Same Time Next Year

Khalil Aziz

Same time last year I was thinking I would transfer my camel interests to a new blog and what do you know, here we are. Along with sundry memoirs of travel ups and downs. And distant homes.

What can be said for an anniversary except how gratifying to re-live some of the adventures and highlights, at the same time testing sensory recall. How exciting to plan more. If you hadn't noticed, I've not yet been to Kazakhstan, or eastern Turkey, or southern Israel, or Ethiopia, Mali, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mongolia ― and many other likely camelus habitats.

My known ancestors do not seem to account for this quirk. Yet we don't know all that lurks in our strings of DNA; it's still a mystery unfolding. Furthermore, we don't know the significance of behavioral epigenetics, stuff of some buzz in recent studies and certain circles. Trauma and memories can be transmitted along with DNA, affecting how the brain and metabolism express themselves. Who knows what one of my remote ancestors got up to in ancient times.

I like this quote:

Like silt deposited on the cogs of a finely tuned machine after the seawater of a tsunami recedes, our experiences, and those of our forebears, are never gone, even if they have been forgotten. They become a part of us, a molecular residue holding fast to our genetic scaffolding. The DNA remains the same, but psychological and behavioral tendencies are inherited. You might have inherited not just your grandmother’s knobby knees, but also her predisposition toward depression caused by the neglect she suffered as a newborn.[1]

For the time being, I occupy the morphic resonance chair.

My assistant Rahmi has yet to submit his promised post, preferring to communicate audibly at a level that blasts the dishes out of my cupboards. Guaranteed to get the asshats neighbours out front waving their well-worn Eviction! signs. Another trip to the human rights tribunal. If Rahmi doesn't soon learn to type instead, we might be out on the street. Ah well, my ceiling fixtures are hanging by threads anyway.

Same time next year, hope to see you here in the meantime.

[1] Dan Hurley, "Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes," 11 June 2013,

Discover Magazine (http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes : accessed 19 January 2015).

© 2015 Brenda Dougall Merriman. All rights reserved.