Anna Sommer and Gitte Sommer

00:04 Hi, my name is Kitty summer. I'm 51 years old.

00:09 Today's date is Sunday, February 16th 2020 and we are in Fresno, California.

00:18 Opposite me is my daughter. Her name is Anna Olivia summer.

00:25 My name is and I love you so much. I'm 18 years old. Today is Sunday, February 16th 2024 in Fresno, California and in front of you sitting beside my mother.

00:39 Hi. Hi. Thank you your daughter for accepting my invitation to have this.

00:47 Taped conversation with me today and thank your story, So I was thinking

00:53 + Olivia I have looked forward to this one on one time with you with a mixed bag of feelings because you are so important to me.

01:04 Baby girls that is so much Mama loved you in the area that I'm scared that I would get too emotional to make any sense. So I brought my own Kleenex, so therefore

01:19 To remain calm and carry on I bring my cheat sheets with Christians with a few drawings and some points and I have even just a power post. Look at my smoldering eyes.

01:36 Yesterday you reminded me of a scene from Jumanji the movie with that gay. Just buffest smoldering Guy saying to himself. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry, but still the kleenex out here.

01:56 I would like to frame our conversation within a saying that you already know from your grandparents that is the idea of gifting your child with roots and wings. I brought you destroying and I want you to bear in mind that less than four years ago. I was small family of 3 you your father and I the three of us we decided to embark on an adventure together into the unknown if you like. I'm moving from Europe to America.

02:30 We moved from one continent to another from Copenhagen Denmark to Fresno, California. We sold our City Apartments where you had left all your life. You had just turned 15 years old and we packed all of our belongings including our bicycles into a container and had it shipped over the Atlantic Ocean and in a few months after 4 years of American High School you with graduate from Clovis West ready to leave the nest as a golden eagle.

03:07 I would love to hear your talk about your thoughts of your next big step in life.

03:13 This time moving away on your own from California to the big city of New York to go to college.

03:22 So roots or Wings, would you like to first talk about where you are from your roots are where you're going your wings?

03:32 I think I should start talking with my roots.

03:37 And they definitely are very Danish. Even though it's a DNA test. We took it turns out I was a little bit Italian to but majority Janus. So I live in Copenhagen for 15 years and I had the same 15 friends my whole life. I was actually I was talking to Jose last night and we talked about how we've known each other for 18 years and how when I moved like everything was just gone and when I got here like I knew nothing I barely knew the language and I didn't know anybody.

04:16 And how you know, my entire identity was just gone. I mean, I was a model. I was an author I was a black belt and I wasn't any of those things in the mirror because I had to ReDiscover myself and I think that's been so important to my wings. I guess it's where I developed my rings and I guess that I had to tear up my roots in order to actually develop these wings and I think if I hadn't moved I probably wouldn't be the person that I am today.

04:53 So I'm definitely I'm grateful for that every single thing.

04:58 How would you describe yourself today?

05:03 Independent mature

05:08 Bold beautiful bournard woman

05:13 I I dare to do things. I don't like to follow the rules.

05:21 If I if I get an essay prompt, I do everything I can to answer the phone without answering it.

05:29 And what what does that mean? Like in English my teacher loves and hates me for it. But every time we write essays for AP Lit, I I love to just Rebelle like if he tells us we need to do five paragraphs. I do 10 or if he tells us that we can only do one sentence pieces. I do three sentence and it pays off and I think it's important to

05:58 Why do you think that comes from my mom when you apply for that job interview and you like wrote a completely different resume and when you wrote to Dad and it was it was a newspaper article and he said that he was looking for a woman who is ready to go in and somebody to do pillow fights with in the bedroom and that she was a blond by and how you sent back a picture of you you took in Japan where you drawn to do drawn like a little Miss and end of your head for your brain and of your chest for the size of your heart and your stomach for the size of your activities at angle.

06:58 Because back in the Victorian era is known as the only claims that the male Cricket of the female as we're likely would only prolong cats are like that. I definitely get it from I'm surprised I didn't think of that relation and I mean with you cutting off all your hair and just being so different and like daring to go a different path and like I think that's definitely inspired me to

07:34 Cuz I come from a very academic family and like I am going out to college, but I know for a long time. I just wanted to write After High School. Like I just want to spin author.

07:45 So I think the fact of like you supported me in that but that you also provided the The Roots I guess for for me to Branch off into my own path. I know you want to be a Storyteller tell me about you said yeah, well it listens a lot when I'm just going on about my everyday life and whenever it hears something that like catches its attention and just falls out and Scribbles the idea into my backpack and it's prompting me to write my first album and I'm working on my second. I won't and all the poems and short stories that I've gotten population of my artwork and stuff like that.

