I'm all over the place today--maybe because it's day 9 of the Shelter in Place, maybe it's the New Moon in Aries, maybe it's all those things and a million more, maybe it's none of them (see what I mean??).
Last night I caught a glimpse of a scarf my Godmother sent me last year. She's an artist, an eccentric, a French Canadian, a mother and I've only met her one time. In the Catholic tradition your Godparents are the keepers of your spiritual and religious life. As I type this I'm hit by the fact that the keeper of my spiritual life is an artist. I don't think that's a coincidence. I pulled the scarf out of a pile, a swirl of blues and greens a replica of a painting she'd done printed onto textile. Her name is one of mine, my second middle name Sylvie. I don't really know her very much but she has continued to reach out my whole life. Sending me art, jewelry, little notes in her long script all in french. This scarf was the latest in a laundry list of items. I'd forgotten about it. I'd forgotten about my spiritual advisor. Maybe now is the time to remember.
This morning I did my morning pages, set my intentions, scrolled through Instagram and then settled down to check on my Grandma. She answered "Hello, Minnie!" I laughed thinking she was referring to all the Disney Parks content I've been sharing. Turns out she set my ringtone to a Mickey tune--that made me smile. After checking on the normal stuff, "What have you eaten today?" "Did you take your medicine?" We settled into talking about a project I had suggested to her a few days earlier. A project I've been wanting to start for years. "You tell me stories from your life and I'll write them down," I proposed. Today we talked names, of her parents, her grandparents, her siblings. She doesn't even have one picture of her mother who died when she was 12 back in 1953, just 3 years after my own mother was born. My mind raced at that fact, recalling the entire movie of "The Photograph," playing my own version in my head, my sojourn to Mississippi to find her mother's family--hoping to find just one picture of my Great Grandmother Camie Ducksworth who's name written on a little piece of paper with a drawing of a field of flowers hangs on the wall above my alter, watching over all of us. I'll find a picture of her one day, the woman who gave birth to 9 beautiful Black babies, 2 that didn't live at all and 7 that lived various lengths, 3 that still live today including my perfect Grandmother.
Tears are springing to my eyes when I write that. I'm humbled when I think of humans and the long line of other humans we are connected to, whether by DNA, love or a mixture of the two. Being mixed hurts in those moments. The moments when I realize I can call a white great aunt on my mom's side who has neatly done genealogy charts saved and ready to dive into going back generations to France. While the history of Black people I hold in my bones drifts off with the memory of the last one to know them--like the saddest part of Coco--they stop existing when we stop remembering them.
Today is the New Moon in Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, the beginning of the astrological calendar, the beginning of a new moon cycle. And again I am reminded of cycles, I am reminded that energy is not created or destroyed, I'm reminded that we have been here before (in economic crisis, in social unrest, in a global health crisis) and we will be here again. The memory of the people that lived it all before us is in our matter. We are looking outside for so much, on the internet, to experts and I'm trying to look inside right now. I hope you are too.
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