chairs kerry alphonse said we are formed and shaped by those who came before us. he set his gentle hands on his shoulders, said, think of them as sitting behind you. i look back at this moment and i still imagine rows of chairs behind him. at first they seem empty but if i pause, if i am patient, i see they are full of ghosts. there once was a family who lived near bialystok. abraham and hannah and a bouquet of beautiful daughters. in those gray days, the jewish families were forced to choose surnames. they might open a book and with wavering index fingers point to a random word: good enough. the name they chose meant Wolf. i don’t know much besides that they emerged from beyond the pale, the pale of settlement. onward to manchester, where some stayed behind. golda and sarah pressed on to california, leaving behind rebecca and leah and dark-eyed rachel. perhaps they wondered, how far can we go? how far until we reach the edge? i wonder that often myself: where is the end, how far can i go? i have a picture of golda, the eldest. shimmery blue eyes and a jaw set and determined, hair piled high. but it isn’t golda who sits straight-backed behind me, it is sarah. high cheekbones, regal even in an ill-fitting house dress and a chubby baby balanced on one hip in a dusty yard in oakland. seems like i come from a long line of travelers. i was raised to see escape and roaming as not unusual, perhaps even normal. I never understand those who stayed behind. there are places i have wanted to visit, have laid awake at night imagining myself on a plane to russia, to india, to uzbekistan. now i realize there are so many places i will never see. dad says sarah’s thumbs were full of little scars, the relentless stab of the needle from years bent over a sewing machine. her knuckles were stained brown from nicotine. she liked to sit in her tweed armchair and watch wrestling on a tiny black and white tv set. she married a violent man from new zealand and left him, took the baby. i shrug his hands off my shoulders. his chair only has three legs. it wobbles precariously. 210924 ... kerry i never underSTOOD those who stayed behind, that is. never_understood. there are lots of things i do_not_understand. 210924 ... raze (this is so beautifully written.) 210924 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I love the image of the chairs and of journeying, in thoughts or actions. Tracing family lines and striking out elsewhere: lowland_highland. 210925 ... e_o_i Borders get wiggly over time, too. I was thinking Bialystok was in Poland, which it is, but I forgot part of Poland was ruled by Russia for a while. It was Poland again when my cousin's grandfather grew up there. My aunt could tell me where (who knows, it could be the same area) but then I'd feel awkward. I already asked her out of the blue about her mother and Montreal neighbourhoods. 210925 ... kerry ahh, thanks y'all for your kind words. i enjoyed writing this. and e_o_i, i agree, looking over how borders change over time... it is confusing. and strange. and it reminds me how arbitrary they really are. 210926 what's it to you? who go blather from