relaying the details of my possible booking, and she said, “For sure! Do whatever you need,” agreeing I should take tomorrow off to catch up on sleep. My fingers then sprinted across my keyboard to inform my agent I was free for the big all-nighter.

While I tended to needs at work, I recalled the 1991 movie, Career Opportunities, where the two main characters, Josie and Jim, were accidentally locked in a Target store overnight. She was the popular, rich girl at school; he was the store’s irresponsible teen night janitor. Their worlds collided—and they did too in the roller skates they took from the sporting goods section. Romance broke in and also a couple of criminals they captured together during the night.

Two hours later, word from my agent bounced into my inbox. The client had selected other talent for the shoot this time but thank you for your quick response and flexibility. The disappointment of being released from consideration felt like when one forgets to put the last dirty cup into the already running dishwasher.

Now here I am at 9:38 p.m. on Wednesday night, pecking out this week’s blog instead of preparing to start my Target shoot, and it feels nice that instead of not sleeping at all in an after-hours retail setting with a crew of new-to-me people, I can sleep in my own bed at just the right time next to my not-so-new-to-me Husband.

But I’ll say yes to the next chance I get to lose a night of sleep with Target, and it’ll be ridiculous fun, I’m guessing. You’ll be the first to hear about it.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

In the garden with Coco

Flicka weeded the dill field by hand, and Dicka pinched potato bugs to death with her bare fingers. And that was just yesterday at Waldoch Farm in Lino Lakes, a place with acres of plants, a garden center, greenhouses, farm animals, honey bees, and later in the season, a corn maze and pumpkin patch.

I don’t understand the appeal of gardening on this scale, but my girls do. And they love it.

“Maybe you’ll find your Boaz,” I said one day, “and he’ll leave some extra grain—or kale—for you to pick up and bring home to me.”

My farmhands begin their work in the fields at seven o’clock in the morning and return home by two in the afternoon. Though lively, the recap of their days sucks the energy right out of me. It’s because Flicka planted all the okra or labored in the tomato tunnel, and Dicka hoed for four hours straight, and I can feel it as they talk, and now I’m back in the 1970s and 80s, and I’m hot, thirsty, itchy, and lazy all over again in Grandpa’s garden.

Way back then in our childhoods, my sister Coco and I “worked” the long rows of vegetables because we weren’t given a choice. We stuck together, squandering our time as close to each other as possible, while Mom, curved like a hairpin over the green beans, toiled in another area of the garden. As she bent over, the bottom of her shirt parted from the waistband of her pants, exposing a sliver of skin across her low back that browned nicely in the sun, and we could mark the passage of time by it, knowing when it was a rich bronze, we’d have to go back to school.

Coco was a better listener and follower of instructions than me and set to the task of weeding with a marginal level of commitment. I dug up pebbles with little sticks or nibbled the white roots off blades of grass or scrambled away to the old pump to fill one of Grandma’s metal drinking glasses with sediment-laden refreshment.

“Hey, try this, try this,” I said after logging a solid two minutes of work in the garden. I clambered to my feet, folded forward at the waist and let my head hang between my legs, gazing through them and behind me at the long rows of plants. “Now you have to run as fast as you can.”

I demonstrated my head-between-the-legs run, always plunging headlong into the soil and getting a dirt-packed scalp to take home with me. And maybe I talked Coco into trying it too, but I don't remember that part—only her laughing.

Mom straightened to standing now and again and thoughtfully evaluated all the progress we hadn’t made. “Girls, you only have five-thousand more rows to weed,” she calmly said.

Or at least that’s the number I heard.

Nowadays, I lack green thumbs and a vegetable garden, but at times I imagine tilling up the lawn and scattering seeds for cucumbers, beans, and peas anyway. Will Coco move in to weed my lettuces and carrots while I amuse myself by running willy-nilly around the property, though? See, that’ll determine if I do it or not.

I’m spending this weekend with Coco up on the farm. Maybe we’ll walk where that garden once sprawled, and we’ll tell more stories, the haze of the decades obscuring them, coloring them, and maybe I’ll drop them on your doorstep next week, ring the doorbell, and run—just like what you do with too much zucchini in August.

Let’s just see what happens.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Scraps

Good ideas flutter by. They don’t choose opportune occasions to land—like when a person is poised before a notebook or sitting in front of her keyboard. No, they pick the worst times and places to inspire, and if they’re not caught instantly, they die.

When lively words flit through my brain or fly around me, I fumble for a wrapper, napkin, envelope, or receipt; here’s hoping I have a pen too, but I’ll manage with a broken-down pencil or almost dried-up marker if I have to. What do I do with my little pieces of creativity after that? I cage them up in my purse, my wallet, my nightstand, my glove compartment, my junk drawer. And maybe they die there too.

Or maybe they don’t.

I clean out my purse one day, reread a scrap that’s a little sticky from an old cough drop, and smile. Can I make something of it? A story? A blog installment? No, it’s not long enough. Another scrap emerges, this one from an old notebook. Is it usable? Maybe, but it ends abruptly. A third scrap springs from between two business cards in my wallet. What about this one? It’s kind of embarrassing, and what’s the point? Now my scraps make a small stack. 