08:31 I think stories are just kind of I mean, I would say that I'm drawn to stories but it's like stories are also drawn to me. Like I just pick up on them. I can't really explain it. This is my third year trying to explain it. And where is it located? Well, it's not specifically located anywhere but it's like I've noticed that it's great. So I don't I'd it's like an inside I guess or it's like either like in the Moment Like This is good but like for my years working as a model of fashion model for the management. I like didn't notice it at the time but during the whole thing. My third year was just picking up.

09:15 The world of fashion the fashion industry the other girls, you know, the Bookers the job the photographer's everything which is what I'm using now writing my second novel about lights how how terrible it is knows how like how damaging it is, I guess two young girls and I'm only able to do that because my third year was there and listening to it and like all the scenes from the stories like inspired by things. I've heard or seen or experienced and I think I think that's when it happens like when I hear something that's like in just or unjust or it's like

09:57 It just it's not.

09:59 Play it's something I need to share if that makes sense, like something I experienced or hearing that I need other people to experience with me.

10:10 Let's go back to when you felt kind of uproot when we relocated from Copenhagen to hear. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Can you be a little more specific? Yeah, maybe you can describe what you were like as a child.

10:27 Well, I'm an only child with everything that comes with that. So that's also I remember I used to be like the policeman.

10:39 Remember that I like kindergarten grade annoying spoiled brat and I was definitely an introvert and I took to remember that yourself or is it because we have to remember that. I remember it. Yeah, I remember the whole thing whenever I would experience and you think that was like unfair my whole body would just ate and feel like this is not just I was definitely a snitch definitely I would rather all the other classmates have like they did something that they weren't supposed to do which is why I got the name police officer.

11:22 Yeah, but then I got a little bit older and I was definitely a preferred my own company introverted. I would play video games with my friends and just talked to the man hours for on Skype it like I wouldn't actually see them in real life. And then I started growing taller. I got scouted and all the sudden you and I had status and people would actually like to be friends with me and talk to me and I was like well with this so cool like this A Whole New World, so I started like hang out with them a little bit more and I became influenced by the mallat fruit for good and bad.

12:06 And you know if it came about the the name of the France and going out and partying and drinking and

12:14 You know Instagram and this perfect image of myself and then I moved and that was a separated myself from all those people who wanted those sites in me and it took a little bit of time for it to come out of my system, but it did eventually

12:34 For the better or for the worse? What would you say for the better? Definitely? It's freeing.

12:41 Talk to me a little bit about are you a karate Practice phone from u.s. 7 years old till we left. I love hate relationship lights started because my dad said that pretty girls needed to defend themselves and needed to be able to at least so I started out not really knowing what I was doing and you know, make some friends that was kind of fun, but it wasn't it wasn't really serious I guess and then when I was 10, I won my first national championship and I was kind of like you'd like ignited a fire in me. I guess of some sort and a couple years later I was taken out for the varsity team, I guess.

13:29 And always in practice but a lot more intense it became a lot more serious. I had to be a lot more dedicated and then I started winning for real and I became really good and you know, I would travel to other countries and when and I would start doing the fighting aspect of it to which I know you love the community and somehow I was good at that too, even though I never really practiced it but I hated practice. I he did it cuz I was wet V 800 lb, I mean I was fighting with these six foot for 200 lb 300 lb men would just throw me into the floor and I would never be able to take them down cuz like, you know, it was really wasn't exactly is an equal relationship and it was so hard cuz I was so skinny and

14:29 I don't know. I kind of fell out of love with it a little bit but then I started coaching myself and I became the Sensei or Senpai of the like 30 year old ADHD 10 year old who did it run around my little chickens and that's kind of how I I got back into it a little bit but I'm glad that we moved when we did cuz I was definitely growing tired of it towards the end.

15:00 It's soaking about being skinny and you know, that's a sore spot with me with my history of eating disorder.

15:08 Can you tell me if that affected you somehow and how you view yourself in your room for the image? I remember that my talking about calories is he's always had to boo and her how like is not that I like wanted to talk about it, but it was more like whenever anybody else talked about it like at school or went that talked about it. I was like tense up. I was never anything that I thought about. I mean, I know I used to be chubby and I know that my dad's mom used to say that you needed to feed me less. They really like Susan or just eat it. But then I grew and I did a lot of sport. So I just lost a lot of weight. So I guess that that affected my body weight to I remember always has been cold. It's probably the main thing I remember about it, but I remember you.

