as I lay dying* *(or alternatively, an ode to cat fur) after adrienne maree brown by Ren L[i]u
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original journal entry What does it mean to carry my ancestors with me everywhere I go? To recognize that I am the creation of hundreds of thousands and eons of ancestors? What does it mean/look like to deconstruct our linear view of time? So that the past is ongoing and the future is already ever-present? How does that allow me to expand my definition of who my ancestors are? those younger than me, my peers, all integral parts of my lineage How can I live in relationship to the earth, in reciprocity, that she is also within that web of ancestors? How can I, in recognizing that my communities are my ancestors—and I their descendant—also understand myself to have descendants? What would it look like to move through life in viewing myself as an ancestor? i often think of myself one year from today as my ancestor (i.e. flip the rude “one year ago, today” snapchat reminders Myself one year from now as an ancestor who knows far more than I do, and I as their descendant And doesn’t that deconstruct this linearity of time we have grown so deeply accustomed to One in which ancestors exist in the future and descendants also exist in the past What does it mean for my care to determine my ancestry rather than my ancestry to determine my care?