I think my DNA is telling me my restlessness is normal
23andMe, identity, and The Grateful Dead
I don’t have the same enthusiasm about Seattle as I did 10 years ago. I remember joking with friends when we moved here that Seattle would be the new California as the world got hotter. While Seattle's climate hasn’t improved, my prediction is currently more aligned to cost than weather. It’s hard to appreciate the evergreen when the other green doesn’t go as long as it used to. Rent is up. Groceries are up. Taxes are up. Meanwhile, schools are threatening closure, potholes still reign supreme, a housing shortage is leaving more people on the streets, but the yachts are still flooding Lake Washington.
It’s getting harder to connect here as the disparity between poor and rich, old and young, kids and no kids, skiing and no skiing seem to grow yearly.
But an odd thing happened recently.
As I got word that 23andMe was about to be sold to the highest [private equity firm] bidder, I logged onto the site to search for how to delete my data. I took one more loop around my genetic visualizations, the way you go around the block once more to find parking. I cruised through percentages of relationships like having a 3rd cousin with 3% of my DNA somewhere in Europe. I looked at data points that went over my head and marveled at the very colorful world map my blood illuminated. I laughed a bit when I remembered that one girl in high school who was incredibly pretentious about having native American, German, Irish, and African blood. And yet here I was, staring into my DNA like the James Webb telescope scanning the universe, thinking that maybe she was rightfully proud of all the code she was made of.
Way back in my DNA, there are stories with only distant signals of something happening. An entire galaxy of interconnected worlds between indigenous American and Ashkenazi Jew waving back like light from billions of lightyears away. I don’t know what it means to be more recently European than indigenous or if any of these other insignificant percentages, likely flawed by a company now bankrupt, say anything about who I am. But honestly, I’m kinda super curious about the whole Coptic Egyptian thing. Like…direct descendants of Ancient Egyptians, my last name is De La Cruz (of the cross). Talk about fodder for some novels.
As I stumbled around the website, with information that’s been there for years, I came across another interesting tidbit. I might be related to “The Ancient One”, a 9000-year-old man from the Pacific Northwest. Well, ain’t that some shit. With a deep yearning for desert landscapes and ready to get all Aztec when the time is right, this guy might be from the area I currently live in, which I don’t always speak highly of. This place that sometimes feels as foreign as any place I’ve ever lived seems to be a distant star waving back, except I might have returned to an origin star.
I’ve always had a slight envy of people who have lived in the same place for generations. They know their land, their community, and their place. They have stories stretching back multiple generations. They have a sense of home.
But I look at this map of my DNA and feel a sense of relief. Maybe my restlessness is built into who I am, and I’ve never been destined to be for “one thing.”
I took the video above from the second night of Dead & Co at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Aside from psychedelic rock beginnings, flower children, and Jerry Garcia, I know zero things about The Dead. I do know about “Deadheads,” and I’m good friends with one, so in that good-friend way, I blindly said yes to flying to Vegas for two nights with what can only be described as a visual and auditory journey unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. I have six rolls of film to develop so you may see another newsletter about this. Although I don’t see myself frequenting a lot of Shakedowns in the near future, I’m glad I got to experience this one. Hey now.
Here’s a current favorite print. Printing 8x11.5 and 5x7 if you’d like one. Shot on my GA645zi with Ilford HP black and white. Printed on Moab Juniper which is the loveliest paper.
Happy Sunday, and thanks for reading. Today’s track is inspired by “Drums”, a “song” played live by the Dead more times than any (yes, I did research and read a lot before and after the shows). Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead, plays a set that is VERY abstract, with percussion that truly sounded like any modern drum and bass beat. I was eagerly awaiting a “drop” at one point, to the amusement of my friends. So, of course, I went searching, and you can bet I found an eight-track EP from a DJ who remixed several songs. Enjoy.