16:08 Is weird when I started my. And after I start becoming a woman like the feeling when your thighs like hit each other I hadn't felt that for so long. I remember that was like a weird feeling I was like, oh my God, like it feels like that. You haven't filed it for so long. No, I hadn't liked or when I was like twelve to like 15 by forgotten what that mean?

16:33 And I remember it was a weird like growing out of my old clothes cuz I'd fit it for so long.

16:41 But that's all that really was. It was just you just a new stage of my life again.

16:47 Did something changed when we moved here? Yeah, cuz I was a model anymore. So like I would never say that I felt pressured you lose weight or stay skinny or anything like that, but the fact that you know all this and I wasn't the measurements that I needed to have I I could have imagined that that would have been taking more of a toll on me if we'd stayed in Denmark and I was still you know working out tomorrow cuz I know coming back and talk to my old colleagues a lot of them got fired when they entered that stage cuz you're also young, you know, we were just girls because their waist or their hips are too wide and there were not white at all. There may be like 90-95 centimeters.

17:30 Which is also what I'm writing about, you know that side of it.

17:35 Yeah, for sure. So the plot of the story is following a young Danish girl whose name is Emma. And basically every single chapter is from a different point of view. So it's never like it's never Ms. Point of view is like her mom's or Dad's or Booker's her friends her coach and she starts out being scouted at a very young age where you she obviously fits the measurements, but then as she grows intersport and puts on most muscle mass and you know gets really good at her sport then she grows out of those measurements and she's like already built her her base her falling. She she talks to her Booker about revolutionize the industry and potentially making like a the quote-unquote normal, which is obviously the underweight Norm in the fashion industry like gravel.

18:35 Can I sync that end in making it normal to be normal? So there is not you know right now there's like a normal and then there's two plus size like there is no in between there. Is there a size 32 and 34 and maybe 36 minutes like 40 4244. There is no 30 38 40 and you know the book I agree that that would that would be possible but as she kind of gets into it she realizes that she has to build more of a base to really like that. You know, what going on this which is doesn't happen cuz she has to be skinny for that. So obviously she develops an eating disorder and then the very final chapter. It's finally from her point of view.

19:18 That's that's basically that the gist of it.

19:22 And you can relay Tech. Yeah, I mean it's definitely you know, right what you know, it's definitely events poops the starting point.

19:39 Do you want to talk a little bit about your wings my wings? Yes, I would love to Eagle from Clovis West and I think you prepared me really you want for my takeoff. I know a lot of my friends like they don't know how to cook. They don't know how to do laundry. They don't know how to put their bed sheets on they don't know that cleaning isn't putting things away. It's also like dusting off and no vacuuming and letting into mirror and stuff like that.

20:11 And I think with thinking for myself, that's probably the single most important life skill that you taught me. I mean I know from when I was very little, you know, if I wasn't allowed to do something and be like why then you tell me I know a lot of people like when they were small and they feel like I know why can't I do this to your parents if you like cuz I said so and you were never like that you always like you treat me like an adult from when I was a child and you would have really rough conversations with me and you and be afraid to show me that you know adults can to fight too and they can be frustrated and confused and sad and I think that's prepared me really well for what adult life looks like like it's not you turn 18 and then you just know or you turn 40 and I need to know what your life is supposed to look like and what you want to do. I'm having it all, you know, figure it out when I think that's that's part of the beauty to the light when you take fly.

21:11 You can scan with the debris. Scare you away. And where will they take your field at least I'm going to Barnard.

21:26 Which is so exciting. It's probably the most exciting thing I've ever had happened to me. I was lucky enough to get in early decision. So I know like I have that security of knowing. Well, I'll be going well be taking off too and my current boyfriend with stair also chanson. We've been doing long distance for about a year. So that's going to be a new chapter of my life on my own two feet are my own two Wings is a good time.

21:56 Draft something more specific go. Yeah. Yeah.

22:01 Tell me what makes you smile today.

22:04 Erase a style today with it's a 3-day weekend and I'm head of all my schoolwork. I I feel accomplished in my creative process right now. I'm I'm at the top of the mountain where you know, it just it feels good to be able to look over everything and look back and everything that I've done. I'm preparing my AP art portfolio and I love it like that definitely is the highlight of my day and with my writing. I love sitting down with a cup of tea at night and just kind of ending my day like going over my plotting like adding details and outline a chapter or you don't like having interview with a character or some like that.

22:57 And then, you know talking to Jonathan definitely also adds a lot of Joy. Yeah.