A thought comes. If I release the scraps into the wild, I’ll have them out there. So, here I go. They’re free now.

*****

From the wallet: 

Ricka and Dicka romp around, almost breaking the furniture.

“They’re like two puppies,” I say. 

“Put ‘em in a bag with a rock, Little House on the Prairie style,” Flicka says. 

From the junk drawer:

The American Legion in Cable, Wisconsin, has a potluck: venison and taco bites, chili in a crockpot, dilly beans (pickled with hot peppers), and warm pretzels. “Win a gun,” a sign says. It’s a Remington 770 bolt-action 30-06. “No profanity,” says another sign, but I hear talk of “good s*&%” (manure) for the garden.

“Welcome to Cable,” one woman says to us. “Where we bury our own horses. But I wanna dig mine up.”

“Why?” another woman says.

“Because I like the skulls.”

From the notebook:

I think of soil and seeds, fruit and harvest, these days, and I wonder where I am. I remember the kids in our old neighborhood and how I watched them grow up on our driveway—or slab of cement out back, rather—swishing basketballs through our net over and over again on days of sun and warmth and clouds and coolness. Those kids made their metamorphoses there. Teenagers to adults right in front of us. Over the years, I gripped the shoulders of one or another of them, speaking truth into their faces—“I love you. I believe in you. You have a big calling on your life”—and I wonder if anything I uttered made it past ears and into hearts because I only heard about the juvie, the murder, the gangs, the prison sentences. 

My hope flickers; it’s a delicate thing close to extinguishing. What good did it do? I know the fruit can be long coming, the harvest even farther off. People say, “Well, you planted seeds anyway.” Today, I don’t think so. Maybe in a tiny way we helped, along with others, in the very first step. Maybe we only tore rocks from the soil to prepare it.

Flicka says, “Maybe you’re looking for the wrong kind of fruit. Maybe you’re looking for plums when God planted a grapefruit.”

From where we’re standing in the field, it’s impossible to see what’s happening under the dirt. “What’s going on under there?” I say to my garden, and of course I don’t know.

Am I going to cooperate with the Gardener or not? 

“It’s the process over the product,” I hear in my spirit. God’s ways aren’t my ways. 

A man from MN Adult and Teen Challenge told his story in church one Sunday morning. He had

(and my scribbling ended there.)

From the purse pocket:

11/8/21: In my dream last night, Flicka said, “These days will take your faith.”

“Do you mean steal your faith or require your faith?” I said. 

I didn’t get an answer, but now that I’m awake, I realize it could be either.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The blessing

“I won’t let you go until you bless me,” twenty-two-year-old Ricka said, laughing. She squeezed me in a death-hug right there in the kitchen.

“I bless you,” I said, breathless from the crushing. She held me in her clutches, though, until I ran through the Aaronic blessing to cover the bases—just like old times when I declared the words over our girls at bedtime, along with any other little ones staying overnight at our place.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace.

For years, no one could escape a night at our house without the blessing, whether they liked it or not. Godshine, grace, and peace would be upon them—or else. But those kids always waited for it, reminded me of it if I forgot, and gazed into my eyes as I said it over their nights—over their lives, really. And peace descended on them; I could see it fall across their features before they scrambled into their beds or sleeping bags or makeshift tents in the girls’ room upstairs.

Ricka’s demand in the kitchen yesterday spun me back into the story of the man who said it in the first place. Jacob had suffered a rough go of it. Maybe that heel-grabber and supplanter deserved all the hard times he got for stealing his father’s blessing for himself in a culture where it should’ve gone to his older twin brother, Esau. But there was Jacob, now reformed and on the run—along with the women, children, flocks, and servants—into his future and away from his deceptive father-in-law who couldn’t exact enough work from him to be satisfied.

Word came to Jacob that his brother, Esau, whom he hadn’t seen in years, was approaching with four-hundred men. Was there room for the two of them on this desert highway? Jacob’s past would face him soon; there was no evading it. Was Esau still enraged with him for stealing his birthright and blessing? Probably. Jacob sent camels, bulls, calves, and donkeys ahead as a gift. Maybe the generous present would appease his sibling.

Jacob looked around him, counting all he had. He looked ahead of him, eyeing all that was coming. His heart pumped fear through his veins. He made provisions to protect his everything for one more night. What else could he do? The next day his brother would be close enough to touch and likely kill him. Tonight there was nowhere to go but into solitude. He stepped outside of the camp alone.

In that solitary place, he wrestled in the dark with a mysterious God-man, and he tussled with Him all night long—just like we do when we can’t discern who’s with us or who’s against us. Just like we do when we can’t abandon our pasts or escape our futures. Just like we do when we know what we dread most will show up the next day when the alarm goes off.

