Neha, Cristopher, Steve, and Gabriel have gotten me thinking on words and history and context and time.
We were explorers, invaders, discoverers, pilgrims, slaves and immigrants, refugees, boat people, and illegal aliens. Time has a say in how we are named in history, and too, in how we perceive those named in history from the present point of view. And, who got where first before those who came after.
I am multi-colored by sun, my legs below cutoffs are shades darker, my feet cut in two by shoe-lines–a farmer’s tan, they call it. I am American, New England, yet Polish somehow too. And I cling to that part of history that steers me to eat Bazycht that I’ve made just from memory, and the Zdrowas Maryjo I whisper when scared.
I am a part of my immigrant history as I am brown-haired and green-eyed. Neha converses in Hindi, Chris likely knows Scot, Gabriel wrote in Spanish and Steve speaks in tongues. We are alike but different in wonderful ways as we travel the earth and seed ourselves somewhere to cross-pollinate, adapt and to grow.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology