Once Again

I felt like Charlie Brown with the football.

Hey, Lucy, sure, I see that ball, let me kick it and fall on my ass.

But.

At least this time I circumnavigated a little discomfort by making a phone call.

That’s right.

My readers for my next semester of classes are not ready.

Nothing says good times like making plans before you fall asleep at night to have them changed abruptly.

I rolled with it though.

I took care of what I needed to take care of for myself and I also had a little unexpected free time.

I did some extra writing.

That always helps.

I called some people and left some messages and just in the leaving of messages my brain chemistry changed.

When I share the crazy, the crazy, magically, is not so crazy, or at least I can hear it, deal with it and let it go.

Forgive myself and move on.

Sure.

I fell in a pothole, but I got myself out.

Then.

I actually had a nice phone call with my mom.

That lasted more than five minutes.

We must have chatted for twenty minutes and it was light, although some of the subject matter was not, and funny, and connected and it was nice.

I also quizzed my mom a bit on some family history.

One of my classes for this next semester, handily one of the classes that doesn’t have it’s reader ready yet, has something on the syllabus in regards to knowing about ones own family background.

I know zilch.

Well.

Maybe not zero.

But I don’t know much.

I have heard bits and pieces here and there, but nothing really outside the basic facts.

Which are: on my mom’s side I’m German and Scot and on my father’s side I’m Puerto Rican and Polynesian.

I mean I really don’t know much.

But I have always been curious.

I will be reaching out to one of my cousins on my fathers side, if my internet ever comes up, yeah, that’s right, another day where it’s not working.

I need to say something to my house mate, my utilities include a hefty chunk towards internet and it’s usually not that great, but four days in a row is not cool.

I have things I could be doing.

Reading the reader links for one of my classes that the professor put up since the reader is still not available.

Um.

Yeah.

I’ll be right on that.

When and if I can ever get the fuck online.

I am honestly not certain how the hell I was able to post a blog last night.

It was a complete Hail Mary and it went up.

But I wasn’t able to do anything else.

Like e-mail my cousin and ask after the ancestry information he has.

If I recall correctly, there was a conversation I had briefly with my cousin that someone in the family, him? Another cousin? An uncle? I cannot for the life of me remember, had done some research.

I am going to need that for this class.

I don’t know more about what I need since I can’t access the online syllabus.

Like I said, this whole not having internet is like cool for about a day, maybe two, yes, I did do a lot of pleasure reading, but enough already, I have things I need to do.

Damn it.

Ugh.

Anyway.

I did have a talk with my mom, who basically re-iterated to me the German and Scot thing on her side, with the possible Scot side maybe even coming from Iceland and the German side possibly have come from Switzerland?

Ok.

What I found fascinating, however, was the story from my father’s side of the family.

I knew that one of my ancestors had been taken from Puerto Rico to work on the plantations in Hawaii before it was a state of the United States.

What I did not know was that there were two of them, and they were brothers, and they were really young, twelve and fourteen.

She told me there names and that they had been taken to the island of Maui.

They were supposed to be given money to send back to their families in Puerto Rico.

Well.

You probably know how that went.

The brothers both married and one of the women, whom I am apparently biologically related to, was a, wait for it.

Witch.

Fuck yeah.

Which means.

She was probably a healer or a midwife or a doula or some sort of natural path.

Or a witch.

Ha.

My mom said, “healer” after letting the witch part slip.

I found myself fascinated by that and recalled a time in my life were I explored voodoo and witchcraft—Wicca as its traditionally known as, and I was also curious about a lot of other non-traditional spiritual practices.

Hell.

I still am.

According to mom, and by that I mean, second hand through my dad, who is probably not the most reliable source, the brother who married the witch divorced her and remarried.

I do know as well, that my grandmother was born in Paia, on Maui, in 1928.

I also found out that my father was born on Hawaii before it was naturalized as a state, so in some dystopian way, he doesn’t find himself to be a real American, he considers himself a “Hawaiian.”

Now.

I had heard that from him before, when, couldn’t tell you, my conversations with my pops were not always the most factual or honest and so much of the relationship was fantasy in my head anyhow.

My dad was not there after a certain point of my life.

And he’s remained not there.

And that’s ok.

I did my work around that.

I am still doing my work around that.

That sweet little girl, alone, cold, wet, abandoned.

Yeah.

I know her pretty well.

I try to scoop her up and dry her off and tuck her into bed with good stories and hot tea.

Most of the time, it works quite well.

Once in a while, she freaks out, but that is ok too.

Yes.

I am aware I have digressed to speaking not only of my inner four year old, but also in third person to.

I digress.

The conversation with mom was great and piqued a lot of curiosity.

Now.

If I can ever the fuck get online.

I’ll send my cousin and email and get so more stories.

I can always use more stories.

They are the stuff of life.

My life.

Anyway.

Tags: class readers, cousins, dad, family history, German, graduate school, Hawaiian, mom, polynesian, Puerto Rican, Scot