I imagine that nighttime struggle as a wordless one—only the sounds of arms and legs thumping the soil, grunts and heavy breathing punching the darkness. As the story goes, that blessing-chaser, Jacob, struggled all night long, and not even a displaced hip could stop him. Orange ignited the eastern horizon, sparking the beginning of a new day.

“It’s morning now,” the mysterious competitor said. “Let me go.”

Slick with sweat, Jacob clung to him. “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

And he got the blessing he fought for—along with a new name.

I’m no Jacob. I’d rather push away problems than cling to them. But maybe in my nighttime wrestling, I’ll squeeze what’s fighting me, so by morning I’ve wrung it all out, and there’s nothing left but the blessing. In the dark, maybe the death-crush is what’s needed most. No concession until there’s goodness.

I won’t let you go until you bless me. Yes, let it be so.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Your senses

Last week, I asked you readers which of your five senses you would choose if you could pick only one to keep for the rest of your life. Here are your answers.

*****

I put drops in my eyes twice a day to stave off glaucoma and the blindness it would bring. I love the smell of fresh cut grass, the taste of garlic (or chocolate!), the feel of my grandchildren's arms around my neck and the sound of classical music, but I think it is the ability to see the page of a book or sunlight on the lake or the colors of my knitting pattern that I would miss the most.

LeAnne, northwestern Wisconsin

*****

I would want my sight. Although the others would be devastating to lose, I have memories with smells, sounds, etc… that I can fall back on… reminisce what those great things brought me. But, sight is, to me, the most frightening to lose, especially with the advancement of technology where you need to do EVERYTHING online, plus, not the ability to see could compromise safety. Moreover, there’s so much more of the world I want to see.

Martha, Minneapolis, Minnesota

*****

I would never want to be without my sense of sight, because it is so important to me. I’m an interior designer by my degree, but work as a graphic designer. Everything I do for fun or for business relies on my sight. And then I think of all the things I’d miss out on: the perfect North Dakota sunsets, a bumblebee among lilac blooms, the way an eagle glides over water. No, I can’t lose sight.

Maybe touch? Never to feel a soft velvet or taffeta fabric, the fur on my kitty’s chin, or a really smooth piece of wood that’s been sanded so all imperfections are gone? I should probably keep that one…

Sound doesn’t seem like something to forego, I need to hear sirens and signals, I like to hear a meadowlark and my husband’s voice as he sings to me. Or podcasts, how will I solve crimes if I don’t listen to my murder podcasts? Or to never sing a hymn in church? Can’t lose my hearing.

Taste is out of the question. Popcorn, knoephla soup, coffee, etc.

I was without my sense of smell for a few Covid-days. That was weird, and I did NOT like it. To not smell a freshly mowed lawn, bread from the oven, or even just fresh cedar mulch chips on the church landscaping was so hard.

It doesn’t seem like I’m too interested in giving any one of them up, and I thank my Heavenly Father that I still have all mine. Each is a priceless gift.

Jen, Grand Forks, North Dakota

*****

The Greek Oedipus could not see who he really was—the victim in a cruel prophecy.

When the blind seer Teiresias directed Oedipus’ sighted eyes to the truth, he denied it.

Only after Oedipus gouged out his own eyes did he see clearly.

Why can’t I see what Your plan is for me in this world?

Is it a problem of visual clarity, of focus?

When abandoned and sent away by Abraham into the wilderness, Hagar called on the name of the Lord, saying “You are a God of seeing” and “Truly I have seen him who looks after me” (Genesis 16:13). God saw her, and she saw Him.

“Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee; though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may

not see.”

Lord, I cannot see You, but I know You see me.

We sing “Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus” and “Once I was blind, but now I can see. The Light of the world is Jesus.”

But I really can’t see. I need You to show me how to see with Your eyes in this world.

And one fine day, these eyes will see Him.

Until then, I need a new prescription.

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota.

*****

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Five senses

“The touch of a voice, the taste of a smile, the scent of a skin. See like a blind man and hear what lives within.” Unknown

Today, I want to hear from you.

If you could choose only one, which of the five senses would you want to keep for the rest of your life?

Send me your thoughts (along with your first name, city, and state) HERE, and I’ll publish them in next week’s blog installment. Subscribers, simply hit reply to this message. 

I’m thankful I can smell fresh laundry, taste wasabi, feel the cowhide rug under my bare feet, hear the bossa nova music playing right now, and see the future in my grown-up girls. But if I had to choose only one of my senses for the rest of my life? Hmmm…

What about you?

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Farnsworth and Jarvis

When I first spied the beast waddling through our backyard trees, I grimaced. Zooming in my phone’s camera, I grabbed a shot, catching the subject’s white face and brindle body. Weekly on our property, we witnessed turkeys, ducks, deer, and squirrels—even a hawk once—but this was a new one.

I texted the picture to Husband. Ew, look what’s in our yard!

He responded inside of a minute. He’s good for bugs and maybe mice, I think. We shall call him Farnsworth.

