// The Genetics//

Do you believe that likes, dislikes, and interests can be passed down generations? Has that been scientifically proven? I might check after I write this. I think it’s possible. I’ve so suddenly discovered that I have familiar loves. Loves that I believe have crossed the bounds of time. But that I have discovered, unfortunately, far too late. 

My grandmother passed just recently. She had dementia for a very long time and hadn’t been herself for years. When I did know my grandmother, the true Marcy, I was young. She was my grandmother with the strange collection of little shoes. The Picasso print above her piano, of a nude woman that I would so often look at with curiosity. The figurines of the Chinese babes with fishing poles that I equally as much admired. There was a painting of a Native American on a horse in her perfectly lit, small living room. I remember thinking that was more of my grandfather’s choosing, but I’m learning that it could have been a joint purchase between the two of them. I didn’t understand what any of these things were or how they could affect me. When Marcy was moved out of her home, where she had lived with my grandfather who had died of a stroke when I was much younger, and into a nursing home, my mother and uncle sold most of her things. All of the curiosities that so fill my childhood memories are now with someone else, multiple others who are giving them new memories. I wish I had the opportunity to hold on to some of those things. Especially that Picasso painting, with the strange nude woman. And maybe the man on the horse, who looked so proud and so majestic against his background of sky and wilderness.

I’ve come home for the holidays and my mother has brought out all of my grandmother’s old jewelry. I was given the option to look it over and take what I’d like. Much of it, to my surprise, though I wish it was yet another nostalgic occurrence, I find I really love. As I sifted through her things I realized that the woman I knew during my childhood as my grandmother, was a woman I wish I had known now, as a woman myself. A woman I wish I could pick apart. Hear stories from. She traveled so much. She has tiny silver relics from Mexico, Italy, Germany (I believe). So many beautiful stones of turquoise laden in rings and necklaces and earrings paired with sterling silver feathers. A pair of abalone earrings that my mother says my grandfather must have fashioned himself or had fashioned just for Marcy. He used to deep sea fish for them. There is a wondrous life in all of these trinkets. Journeys and travels that I too wish to embark on. My regret is that I never got to embark on these journeys with Marcy. Heard her stories and learned what she learned when she was in the midst of buying all of the jewelry that I will be taking home with me. Because by just the objects of her past I know that her and I would have gotten along so well. Her loves are so close to mine that it shocked me to see that what she had seen and experienced are all the things that I so dearly wish to see and live as well. 

Never pass up the opportunity to understand the pasts that have shaped your own.