grounded

One of the most grounding things I can do is to think about family trees. I'm pretty predictable--you can always, always tempt me to stillness with a family photo album, even for families not my own. I love hearing the family lore, I love leafing through the daily diary of a grandparent, I love tracing family resemblance through a stack of sepia toned portraits. I'm currently pleased with the fact that I can trace back one arm of my family tree--the Miller one--back six or seven generations. Ernest Miller, an immigrant from Switzerland sometime in the mid-to-late 18th century, who was the father of David Miller, who was the father of Martin Miller, who was the father of Reuben Miller, who was the father of Alvin Miller, who was the father of Harold Miller, who is the father of me. Next generation currently brewing. This, the the mind-blowing odds that each of these men survived and thrived enough to pass on their name, that they mated with my lady ancestors at just the right time, each time, to produce someone who would repeat that so very tenuous process all the way down to me, all the way down to the half-child in my uterus, all of which was happening simultaneously on so many other branches of my family tree... THIS is what gives me a sense of purpose. More people than I could ever possibly count, or ever possibly organize into a chart, have gone into the making of me. I am adding to the multitude. If I'm lucky there will be generations that take a veer through me. This. This will never not be the way I find awe and gratitude and the value of the fixed space and time I occupy. I am a part of something so big, connecting to so many. Literally everyone is. I mean.