My man texted me a screenshot of a source extolling the creature’s virtues: “Opossums are scavengers. They move from place to place in search of good food sources and a comfy place to sleep and are beneficial for helping to control the overpopulation of snakes, rodents, and insects. Opossums act like little vacuum cleaners when it comes to ticks, including those that spread Lyme disease.”

Oh, I take back my ew, I texted.

They’re the janitors of the backyard. Maybe security guards against the rodent riffraff? Husband wrote.

My initial reaction was turned on its head. Obviously, we needed more Farnsworths.

Five days later, while the girls basked outside, offering up winter skin as a gift to the sun, Dicka alerted me by text of a new mammal at large in the yard. I hurried outdoors to witness him, but the masked one had vanished.

“Raccoons are the worst,” I said.

“He disappeared under that pile of wood,” she said.

“Just great.”

Did raccoons have any skills and talents to share with our family? They were scavengers too, but these guys were willing to polish off carcasses and sift through trash. “Urban survivors,” National Geographic called them. Gross.

The new critter emerged—like he knew we were talking about him—and clawed up a spot in the grass with tremendous speed, flicking dirt behind him.

“Jarvis!” Dicka hollered. So, this one already had a name too. He halted his excavation and lasered his gaze at her. “Stop it!” And for a moment, he did.

Days later, Farnsworth flashed his Sasquatch-like presence again, and I imagined him performing his vacuumly duties in our trees. I smiled. We learned his yard mate, Jarvis, however, had helped himself the previous night to a garbage bag someone had left outside our bin. I scowled.

I typed a partial question into the search bar, and Google filled in the rest: “Do raccoons and opossums get along?” A common question, it seemed. The best online answer was they had to be good at sharing since they enjoyed the same scrounging habits. Sometimes, though, they could snap and swipe at each other.

I sighed. It might be a very long summer.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Dandelion

A sunny blog from yesteryear for your Thursday… Here’s to the darling little intruder!

*****

Yellow dots the lawn. I take a hard look at those common intruders again, shining like mini suns in the spring green.

The blooms are so perfect it’s startling. As a kid, I collected handfuls, delighting in the abundance of beauty in my fist, the stems staining my palms.

Thanks to Husband’s grandma and great-aunt, I tasted the homemade wine once. The women served it in tiny glasses—the kind dried beef was sold in once upon a time—and tossed the yellow liquid back like it was nothing. I took a slower pace, sipping the bitterness and wondering if the aging vintners harvested the flowers directly from their back yard or what.

In a big jar on the counter, I store tea of all kinds, but one of my favorites is made from the roasted root of the rejected plant. The Pest of the Lawn warms my cup and stomach, and I know my organs love me more and more with each swallow.

The taproots support our livers, the leaves make an earthy salad, and the blossoms are a hue that cheers us. It spreads throughout our grass, this perennial herb, giving us more benefits than the sod on its own ever could, but we’re taught to detest it. Why?

No one is born despising dandelions; we’re groomed to loathe them. And I wonder what else—or who else—we’ve been told to hate this whole time.

The subject runs as deep as the turf’s usurper (or is it a usurper?), and I need some refreshment to go with my thoughts.

Heading for the tea jar now…

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Streams

“True faith drops its letter in the post office box and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it and wonders that the answer never comes.”

That line in Streams in the Desert plunged me into deeper thoughts on faith, and the word streams in the book’s title inspired me at 9:39 last night into the kind of writing that mimics human thought. Ah, stream of consciousness writing! How very early 20th-century Modernist movement of me.

I would’ve given author James Joyce—a master of the writing style—more thought, but I’ve been consumed with practical matters this week, scheming about how to stretch our family’s dollars. This morning during a team meeting at work that started with the icebreaker question, “What made you smile this week?”, I felt like a commercial.

“I found out we can save hundreds a month by switching our auto insurance to Progressive.”

My smile-inducing (for me) statement didn’t induce smiles in anyone else. Flat affects all around.

Lest you think most of my job is made up of icebreakers, it kind of is. And I wonder where the term icebreaker came from in the first place, but I’m too tired to look it up. I will, however, look up the video Flicka sent our family a few days ago with footage from the start of the Sea-Ice Marathon of 2024 in Luleå (No, she didn’t go to Sweden. She just shared the clip with us from her cushy spot in the living room.) I watched it again and noted the glare ice under the runners’ feet. Scary and cold. So cold. Like those ice baths everyone but me is taking these days.

And now I’m back in the arena in Thief River Falls where I took skating lessons as a kid. I glided out onto the rink one day way back when, but the pride I felt at first swish evaporated. My feet slid around under me like nothing I ever knew. No precision, no control. What was wrong with my skates? Or was something amiss in me? Half-way across the rink, I finally looked at my feet. My skate guards still clung to my blades. Just an oversight. No big deal. Only the end of the world because everyone else saw it too.

But enough icy thoughts. It’s spring.

A few in our neighborhood adhere to No Mow May and have the signs (and long grass) in their yards to prove it. They let the grass and weeds grow for the month to provide food and shelter for essential pollinators, but I heard somewhere those creatures will likely get shredded up during the first mow of the season.

