”Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain
As a young girl, I enjoyed hearing the endless stories my grandparents and great-grandparents told of days long past. I looked at their photographs and wondered what life must have been like when they were young. I’m fortunate to have had numerous relatives live well into their 90s and even a few over 100 years. I cannot imagine what they witnessed while living through the majority of the 20th century.
Yesterday, I visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, and walked where my Mayflower ancestor, Edward Doty, walked. It took my parents years to track down all the documented proof that one of the surviving few Mayflower passengers was a direct, blood relative. Next year marks the 400-year anniversary of the Mayflower landing. After traveling to ancient cities like Rome, I am amazed at the rapid progress we’ve made in such a relatively short number of years here in the United States. As I contemplate my heritage, I can’t help but consider how much both nature and nurture play into our beings even centuries down the line.
You see, Edward Doty came over from England without family. He wasn’t married and did not come with parents or siblings or aunts or uncles. Instead, he came as a servant (or a hired man) under contract for four years. Of the 102 passengers who boarded the Mayflower in September 1620, only 45 were still living in 1621 during their first Thanksgiving feast in the New World – Doty being one of them. His work ethic must have been a strong one, as I’ve never met anyone in my family who is lazy. There is honor in hard work, and I am fortunate to have been raised with such a decree.
These past few days, I’ve also visited Cape Cod and Kennedy’s vacation “cottage” at Hyannis. I stopped by Kennebunkport where the Bush family vacations. I spent two days in Bar Harbor where I drove past Martha Stewart and John Travolta’s homes. I ate fresh lobster in Maine and went hiking at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Reserve. Today, I walked through Mark Twain’s Connecticut home, as well as the home of his next-door neighbor, Harriett Beecher Stowe. As I was driving through Kennebunkport, I decided not to get out and browse the shops, as I’m sure someone may have offered me their change as I was dressed in New Balance tennis shoes, hiking pants, and a Colorado t-shirt. I did, however, slow down to gawk at the huge cottages. I turned a corner and got stuck behind a trash truck. I watched the men lift and tote the bins in and out of the grinder at the back of the truck. Folks waiting in the street were visibly irritated; yet, I imagine they may have been more impatient if they’d gotten to their own cottages and found the trash bins overflowing and not picked up.
As I drive off the beaten path, passing home after home, person after person, I am humbled by what I am experiencing. Moreover, I am proud of my heritage – from the indentured servanthood of Edward Doty who left his home and traversed an ocean followed by four centuries of ancestry who created in me a desire to work hard and see the world.
Chasing Verbs 