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PARENTHOOD
Two headstonesName, rank, branchof service, dates. One New Jersey, oneVirginia, both Bittleneither certain. An email fromanother Bittle, neverknew my father but his wasWilliam, and inthat moment, James Owen becamea father yet againand I complete. And later stilla single picturehe in the back row and the mirroragrees that weare truly family.
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TIDAL SHIFTS
It’s difficult enough, Mom, that Inever got to meet you, to see your facesave in a college yearbook, to haveonly a few relatives acknowledgemy existence despite the DNA testthat clearly links us, one to the other.What makes it more difficult istrying to figure out my heritage,my geographic roots before our familyarrived in West Virginia, backin…
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MITOCHONDRIAL
I always imagined it would somehowbe romantic, not in the Hollywood sort of way,but in an idyllic, picturesque manner,even if that denied basic reality.Reality, when it comes to origins discoveredis overrated, for the normal percolation timeis denied, and the impact is suddenwith no restraints to temper the blow.Way back when, you learned by storiestold by…
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FINDING
Even when I was briefly in Edinburgh I dreamed of walking the streets of Lisbon or Porto looking into the faces of older men and wondering if this one was my father. the father I had never seen, never known. Was the one my Jewish mother described in detail to the social worker who took…
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THE VISIT
I have never visited the grave of my mother, either of them, which seems most odd primarily to me. The mother I never knew until it was too late to know her is buried in Charleston, West Virginia a place i intend to visit, grave site included in the coming months, to see where my…
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A SHORT LONG LINE
There is a statue of William Penn atop the city hall in Philadelphia seeming to stare down over the city with bronze eyes incapable of seeing. Hagar wandered the wilderness after she was evicted by Abraham at Sarah’s urging, the price of jealousy, with bread and water and the promise of a great nation. It…
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DISCOVERING ME
They were always almost mythological, heroes of a people I could only imagine as my own, knowing I came from a far different place, one of shtetls and pogroms, of seaside villages, the beaches of Cascais. It was half a lie, but I couldn’t know it then, couldn’t guess my dream was reality, my reality…
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ARRIVAL
Twisted strands tell a strange story – acid, a trip you never intended to take – amino pairs that walk you into a world that is yours alone and universal, a foreign place you now must call home.
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GENETIC DREAMS
The hardest part, surprisingly, is finding that one odd thread where you least expected, and following it back until it merges with another, and another still until you recognize that it is a weft, and the warp slowly becomes more apparent. Still it is nothing but carefully interwoven threads until you allow yourself to step…
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an old writer and his words 