And now I wonder when our 14-year-old neighbor—I guess he’s probably fifteen by now—will come over to get our in-ground sprinklers going again. He proffered his services last year, claiming he could get the system, which we didn’t know we had, repaired and running and plant the proper grass seed to eradicate our pesky bare spots out front. He delivered, dazzling us with irrigation talents we learned he picked up through YouTube when he was ten.

Last year, this young businessman—with multiple clients in the neighborhood—assessed our bleak-at-first lawn situation with a quiet authority. Then he pedaled off on his bike to buy supplies at Menards, keeping his work at our place to daylight hours, since his mom didn’t let him go out after dark, even to diagnose why geysers shot out of our lawn once during the night back at the beginning. His daytime customer service was impeccable, though, and when Dicka crushed a sprinkler head with her car while backing out of the driveway, he responded to my text for help in six minutes and had the head replaced in twenty.

This might be the point in the narrative when a traditional writer would say, “But I digress,” but that’s exactly my goal today. And it’s so breezy, this meandering way of writing, I might practice it more often to your chagrin. Or delight. You can choose.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The book fair

A meticulous volunteer had fanned out the books on tables, auditorium seating, and rotating racks, the paperbacks like wordy peacocks splashing their bright colors for attention. Cheery signs poked up from displays, marking genres and reader levels. On massive walls, posters bloomed—those were for sale too—and there by the cash register sprawled the table of tchotchkes: light-up pens, metallic pencils, sparkly rubber balls, iridescent rulers, beaded bracelets, neon slinkies, and more.

In minutes, the kids—one classroom at a time—would bluster into the auditorium and rip through the oh-so-neat arrangements of early childhood literature. Within seconds, those little readers would touch every last thing—I could guarantee it, or I wasn’t a parent of a few of them myself. We all knew at their ages they saw with their hands and not with their eyes.

Three of us parents took a quick cash register lesson from a capable member of the Parent Council, a book fair volunteer just like us, before the next wave of shoppers entered. We learned enough to get us through our shift; fingers crossed I wouldn’t have to do a return or make change from a $100 bill as fifteen squirrely ones dropped rubber balls and freed slinkies while waiting in line to give me their parents’ money.

The next class entered the auditorium in a more orderly manner than I expected, the train of them bookended by the main classroom teacher and an assistant. The primary leader dispensed reminders and instructions, and off they went. Some of the little consumers would be avid readers one day, gulping down New York Times bestsellers faster than water. Others, not so much. But these were the days of memories anyway, when the smell of new stories mingled with notable illustrations to carve forever notches in the brain.

But I was about to gather my own indelible memory of spoken words—not written ones like the kids were chasing that day—that would live more than a decade and a half in vivid color in my own mind.

I guided a kid or two to books they wanted, pointed to where they could check out, and returned displaced merchandise to its rightful spot. Another volunteer mom, seemingly charmed by the flurry, leaned into me.

“I can’t imagine sending a blank check with my kid to school,” she said, “but some parents do it.” Her eyes glinted with the same joie de vivre the kids carried, and I imagined her heart dancing with her first library card or trip to the bookmobile back in the day. Her smile eased off, though, and she slipped into mom mode. “Hold on.” She hustled a few steps away to a little boy poised at the trinket table, a bill of some denomination clutched in his fist, his gaze drinking in the inventory.

The woman spoke Arabic to the boy, telling him he shouldn’t spend his money on the junk he was eyeing. His mama wouldn’t be very happy about it if he brought home anything like that instead of a book, she said, and whatever he got would most likely end up breaking and going right in the trash.

The kid’s mouth flatlined, and he sauntered away from the table, empty-handed. The woman returned to me.

“I just told him he shouldn’t spend his money on the junk on that table. His mama wouldn’t be very happy about him coming home with those things instead of a book. Plus, any of that plastic stuff will break and end up in the garbage,” she said, translating the interaction for me.

“Oh,” I said, but I had understood her every word the first time—no translation needed. And I didn’t know Arabic.

I think the woman spoke with me about the next school-related topic, I likely used the cash register to ring up purchases, and we probably tidied up after that classroom’s visit, but I couldn’t focus. I hadn’t just made a good guess at the woman’s words to the boy; I had understood Arabic when I knew nothing of it.

My mind scrolled through possible reasons for that singular moment when I knew a language I didn’t. I recalled reading a story about a young man in a remote village in Africa suddenly speaking perfect English, a language he had never learned. Another story came to mind about a global worker who had witnessed a terrible accident involving children who were bleeding and struggling to live. She instantly spoke flawless Haitian Creole, an unknown language to her, to tell them she would help. And then there was the story in the second chapter of Acts where the people spontaneously broke out in new-to-them languages so others could hear their message.

No Rosetta Stone, Super Duolingo, Busuu, or Memrise. No language institutes, no semesters of classroom instruction, no lengthy tutoring sessions. Just sudden language acquisition because of dire circumstances. But my situation was far from dire. There was nothing urgent in an elementary school book fair and nothing of importance in talking about cheap knickknacks.

