Over Our Heads

I know that we’re all probably burnt out on stories about just how much snow we’ve gotten this winter, and this past week in particular, but I’m going to go ahead and ignore that in order to wax poetic on our snow in our street. Because that’s what you do when confronted with this much snow; it takes you places by robbing you of the ability to go anywhere easily.

It takes me back to my childhood snowbanks. When it was easier for them to grow to over my head. When I would look down the streets and all of the asphalt of the roads and the concrete of the sidewalks were hidden under layers of trampled, impossibly white snow. It was like looking at the uniform white landscapes of Dylan Thomas’ six- (or twelve-) year-old memories. Having even a piece of that back is something special. And so I will go to the end of my driveway and look both ways down my snow-covered street…

…and save my weather-related laments for another day.

A Powerful Memoir

Edwidge Danticat is one of my favourite contemporary writers, so I decided to showcase one of her most powerful works — 2007’s Brother, I’m Dying — for the last week of Black History Month. While on the surface this book is a memoir about her life in Haiti and subsequently her life in America, the deaths of her father and her uncle serve as its backbone.

It’s really a story of two fathers, since it was her uncle that became her father when Danticat was left behind by her parents as they established themselves in America. Danticat describes her childhood, and her move, but it becomes a story in the larger tapestry of world events and how they impact herself and her family. How the ties that bind pull tighter even as they are compelled to separate.

The Complexity of Family Ties

Though some in her situation would shy away from it, Danticat directly confronts her complicated feelings surrounding her birth parents after being left behind and upon her eventual reunion with them. Her uncle and her aunt had become her parents by then, and the adjustment was difficult and scary. The deaths of her father and uncle are very different, but they impact her in similar ways. They both change the landscape of her life and create a hole in it.

Included in the book are a discussion of her relationships with her siblings and her cousins as well and, just as with her parents, Danitcat describes the complexities of family and environment — family by blood and family by bond.

The Horrors of Our Time

History is inescapable, as is politics and disaster. Danticat openly discusses the political upheaval in both Haiti and the United States, culminating in the death of her uncle in the custody of Homeland Security after they deny him access to crucial medications. There are so many unanswered questions, but the answers she does receive and the description of her uncle’s final hours are devastating and horrific. It’s a chilling reminder that injustice is not just an experience to be had in distant lands and on foreign soils.

Though Brother, I’m Dying is a memoir, it’s also a warning and a call for change so that this tragedy is not repeated. Though in 2007, Danticat couldn’t possibly have anticipated the world that we face today, her work remains powerfully relevant and resonates in a way that gets into your marrow.

The Worst of Times

I could have maybe waited for a better time to get a tattoo on my leg. February, particularly this February, has been the worst of times to do so. However, my tattoo artist is closing her books for a while soon and I decided to go for it, not realizing that I am doomed to flats for two weeks in some very deep snow.

Well, I guess if I ever get around to tattooing my other leg, I will remember this lesson in weather-appropriate body art processes.