Hungry for Heritage

A young Kentucky man once told me, “You don’t have an accent, you sound like the people on tv”.

I felt cheated. A bird robbed of a song.

I thought I had come to terms with being a Euro-mutt, a world citizen, grafting instead a family tree which blooms both apples and guavas. Hibiscus and thistles. My coat of arms would bear a narwhal and warthog. Or those mythological creatures that used to border maps to represent what had yet to be discovered.

I hadn’t realized how hungry I was for heritage until I was in a Welsh gift shop with my parents, mesmerized by a spoon. Welsh suitors would give their sweethearts spoons with intricately carved handles which bore different messages such as "I shall look after you" or "let's go away together". Even though I don’t carry any Welsh blood I fiercely wanted it to be mine.

I'd also felt this pang of hunger when I stood on a train platform in Newport and heard Welsh spoken for the first time. I had to pick my jaw off the floor; the unexpected sounds of the greyhound consonants all racing after a lone rabbit vowel. Hungry too when I flipped on my little black and white tele for a bedtime story and came across the story of St. Kilda and its lost island inhabitants -- men whose ankles thickened and toes curled in order to better scale the cliff faces and hunt sea birds. Until these moments I had never truly realized that white people, English people, were once primitive too. And we have all been colonized by brand names and parking lots.

When I arrived in Edinburgh for a weekend with Alison, I thought “now this is the Mecca and Medina of my ancestry -- I know part of me is from these hills and crags!”. But Edinburgh was expecting me, with family tartans and clan crests in every shop, its pipers and plaid-pantsed museum guides. Signs hollered “Family histories here! 10 pounds!”. Alison said she wished she had a clan to cling to, but as I bought a tea towel emblazoned with Frasier familial pride, I might as well have picked any of them.

But one thing did fit. The Frasier motto. Je suis pret.

People say “I’m ready” when they distinctly aren’t ready and they just want to convince you that they are. My mom says it. All. The. Time. Once in a hotel, I badgered mum about the tick tock time as she was getting out the shower and she looked at me as if I was being totally daft and said, “but I’m ready!”. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.