Descen-don’ts – Or, how to be a Bad Descendant
This is a piece I performed at at the Starry Nite Arts Festival. It's something I really struggled to compose over the last month. When we look up to the night sky and see our ancestors in the stars, what do you suppose they see from their end? Are we doing a good enough job as their descendants to carry on their heritage or legacies? And more fundamentally, what does it even mean to be a good descendant? I hope you all will join me in thinking about yourselves as descendants, and what being a good, or bad, descendant means to you.
“What happened next?”
I urged my grandfather, perplexed
With a phone recording his words
And a notebook recording his voice
My grandfather leans back
As if ready to take me by hand
into another story from his lifespan
But suddenly, he laughs
“It’s been too long,
I can’t remember!”
And thus the mist dissipates
Memories of memories
in an endless game of telephone
with people and places I never knew
and never will know
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A few years ago, I learned about the concept of oral history
Where we collect the audio, video, and written word
Of those who wish to have their memories molded
Into bowls chock-full with history
Vases overflowing with antiquity
and pots brimming with legacy.
All to be passed down as artifacts
Care packages
that slide straight into the DMs of future generations
Seeing my grandparents rapidly decline in their old age
I decided to write their words down across many a page
For myself, my family, and my community at large
However, I never finished the project, despite my initial charge
And, at this rate, I don’t know if I ever will
Not because I can’t.
My grandparents are still here.
I’m just not there
–in the past.
I’m here
–in the present.
I’m living my own life
grappling, struggling, writhing
with the world in front of me
One of plague, climate catastrophe, economic crisis,
and rent, premiums, grocery prices
My grandparents’ lives, histories, and memories are important
But how important is it for me,
the person I am today?
To learn and record
what became of them yesterday?
What answers could my ancestors possibly provide
from the then and there
for the problems I face
in the here and now?
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All of this has really given me cause for pause.
Am I…a bad descendant?
As I recite this, I can feel the guilt embedded into my jaws
I can’t cook even half of my mother’s recipes
Or speak with a quarter of the level of poise of my grandfather’s melodies
Slowly but surely, I feel squeezed by cultural forces beyond my control
And yet still, I have the agency to steer this ship I’m on
So instead of accepting the tides of life, should I be doing more?
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What do we owe our parents, grandparents, and ancestors–
as their children, grandchildren, and descendants?
As not only the carriers of their genetic DNA,
but also the bearers of their cultural DNA
Within the double helix of culture
lies language, food, dress, customs, religion,
and hopes for the future
Yet in the face of societal norms
Our cultural heritage is battered by twin waves
of assimilation and integration
until like grains of sand
it is mere fleeting fragments of who we are,
grains we may not even be aware of
slipping through our fingers into oblivion
But is this such a lamentable thing?
Nothing ever truly lasts forever
Our memories are not photographs,
but more like mixtapes
that are constantly being edited
to suit the purposes of the people we are today
Just like how our genetic DNA shifts and changes
In the never-ending dance of evolution
So too does our cultural heritage make revolutions
I can’t make or cook all the things my mother can
But I’ve also learned what I could
and incorporated new ideas and habits
From my friends, life, and neighborhood
Including things my ancestors
Could never have even fathomed
So maybe it’s enough
To descend in the way I have
As an apple that fell far from its tree
But on route to making my own set of roots
And live all the more free
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Truly and honestly, it is lost to history
what my ancestors would have wanted for their progeny
But what I know for now is that
As successive generations,
we are,
because
they were,
and we gotta hand it to them for that
but although our genetics
may be mostly out of our control
how we choose to write our stories
both the ones we tell ourselves
and those we will tell our own descendants
is solely up to us
Culture is all we ever really have
and all we will ever really give
so we gotta make these care packages count
while also making new ones
with bowls, vases, and pots of our own
for those to come
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The last time I saw my grandfather
I asked him once more to tell me a story
But this time without a phone or notebook
So I could appreciate it in all of its unvarnished glory
Because if there is one thing I want to pass down to my descendants
It’s to just talk and spend more time with our ascendants
While they’re still around
Not as characters and memories,
but as the people they are above ground.