Inheritance
Got to musing today, thinking about my family. My great uncle died recently - not someone I knew well, but most of my interactions with him were positive despite other problems - and my aunt and uncle and mother are going through the process of going through his house. No small task; he was very much a hoarder, so it’s going to be… a process. It got me to thinking.
When I wash dishes, I wash them twice - once by hand to make sure, and once in the dishwasher. This, along with having separate sponges for separate kitchen tasks, is something inherited from my mother. Growing up, the dishwasher her family had didn’t work particularly well; she and my uncle have both told stories of “clean” dishes that still had food stuck to them - and so, growing up, I learned to be fussy about dishes. Both my mother and my uncle do this - but the rabbit hole goes deeper.
My mother and uncle are both neat freaks in a lot of ways, to the point where I’ve wondered sometimes if it’s in part compulsive - particularly on my uncle’s part. Whether it is or not, I get the sense that both of them also inherited some of this from my grandmother - their mother. I don’t have a sense from growing up whether my grandmother was particularly neat versus particularly messy; their house was always very tidy when I was there, but those were always special occasions and it’s hard to judge. Either way, that grandmother is the sister of the great uncle mentioned above.
Their mother - my great grandmother - came over through Ellis Island from Hungary in the early 20th century. She cannot possibly have had much to work with, and I know very little about my great-grandfather but the timeline seems likely to be the same. The point being, my grandmother and great uncle probably grew up fairly poor. I wonder how many of my family’s neuroses about cleaning - and particularly about things - come from that. My great uncle held onto things; my mother was always looking to get rid of things. I am immaterialistic to an actual fault, and I wash the dishes twice, and I’m sure there are a few other quirks besides. I wonder how many of the echoes of my own oddities - those and others - come from that legacy, and from the still-echoing generational inheritance of poverty and what marks that leaves on a person.
Make no mistake - I grew up solidly middle class. My family struggled here and there while I was growing up - probably more than I was aware of - but it was always comfortable. There was always electricity, and hot water, and food in the fridge. I’ve been poor - that stretch in my late teens and early twenties was rough, but that’s to be expected for striking out on your own the way I did - but it’s not something I grew up with. Even now, I’m better-off than my family ever was then, mostly on account of not having kids. My mother and her siblings I get the sense grew up okay - maybe less well-off than my own nuclear family was, but not in poverty. My dad grew up very poor, and that still shows in other marks on him; and I get the sense there’s been a fair amount of poverty on that side of the family in general, and has been for a long time.
The point being: and yet. Some of the echoes of these experiences are inherited. I still wash the dishes twice, and I still save cardboard boxes the way my dad does, and more. It makes me wonder how many other echoes of the lived experiences of my ancestors still live on in me. How many turns of phrase or quirks of language; or ways of introducing myself, or getting to know others; or preferences for certain aesthetics or seasonings; are inherited from those long ago? If I traveled to the town in Hungary my great-grandmother was from, would I recognize the distant roots of some strange quirk of my own behavior reflected back at me?
It’s hard to know, and hard to say. Some things certainly leave deeper marks than others - poverty is one of those that is known for it in particular, and for its power to ripple throughout lifetimes and subsequently generations. There are plenty of studies with points to that. But I wonder what else has left its marks alongside it.
Anyway, that was those musings. As far as the great uncle goes, this is the one I learned woodcarving from; I have a set of tools he carved for me a long time ago. It’s been a long time since I’ve made something with them - mostly for want of wood good for carving. Most of my memories have to do with woodcarving, or with the funeral of his wife many years ago. Other things are passed down like that - are taught deliberately. That’s a kind of inheritance too.
Things to think about. Glad I got some writing in; more I suspect is coming.
