So Mom… I’m having one of those days. Heck, truth be told it’s just been one of dem weeks.

Between this and that of daily life, anniversaries, schedule changes, life changes, weather, ugh… I’m a weary soul.

So I’ve found myself holed up here within my abode obsessed this week with a PBS series on African-American genealogies…it’s so very intriguing. I hear these stories, and I see a side of the south I have struggled myself to embrace. My southern roots are a facet of my life I don’t often explore.

Annnndd… I know Mom… SusanJ. I haven’t forgotten, I’m still trying to find her.

Man, I wish I could go back in time, just these rare moments, and just alter the outcome. However, that’s all too Dr. Who, and though intriguing, pure fiction.

Yet, knowing what I know now, still, I’d of loved her to have been at that ill-fated wedding… just the same. But we can’t go backward.

This series actually has me wondering about some of Dad’s kin down there in North Carolina. One aspect of these genealogies that is interesting is that many black Americans claim Native American in their genes, but in fact little actually do. It’s European DNA, not Native. Those high cheeks bones are probably Norse, or perhaps German, or even Spanish. Which got me to thinking – do you think Great Grandma N may have been in fact half African, not Native? That would be interesting. Definitely something to explore, cause I’m at a brick wall with those old Keech kin of Dad’s.

So I guess I need to take a closer look at those other Keechs I kept stumbling into. I don’t know exactly how, but I figure I’ll just keep digging till I run out of steam. This program has given me some clues to work from.

Whether I share any blood relation with those black Keechs or not, the series captures these unique glimpse of a people, and their history, their struggles, their enslavement, their triumphs. It captures these sketches of individuals that represent a time, and stories rarely ever told. There are stories that both uphold some family myths, and shatters others.

I can’t imagine how I would feel if I couldn’t trace my ancestors, due to the fact my people were once considered property… and thus had their identities stripped, families were divided, and horrors taken to ones grave.

That white blood that often courses in their veins is a product of an unholy union of master and slave; for when in a state of servitude, one is not in a position to refuse.

At the very least Mom, it has certainly pulled me from this malaise I find myself in of late. It knocks the dust and cobwebs from my notebooks, and inspires me to do some more digging of my own.

It is interesting that your death inspired me to seek out these ancestral stories.  And as Maya Angelou said in the program “I don’t think you can leave home, you take it with you.”

Don’t I know it… :-) We seek out these ancestral homes, and illustrious ancestors, but I suppose we are all just out their finding out where we belong. If nothing else this series has healed some old wounds, maybe exposed secrets, but we all seek out that essence of home, that Temenos, that sanctuary. When all along it was something you carried with you from the beginning.

Well, Mom, three more days in the week, and over half way through another October, and I think I’ll survive. So far so good. Maybe there is some piece of my own heritage that’s been lost in the mists of time. And, yeah, wouldn’t it be fantastic if I did actually find Sue again? I really do believe we’re all connected, and perhaps this new genealogical hunt of mine may just indirectly unearth old friends, as well as kin.

Love Paula

… more writing on The Butterfly Effect