Letting My Scandinavian Roots Show

During my first trip to Disneyland (I was 13), I saw a woman who looked like Marilyn Monroe. I described her to my sister, and asked, "Could I ever look like that?" She looked at me doubtfully and said, you know you'd have to get contacts, wear red lipstick and be a platinum blonde." But I am blonde, I thought. Turns out I'm dishwater. More than one set of my great-grandparents emigrated from Norway, so my hair lightens in the sun. A year later, with contacts, dark lipstick and looking nothing like Marilyn, I was thrilled when my mom suggested that I bleach my hair. But of course in 2 months, I had to dye my roots. After 3 years of dyeing, "your roots are showing," became the entry point of an argument with my mom. Then at my first job in college, my Norwegiaphile third cousin bragged about me until I told him I wasn't a natural Blonde. He got real quiet and sighed, "well, no one is perfect." After I married, when the cost of dye was a luxury and I grew out the roots, my sister overheard my Grandfather tell a friend that I had started dying my hair brown. Still, somewhere in there I think I have honest-to-goodness Norwegian roots. I recently read with my kids how my husband's Norwegian great-grandfather found 1880s agricultural work easy when he arrived penniless in Wisconsin. He observed that twenty-hour workdays were normal in Norway's short summer, so 14 hours was a picnic. I've noticed that despite years of sloppy sleep hygiene, gardening has brought out a new side of me. It's called "wake before dawn, work until after dusk." In the last week of May and throughout June and July I find myself waking up early, drawn to garden work, sometimes most of the day and until darkness. Someday maybe I'll find out what strengths I've inherited from my ancestors, but for now, I'm grateful for their work ethic. Because whether or not that can be transmitted across the generations, this I know: working dawn to dusk feels fantastic for a few weeks each year. And when Fall comes, I'll slip into semi-hibernation when instead of waking at 5:30 and turning in at 11, I'll fight to stay awake at 5:30 and want to sleep until 11.