It's in me.

I have always been enchanted by the past. My parents have helped foster that love in me. It has always been very easy for me to see how my parents had done this: my mother would stop and wander through old abandoned houses with me. She would show me old things in thrift shops and at yard sales. My father would drive through the oldest parts of towns that we visited, just to look at the old buildings. He would bring home old bottles he unearthed on various construction jobs.

But I am just now realizing the important role my grandparents have had in making me love what has been. My grandpa is filled with fantastic stories, he is a true storyteller, and he is a navy man, so he has that rugged, sea captain look about him (whiskers and all). My grandmother has been so good to show me all the family photos and has told me all about them while I was scanning them. Her stories include special details that lay somewhere between the lines of perceived and seen. She remembers the sorts of moments I remember, like how the grass felt on a certain day, a delightful coolness you could never quite recover from or forget. And she loves tradition and having all the family over for holidays (like most grandmothers do). It is from these two individuals that my father gets that twinkle in his eyes.

My grandfather bought the school in Ohio where he attended as a young boy. My father bought a historic school a few years ago and my brother is restoring it to turn it into artist/musician/event space (you can follow the process here). We all need to mingle with the past, it just seems like my genes are conditioned to need it. But at least I get it honest.

Even my mother's mother, who I didn't get nearly enough time with, loved to tell me stories up in the hills of Kentucky.

And while the past may sometimes be painful and hard to think of, it is real, and denying the past would be the most unnatural thing in the world for me.