I am not the linguist in my house. So when I hung this banner it was the other people in the room who deciphered its meaning. 

 

Semper was easy. Always. Perge took more head scratching. John looked at the ship and took the liberty of paraphrasing. 

 

"Just keep swimming." He smiled mischievously, referencing a  determined fish in a Disney movie. 

 

More precisely perge means to go forward. Not give up. A cogent message for a country on the cusp of economic collapse. The movie The Journey of Natty Gann offers a vivid depiction of how desperate those years really were. I replay scenes in my mind of Natty jumping trains, and scrapping for a meal with her protective wolf/dog. When she finally found her father he was numb from uncertainty, risk, and loneliness. He could barely recognize her. Then came the run-full-tilt-and-throw-your-arms-around-the-only-thing-in-a-barren-land-that-matters. 

 

Although it is brushing up on a hundred years old, the banner needs no repairs. The stitches are impeccable, down to the serifs. Then my daughter pointed out that the maker was apparently not prone to shortcuts. She spelled out nineteen hundred twenty eight, as if she had all the time in the world. 

 

I wonder what a woman in the next century will muse about when she considers the fortunes of those of us trying to keep our heads above water. "Always go forward" is as helpful a mantra now as it was in twenty eight. And throwing my arms around people I love, especially ones I have not seen in a long time, sounds sweet to me.