What happened that day in the school’s auditorium never happened again. So, what was the point of it?

What do you think?

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Boring?

When Facebook offered me the Dull Women’s Club page as something that might appeal, I wasn’t offended. I was curious, though, and clicked through its members’ introductions and newsy sharings until I was hooked. I joined the group to read the contributors’ posts more often.

“I’m as old as my tongue and a tad older than my teeth,” somebody wrote. And more facts from many others: “I’m one of the dullest dullards you’ll ever meet.” “I like spending time alone at the tiny thrift store in town. If anything is odd or I don’t know what it is, I’ll buy it.” “I filled my pill organizer today, and now I’m charging my phone.” “I led a big, loud life prior to meeting the love of my life. His arrival heralded the start of peace, and now I find solace in dullness.” “I like the sound of the refrigerator humming.” “I love knitting things I never finish.” “I think I might just dump my whole junk drawer in the garbage instead of organizing it, but that would be too exciting.” “Boring is safe. Safe is nice.” “I tried the rivel soup in a diner in Michigan once. It was pretty good.” “I picked the hair out of my brush today.” “The puzzle’s done, the laundry isn’t.” “My toes are permanently splayed from wearing Birkenstocks all the time.”

I logged off, calmed by the blandness, and joined a team meeting for work.

“Here’s the icebreaker for today,” my supervisor said. “Tell us three boring facts about you.”

Maybe it was my “quality time” with the Dull Women of Facebook or maybe it was my recent embracing of the mundane, but I instantly knew what to share.

“My shoe size is 9 or 9 ½,” I said, “I prefer almond flavoring to vanilla, and I’m only mildly concerned about the yogurt in my fridge that expired two weeks ago that I still plan to eat.”

Was admitting my normalcy really this easy? When pressed, I was authentic about being average, but this could be a new default for me. I could—and probably should—more often share the commonplace to bring rest to my listener.

It wasn’t as though I was striving for adventure, fame, or the big story—but wait. Maybe I was—or I at least pressured myself in that direction. When I released thoughts of achievement, I felt a rush of peace and contentment.

I enjoy checking the mail, cleaning lint from the dryer, escaping visitors to go to bed (hey, I still love you all!), wearing sneakers without socks, and doing countless other bland activities that don’t necessitate a mention. Or, to inspire others to embrace the beautifully dull life too, do they?

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Magic-- er, illusion

I saw a jackknife on social media this week, and that’s all it took. Funny how something so small could whisk me back to the 1970s. And there I stood again—just another kid in the crowd—watching too.

“Now look at this,” Dad said in his thick Norwegian accent. “I can swallow a knife and bring it back up.”

He sat in the middle of the gathering, children circling his chair. He waved his small pocketknife around for the group to see. Cupping it in two hands so it was no longer visible, he tipped back his head and raised his hands to his mouth in a showy display. The knife dropped to the floor near his foot. “Oopsy daisy,” he said and snatched it up, tucking it behind his bent knee. He resumed the cupped-hands position, the kids never the wiser for the part his knee played in the illusion. “Let’s try this again.” He lifted his hands to his mouth once more, made a gulping sound, and flashed his open and empty palms for all to see. “All gone.” He shot a toothy smile at his audience.

A kid hollered, “Bring it back up!” and Dad was happy to oblige. He made all the contortions necessary to show he was working the object back up his throat. He leaned over his lap and gagged at the same moment he released his bent knee, and the pocketknife fell to the ground. The kids gasped and giggled. He scooped up the knife, swiped it across a nearby kid’s shirt to clean it off, and returned it to his pocket.

“Now don’t try this at home, okay?” he said, doling out the safety advisory that probably should have come at the beginning.

Dad kept a rubber coin pouch, filled with quarters, in his pocket. He would place one coin over a closed eye, rub it into his head, and make it come out the back of his neck. He plucked quarters from kids’ ears, made coins jump from one of his hands to the other, and changed the color of pocketknives with the flick of his wrist. I witnessed his impromptu magic shows countless times as a kid, but I could never unravel all the mysteries. How did he do it?

Life got fancier in the 1980s when Dad took his show on the road. By show, I mean he performed an hour’s worth of bigger tricks to wider audiences—schools, churches, community centers—and by road, I mean he traveled to a handful of neighboring towns to deliver the fun. And I sat in the bleachers or pews or folding chairs to witness the same tricks over and over, ever amused by his audiences’ reactions.

Mom and Dad discussed what to label his form of entertainment. It better not be called magic because that implied he dabbled in the dark arts. No, it should be referred to as illusion, and if Dad showcased his talents to congregations, he should call it gospel illusion, weaving Bible stories in with his sleight of hand to create a nifty object lesson one wouldn't soon forget.

“See this pitcher?” Dad held up his trick silver water vessel for the whole church’s viewing. “My great-great-grandfather gave it to my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather gave it to my grandfather. My grandfather gave it to my father. And my father sold it to me.”

