Mottos

I have always loved to read about family mottos. Things like To a valiant heart nothing is impossible, or We are ready. 

I used to try and imagine what ours would be. I wanted it to be something like Mind over matter, or perhaps, We follow our books! Something inspirational and romantic.

Of course I am descended from German farmers (with one woman physician thrown in during the 1800s for good measure,) Welsh pirates, coal miners, poor Scottish nobility, and an assortment of other people more known for their escapades than erudition.

In more recent times, my grandfather was a self-made man who often arrived home via the union workers of the 1930s. They would beat him up and toss him on my grandmother's front porch late at night. Then there was a brother who would call different family members in the wee small hours of the morning to keep them up to date on his most recent pharmaceutical experiments.

I came to realize, just lately, that we all have our own peculiar way of maneuvering through this life. While my father was a professional student who placed our utility bills in the circular file under his desk, my mother felt she was the incarnation of Super woman and could still drink and smoke like a chimney as long as she was a martyr when it came to work.

I think we have had a family motto all along. My brother uses it whenever I call him on the phone. It is Still alive dammit!

Not the most romantic or inspiring words in the world, but actually pretty descriptive of the way we all catapult ourselves from one situation to another -- with great gusto and a minimum amount of consideration for any reality that does not appeal to us.