Each month at Yellow, we explore and immerse ourselves into one focus - creating conversations between each other and within ourselves centered around topics that hold a lot of influence in our lives. To start this month of March, we wanted to have a space for not just words on a page, but a moment to introduce you into our focus on Heritage. Join us in this meditation below to pause, reflect, and see what this unearths in you.
You have my hands, you know?
Those delicate
too small to spread across piano keys
strong enough to sketch for hours
crookedly curved index finger
Your palms speak the poetry of craftswomen
the untold dreams of visionaries
and that lingering sweetness on your fingertips?
A story of spices ground for generations
You carry our heirloom wherever you go
Love that bore more weight than it should lift
steadfast to soothe tears and cradle new life
arms eternally held open even to shut doors
We’re a two sided mirror
you and I
Entirely individual reflection
identical shifts, fidgets, and sighs
Those hands - they’re free, you know?
Saturated with potential to spin their own narrative
paint themselves into unfamiliar landscapes
hold onto another I’d have never noticed
But when you look down at the freckle on your thumb
would you think of mine?
Of my mother’s and hers too?
We are the promise of your forever worth
Your very breath, the honor in our endless legacy
Our heritage is a narrative completely individual to each of us, and yet simultaneously - entirely not. We are woven with time-earned wrinkles, countless first homes, and stars wished upon by so many before us. There are faces we will never know, “hellos” we cannot hear, hands we won’t study. All of which hold a mass of influence upon our life; what we care about and rage against, what fuels inspiration and even triggers pain. This story of ours is perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes of life.
A tale to which much is already ingrained and unmalleable; a future of which we have the choice to compose.
We all have some form of heirloom sitting on a metaphorical (or not) shelf, each with their own effect. Some of yours may spark careers or gift sentiment in the exact moment you need. Others, even when painful, have the potential to remind us of our ability to be different. What I find so beautiful about our ancestry, our web of culture, is its revival nature. While the past is inerasable, we have the power to carry on, redefine, sculpt, or redeem anything that is a part of us either into something new, or even just slightly altered.
March marks the 31st National Women’s History Month in the US. It recognizes our shared heritage that we can, similar to our own, look at in two ways. There is courage and gratitude to be found for how far we’ve come, or an unsettled injustice of how far we have to go. I would argue that both perspectives are important. For without any victories we would have little hope, and without failure we would have little fire. No matter the type of past, there will often be both a way to do it better and a common thread of potential. A different way to parent, another glass ceiling to break, a hereditary habit to kick to the curb.
Within any blemishes we spot, let us see possibility for how we can creatively construct a new story. And within the pearls of what has gone before us, let us be inspired.
This month, we resolve to become students of ourselves. We dive into the impact our history has had on us, and weave dreams of the legacy we want to leave. We’ll find joy in the traditions we hold close, and excitement in the leaves we can’t wait to turn over. We’ll look deep into the eyes of our mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-everyone to reveal not just who they are to us, but who they were before us. We become the romantics of aging honestly, and detectives of inherited traits. There is a world of bravery, imagination, and strength we all have access to in the cloth we’ve been cut from. May we hold it as the gold it is, and be fueled by it to shine brighter.
Photos by Amy Hulst
Special thanks to Jonny Pickett for creating the original music in our Yellow Meditation!