Ila Ann Bair, high school graduation, circa 1956. My birth mother, and the origin of my origin story. Happy mother’s day to everyone trying to figure it out. I’m inviting you all in to this complicated, beautiful, heartbreaking, and ultimately peaceful tale.

I knew the date of June 2025 would show up quickly. It’s a milestone date for our whole family, and it’s just weeks away, and I am SO READY. I think everyone else is, too.

I’m waiting for head space and house space and just some fucking TIME to have thoughts and the wherewithal to put them down on paper. I’m waiting for the clock to slow down and the days to lengthen and everyone to have everything they need and to just be settled.

Can friendships survive fascism? We could go back to 1930s Germany and ask how that went. Guessing there were plenty of families who split over the rise of a fascist dictator like Hitler, and whether or not the “final solution” was really about exterminating Jews or just maybe only re-sorting society in a different way. Neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, husbands and wives and brothers all facing down the choice to fight, hide, help hide, flee, or just turn a blind eye and hope it all ended soon enough.