23:07 Would you like to talk a little bit about the inner surfaces and maybe try to explain it? Even though we find it hard to translate these two times. They definitely hold hands. So if you translate it directly, it would be cold. Then said doesn't have a translation but who dances education and I would say Genesis like the education in life like an education in other cultures and languages and people different music different writing stuff like that. And I would definitely say that Dennis it is traveling which I'm blessed enough that you have made me go many places in the world and then said to me is becoming it's like self-improvement like becoming a better person. Also, I think by Rodney near Horizon you also Broughton.

24:07 Your own view of what Humanity has and what love looks like and I think being Dental is being a whole person and being a loving and caring person and that's definitely the journey that I'm on, you know, the junior events that was moving here was stranger things. We didn't know if we were going to say, you know, cuz if you so it's only three years. So I think we went into this the journey to America with the mindset that this was going to be Dennis as if anything and that's definitely still I don't think you ever like you you go on the train of Denton. So when you're maybe like in young adults and then I just don't think you get off but I don't think you're supposed to get off. Anyway, I like this.

24:55 Yeah, you want to add anything to that?

25:00 No.

25:03 Is there something about you that you think no one else knows?

25:12 No, I like to be very open about everything that's going on in my life. I like to.

25:22 Be openly and secure and share my doubts about myself with those closest to me and you know, being editor-in-chief example. I like to set the example for my staff by openly being vulnerable with them and sharing when there's something that I don't know if I can do or if there is something that I'm doubting myself about or is there something you need help like reaching out. I don't keep secrets from my closest friends and family.

25:56 Sono

26:00 Who influenced you to do that?

26:07 That's a good question. I don't know. I mean, I think partly it's you and then Dad, you know, you've always been very open with your feelings about me or around me and

26:21 I think you always crying that vulnerability is strength in being vulnerable is being confident enough that you you dare to to set the example by sharing your insecurities and showing those around you that that's not weakness, you know, but that's that's performance strength to and I like to do that cuz I know and this is going to sound.

26:52 This is going to sound a little bit cocky, but I know that people look up to me. So I like to show them that just because you know, they see me as as whatever they see me as it doesn't mean that I'm like that all the time and just because you know, I have my days where I feel good and I look good and doesn't mean that those are those days are reality everyday and just because you know, some of my my paintings mean I have been accepted and they're beautiful just mean that all my paintings were like that and

27:30 I don't know. I think I think it's so important to show other people that life is also having doubts about yourself and what you're doing and what path you're taking and I think that's critical thinking to be able to to question. What did I say? You're doing Warpath you taking if that's the right one I think is following something blindly. That's dangerous. So I think maybe it's just kind of a mix of the people that I look up to and you guys asked my parents. Do you want to Shamu about your thoughts and what you question about yourself in your path? Well, I think the headline of it is probably is this good enough am I good enough and I know the answer. I know that like, this is my question and it equals yes, but sometimes I just need to find X.

28:27 And that is applied in in Manny likes up. So pets submods where it's you on my writing sharing my my plots with you. I feel incredibly vulnerable, you know, is this good enough? And I don't know you're lying to me for usually say yes and sharing my art with my teacher. Is this good enough it is this going in in the directions I wanted to go in

28:57 Sharing my signs and my spreads for the yearbook with my advisor. You know, is this a dry? Can we wanted to go in this this this is reach, you know the level that we set for ourselves. This is good enough. Am I get enough Federer and cheese?

29:13 And I think that the gene of being a perfectionist I I wonder if I get that one from don't look at my butt.

29:25 I'm definitely a perfectionist, but I'm also my dad's daughter and he's definitely the thank you. He's he's very good at at seeing it in the helicopter. One of you I guess he is or is not so like going into detail about it.

29:47 So yeah, I mean I want to do I want to do big things and I know it's naive but I wanted impact or change the world in my own little way and I think that's why I keep asking those questions. Am I good enough is this good enough? Because even though it may never be perfect then at least it's going to take me in the right direction. Do you think that test resonance with people around you the question of insecurity and being good enough? I mean definitely I think that's that's a very Universal doubt to have about yourself. I think maybe because you gave me so much confidence throughout my my roots that that the fundamental enter the fact that I have that that I can put, you know, two lines under and be like this is this is the answer. I don't think everybody has sent and that's why I kind of want to show people that you can you can still be look.

30:47 For your ex and have that answer that makes it like that's why I want to share my insecurities 9000 people.

