Generational Wealth.
JESS
We sit on two chairs pulled to the center of the kitchen, silent. James’s arms are pinned to his torso by a white garbage bag. His lips tighten as I snip at hairs curling over his ears, gently, gently. The air smells like spam and butter.
Timelines merge; the sun changes color. I am sitting on my kitchen floor at seven years old. My mother frowns with a comb in her mouth, my hair flaking to the floor like crumbs. I blink and need to recover from something much bigger than a memory.
As we enter our third week of isolation in 2020, I find my hands store information I never knew it knew.
Information compressed into inside jokes shared between children of poor immigrants, dormant for lifetimes, now unlocking. Hand-washed rags and underwear taking over bathtubs, entire meals of ketchup and rice, recycled foil (“It’s still good!”), paper towel rolls cut in half.
Remember our parents avoiding hospitals, no matter how bad it got? Hoarding, because “we might need it later?” Prioritizing survival over emotions, no matter how painful?
For us born on this soil, severed from history: What is our collective relationship with these experiences? Resentment? Shame?
I thought about this on Friday, as my boyfriend and I, for the first time, hung underwear and dishtowels in the shower. I thought about this as I smoothed out the wrinkles and folded each one, crisper than usual because I could have rinsed a few times more. I think about this as I make breakfast each morning, another creative rice and egg variation. James and I would often look at each other after every milestone, perplexed at our ease.
As I cut his hair today, for the first time, in the middle of his kitchen, with confidence in my hands and trust in his shoulders, I thanked my family for this generational wealth.
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:
Aunt’s Tin-foiled Kitchen
Grandmother’s Swollen Foot and Sweet Potatoes Leaves
Chloe