Shala Miller A Vessel For the Language of Survival: A Study of Me and My Mother’s Blood
I
t was last March when I noticed I usually wake up with new discoveries on my skin. Scratches—ranging in size and color, found with and sometimes without blood. I had answers, that were really just questions for my nails and their strange behavior during the night. This confused questioning took part of an ethnographic study about the relationship between me and my mother, Ruby Clyde, but specifically focused on and thought about the idea of trauma being passed in the blood. Through the process and play of finding grounding, understanding, clarity and then completely losing it all–the study, but specifically the scratches, made me realize that my body had already begun a study of itself, with a keen interest in the mystery behind my blood. So, since then I’ve situated myself as passenger in this voyage my body has begun to take in getting to know itself and its history, which can also be understood as a voyage to black womanhood. The Echo is the third part of a multi-part study, containing notes, questions, pseudo-answers but most importantly a marker of when I and my body began to take ship.
60
Fa l l 2 0 1 8
