Homecoming

We loaded the car. A playful game of Tetris because someone always packed too much, even though we’d only be gone for 3 days. The trunk would close, we’d stand outside of our van and pray in the middle of the street at 4 am. We’d seal our fate with an “amen”, glance at our house one last time, praying it wouldn’t be the last time, and get into the car.  

This has been our ritual every other summer since I was born.  

Having the windows down on a summer morning while riding on an interstate route at 70-80mph, watching buildings fall away, the terrain becomes flatter and flatter. You can see for miles without much interruption; one of the many reasons I love Virginia.  

If you’ve never been to the rural south, you don’t know what land is supposed to smell like. Tractors, manure, pollen (yes, pollen has a smell) and rain. Land smells like potential. 

Land smells like faith that something’s finna grow. 

On the way into Martinsville, we pass by a dilapidated tobacco factory. A sign barely hanging on by a nail attached to the front, “Spencer ....” The remainder of the sign’s content was blurred by time and weather, but I never needed the rest of the sign for me to smile.  

I never needed the rest of the sign to hold my head a little higher after the long 9-hour drive. We had arrived in our country.  And I couldn’t wait to see my family.  

I have an incredibly large family. I believe the last time we checked our numbers we were now upwards of 70+ bodies that share immediate blood on one side alone.   

My grandmother is a great, great, grandmother at 94 years young. I sat near her once at a family function and overheard her as an infant was placed in her lap: “I don’t know who or who’s you are, but I love you.”  In other words, there’s a whole damn lot of us.  

And yet very few of those who share this immediate blood have come to the homestead more than once, if at all. Another one of the many reasons I love Virginia. It is a space untouched by personal trauma.  

Growing up, the land, the places, the family down there, they belonged, and still belong, to me. And I belong to them, even still.  

They taught me the value of my blood in a season where I felt simultaneously alienated by it.  

One of the perks (and quirks) of adulthood has been finally having a vocabulary to define my formative years. The anxiety I’d feel around certain people, the rooms that would silence my otherwise extroverted-in-every-way personality, the places that made me feel safe, the people that did not, the things that I didn’t understand in my brain but felt in my spirit, and all of it in between. I finally have words. Many of which I won’t share today. But it is important to acknowledge that I write from a space of ownership over my journey, and I take responsibility for my role in others.  

Many will read this and not know where to place it and that’s okay. Others will read this and feel validated in whatever ill feelings they have about me personally, and that’s okay too. 

With that being said, everyone is to blame, and no one is to blame, because none of us ever really tried, me included. I used to be convinced that a majority of those I share immediate blood with don’t like me. But I know now that it was really that we didn’t know each other, and we never did. I also know that in many ways, for many reasons, in many cases, some of us are too far gone to even want to try.  

I’m only just now making my peace with that truth. And with that truth I also take full responsibility for the consequences of it. Because I don’t know them, I don’t get to celebrate them outside of the once in a blue moon congratulatory text, I don’t get to be in their corner, I don’t get to watch them bloom. The blood we share alone does not give me entitlement to their joy; I didn’t earn it. Nor did they for mine.  

But Virginia? I earned it. 

Reunions were my communion. We broke bread together, and we drank, and soaked up joy for 3 whole days in a place where our family name is synonymous with love and roots. Seeing the far-reaching family tree laid out on a table with photos and records of our ancestry was sacred to me. Watching our elders play dominoes, frying fish, and listening to their stories was the foundation of who I am as an artist.  

Reunions fueled me with the familial connection I craved so deeply as a child. It didn’t matter that it came from blood that was twice, sometimes three times removed. Having aunts and uncles celebrating every win, encouraging my goals rather than making me pay for them emotionally was mind blowing. Having cousins that I could share my dreams with, without feeling ostracized, is one of my greatest treasures.  

We didn’t see each other often but they saw me, always. Loved me, all ways. And I’m forever grateful.  

I’m not sure what the future will bring. I tell my mother I now have a closed-door policy, not a locked one. Meaning there is always an opportunity for things to change but not an open door for nonsense to pour into my life without boundary. This keeps my heart from hardening and maintains my unshakeable faith that God can do anything.  

At a crucial time when I needed so much for my personhood to be validated, celebrated and embraced, Virginia was my homecoming. 

Virginia gave me pride in my heritage and grounded me in my purpose. It didn’t question my blackness or my care for others. Virginia didn’t weaponize my privilege. Virginia didn’t take my wins as a sign I thought I was better than anyone. Viriginia contextualized my success as a win for the entirety of the bloodline. It embraced my extroverted personality and watered my gifts constantly. Virginia liked me.  

Virginia had faith that something was finna grow from this lil black girl.  

Something good.