Friday, June 24, 2016

Wanderlust of my Blood

Wanderlust of my Blood

Between 1066 and 1300 my ancestors the Plantagenets ruled over the misty island of Avalon that is now called England.

In 1630 my English ancestors, Governor Thomas Dudley, Poet Anne Bradstreet, and Governor Simon Bradstreet left England and helped found Massachusetts Bay Colony; in 1637 my ancestor Reverend John Davenport left England and helped found New Haven which became Connecticut; and in 1640 my ancestor Reverend Abraham Pierson, whose son helped found and run Yale University, sailed to Massachusetts, then founded Southampton on Long Island, then was the preacher of a church in New Haven.

Their children and grandchildren intermarried to become my ancestors who migrated west over the next 330 years, moving a few hundred miles each generation, then heading out on the Oregon Trail, so that I was born in Oregon in 1964, as far west as we could go on this continent.

I wonder why the wanderlust of my blood drove them away from misty Avalon almost four centuries ago?

Now it is time for me to return to England and regain the throne of my Plantagenet ancestors! There may be millions of descendants of the Plantagenets in England and America, but I am the true king!

I will snatch the crown from Jadis and crown myself king of Narnia and Fillory and Avalon! Woo hoo! I am the Fairy King of the Misty Isle!

Yeah no.

My ancestors left because they were tired of the endless Game of Thrones, the brutal fights for power in which the families of the White Rose and the Red Rose mercilessly killed each other to play the Duke or the King in some cold drafty tower of stone to control the land and the people with greed for power. We left the island and went west to seek peace far from the castles of hate and fear and intrigue.

Have we found that peace? I am very happy with my current life, working as a cartographer in a small town in Georgia, taking care of my wife and daughters, and writing my epic poem about philosophers. My relatives are scattered all across the United States from sea to shining sea.

I often long to return to England or France or Sweden or dozens of other European countries where my ancestors lived for 10,000 years before migrating to America, but I am happy where I am on the endless journey of life. The wanderlust in my blood fuels my exploration of the globe.


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