On Heritage

What do you think happens to the woman after she left? S asks. I pour two glasses w/my hand, slide one across. Free...

The difference between hallow and hollow is whether you are holding or held. I am both. When you tell stories w/ur hands you are always holding a story. When you tell stories with your heart, you are always being held by one. The difference between haunted and hunted is that there isn’t one... whatever wants you, hunts you, and where I step I do not make a sound. But then again the difference between want and wont is just the shape of your tongue. I am in the habit of longing. I am in the longing of habit. S says you do this every time and I say yes, that’s what every time means.

Recently watched “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” the rhythm of this film and its remembering feels like water... fluid and intractable. In one memory Mack skins a fish under under the guidance of her mom Evelyn “You cut here first” her mom directs “...just like I taught you.” Her friend teaches her how to kiss, her father shows her how to fish, and her mom demonstrates how to perfectly apply lipstick... all moments adding up ultimately to a life are those instances where someone loved us enough to teach and we loved them enough to remember.

I am understanding that when I tell any story about myself, it’s also the story of many others. A brief, incomplete, catalog of inheritances. Yeah my life is my own, of course, but it would be arrogant to ignore what has been gifted to me by people, place, and time.

I am eight or nine, and I’m supposed to start taking responsibility. My nana has always been a fan of taking things step by step and so this first lesson of his was about how to make my bed when I get up in the morning. I remember feeling irritated and taunted standing right there as he showed me, when all I wanted to do was go watch tv.

Why do I have to make my bed at all? Auntie can do it. He answers with a lilt that only appears when he’s talking to me, “What you gon do when you start living alone?” At that time it was hard for me to picture this seemingly imminent world... but I knew enough, and had heard enough, to call this world back home.

In the same back home Tuesdays were for washing and Wednesdays for ironing. “You gotta press the iron here along the seems like this and this is how you fold it then...” She would sit outside in the veranda a pile of clothes in front of her and iron undershirts, and frocks, and shorts with that heavy coal iron. Today there are certain things that I to do exclusively by hand like ironing my clothes before keeping them in the cupboard, the way my mother taught me, the way my grandma used to do it. Yet another entry in my catalog of inheritances.

I know ironing clothes seems like a trivial way to talk about heritage but if there’s one thing I know by now it’s that those small moments aren’t negligible, they are actually what add up to a life lived and spent loving.

I never knew how to communicate before even tho I talked all the time. Saying words is one thing, locating the deepest thing that matters is another. I find myself asking for some... no... to be human is to feel the pain. how you stay with it is actually what makes all the difference. I can compromise on a lot of things, but I can’t change the shape of my soul.

I have been finding myself asking for random things and asking random things, all the time now. Just because I want them, and I want to and because I’m curious just to locate people. Sometimes people say yes, sometimes people say no. Some asks have changed my life, brought me closer to the people and the things I now so dearly love. I am no longer afraid to risk joy. Sometimes it’s still scary to be perceived. I want to be liked and I want to be loved and I never want to upset anyone, even though I will inevitably do like I inevitably did. control will always be my native language. It’s just that I know now there’s a different way to live.

A fifth of cheap wine from lidl,
and 3 candy bars,
Kay.