Category: Traveling

Root Bound

I am headed to Valledolmo and Montemaggiore Belsito in Sicily, to learn more about my great grandparents.

In October, I along with countless others will head to Sicily in search of my roots. The recent popularity of DNA testing has spurred renewed interest in finding one’s ancestors, and I decided that this year, I too, would walk in the footsteps of my forebears on a journey of self-discovery.

Hah. For me, that was easier said than done. The first challenge was figuring out where to go.

You see, like many people born in the melting pot that is, and was, the West Side of Buffalo, I am of mixed heritage. My paternal grandmother, a full-blooded Sicilian, was a significant influence in my early life so naturally I gravitated to Sicily.

Some were scandalized when my Sicilian grandmother married my Irish grandfather!

But what about my other ancestors? My Sicilian grandma married an Irishman. My maternal grandfather was born in Hungary. His parents were born in Switzerland and my grandmother’s people were German. The DNA tests also showed some surprises, like ancestors from France, England, and even Northern Africa, (not all that surprising if you know the history and geography of Sicily). Therefore, if I were a dog, I’d be what they call a “mixed breed,” or less politely, a “mutt.”

Grandpa John was born in Hungary

What’s a girl to do? I’d run out of money before I’d be able to take that kind of ancestry tour.

Which made me wonder, what are we really looking for when we search our roots? What is it we think we’ll learn? Certainly, it would be helpful to know if we have a predisposition toward certain illnesses or behaviors. For example, is my anxiety something prompted by today’s environment, or is it simply part of my genealogical makeup?

For many, I believe an ancestry quest is something more profound. It is an attempt to answer that essential, existential question—who am I—to know where you came from, and who gave you the characteristics that distinguish you from billions of others, that make you unique. How rewarding it is to find your place on a family tree that is part of humanity’s great forest. Furthermore, we gardeners know that the strength and health of a plant’s roots are essential to its ability to thrive.

I solved my personal dilemma by focusing this upcoming trip on the homelands of my father’s people—Sicily and Ireland—two small islands surrounded by vast, daunting seas. I want to learn something about why so many tempted fate and left, and if they found what they were seeking. I hope to find long-lost relatives who will help me understand.

Great Grandparents Elisabeth and Anton were Swiss

I know that all my ancestors who came from disparate lands to settle in Buffalo did have things in common. They came from impoverished circumstances in hopes of making a better life for themselves and their children. And like many immigrants, they were met with suspicion and intolerance from the people who arrived before them. The English resented the Germans, the Germans disliked the Irish, and the Irish despised the Sicilians. We sometimes forget that prejudice exists within races, as much as it does between them.

Great-great Grandma Mary was born in Ireland during the famine

It is an indisputable fact that we are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants learn that how warmly they are welcomed in their new home is a matter of timing and numbers. In our 200- plus-years of history as a nation, the US has accommodated great waves of poor immigrants many times. They came unskilled, spoke little if any English, and often required government assistance. Many times as a nation we have feared there were too many of them. However, we need to remember that immigrants also bring something our country, any country, always needs: an infusion of new blood, strong backs, determination, ambition, and dreams. Just like our ancestors.

Our vet once told us that dogs with “hybrid vigor” live the longest, healthiest lives. Armed with new DNA research, I am joyfully embracing my mixed heritage, my chance at longevity, and my future opportunities to travel to all the homes of my immigrant ancestors, to pay homage to those who made me, uniquely me.

Have you taken a DNA test yet? If so, why did you take it and what were you hoping to find? I would love to know where my readers stand. Please send me your stories! I promise to include them in the comments.

It Bit Me on the Rocks of Lake Erie

Lake Erie shoreline. Photo by Moxie Gardiner.

Several readers have put the question to me: “Moxie, your website says ‘A West Side Girl in the Big Wide World.’ We’ve heard about your West Side experiences. What’s this ‘Big Wide World’ stuff?” Fair enough. Living on the West Side of Buffalo shaped the outline of who I am. The big wide world has certainly filled in the details.

Since I left Buffalo, I’ve lived in four US states and a foreign capital, visited 45 countries and all 50 states. My most recent adventures were in Africa, where among other things, I caught a leopard (on camera) that was stalking me in the dark. On my journeys I’ve seen extreme poverty and extraordinary wealth, spectacular scenic beauty and tragic wastelands, humanity at its best and at its worst. Always, I keep a journal.

As a writer, my job is to look for and contemplate universal truths. A recent question I’ve been pondering is, what prompts a person to leave the comfort of their home to travel? What are we seeking on our sojourns, especially now when one can “travel” anywhere without leaving the couch, courtesy of the Internet? I’m not talking about annual beach vacations or trips to visit friends and family over the holidays. I am talking about traveling to distant lands that are culturally unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable, and not without risk. These are the places that tend to attract me because I’m a sucker for unexpected experiences, for the serendipitous surprise.

I think I can trace the day I was first bitten by the travel bug to a place just 20 miles south of Buffalo. I was about 11 years old. Each summer, our family would pile into the station wagon and head to our rented cottage in Angola, NY and a windswept beach nearby called Point Breeze. This particular summer, my cousin and I were allowed to leave the family beach blanket and walk a half mile up the beach by ourselves to a rocky outcropping we grandly called “the sea cliffs.”

From a distance we could see the waves crashing over the slate rocks, and on stormy days the spray would leap 20 feet in the air. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, we thought, to sit on those rocks and get splashed by that wild spray? We hurried along the pebbly beach as fast as our flip-flops would take us. We scrambled up the hill, and as soon as our parents were safely out of sight, climbed carefully down the embankment to where water met rock. We sat and waited for the spray. To our disappointment, the waves had settled down and lapped gently at the rocks below us. We inched our way down further. The waves came up around our ankles, so we scooted down another foot, and waited.

Whether the wind shifted or it was simply the normal fluctuation of the waves, I’ll never know. But the next wave that hit came up over our heads. I’ll never forget the force of the water as it pulled us into the lake and the somersaults we turned as the water churned us below the rocks. We came up coughing and gasping for air. I looked at my cousin as we treaded water—and we started laughing hysterically. “Let’s do it again!” we both said and climbed back onto the rocks.

How did that prompt my love for travel and adventure? I learned that day about the adrenaline rush of exploration, of taking risks, the electricity of finding yourself in danger, and the thrill, afterwards, of being alive. Why, if I could survive this, I could survive anything! Sitting on those rocks I would let my mind wander to the Wide World of Sports and the cliff divers in Mexico, then on to climbing the Great Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, perhaps even Mount Everest. My 11-year-old self decided that nothing would stop me from doing what I wanted to do, as long as I didn’t let fear get in the way.

Sure, there have been a few downsides. I’ve been injured, sick, lost, robbed, and harassed on my travels, and survived a few scary plane flights. I’ve had to flee more than one burning building, wear a flak jacket on a road favored by terrorists, and hold my breath when a bus driver did a u-turn in front of six lanes of oncoming traffic. But oh, the stories I could tell!

The big wide world is a fabulous place that provides grist for the writer, a classroom for the intellectually curious, and cultural and culinary immersion for us rank sensualists. Not least of all, it gives us a better appreciation of home and the things we sometimes take for granted.

Do you have an interest in travel, dear reader? Do you remember when you were first bitten by the travel bug? If so, drop me a line. If there is enough interest, I’ll add a few travel blogs to my website.