My Story, Tree.1: Is There a Creative Power in Disintegration?

Yellow Submarine

The yellow submarine is surfaced, docked, and prepared for a deeper dive, into Part V. Background information has already been provided in earlier posts for clearer understanding. And key family history was included for compelling [Dad] reasons. With some slowly-evolved theories that trump all of my previous heritage posts.

If a draw was done of my blood and then tested, it would reveal 5 years of immersion into family history. So I had to share in words what I learned. Like my Great-Grandfather Frederick, days, hours, and years were spent writing. He wrote about the dramatic 1918 Nova Aquila; I write about my heritage.

A cup of strong black coffee and a support on which to prop your weary head's chin might help, IF the choice is made to read further into curving trains of thought. They are un-chartered trains of thought.

 The Root of the Problem?

During Christmas 2015, an eye-popping experience occurred while I was leisurely reading what ended up being a revealing biography. Events in two of the chapters startled me. I felt the earth move under my seat. I literally trembled. And, no exaggeration, shock waves passed from the book and ricocheted through my hands, arms, shoulders, and then to my mind. If my many hairs could stand on end, they would have. That book's world of words finally slapped me out of a brain fog.

I instantly experienced a flashback to a gift we received in 2005. We unwisely decided it was a simple and sweet gift, somewhat like a foreign nativity set. A seemingly harmless souvenir from a missions trip to an indigenous land. The figures, all black, about 1-inch tall each, with an animal or two, and one central figure that was unique and distinctive. Over the years, I even studied it a few times while dusting it.

The souvenir was displayed in our Ozarks' home office like an undermining Trojan horse for 10 years. And was received a month before our crazy-cray decade began. Random fluke? or rad connection. That evening while reading, I finally realized that the souvenir actually represents, in miniature form, a ceremony to an indigenous land's god. I instantly shot from my seat, heading to our home office, and pointed: That has to leave our home. And it cannot be thrown into the Lake.

Within less than 30 minutes, "that" was thrown into the garbage can outside of our nearby Walgreens. What happened at the city's landfill 7 weeks later is either coincidental or unsettling. So, to protect the impressionable, I omit it, but will certainly not forget what I heard on the news.

What Not To Fear?
Spooky trees
We have the creepiest front-yard tree in our neighborhood

Prayerful hindsight has been revealing and especially healing for me. Age and life's jolting circumstances drove me to look at the past. To see "now" in an historical context. My experiential nature needed context. Despite no physical resemblance, our souvenir was actually an akin-idea to the Bahá'í House of Worship that was located so near to Grandfather Frank's home years ago. It represented idol worship. And, like Grandfather Frank, our downward spiral started in our home office. And, too, many of our household's nth-degree feelings were somewhat similar to Mom's after her father escaped to Florida. Confusion. Disillusionment. Shame.

Years earlier, exasperated Dad's specific label for legacy matters was: The "Frank Weber Curse." The chain of events that dramatically effected Generation 1, to ignite Frank's Generation 2 Wexit, and abandoned Generation 3's responses of frustration, blame, and schism. This Generation 4 granddaughter finally says: Stop the presses. Face the music. Step back and take note ...that Frank's choice to move very near to that Bahá'í House of Worship is similar to my welcoming an indigenous idol into our home.

Impossible? but I have learned: Father. Knows. Best.

Tomorrow is Another Day

Regarding my "career," over 4 forever years ago, a lengthy and shaking work consolidation compelled me to finally leave my long-term, secure job. History does repeat itself, because like Grandfather Frank, I fled a work-icane consolidation that was about to swing back with an unpredictable path. He chose to flee work to research peach trees, I chose to flee work to research my family tree that was white-washed. I needed to write our true heritage history.

What I learned was different than what I expected. I learned a deeper identity, and I now choose to embrace the good and the not-so-good of it. Rather than a perfect-ending Cinderella Story, my family history more resembles turbulent Gone with the Wind. The dignified and intolerant 1770's O'Hara family had to learn, the grimy way, reality through the eyes of the South’s bloody Revolutionary War. Idyllic happily-ever-after did not seem to be Daughter Scarlet O'Hara’s destiny. For me, sheltered girlhood slammed into adulthood and left me reeling. No complaints from me, after all, in the words of Scarlet: Tomorrow is another day.

If I possessed the courteous gene, like my five other siblings, ancestry bunk could have remained hidden or swept under the area rug. But the bumps were growing larger, as was cancer in 2006. Everything punctuated to me that time was ticking. For the sake of health and family, facing decades-old dust bunnies, food crumbs, and dander could no longer be avoided.

Old family matters and genetics, or my family walnut tree, continue to affect me today. To claim otherwise is living blindly or embracing indifference. When unprepared, a family weakness seems to ooze from the seams, from one generation to the next, and to the next. And it can escalate. My DNA contains flaws, but most everyone's does. We can never predict what fickle hormones and crazy circumstances will do to our minds. Heritage awareness = self-awareness.

Both of my parents had passed years earlier, so I couldn't pull anything from their memory banks. The information I received was convoluted; revealed to me in backwards-order; in mysterious Stars Wars trilogy fashion. Information seemed to come to me rather than my seeking it. The revelations were layered, like the many clicks required on an ad-filled Internet site. Many times a fork in the road would bring an aha-moment, where I believed I had discovered a root family issue for a final writing.

Dad suspected that he knew the root family tree issue. Remembering his quiet, under-the-breath murmur years ago of the specific matter was the beginning of my first concrete clue. He believed Frank was the problem. To which I add: ...and his 1945 exit from the family. I call it "The Wexit" (Weber Exit). It is an exit that is sudden. It is unexpected. And it leaves unsettling, serious internal injuries. Like seat belt injuries from a jolting car wreck. With generational consequences.

Yet now, I somewhat modify Dad's theory. I realize that one critical piece, from which most every other family issue experienced stems, comes earlier on, deeper within Mom's family tree. I refer to early Act I of III of my play, scene Generation 1 German maternal great-Grandfather Frederick Weber's reaction to World War I events and possibly shame. Around aged 60, during Son Frank's critical and vulnerable teen years, Frederick's 1918 immersion into writing rather than communicating about critical family issues negatively effected his family. I theorize this because Generation 2 Frank avoided critical issues and then ran. Generation 3, Frank's seed, did similarly, but in more creative ways.