Went to a Book Fair in downtown Columbia today, w/ my hubby. Listened to poets read their own work, & got inspired to try to write something. Also heard an excellent session by women from USC who collaborated on a 3 vol. series on Women of South Carolina.
Both of these sessions got me to thinking, & to connect the dots between the two, who are we really? People from South Carolina take such pride in being that. It’s like, you’re from here, or you’re from the rest of the world. To be in the “club” you got to be from here for at least 3-4 generations. Though so-called educated folks like to think they are above and beyond that, they do the same thing. It is fine to be proud of your roots, to write a book on women who contributed to whatever is South Carolina today, because their stories are left out of the history books. We have to write “her-story” because they are left out of his-tory. And I was fascinated with what I learned.
But there is more to my thought.
People speak of their ancestors. It is good to know who you are, where you are from. We are all connected to those before us. There are some who believe we have some sort of memories embedded in our DNA, so to speak, which are connected to generations past. For example, I may be drawn to water because my ancestors lived near the sea, and not have any understanding of that in a conscious way. It is an interesting idea.
But most of us don’t know much about our ancestors other than 2-3 generations back at the most. So my thought is to write a poem that expresses connections to those I consciously knew, or knew through stories that have been told by someone I knew. And that will be my next post.
Doctor Grandma 
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