I cut you loose and sent you out to sea. I though you might be able to pass port

without my body to weigh you down – and then I set myself free.

 

 

     Could it be possible that you were meant for somewhere else? My grandmother’s parents came over this same sea – just in the opposite direction. They left your hills and calm spirit to seek the new land, a place they could belong, and grow. Those are familiar reasons – I can feel their tension in my throat. How is it that our bodies belong to a place, a country, or a piece of land? When you finally touch your feet down, and feel consciousness seeping into your skin – after the long search, when you feel you have arrived – but your papers tell a different story.

 

     You don’t belong here anymore than you have belonged anywhere. Your little book, filled with colored inks – your ticket to the world, and also your best enemy. I am displaced on either side, always in transit, only resting for a brief moment. It is not so much an authorization to pass or to go somewhere, as it is a branding. It is the realization that you must carry home inside of you, tending to it with each new place that you land.

 

     I remember the distinct moment when I knew I would never be the same. When I first arrived I was told that things were buried here, things hidden in the land; and I knew that I would behold you.  You filled me to the brim, I overflowed, and then you emptied me again – dust to dust.

 

 

 

 

Uprooting is comprised of self-portraits in significant landscapes, seeking to affirm a sense of belonging within a fractured worldview and cultural identity.