Where Are You From?

When people first discover that in our small four-member family microcosm we have three different family names, three different countries of birth, four citizenships, and six grandparents originating from four different countries, they often say, “How exotic!” What they really mean is, “How confusing”. And these are the people who are not fazed easily. The other ones, those who are easily fazed, tend to give the Disapproving Look, and try, not always successfully, to keep their unkind thoughts to themselves.

For some of us, it is not easy to explain relationships and connections in our family. Questions like: where do you come from, or who are you, tend to make us contemplative not communicative. Our lives are not paved along straight lines, nor are they supported by any ordered grids. They are certainly not exotic, though they are, at times or in some situations (e.g., international customs line-up), very confusing.

The disadvantage of being “different” is that people constantly, often daily, ask, “Where are you from?” Even strangers. People who have no business asking. Yet, interestingly enough, the advantage of being “different” is that people constantly ask, “Where are you from?” Thus forcing me ask myself the question as well.

Do you live in a situation or place where you are asked this question all the time?

Today’s poem, but not only this poem, all the poems of Jackie Kay explores so tenderly this idea of “Where are you from?” I cannot listen to any of her poems without my heart bursting and being moved to tears. What she says makes me realise that in the deeper meaning of confusion there exists straight lines of basic truths and love’s lattice or grid.