The Missing 6 Percent: One Year Since Leaving For Dublin, Ireland

On February 4, 2014, I departed Chicago’s O’Hare airport and headed for Dublin, Ireland.

A trip long in the making, I intentioned the adventure to be a scientific proof that my body carried Celtic blood. Instead, the four weeks in Emerald City proved a deeper excavation.

I arrived on February 5 and in the customs line in Dublin Airport, around 5am, while the building, still rather empty and not quiet awake, received an email from 23andme. My heart dropped. This was it. My DNA results. It took all my will power to wait to open the message as I wanted to record everything. I wanted you, my friends and family and loyal readers, to witness the unveiling of the results with me.

The winter day – cold, dark, wet – offered a rather somber invitation. The grumpy cab driver, complaining about all the immigrants taking away local jobs, threw me right back to the political noise of the States. I came to Dublin to get away from familiar things and to discover new things and this guy wasn’t helping the cause.

By the time he dropped me off in Smithfield, where I’d rented a room via airbnb, and as I crossed the cobblestone to get to the right building, I’d been up 24 hours straight. As I walked into the modern lobby, with the wide staircase and narrow elevator, the doorman gave me my keys and I headed up to the flat.

A friendly woman named Alison opened the door. She was rushing out to work, her cleaning lady was vacuuming and the flurry of morning activity penetrated the morning. Alison showed me to my room and I unpacked. Of course I wanted to sleep, but, mostly, I wanted to see where my blood had traveled before I was even born. So, sitting on the bed, with a huge window overlooking the mountains in the distance and the Guinness Brewery a few blocks away, I opened my laptop, took out my iPhone and opened the 23andme results.

To my surprise, there’s no Celtic blood in my veins. There’s 94% Ashkenazi Jew. .1% of this. .2% of that. A tiny bit Asian. A tiny bit Southern European. But nothing revolutionary. Nothing exotic. Nothing mysterious.

This disappointed me. I felt let down. Who wants to be “pure” anything these days? The best music and culture inspire the senses when cross-bred with global spice. As Anthony Bourdain once shared with me at a trend conference in Miami, “What makes a great food culture? When someone invades a country.”

I found it difficult to accept that given all the persecution of my people along the trajectory of known and unknown history that no one has been been conquered, at least like that. And if Genghis Khan had in fact shtooped my great, great, great, great, great…. grandmother, there’s only .2% of my bloodline to show it.

Regardless, I spent the month of February walking the streets of Dublin and exploring the urban landscape and people and food and music that my heart had connected to for many years. The JDIFF took place during my time there. I met John Hurt. I witnessed international protests. I befriended people from Ireland, England, Brazil and France. I worked at my computer at a place called Third Space, where Lee, the manager, and I bonded. And I wrote in my journal at Oscars Cafe, where I also began reading the scandalous biography of the original scandalous author, Harold Robbins. I walked, from 2 to 5 hours, per day. I blogged daily, shot over 20 videos and took nearly 1000 photographs.

In the city and country that treats writers like rock stars, I also had a meaningful discussion with Oscar Wilde. At least his monument in the Dublin Park. I visited the Dublin Writer’s Museum, where everyone from James Joyce to Wilde to Bram Stoker spoke to me from their now ancient artifacts. So many scribe masters have their roots in Dublin, whether born, educated or first published there. As I sat in the salon, looking at all the paintings of these brilliant and often disturbed souls, I said out loud, “Give me all of your greatness. But, please, keep the madness.”

I also stumbled on Dublinia, the official Viking Museum, discovered numerous galleries and walked thru the hall of a The National Library of Ireland. A library and a museum anchor the central government building, in case the people in charge ever forget the values of the people.

On my birthday, instead of accepting Alison’s generous invitation to break bread with her and her visiting European friends, I walked the Liffey River. At night. Alone. In the rain. Crossing the river’s many bridges in a symbolic crossing over that was my life. This is what I wanted to do. To be alone. To keep myself company. To rediscover who I was, after a long and extraordinary difficult five years that shook my universe in every single way.

I wanted to get past my past. I wanted to heal my heart. I wanted to be whole. I wanted to finally start living in the present.

One night, as I joined Alison and her childhood friend Peter, who’d just come in from England, for a lovely home-cooked meal that Peter had just prepared. As the three of us sat at the round wood table, in a stunning Penthouse with massive windows that showcased Dublin in a panoramic view, we talked about 1000 things. This is what happens when good people come together. People who may or may not share a history, but they share a common frequency. And everywhere I went in Dublin and everyone Alison introduced me to signaled that frequency.

I discussed with them a recent visit to the National Museum of Ireland and how there I discovered that during the Crimean War the British military sent Irish soldiers to Odessa, Ukraine. And that my Grandma is from Odessa. And how the DNA test I took only shows 94%. IE, there’s a missing 6%.

Turning his head to me, Peter suddenly stated, “The Missing 6 Percent. That is your story. It could be fact. It could be fiction. It could be anything your want.”

And, so, as one five year book project reaches the delivery room and it’s time to start thinking about what the next story will be, The Missing 6 Percent will slowly begin to take form. Organically. Logically. Emotionally.

And for that, Dublin, I thank you.