Heaven and Home in Aalbaeck

After my parents were both gone, to no longer share my last name with them felt disturbing. At age 36, by most, if not all accounts a grown woman, it was frightening to me in a way that’s hard to explain. The closest way I can approximate it is as suddenly feeling like a young kid, who, having wandered off mesmerized by something sweet in the Stop & Shop grocery store, looks up to find themselves alone. My parents, nowhere in sight. And in this metaphor, as in reality, I’m nowhere near the Stop & Shop in the suburbs of New York. I’ve lost their trail completely. Despite my age, I was that scared, disoriented child.

The cover of my first journal made for me by my older sister.

Though it had been my happy choice to take my husband’s name in our marriage, something inside me told me it would hurt if I lost the Albeck name.

"Albeck-Gasparka" felt too clunky in hyphenated form. So, in 2017, in the eyes of the law, I swapped my double middle name for my maiden name. It represented my parents and the life they envisioned for us, and for me.

A buried card in the game of life. 

As soon as my mom was gone, I knew that I needed to go back to using the name she and my dad gave to me.

I wanted to say the name when meeting strangers. To sign my signature once again with that looping, satisfying “A” I’d practiced with purple gel pen in my tweens in anticipation of becoming a famous writer/director/screen actress. And now, to resonate with the raised bronze letters on the plaques of my parents’ columbariums.

I acknowledge, though am not quite ready to unpack, how the impulse is also a bit like going back to a draft of a story that I was last in the process of writing long ago. 

My name was extremely intentional, though not without complications. My mom had chosen the name “Elizabeth" for me. She wanted to spell my name with a “z” as she felt it would always be misspelled the other way. My dad insisted it be spelled as it had been throughout his Danish family lineage, and he was adamant.

As was often the case, my mom was right: people usually misspell my name. But when people do spell the name correctly– on sense alone, which happens more often than you’d think– the feeling of synchronicity is pure magic. It usually sparks a stimulating conversation with a barista or store clerk. My late dad probably sensed this possibility, and would have been delighted to know that he was right, too.

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Elisabeth Albeck was my dad’s great aunt. I can’t really be sure if my dad was proud about it, but he repeated dramatic highlights of her story like a refrain throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Before he passed, he gifted me several portraits of her– some old fashioned portrait photos, and some photos of portrait paintings that had been made of her– with “inscriptions” that he’d typed up, printed and taped to the back of the frames. 

A photo of a painting of Elisabeth Albeck Skogstad.

His words about my namesake, from an email: 

Elisabeth had caused a major scandal in Copenhagen where she had been engaged to the Danish Ambassador to the U.S., and suddenly decided to elope to Oslo with Einar Skogstad, head of Den Norske Creditbank.

I recall that he also described his great aunt Elisabeth as "extremely confident." "Self-assured." "Her own woman." 

Author’s sidebar: I write these words now about ten days after my trip to Aalbaeck, sitting in HIMKOK bar in Oslo. I'm so taken with this city, having only spent 2.5 days here up to this point. The light is exquisite. The sun has been abundantly shining, the infusion of vitamin D adding to a feeling that my time in Norway has been blessed. I type up this story installment knowing that when I go back to the states, there’s a whole other family thread waiting for me to untangle in a way that feels destined: Elisabeth Albeck and Einar Skogstad’s child Maude L’orange (m) grew up in Oslo, was educated at Oxford, and had three children, all of whom moved to Wisconsin for their higher education. Having moved to WI myself of all the places in this wide world, I imagine that it would have been hard for them to leave. Logistically, but more so emotionally, spiritually. The beauty of the place, not dissimilar from their homeland, is enveloping. Lakes. No mountains, but an inland sea, the exotic glaciated plains, driftless rolling hills, and shocking rock formations. More tree diversity. And it would have felt like even more of a frontier at that point. So I have to wonder if there are descendants in Wisconsin for me to discover.

But, I digress. Now, on to Aalbaeck, Denmark, in the recent past. 

I traveled there out of curiosity, intrigued to explore this place that I understoodto be the place Elisabeth's family had hailed from before they moved to Copenhagen, the big city. I also went because my parents couldn't. I thought it might be soul-stirring, for them and for me.

In checking in at the Aalbaeck Badehotel, I not-so-subtly emphasized my middle name/former surname with a smile. The gray-haired and bespeckled lady hotel clerk was not the least bit impressed. 

I took my smiling self to my room, and then wandered from the hotel towards the beach. There’s a small residential street between the hotel and the short gravel road to the dune. On the way, I peeked in at the lives of the Danish people, their gardens– most of them, abundant with pink and magenta September roses– their window sill candles, orchid plants and other dressings. A family was hanging a green and white floral garland over a doorway, and tidying the pillows on patio furniture in the backyard. On my way back, I would see that it was for a 35th anniversary party celebration. 

