Text by Henri of Segusio, Artist unknown: Table of Bigamy,
from the Summa Super Titulis Decretalium Completa (1275-99)

The Only Other Option
I have become weary of my history. I've been too long at the fair. My investigation began as all investigations start, with that mixture of excitement and mystery and the promise of imminent discovery. The discoveries have come almost non-stop, but once I managed to bring together all the disparate threads to my birthplace, I lost impetus. I couldn't quite see the relevance of continuing further. I found some interesting sidelights and notable features here and there along the old timeline. Still, I felt like I had started gilding lilies and wondered how relevant my later discoveries could prove. Was I just muddying up my story with so many coda embellishments? Was I inadvertently producing a rococo history of a rather ordinary family? Very little of my history seems present in my generation. I cannot change anybody's past, though my Fambly's past might be in the process of changing me. I'm here on the pointy end of history where marriages, births, and deaths continue creating FreshHistory like volcanos create fresh territory. My past has inexorably changed me. I might just as well believe it has changed me for the better. The only other option would be worse, and there's no leverage in believing my future's worse than my past.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

Rather than recount some noteworthy past event, this Fambly Story focuses upon some FreshHistory

Gari Melchers: Marriage (1893)\
" … we attended a banquet."
—
This Fambly Story finds me visiting my DearlyDeparted little sister on the occasion of her seventy-first birthday. She departed at forty-three but still inhabits many remaining people's memories.

José Guadalupe Posada: Devils in the Graveyard (n.d., circa 1871-1913)
" … not yet wholly history …"
—
This Fambly Story finds me wondering about my ancestor's Cohorts, those people with whom they became closer than family during their lives. The Fambly Tree remains mute on this subject.

John Singer Sargent: The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy (1907)
" … not merely as mythical rugged individuals."
—
This Fambly Story finds me investigating my family's *Genetics and wondering what disorders I might have inherited. Ultimately, there never was any cure for being anybody. This story proved to be the most popular this period.

Pieter Serwouters: An Allegory of Relations between the Generations (1608)
" … the historical record seems clear."
—
This Fambly Story finds me confronting mythology masquerading as history. I find little to convince me that the ArcOfHistory depends upon the accuracy of any specific story. Even if my genealogy is mythology, the ArcOfHistory remains the same.

Shield of Ansbert Ansbertus Gallo De BRANDEBOURG, supposedly my forty-fourth great-grandfather (circa 510)
“Out of myth, all of this emerged.”
—
This Fambly Story states what should have been obvious: that this Fambly's history utterly depended upon the presence of PowerfulWomen. I can trace their lasting influence back centuries. The men might star in the histories, but the PowerfulWomen ghost-wrote them.

Meister der Münchner Legenda Aurea: Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland,
as the wife of Ralph Neville, from an image in the Neville Book of Hours (1430-35)
" They created the new worlds their husbands just imagined."
—
The Muse and I participated in making some FreshHistory this writing week. The GrandOtter's wedding created a big, fat, fresh memory that might never lose its prominence. It could not have been an accident that we happened upon my little sister Sue's grave on the very day of her seventy-first birthday. I ate cake and celebrated her memory. She really seemed dear, DearlyDeparted. Some real people live as memories now and continue to live as long as someone remembers their presence. I recognized that focusing solely on Fambly doesn't fully encompass anyone's closest relations, which tend to be comprised of Cohorts more than of relatives. Who tells their stories? I encountered an apparent Genetic disorder, one for which my doctor ordered additional tests. Some of my genealogy lives within me, inherited from my forebears! I grew frustrated at the fuzziness of the facts describing my most ancient ancestors until I recognized that the facts matter much less than the inexorable ArcOfHistory. I might study history to understand its trajectories more than fact-check the stories. I ended my writing week with a small tribute to a powerful force in my and every family, the presence of PowerfulWomen. Thank you for following along beside me!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Fambly, #PureSchmaltz