Wishes amid the Thinning Veil

My mother and me, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, in 1998, after my granny died.

My sister took this photo of our mom and me in May 1998, in Asheville, after our granny (our mom’s mom) died. When I was younger, all I could see in it was how deeply I resembled my mom in ways I didn’t want to face. Like her, I desperately wanted to control images of myself, to see only those that flattered my own sense of what I wanted to look like and who I wanted to be. Now I think this is probably the single most telling photo of me that anyone has ever taken. It’s beautiful to me and painful to me in equal measure, just as my relationship with my mom is. And now that I’m older I can imagine my granny looking on this scene with many tender conflicting feelings too.

In these parts, Tuesday was All Hallows’ Eve, and yesterday was Samhain and All Souls’ Day, an occasion we most definitely did not mark in my evangelical Christian household when I was growing up. If you’ve read Ancestor Trouble or followed along with this newsletter, you’ll know that, for me, this time of the thinning veil involves sitting with my understanding of my ancestors. I invite in a sense of awe that—as for every one of us—they passed down parts of themselves that allowed me to come into being. Gratitude for the gifts they passed down. Tenderness around the harms they experienced. And—maybe most crucially—fortitude in facing and acknowledging the harms they inflicted and understanding how these harms and others like them reverberate across the world when they go unacknowledged and unaddressed.

Earlier this month I signed the London Review of Books letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. I’ve been calling my reps to let them know where I stand. I also, of course, support the safe return of hostages taken by Hamas and denounce the terrorist attack. I don’t see a disjunction.

I’m on day ten of a particularly tenacious flu that no one else I know—apart from Max—seems to have, and I’m still recovering from the ear surgery, so I’ll leave it there, with wishes for blessings, tenderness, safety, and fortitude for all of you.

Granny’s grave, January 2023.