Unravelling
The leaves crunch under my feet as I approach my tree. Days of rain have given way to a gloriously temperate day here on Ohlone land, and I am showing my gratitude for a break in the weather by getting outside. As I settle into a comfortable seat on the ground, I can feel my heartbeat start to slow (maybe it’s syncing with the heartbeat of the tree? The calls of the songbirds overhead? The breeze gently rustling the leaves?) I unroll my bundle of sticks and rope and attach my body to Plum, grateful for her sturdy trunk. Suspended between tree and ground, earth and sky, I begin to weave.
I am new to weaving. But then, I am new to most things these days: remembering a mask when we go on walks, sanitizing grocery carts, waving to friends amid porch bartering drop-offs. The ever-changing landscape of the pandemic stretches behind and in front of me like an endless tapestry of days. For months, which felt like years, I was lost. And now, after rounding the bend of a new Gregorian year, I am still lost, but I am learning to weave myself back together with my tree as an ever-present and stable guide.
It began with an inquiry. Who am I from, really? I wasn’t taught, being white, who exactly my people were. I don’t blame my parents - their own vague knowledge an insufficient net full of holes. But I have something they didn’t have growing up: the internet. And now, endless stretches of time. So with the help of some very thorough websites, I began to unravel the knotted, discarded remnants of my ancestry, tracing each thread back across the sea to Northern Europe: England, Scotland, Ireland, and Denmark.
As I separated and untangled each thread, ‘weaving’ began popping up in unexpected places. Here, a 6th great grandfather from Scotland who fled his career as a weaver and settled in Northern Ireland. There, a great grandmother whose maiden name of ‘Webb’ means ‘weaver’ in England and Scotland. Now, piles of crochet and embroidery pieces made by my maternal great grandmother stored in the attic.
The more I learned about my distant relations - the more I untangled the thread of where I am from - the more I felt a need to re-weave their stories together as a metaphor for putting myself back together. To smooth out the knots and repair the patches of despair, desperation, colonization, and survival. To ground into the dark horrific history of who I am from, and find ways to process the destruction my ancestors caused. To celebrate their survival as a way of bringing me here, now, with an opportunity not to bring back what was lost, but to mend what I can and attempt to weave a future that regenerates more than it destroys.