I Come From a People
As I sit at my mother’s table, in her home in Jamaica, I am wildly present to the fact that my people do so much with their hands.
The table I’m sitting at was made by someone’s hands. The chair I’m sitting on was made by someone’s hands. The doors I open, the floor I walk on, even the driveway my car drives on when it comes and goes- all made by someone’s hands. Someone meaning- a Jamaican person, skinfolk and kinfolk. This is incredible.
I come from a people where using their hands means so much. It’s the difference of whether or not you have a roof over your head or food in your belly.
To this day, my 85 year old grandmother uses actual coconut milk in her rice & peas. She grabs a coconut from her coconut tree, breaks it, uses the water and the meat to make coconut milk for the rice & peas.
The hands are channels for alchemy, creativity, life, income, beauty. I appreciate all the hands in my family. Those who were tailors, seamstresses, masons, welders, cooks, homemakers, bricklayers, writers….and those I cannot name, and those undiscovered.
I cannot understate how important this trip is for my overall wellbeing. I’m seeing things I have not seen or wasn’t ready to see- and really grasp. I find everything to be beautiful. I feel enveloped by love. The love of my mother and the love of her mother, and the love of our mother country.
I’ve only been here for 7 days and this is where I am.
God bless Jamaica- all its inhabitants, ancestors, and all it’s descendants.