When I got to the road that led to the beach, my smile grew twice as wide. Suddenly, I was flanked by a warming forest on both sides. I learned from a Google search that there was a nature preserve next to the beach to protect and encourage bird habitats. The forest consisted mostly of birch trees, pine trees, grasses, and shrubs. In the gray light of the cloudy afternoon, the birch trees’ skin had a soft candy pink tint.

The forest on my way to the beach.

Strolling up the dune walk, I felt my heart beating with a giddy cadence, but also felt a sense of coherence, peace. The sand mounds around me were vast and soft-looking, strongly resembling Kohler-Andrae park in Sheboygan, a beloved camping, hiking, and swimming spot that has been a touchstone throughout my Wisconsin life. The rolling sand hills of Aalbaeck’s natural preserve are kept in place by evergreen trees, juniper bushes, purple clover, wild grasses, but predominantly wild rose shrubs. I myself felt a bit like a little wild rose. A resilient pine. Taking time off and away has allowed me to really understand how the last decade of my life has been brutal with chronic stress, losses and grief. But in that moment I felt comfort in the sense of my own roots. I could trust in my ability to withstand, and not only that, to revel, stay resourceful, and produce expressions that are colorful, sustaining.

The dunes of Aalbeack, captured the next day at sunset.

The wind whipped, and the sky was mottled with clouds that threatened rain. I took off my hat and my dress and ran into the sea. No better time than right now for a dip. 

I didn’t go all the way under or in, as the waves were strong and the beach empty except for a few lolly-gagging gray seagulls. I thought better of a full immersion until there were safer conditions.

Up to just my waist in the brisk Baltic waters, I talked to myself. I don’t think I said much except  

Wow.

Wow, wow.

Wow.

The beach in Aalbaeck on the following day was sunnier, with calm waters.

The dune walk in the sunshine.

After returning from the beach, the rain remained at bay and so I took to the generous hotel patio with my watercolors and ordered a Tuborg brown ale.

If travel makes me feel like the most nimble and happy version of myself, painting and drawing make me feel like the most elemental. Immersed in the satisfying activity of flowing with paint, I am somehow every age I’ve been, all at once. 

Recently, two little Norwegian girls that I befriended (a Norwegian cousin and hosts’ daughter and her friend) were admiring my recent paintings, and asked me animatedly, in English, How?! 

I told them the truth, which is that I am still learning. To me, painting is mostly about seeing. It requires close looking and noticing, and then being patient as you ask your body to respond. I emphasized that art-making is considered a practice. The truth is, though I've been making art for a long time, I am a relative novice at the practice part.

So, together, we practiced painting the tiny pink calluna flowers on my cousin and host’s porch. We painted close up studies of the flower petals and stems, and then the birch trees of the backyard against a cerulean blue sky, dappled with backlit golden afternoon clouds. 

Me, at the same age as my Norwegian painting buddies.

Astrid kept trying to tell me something in Norwegian.

Himmel! she kept repeating.

Himmel! Himmel! 

You want to paint the sky? I inquired, gesturing upwards. 

But no, that wasn’t it. She kept persistently, patiently saying the word Himmel along with other Norwegian words while pointing to her in-progress work. I smiled and apologized for not being able to understand. 

Now, in retrospect, I’m pretty sure she meant that the act of painting is heaven. 

___

Though I can’t say I believe in heaven in the afterlife, I do believe in spirits, and energy in a multitude of forms. In life, my mom Laura was a special artist. She was also a gifted teacher, especially when relating to young children. She taught many kids who were about the age of these two little girls. 

Throughout her life, my mom had several ways of expressing her artfulness. It was present in the confidence and panache with which she decorated the many homes she lived in across the world and, eventually, the suburb of New York City where I was raised. She integrated eclectic vintage family items of her own family with my dad’s family items from Denmark, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Japan, along with newly-acquired antique tchotchke as well as contemporary pieces. She dressed with intention and leaned into trends and timeless cultural fashion touchstones. She was never afraid to embrace glamor, drama, hairspray or shoulder pads. Over the years, she sampled aesthetics from many of the cosmopolitan places she called home, including Milan and London. But underneath her ways of adorning herself and her space was a vital force of creativity pulsing through her. 

Mama somewhere in Europe. Venice? Brussels? Milan? If you recognize this square, I'd love to know.

I sense that my mom could be unsettled by the urge to create. I can recall how she, at times, lamented her loss of an art practice with sorrow and resignation. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like to be a mom of four kids in a homogenous, perfectionistic suburban town, with all the pressures therein, and to still feel the urge to make art gnawing at her from the inside. I understood that underneath everything, at a base level, my mom’s way of moving through the world was as an artist: with hungry pupils and itching hands. 

Building façades. Figures from books or dreams. Furniture. Posters in hotel lobbies. Lettering on menus. The visual world spoke to her. She was often struck by scenes and compositions from the world and from her own mind. 

On the rare occasion when she did pick up a pencil, pen, or watercolors, it was usually to play a beloved family game with us kids to pass time waiting for a meal in a diner. “Doodle” was a game in which, on a paper placemat, one person would draw a line continuously into an abstract shape– without lifting the pen or pencil– and then pass it on to the next person to complete a composition building off the orginal line. 

