Day 7: Origin Story

NovPAD 2024

Origins

Where the Mohawk meets the Hudson then falls off in a crashing mist – that is where my story begins. Thereabouts. I’m from a low valley tucked between higher lands, from impossibly big snows, from public pools and pocket parks, skateboarding and poking the bubbles in the summer road tar with my best bully-friend. I am from the front seat of the pot-smoke-filled school bus, clinging to my violin case, hoping no one sees me. I am from bike rides from our house all the way to Loch 7, trailing Mom with my brother leading the way, then home to pizza made by Dad and the magic of him throwing the dough almost to the ceiling and catching it whole in a puff of flour. But before all this, before the unlikely union of Jack Daniels and Lady Grey, and the inevitable split of those irreconcilable differences, I am from the land of William Wallace through my father’s father’s mother’s people, though I grew up thinking my blood ran thick with the limericks of a thousand leprechauns. Maybe not a thousand, but thick enough to still be wearing the green for our patron saint and the five hundred or so little people whispering down the years, pointing me in the direction of my beginning.