Move Over Garrison Keillor

My mother's family is composed of my grandfather, grandmother, and their 13 children, the fourth eldest of which is my mother. My grandparents were a young couple when they started tallying their kids as my mother is turning 44 in 2012. They were also and remain to this day, devout Missouri Synod Lutherans. In coloquial terms this is the 'strictest' of three Synods in the Lutheran religion. My grandfather was also a stoic naval officer, as well a mechanical design engineer. Of the 13 children, 4 male and 8 female, each of the 8 females went into the navy or army as engineers or nurses and 6 became engineers of varying degrees later in life. My grandparents are beyond excited to have their 60th grandchild in the future, as they already have 59. There is a running joke in our family about the women being able to make a pasta salad to feed a small country while fixing a car with one hand and reading the bible with the other. The pattern in this last paragraph I didn't work hard to convey is babies, work, and the Bible.

My parents were divorced when I was two, my mother moved out to Detroit to work as an automotive engineer and I stayed in Minnesota with my father. Therefore visiting my mother's family in LaCrosse, Wisconsin was like a trip to another world every time I went. How did these people know which ones were their kids when there were 45 blonde heads weaving in and out of Immanuel Lutheran's church basement (I think my grandparents' family fills half the church)? I was a single child in Minnesota with a very clean room and a very organized schedule, even at 6 years old. When I was introduced to farms, mud baths, garage forts, dumpster diving, and 30 on 30 soccer games I found a world I was in love with. The part I dreaded was the Bible reading. Always the Bible. Wake up at 6 a.m. and listen to Grandpa read the Old Testament. 6:05 a.m: don't let Grandpa catch you sleeping in your oatmeal bowl. 6:35 a.m: we are allowed to eat the oatmeal after Psalms. 6:36 a.m.: Grandpa smacks you on the head for not finishing your oatmeal, "We don't waste, we just read this in The Book!" he yells.

I was a foreigner to the world of strict Bible reading, I have no plans to join the navy, I do not associate with the Lutheran religion other than my baptism, and I never want 13 kids, but that world is an intrinsic part of me. I can respect and know the brief history of a host of religions as my family is big enough to have dabbled in many, though as a result I will never affiliate with one. I understand the Protestant jokes on Prairie Home Companion because my family is from Lake Wobegon. I do not waste food. I feel guilty if I am not being productive and still have to remind myself I am not immune to illness. I also recently learned to relax in a different way. I used to clean, or repair/build things when I needed to unwind, but after 5 months in Peru I enjoy sitting. Often with a glass of wine or cup of tea, looking outside, being outside, but really just sitting. So as my family's Protestant history of work-is-life-life-is-hard, slight sexism, Bible adhering, pasta salda-making has had a profound effect on me, I sleep better knowing it is possible to veer from your family's own Grand Narrative and recognize where some of your strongest characteristics come from. I never thought it was possible to change, I thought it was just "how I was was", but once that facade was broken a world of possibilities opened up, and Cultural Studies is a perfect companion.