My mom had such a special way of drawing– unlike anyone I’ve ever seen before or since. Each line was actually many quivering lines, like stormy sea waves moving in towards a rocky shoreline and bouncing back off. In the precious few completed pieces of art made by her that we have, there you can see the force of energy that flowed through her. To see them is to feel her aliveness. 

Like many souls, in life my mom struggled in certain ways. Her emotions could boil over into anger, grief, shame. As with many mothers and daughters, her struggles were mirrored in my own. As I grew up, our closeness and trust frayed. Especially after I entered puberty, we struggled in an, at times, painfully fraught dynamic. But she was my first teacher. And, until recently, she was the person, the audience I was always painting for. 

Are you painting? You should be painting every day, she chided me over the phone last winter before she got sick. It was a common refrain for her over the last several years. 

One of my last conversations with her was from my little basement art studio under Real Tinsel Gallery in Milwaukee. Though she’d been chronically ill and disabled for years, in the conversation she sounded energized, positive. She urged me to think “long and hard” about some of the moves I was mulling over in my life. She knew how deeply I loved many aspects of my life in Milwaukee, but things were changing. The truth is that many things had already changed for me. I never wanted to stress her, as she was often overwhelmed with her own challenges. It could be uncomfortable for me to be vulnerable with her; I preferred to have my shit figured out. But she had a way of reading through the lines. 

Towards the end of her life, my mom would wistfully speak about wanting to move back to Denmark for her final chapter. She’d also express her strong desire to write a book about her life. Trump’s version of America disturbed her deeply, for one thing. Her years in Denmark were a touchstone of calm. How happy she and my dad had been. How warm, refined, and pleasurable the culture of Denmark was to her in her memory. And comforting. She had processing that she longed to do around her own memories and life story and Denmark felt like the right backdrop.

In looking through her things after she died, I discovered the opening lines of a story, of her story, handwritten in the notes section of her 2024 daily planner. She'd changed her own name to "Meredith," which is the name that she always told me was her second choice of names for me.

Feeling gutted at seeing her inspiration arrested, I am all the more impelled to follow my own.

There I sat in Aalbaeck, enjoying a dark Tuborg beer, painting, experiencing pleasures for my own spirit as well as my mom's. In the face of life's shortness and unpredictability, these moves are declaration that the grief that passes through me will be generative.  

It’s no coincidence that I took up watercolor painting for the first time in my adult life while staying at mom’s apartment during lockdown in 2020. She needed support at that time for health reasons, and I moved in with her for the month of December and a few days of the new year. We had so much fun together. She was an extremely silly and bitingly sarcastic person. She could make waiters in diners or nurses in ICUs laugh out loud with one-liners, or a perfectly timed facial expression. But she also had a sober wisdom that was not always accessible, at least to me. When that part of her was open, it was my safest harbor. 

During that winter, there were deep talks, meals, and movies together. All the of the movies, macabre. Murder and tragedy were by far her favorite subjects in film and TV. We laughed together, cried together, and squeezed hands, which, in my family's language, translates to “I love you.”

It was joyful and healing time, even though the world outside was in chaos. This was a version of our relationship that we'd both longed for. 

One stormy day, after walking by Long Island sound on my daily walk, I came home inspired and picked up my mom’s watercolors (which I had purchased for her to encourage her creative impulses). I began painting on the floor of her guest room, like I would often do in my own room as a child. 

Watercolor on sketching paper, 2021.

Just like going for a dip exactly when the opportunity arises, the best time to create is right now. As a kid, I would often heed the call and draw or paint sitting on the floor, leaned against the legs of a chair, sofa, or bed, with a pile of computer paper and a book in my lap, or a pre-stretched A.I. Friedman canvas leaned against a side table. 

Mom always encouraged me to love and honor my art practice. My focus, however, was usually on trying to be good. Trying to show her my very best. 

I’m now 37 years old, the same age my mom was when she had me. After birthing three kids in three different countries, I came along as an accident, an afterthought, or, you might say, an unwitting inspiration. 

Traveling in the way that I am these days feels a bit like giving birth to a new version of my life. At the center of this new life is the daily practice of creativity, in a way that hasn't been the case since I was a child. Each day is fresh, and much changes, but the elements remain the same. When I'm lucky, they come together in a flow through some combination of seeing, processing, knowing and doing. 

Like in life, in painting, every moment matters and every gesture counts. You have to practice patience and trust. Keep faith, as my mom would tell me in times of trouble. Faith allows us to seek and find the waters and other resources we need to sustain ourselves, to keep following the light as it changes, to notice and allow for shadows, no matter the shapes they take. Faith is how we build, mark by mark, layer upon layer, our pigmented story.

A painting of mother + daughter made for my Norwegian hosts.

A grief comic, made shortly after my mom passed away.