Camille Pissarro: Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook (1894/95)

Must Be Worth Something
This has been an unusually cool and damp Spring here near the end of the Oregon Trail. It has been perfect weather to contemplate my place in this world. I understand that not everyone can trace their family's history back many generations and that I must be incredibly fortunate to have found traces of ancient ancestors. I admit that these discoveries have given me a radically fresh perspective on who I must be and a sobering realization that few of the characteristics commonly considered inheritable actually are. Still, even imagined inheritances might make some significant difference. The self-confidence I feel knowing I had powerful ancestors seems to be making some difference. My sense of self seems unusually elevated now. My usual sense of isolation has become a story I struggle to believably repeat. I feel less alien and more at home, neither in any way negative sensations. So, while these sensations might not result from inheritance or evolution, they still seem to make a real difference in the quality of my experience. This series has been the most enjoyable for me to write, and that enjoyment must be worth something in the larger scheme of things.

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Weekly Writing Summary

This Fambly Story straddles a fairly broad swatch of my Scotch-Irish history, from William The Conquerer's entourage clear to The Oregon Trail.

Thomas Frye: Young Man with a Candle, from Life-Sized Heads (1760)

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This Fambly Story introduces another part of my Scotch Heritage, which I presume explains my taste in Dewars' Ayrshire Single Malt Whiskey. Cheers!

G. Woolliscroft Rhead: And last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end. (1898)
"I feel wealthy in stories, indeed!"
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This Fambly Story recounts how all but one of my immigrant ancestors arrived here enslaved and in search of greater freedom. The Plantation system brought them here but eventually did itself in with its routine brutalities and unresolvable contradictions.

Print by anonymous artist: Tobacco plantation (circa 1745 - 1865)
"We Americans are nothing if not overflowing with contradictions."
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This Fambly Story, TheTrail, details some of the events my forebears experienced along The Oregon Trail on their way on what became the final leg of their centuries-long journey toward their Eden.

Carleton Emmons Watkins, Isaiah West Taber: Mt. Hood and the Dalles, Columbia River, Oregon (1867)
"Those of us who were born in Eden …"
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This Fambly Story tries to describe the EdenAtTheEnd of The Oregon Trail as experienced by my settler ancestors. To aspire seems all too human. Acceptance seems much more difficult. We seem an inherently disappointable rabble. Perhaps we're most masterful at disappointing ourselves.

Russell Lee: Fall spinach. Willamette Valley, Clackamas County, Oregon (1941)
"We were guilty of a tenacious innocence …"
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This Fambly Story finds me considering what happens after an emigrant manages to arrive in their Eden At The End of Their Oregon Trail: AfterEden? I wonder if any Eden ever becomes anyone's possession or if it might best exist as their obsession, in anticipation or nostalgia.

Russell Lee: Child of Migrant Worker in Car, Oklahoma (1939, printed later)
"If we're fortunate, we'll stumble into another …"
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Only some writing weeks feel as satisfactory as this writing week has felt. The stories arrived in good order and behaved themselves when coming out the ends of my fingers. I discovered stuff I hadn't known I'd known when I sat down to write, the principal benefit of writing that doesn't always manifest. Further, I might have finished the heavy lifting, and I'm wending downward ever closer to finishing this series. I can imagine, without straining myself, that this series might be completed just where it stands this morning. I can always invent a few additional installments, but does this narrative really require much more embellishment? I clarified my Scotch-Irish contingent as well as my Scotch side. I likewise clarified the role Plantation played in my Fambly's story. TheTrail, The goddamned Oregon Trail seems absolutely central even to those parts of the story that happened hundreds of years before there was an Oregon or its insidious trail because that was where all those stories were eventually leading. It was about the Eden. I might rename this series, The Eden At The End, because that seems to tie everything together. I end this writing week feeling satisfied and wondering what will happen AfterEden. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Fambly, #PureSchmaltz