Family
Today's post is dedicated to family love. Family is a subject I could go on about for hours on end. Perhaps someday I will write a book on it. Tonight I will only touch the tip of the iceberg.
This is what I have to say about my immediate/biological family: I love them. We are. I love them and we are. I was born into people of incredible strength.
Generation after generation, incredible strength.
I call love different things on different days. Some days, with family, you have to bend that rule backwards and look for different things to call love.
My college years were so rich in personal and intellectual development. For one of my theatre classes sophomore year, I had this assignment where I had to come up with 5 questions on a subject that made me uncomfortable and get responses from at least 3 people. The subject I chose was, of course, family. I was supposed to confront people with them and ask them in person but the introvert in me won that battle. I'm glad it did because the email responses I got were so rich and powerful. They were intimate, touching, sometimes painful, and always beautiful. I wish I could publish them here but they are not mine and are not for the world to see without permission. I will share the questions I came up with. They alone speak volumes to me about my own journey of personal growth and maturation.
1. List three things that come to mind when you think of your immediate biological family. They could be very relevant or very abstract-- an object, story, word, phrase, emotion, image, memory, you name it. Anything. For you psych. people, I think this is akin to Freud's "free association" thing.
2. How has your biological family been significant/or not significant to you to this point in your life?
3. Are there/have there been things beyond the "societal norm" you've felt about your family that you've felt guilty for feeling?
4. As your level of reasoning has matured since the basic childhood limit of singular definition, how has your concept/definition of family changed, evolved, expanded, etc. if at all. Are there any specific stories/instances/ vignettes that go along with this?
5. Do you feel that there is something that separates biological family from social family or could the words "family" and "friend" be eliminated as separate entities and instead just all labeled under the category of "people we love" or some other title?
2. How has your biological family been significant/or not significant to you to this point in your life?
3. Are there/have there been things beyond the "societal norm" you've felt about your family that you've felt guilty for feeling?
4. As your level of reasoning has matured since the basic childhood limit of singular definition, how has your concept/definition of family changed, evolved, expanded, etc. if at all. Are there any specific stories/instances/ vignettes that go along with this?
5. Do you feel that there is something that separates biological family from social family or could the words "family" and "friend" be eliminated as separate entities and instead just all labeled under the category of "people we love" or some other title?
Finally, for the poetry of the day, I pulled out another artifact from my sophomore year - The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. The two poems I have selected reflect on family with such raw grace. They made me cry when I had to read them over and over again for class. The second one was written from prison. If you want to read something that will punch you in the gut and make your heart swell at the same time, black American authors are a good place to turn.
Poems of the day:
Nikki-Rosa by Nikki Giovanni
The Idea of Ancestry by Etheridge Knight
Love, Becca
p.s. for more inspiration in family photography check out awkwardfamilyphotos.com
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