Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: TIME TRAVEL
PROMPT – Share a story from your family history about who you’d like to meet if you could time-travel. Tell their story, what’s the missing piece is and how you imagine your conversation would be.
Ghosts have haunted me for a while, as might be evident in my stories.
I keep talking about releasing those specters all tied up in the basement or defeating the ones who have wrapped their own chains around you.
As if they’re all bad.
What if some spirits hanging around are just as curious about you as you are about them?
Every time I visit the Art Museum nearby, I experience that slight, almost imperceptible breeze that raises the hair on the back of your neck. I always attributed this to my affinity to ancient history and literature or art, but perhaps it’s something else.
Perhaps I hear the faint whispers as old souls walk by, if they’re inclined to visit earthly places, that is.
This one ghost seems to have called to me in a friendly voice, for he must still hang out here; he loved it so. And I think I am going to sit down with him over a cup of espresso, if that’s what he drank in life. Maybe he was a tea drinker.
Either way, I am visiting the old world café—the one that’s at the museum in the city—and closing my eyes a minute.
Waiting for the air to change.
I’ll whisper something like, “Hello, I am here,” while the spirit of my ancestor joins me.
A time travel quest...
A seed of fascination sprouted in early childhood. I dreamed of welcoming a random person from hundreds of years ago to my time where I could be the one to show him or her around, highlighting all the advancements in technology and such.
Those tech discoveries or modern conveniences no longer mean much to me.
Instead, I dream about those in my family line that came before me, the richness of life missing in today’s chaos.
I’m more interested in their time. Their dreams of the future. Or their hopes for their descendants. Me.
In a roundabout way (a story for another time), I learned something about an ancestor I never knew.
He was an accomplished artist.
In the 1920s, construction began for The Detroit Institute of Arts.
A Sunday promenade along Woodward Avenue provided a chance to watch the progress on this beautiful, architectural gem.
John was most excited to stir up anticipation in his children, so Sundays after church, he would take his wife & children to see the building going up, teaching them the importance of museums—art, history & culture.
Oh, that I could join them on one of those walks.
How I would love to stroll next to John & his family, my family, and look into his eyes. I would happily sit under John’s tutelage and ask him all about his schooling in Krakow.
Did he serve an apprenticeship under a master artist, or was his a natural gift, making him the teacher?
Did he ever imagine his art & photography to last many lifetimes, passed down to descendants long after him?
Would he consider writing letters or a journal to his future children’s children so that we could touch the crackly paper and trace the inked swirls of his own script?
Once the museum was finished, John was a regular, surrounding himself with great works of art. Walking the halls & stopping in various rooms for inspiration, just as I am doing now, looking for him.
John was a kind man, dearly loved by his wife. He died much too young so would never know his children’s children, most certainly me.
I’m sure he would be shocked if I traveled back and introduced myself (especially if I explained how I got here), but once over the shock, would he tell me I look just like someone close to him, one of his own?
Would he look into my eyes, smile and say,
“There you are. I know you”?
{This was a fun prompt as I have always loved Time Travel. To tie it to family history is a new endeavor, and I really did go to the museum for inspiration. And to the library for research. What I found is seedlings for another story. 😊 You can help connect readers & writers by sharing this post so we can all experience the healing properties of storytelling.}
🔗 My Father’s Daughter sets a story in motion that brings you back in time too, and then forward again to today to inspire you to stand firm in who you are. Hope you check it out. 📖