To Ramble, or Not to Ramble - Fighting Migration

photo courtesy of Lea Curry - that's Gon-Gon on the right.

I've always been this way - I feel an overwhelming drive to pack up and leave town. Be somewhere else. Take my circus on the road. It's downright painful, sometimes, this feeling - my legs hurt from trying to uproot.

There have been times in my life when I heeded it.  My [ angels, ancestors, voices in my head ] have told me very loudly: DON'T MOVE. So I'm not moving. I feel like I'm melting in my stasis. It's very weird.

My brother and I joke about The Ewing Gene, and we don't really think we were joking, but Daniel C. Dennett has pointed out potential basis for our observation in his book Bacteria to Bach and Back:

Interestingly, when there isn't enough stability over time in the selective environment to permit natural selection to "predict" the future accurately (when "selecting" the best designs for the next generation), natural selection does better by leaving the next generation's design partially unfixed, like a laptop that can be configured in many different ways, depending on the purchaser's preferences and habits.

There's an old quip about the Scots-Irish:  if you haven't moved two times you aren't comfortable. My genealogy research seems to support this theory. I have a map on my wall with  pins stuck where ancestors can be documented as owning property, and there are usually at least two locations - states apart - in each generation. Part of this trend might be chalked up to poor farming techniques or government land contract opportunities. In fact, though, the trend started in Scotland - at least for my dad's side of the family - in the 1500s.  How would this trend, over generations, affect the hardwiring of our DNA?

At what point does this absence of stability turn counterproductive, a birth defect, so to speak?

I've found that in addition to seasonal urges, two years is a crucial benchmark for me.  I've been where I am for two years.  Historically I relocate again after 2 years.  I've accumulated remarkably little I could call a body of life's work.

I'm doing my level best to stay put and learn something here.  This is uncharted territory - here there be Dragons*.  I'll let you know how it plays.

*2020.2 Update: I've been here 5 years now, and there are no dragons here. You can't slay dragons if there aren't any. I have learned some things, and I have a little body of work, and I'm pushing it away from me rather than amassing more. I'm about ready to call this experiment done and get back on the road.

Further Reading:

How to Connect With Your Ancestor Spirits - StormJewel's Spirit Blog
I got jokes, but nobody can delineate every process in our world. Energy never really goes away; it simply changes form, right?  I choose to observe and not identify whatever I sense, until enough data comes in to make a determination.  More research is always good, even if it proves wrong something I've believed.

Chasing the Frontier: Scots-Irish in Early America
Family lore says that when the last MacEwan chieftain, Swene, was beheaded by King James the whatever for being a drunken lout, the clan's lands were ceded to MacDonald, to whom Swene owed the most money, and the clanspeople either scattered or joined MacDonald, usually as bards.  There's definitely a storyteller gene in the Ewing pool; our family's migration is well-documented.  If your folk were Presbyterian, they were probably on the road with us.

 Curryville, Missouri History - Wikipedia
I am a direct descendant of Perry A. Curry, courtesy of his granddaughter Winnie Zoe (right, pictured above.)

How Did the Pennsylvania Dutch Get Their Name?
My mom's folks were Bavarian, Pennsylvania Dutch, and German, I was taught as a child.  I found out that some of that mix, or all of it, hied originally from the old country when it was known as Prussia. They, too, migrated across the country, but remained settled in Indiana for several generations. Maybe they were better farmers than the Ewings.

The Yeoman's Daughter - Julia Luker
This book is a fictionalised version of my Ewing family's trek from New Orleans to central Texas by wagon train. The fictionalisation of my great-great-great granddad's name N.A.D. Ewing annoys me - it was William Allen David Ewing II.  Don't know whether that was a typo or a ploy.

 Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
I don't own the rights and blah blah blah -  this will be my song again some day soon enough.