Someday I Will Go to Europe

Someday I will go to Europe.

Many of my ancestors have walked these lands since the Mayflower landed. But before that, and after, they came from foreign, European lands. The cities in America, even the oldest ones, are young in comparison to their ancestral cousins on the other continents. At a recent retreat, we met a wonderful woman from Spain who attended our Ancestor Devotional. She said that her mother’s family has lived in the same city for one thousand years. One thousand years!

I almost can’t even imagine that… But I have experienced the layers of time overlap in a place that has held many generations. I have gotten a taste of that magic.

Years ago I visited Philadelphia for the first time, a city rich with history. Taking a night stroll through old city, I stopped in the middle of a cobblestone street. It felt as if I had crossed time zones. Only instead of hours of difference, it was decades. I opened myself to the moment.

While the street I walked down was dark and silent, I heard horses clip-clopping past me, as well as old cars chugging along. I heard three different kinds of music playing at the same time. Someone on the street was playing classical piano, someone strummed a guitar on a stoop, and somewhere a small jazz band performed a set. I couldn’t see any of them but I could hear them.

Time stitched itself together and I could feel in my flesh and bones, how many generations of people walked those streets. I could fell all those who have laid down their energy, and anchored it into the earth there. I dream about the lands where my ancestors layered their lives into the earth.

I keep a list of the countries, cities, and towns known to me. If I could feel the intersections and layers of time in a young place like Philadelphia, what could I tap into in England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Germany, Wales, the Netherlands, and Spain?

Someday I will find out. Someday I will follow the threads of those whose journey ended in me. I will go to Europe and find the spaces where their journeys began.