He told the story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath—how the drought in the land drove the prophet to stay in the little town with the widow and her son.

“‘Would you bring me a little water in a jar, so I may have a drink? And bring me a piece of bread too?’ Elijah asked. But the woman said, ‘I only have a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I'm gathering some sticks to make a meal for my son and me to eat—and then we'll die.’ Elijah comforted her. ‘Don't be afraid. Do as you said and make the meal and make me a small loaf too because God says the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run out until He sends rain on the land again.’”

“The widow did just as Elijah said,” Dad said, pouring the water from the silver pitcher into a bowl until it was gone. He righted it. “And the next day and the next day and the next week,” and he emptied his magic pitcher again, “and the next week and the next week and the next month,” and he once again poured all the liquid from the container. “And the oil never ran out.”

Kids in the audience tapped their parents’ arms. “How did he do it?” they whispered. But Dad had moved on to the lesson of the story.

“And God will take care of you too,” he said.

The fun was endless, watching Dad’s tricks: the sword through a volunteer’s neck, the lengthening ropes, the changing colors of metal rabbits, and more. And Dad’s delivery was everything; his jokes were hokey, his timing clunky, and his level of amusement likely topped ours. We have the DVD to prove it, in case you were wondering.

I think of Dad now, and I imagine he entertains the angels with his brand of smalltown showmanship. Only God knows what all goes on up there. But there’s laughing. I'm sure of that part.

Clouds of night

Dusk moves in, but it hasn’t given up the sky yet, so I look up. It feels like stolen time, this walk on an early April night—a luxury I’ve snatched for myself once again because I can. And I still see the clouds.

I gather my steps with our girls, waves of air nudging us one way, then buffeting us at the next turn. The roiling winds of a temperate evening, warning of things to come.

“The clouds look like gray cotton candy,” Dicka says, and I laugh.

I haven’t seen pewter spun sugar before, and I don’t think I want to, but this is nice.

Rushing winds, rushing words. Because life with girls is like that—at least mine. I listen more for cadence than meaning. The punctuation falls off and blows away.

and doesn’t walking feel awkward like what do you do with your hands what do you mean you swing your arms it could be fall but the air doesn’t feel like Halloween like the Halloween in 90s movies which is exciting and full of expectation how was it spring in February this year and winter in March and if I were a bird I’d have to be a bird of prey so I choose an eagle when I think of birds of prey I think of vultures but ew they only feed on the dead and it’s weird to think of clouds at night I know they’re there but hidden I think of the pillar of cloud by day the pillar of fire by night and what if God guided us like that now can you even imagine and there’s expectation in this wind don’t you feel it too

The conversation ambles on and blows us home, and I still think of clouds, once here, now enshrouded by darkness. I settle into the gold chair, and wouldn’t you know it, Streams in the Desert speaks in its old-timey yet relevant way of the very thing I think:

“Get into the habit of looking for the silver lining of the cloud and when you have found it, continue to look at it, rather than at the leaden gray in the middle… At first you may not be conscious of this, still as you resolutely and uncompromisingly snub every tendency toward doubt and depression that assails you, you will soon be made aware that the powers of darkness are falling back… Keep the skyward look, my soul! Keep the skyward look!”

Oh, I plan to.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Finished

In 2017, a local publication, The Lutheran Ambassador, asked me to write a story about the women of Easter, based on the account in the Gospel of Mark. I wrote the following piece, and they published it in their April 2017 issue.

I post it again today because does this story ever get old? It’s only our everything.

*****

Jesus shifted on the iron spikes, and his head drooped. From a distance, my friends and I watched—and prayed. That morning, soldiers had shredded my Lord with their whips and strung him up on a cross to die, but now they laughed as if sharing a joke at the market instead of in this place where hell touched earth. My stomach roiled, and I took a deep breath to quell the nausea.

Salome looped her arm around mine. “But he was going to be king.” Her features twisted, and she searched my face. “He can’t die, Mary. He can’t.”

Another Mary, the mother of James and Joses, peered at me, and her chin wobbled.

“Maybe we didn’t understand,” I said. “Maybe he knew something we didn’t. And it was better.” But my heart clenched like a fist, refusing to let go.

The one who is forgiven much loves much.

Years earlier, I had loved nothing. My broken body had housed a shattered mind. Illnesses, accidents, and compulsions battered me. Once, I even thrashed into the flames of my cooking fire. Afterward, I writhed in the dirt in blistered skin; my hours melted into blackness.

But then came Jesus. He rested his hand on me, calling out the seven demons that had tormented me.

“Mary Magdalene,” he said. And for the first time, my name had sounded like beauty. “It is finished.”

And it was.

The crowds at the cross scattered, exposing us women, huddled far from where the masses had jeered or sobbed. Many of Jesus’ followers had vanished too. But my heart anchored me to the soil. How could I leave my Lord to his pain when he had saved me from mine?

Jesus struggled against his nails and scanned the meager gathering. Then his gaze rested on me. Those eyes that had once seen through my affliction still saw me.

