also from the famine starved irish and the equally hungry cherokee, all of whom thought they'd struck it rich when they came to west virginia to work in the dark a mile underground, cause it meant they could eat. but for today's purposes, let's just say i've got gypsy blood.
what do you think of when you hear the word gypsy? maybe esmeralda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. she's quintessential, right? you got your mass of unruly black curls, your smoldering eyes, bracelet sized earrings, layers of scarves and skirts, bare shoulders and a heaving white blouse. yeah, that pretty much describes me. maybe not the heaving smoldering. certainly not the curls or the earrings. but i do wear white shirts and often, to ward off a chill, i will go unruly and throw on a shawl. pretty crazy, i know, how these things get passed down through the generations.
gypsies might also make you think of fortune tellers, firey music and fierce, sexy dancing. but for sure you think of thieves. that's just the truth of the matter - that some gypsies, like some members of congress, are thieves. they're passing through town in their colorful caravans, making noise and distracting you with their slight of hand and their silver songs and you go home and realize your chicken's gone missing from the pot. pretty soon you start to dread election years and travelin' shows. pretty soon those folks are viewed with suspicion and over time, they develop a reputation that affects them all, regardless of whether they're dishonest or just standin' downwind.
in europe, gypsies are called "travelers" and they're unwelcome just about anywhere. which brings me to my point. on the way to the shelter each day i pass the Shiloh Lutheran Church, in good ole deep south, USA. there's a sign in the grass out front - just a tin frame and a plastic coated board, like realtors use. it's been there a couple months and it says, "travelers welcome". i shocked myself by sobbing the first time i saw it, even though i knew they didn't mean "travelers" like gypsies but rather "travelers" like people stopping for gas on their way to Disneyworld. But it hit my heart in an unexpected way...just the suggestion that somewhere that feeling might exist...that somewhere my kinfolk might not be reviled but actually embraced. i didn't realize it would mean so much to me. i didn't know i was carrying some sort of ethnic wound - some deep shame not because i've personally been shunned but because i know in my heart that i'm one of the despised...that i have been passing...that i am not one of you.
and then i get to thinking about all that interconnection stuff. that string theory. that web of life. all the science that's piling up to say hey, guess what...we're all connected...we're related and we're interdependent, like it or not.
and i start thinking, well, maybe this ethnic wound stuff is out of date. maybe that's sooo last millennium. maybe it's time for me be what i believe - to take conscious control of how i'm defining myself. it means i'll have to pack up a lot of souvenirs...put away the scrap book and the 45's, so to speak. but it also means i get to set down some baggage.
how's that gonna feel, i wonder, to give up all those labels? to say i'm not a gypsy or a cherokee, a Hatfield or McCoy. no matter what's happened in the past, between others, i am here representing just one person.
i know a woman who recently lost all of her material possessions in a fire. she's had a tremendous amount of grief over having her past so completely erased in that way but she describes also a feeling of freedom, at first fleeting but with time becoming familiar. holding on to that feeling is a move beyond just realizing that all evidence of the past is gone to appreciating what that means to the spirit. she is unburdened of both the good and the not good that clings to us in our familiar places and which we use to define ourselves...to tell our story to ourselves.
her most obvious challenge now is to build a new house. less obvious is the opportunity she has to meet herself without a material identity from the past. it's being reborn, in a sense, but with a consciousness that allows her to weigh, evaluate and choose what her truth, going forward, will be.
i'd like to set down my mama's story and much of mine. i'd like to acknowledge the story of my grandparents' experience without making it my own. and i'd like to see you without that big sack you've been dragging of painful stuff you've been told about yourself and your people.
imagine our great web of life - how beautifully it would sing - how blindingly light it would be - if we tenderly washed away the tears of the past and faced each other new and clean, heart to heart.
imagine, then, how welcome we might feel.
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