It's that time of the year when they all wear my culture and want to immerse themselves deeply in it. This culture that I am still immersing in. Still trying to figure it out. 

They say a person is not living until they find themself. That identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. That identity is knowing one's origination and from there, the discovery takes a shape, one that is right enough to guide you into finding self.

 The self you are supposed to be and with that, I began my trace from the white man's land where we were dumped. I moved from pillar to post asking my parents and seeking information from siblings and cousins on both maternal and paternal flanks but we all are in the same boat— one with a big signpost of missing, lost, unknown foundation. Effects of captivity, results of greed and selfishness, and other words not enough to capture the entirety of it. We all are trying to break out without drowning while at it. 

It is the motivation that comes from wanting to breathe while in deep waters that led me to dig deeper and deeper until there was a myth, then a lead, and an identification of me belonging to ancestors of the black movement that don't crack, a tribe of pride but yet, beaten by circumstances as little as getting a mirror in exchange for a fellow brother. 

Now, I do know where exactly my origination began, where my ancestors' thread, but I do not want to go back there for it seems like history is still not done. I just might be a victim and be loved for a mere pass just like the distant uncle I do not know, was for a mirror. The ones I have begun to call brothers want to get lost in this place that I have. 

 

I only want to wear it one day far away from the rich soil but close enough to identify as a son of the soil.