“It is finished,” he cried out.

The same words that had made me new.

His muscles twitched; his head slumped. The sky darkened, and although only mid-afternoon, shadows draped the body of my Savior. Jesus was gone.

A rich man named Joseph carried Jesus’ body to a tomb in his garden. Mary and I trailed him and hid behind a tree as we watched the man spread ointment and spices onto fresh linens. And then he wrapped our friend. The burial complete, Joseph heaved a stone into place to seal the entrance to the grave. Dusk was approaching; the Sabbath was near. And I had work to do.

I scurried home and scooped sweet spices into a bowl, my hands trembling. I thumbed away tears as I stirred. The day before, I had prepared the meal for Jesus’ supper in the upper room with his followers. If only I were mixing oil into the flour for bread tonight instead of oil with perfumes to anoint my friend’s body. If only I were roasting the lamb with thyme and rosemary instead of blending my tears with myrrh and aloes. If only I had known then what was to come.

On the first day of the week, I squinted at the early rays of light that sliced through the darkness of my house. The start of a new week without my Jesus. How would I live without him?

A knock at the door. I unlatched it. Mary and Salome stood outside, each holding a bowl. Grief had stripped their faces of color and rimmed their eyes with purple.

“I’m ready,” I said, my own bowl of spices cradled in one arm.

Gravel crunched under our sandals, and dew drenched the hems of our tunics as we trudged to the garden.

“Oh no,” said Salome. “How will we anoint his body? Remember the stone? It’s too big for us.” A sob jostled her words. “Who will move it?”

I inhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t know.”

Mary gripped her bowl in both hands. She stared into the distance, her mouth a straight line.

In the garden, the crocuses exploded in yellow and the hyacinths in pink. White narcissus curled around our path. Where were these flowers two days ago? Or had our sadness hidden them? They bloomed now—the bougainvillea as profuse as forgiveness and the lilies as fragrant as hope.

We neared the grave. But what was that up ahead?

I gasped. “The stone’s already been moved.”

I hurried into the tomb, and my friends followed. A young man, in a robe whiter than light, sat inside. Salome shrieked. My heart hammered, and my bowl clattered onto the stone floor, spilling the spices. Terror clawed its way up my throat. Mary splayed a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the young man. “You’re looking for Jesus who was crucified. But he’s not here. He’s risen.” He stood and gestured toward the door. “Go and tell his disciples.”

My friends and I clambered from the tomb and scrambled back onto the path. We clutched the fabric of our skirts and ran. Blinded by joy, we forgot all about our tear-soaked beds, our morning’s task at the tomb, and the spices we had abandoned somewhere along the way.

Because it didn’t matter anymore.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Sudden blizzard

A sudden blizzard is coming.

The words hit me on January 9, 2024, in the stillness of early morning. I grabbed a pen and recorded them in my journal. I sat, examining the sentence from all angles. What does it mean? I asked. And Jesus overturned the tables in the temple.

I shared the words with a friend—the vision too. A beat of silence before her response, and I imagined her filing it away in her heart for later.

On February 14, I walked with Husband through the neighborhood. The dry, sunny day spun away, color drained from the late-afternoon sky, and snow zinged us. Where had the tiny storm come from so fast? Sudden blizzard. But it was foreshadowing and not the real one—this time.

On the night of March 16, I had a dream. Hundreds of people gathered on craggy red rocks, the uneven terrain circling a lovely swimming area hundreds of feet below us. Twisting paths descended to aqua waters, and hikers threaded their way down to swim. Laughter, picnics, outdoor games. I sat on a ledge at the top near a mama with her toddler. She dangled her legs over the precipice, and her baby squirmed in her arms, trying to free himself. She laughed, loosening her hold on him, and my stomach dropped.

“He could fall over the edge,” I said, “and if he does, he’ll die.”

My sharp response surprised me, but I spoke the truth.

The wind whipped into a frenzy, the temperature plummeted, and I spied a person, dressed in winter gear and encrusted in snow, trudging over the now hardened aqua waters people had splashed in minutes earlier. Icicles hung from his body in a slant, the winds having frozen them sideways.

The ice would break under the man’s weight—I just knew it. Not the amount of time needed to freeze the lake solid enough to walk on. But even as I worried, I somehow knew the ice was at least a foot thick, and no one would crash through it. My dream ended.

The next day, I told the nighttime story to my friend.

“So, a sudden blizzard?” she said.

She had remembered the words from January, and now I did too.

Weather reports say we should expect snow tonight. After the mildest, driest Minnesota winter I can remember, the forecast interests me. But that’s not the sudden blizzard I know is coming.

Many of us have lived through blizzards. The Halloween Blizzard of ‘91, September 11, the pandemic of 2020, and personal storms that threatened to rip us to pieces. Before each of those, we sat on the rocky edge, swinging our legs, the aqua waters far below tempting us to swim.

A sudden blizzard is coming.

We can’t see, but we can perceive—and prepare.

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.