Sylvia totally gets on my nerves.
Yesterday she brought up the fact that I have green eyes and what my heritage might be. Ugh. I have never honestly given it much thought, like intensely. I don’t get to see my eyes much and I forget that they are different until someone makes a comment about it.
The other night at work a customer said to me, “You have beautiful eyes.” I thanked him and said, “You know, I kinda forget about them until someone mentions it.”
He looked at me and said, “Whenever you’re having a bad day, just look in the mirror.”
I blushed.
But really, as far as I know, I am a black woman.
“Daddy says you have some Puerto Rican in you,” my son said the other day.
“Your daddy bumped his head. I’m from AFRICA.”
Right?
Right.
I won’t get emotional and think about how much intermingling was going on during slavery and I could have been a part of that.
But all day today I have been wondering who touched who and why and where and what really happened. I always considered myself to be special because I am black. I mean, only the best of the best survived that notorious boat ride and then survived the slave trade and then survived slavery for hundreds of years.
I believe I am the product of strength and will and resolve. Somewhere up my family tree there’s a woman who was so smart and so cunning that she made an awesome life for her family, who gave birth to she who gave birth to he who spread the seed that made me.
Hmm. I haven’t spoken to my biological father in a long time and I do not want to.