30:54 I told you that I brought some to look growing and some prunes and a lot of them are from the Danish poet repeat IND who makes an English Crooks and into a nice Coke and this one. I don't know if you know it. Maybe I could get you to read it. It's only in English. I couldn't find any so I couldn't find the translation for it. Can you read it out loud?

31:16 That ain't what I didn't go out to a dude's hope Monday to talk. I would like to pass that on to you and he always with his little Crooks and this like a saying they need saying that cook is from clean and soak smell it together, but I never acknowledged himself then that's how he he said I just invented this word. I grabbed it out of nothing. It doesn't have a specific meaning but it seems to be like the happy and the sad part of much tequila. Can you try to translate it to him? Just a little poem? Yeah. Yeah, I think of it is that

32:06 The peace in life is knowing that you're faithful to what you believe in like you have integrity.

32:15 Yeah.

32:17 I don't know how you would chanted by the ice cream with you. I just I wanted to give that to you and I lots of those under a special love. I'm just going to read it out. If living is a thing you do. Now whenever which do you I love that one. I like this one. Love all you've got love to give live while you've got life to live. I like it even better in the day because they wanted it to Ryan's and then do some of it in the in the English translation.

32:53 Hey, and I when have you felt most alone?

33:00 When you leave for 9 days, and there's somewhere food in the fridge and I have a cold and I have to get myself up for school in the morning. I like when that alarm rings in the morning and my throat hurts and I know I have to get up and make myself breakfast and get ready. I can feel them. I'm going up like that's that's adulting thing. You know do think that's sponsoring after college.

33:30 How will you channel that sense of comfort when you're a college... Well, I luckily have a mother-in-law guess you could say who is great at cooking Comfort Foods. So I'm definitely going to be using that as a Lifeline but I hope to mates created network of other bold beautiful than our women who can be there for me. When when I need the other Lifeline to blonde and then of course FaceTime is a great invention. So I'll probably be facing you and crying about life. So would you say that the food is part of your roots? Yeah, I would definitely definitely some specifics.

34:26 A unicam and is it because eating this kind of food gives you a certain feeling sentence. I do. Well first and foremost it tastes good piano, that's kind of important, but I think it also like it's just a taste of like the holidays and like the taste of like it's really cold outside and we haven't seen the Sun for three months, but here is like a lot of sugar and fat together and I don't know I think every since we moved you said this also would like me feel closer and we feel more Danish if that makes sense and like when we eat this is like wow, like now we're Danish, you know,

35:13 Yeah, I want to bring up P time again. He's talking about him sitting there and 1 English. They're not the same. It's not a translation, but it's the two at the bottom and the cold saturation in English. Well, it's not a translation of the same way. If you could. You just seem pretty mouth Date Street on its forehead it. What is it? What is the distal that stuff and I do have to become cozy indoors because the weather is so terribly and that was part of why we actually wanted to move to California because the sun is out of the rain.

36:13 The heaven sword raining it's raining and raining and everything couldn't be wetter and things are so bad that we ought to be so glad because now they can only get better and I think now that you're moving so that you can prepare for it.

36:43 And to finish off has your life been different than what you had mentioned what I mean. It wasn't exactly in the cartoon. We were going to move across the Atlantic Ocean, you know, so I think I definitely took a bit of a VW turn.

36:58 Fat the main road me writing expressing myself as a Storyteller. That's I haven't got to stay yet from then. We'll see.

37:10 So I think that's this is just like all of all paths lead to Rome. I guess. This is just another another path little bit more Westward, but it's the same direction. I'm heading in flying in Sign Language saying what routes would you want to pass on making the best of it like that Danish mentality when it's like

37:35 When will that be in Fahrenheit like 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside like when it's like 15 degrees outside their sense you go outside and you sit in a bikini and you take all of that sudden I think being vulnerable if and when I have kids one day showing them that being an adult is not equivalent to knowing everything and just I'm going to try to be as happy as you've shown me that you can be with what you have. Yeah.

38:11 Thank you. Anything else you want to add?

38:16 What about you? How do you feel about your life right now? We have two minutes in the rev up and you know that your father for a long time has been talkin about that would be an empty nest and I definitely low I've repeated empty nester there and I'm really excited on your behalf that you will spread your wings and take off but because we move Tia and I got a chance to be so involved with you to me my life definitely changed a lot because here as a parent you have the possibility if you have the opportunity to wear to be so involved with your child in high school. That's very very different from Denmark where you are an adult already going into or considered an adult going into High School.

39:03 So I feel so fortunate and so happy that we have had these four years together, and I wish you all the best and I want to gain to thank you for doing this and I look forward to listening to this recording probably on the patio in lemonade. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.