Apple Tree
A note on the possibility of raising mixed-race children without Black family ties, the responsibility of carrying the culture, and the music that shapes my thoughts along the way.
Jon Batiste released the New Orleans Collection a few days ago and the track BOY HOOD has been coursing through my air pods ever since.
It’s got me thinking about an array of things, but mostly the apple tree, carrying my culture, and basketball in the dirt.
These things, all symbols of my youth and the moments that made me.
I grew up on 25 acres in middle Missouri. Mama Rose had many rules, but the one that reverberates through thousands of memories is “Don’t go past the apple tree!” A symbol of safety, control, and fruit, literally. The changing fence that kept us close, seen, mostly safe.
Just on the other side of the apple tree, where we needed permission to go, was where I learned to play basketball. A dirt court, that wasn’t always that way. It started out as a patch of grass worn down by the shuffle of nine kids and the cousins who were more like siblings just down the road.
Running is the motion that will always be my first love, the movement that takes over me like no other, but basketball, it's so free, artful, Black.
On my mind lately are the questions; do I want to be a mom, what does it mean to bring life into the world, and what do my potential future children deserve from me?
With these musings, a consistent nagging notion drags along “Can I carry the culture?” Can I give my children the Blackness that was given to me? Can I do it mostly alone (sometimes rescued by the love of their aunt Whitley and friends who are family)?
The truth is, I grew up in an all-White community. My family integrated the schools I attended most of my life. Well, we integrated everything really.
But home. Strained and complicated as it may have been, it was Black. Very Black. I learned to cook smothered potatoes and cornbread before I was a teenager. Hot combs were a part of the ritual to prepare for Sunday morning service, and with seven girls at home the preparations for Easter, Mother’s Day, and Christmas church service were a three-day saga. Marvin Gaye and Donnie McClurkin shared the airways. I grew up black eyed peas Black, chitlins Black, tambourine - Shirley Caesar - praise dancing Black.
I’ve known for a long time that this part of my story wouldn’t be the same for my kids (theoretical). But, I’m in my thirties now, and this truth feels newly heavy. No longer able to hide under the shade of what if. These are the facts: I married white and their only living grandparents will be midwestern White folks (wonderful, yes, but White). This means it’s on me. Not to make sure they know their Black, the world will do that quickly and, in a hurry, but to know what it means beyond their complexion.
That family I grew up in, it’s dismantled and, in my story, remains my twin sister and myself. Against all the odds we’ve managed to find each other, love each other, and choose each other in every season. I dare say we’ve finally reached the good part.
It’s not that I don’t believe I can do it. It’s mostly that it doesn’t feel like it will be enough. Too often I find myself wishing my biological parents would’ve gotten their shit together. That my award-winning schoolteacher grandmother would’ve been the one to raise me. That I’d have stories to tell and photographs to show of the people who made me. That a big Black family is what awaited the children born from me.
The reality is I won’t have that, and I don’t have that. I’ve learned to give myself grace and let my heart ache, while being grateful for the love right in front of me in the faces of those who have chosen me.
Why am I writing about my hypothetical children? Well, I think they deserve these thoughts, and all the others I can muster. They deserve a mom who can show them what Blackness has meant and that it is ok to create their own meaning. Someone who can carry the weight of my own story and theirs. Someone who will work to dig for bygone pieces of their heritage and fill in the voids as best she can. They deserve the music, food, authors, and life lessons that will be their guide to navigating, surviving, and finding joy in whatever America they are given.
I won’t have an apple tree, but I will have the things given to me. All the words, lessons, and recipes. I’ll have the memories, moments, and sermons that made me love Jesus and then question everything. I’ll have all the ways barbecue, basketball, and blues shaped me, and the ones before me. I’ll have generations of hope, struggle, and joy.
Can I do it alone? I don’t think I’ll have to. As I carry the culture it will carry me. Baldwin will come when I can’t grasp the words to relay the struggle of Blackness in this American nation. Batiste will hold us when only music can be the remedy, and the food; sweet potato pie, grits, okra, corn bread, and greens will keep teaching us more than we ever thought a single bite could.
I still don’t know if I’ll ever bear children, but for now I will keep thinking about what it means to bring them here. Mixed race, hopeful souls into a world of deep divide, a family, mostly white, and a life so different from mine.
Read my poems Apple Tree and We are the Children.
Listen: Who I Am - Victory | BOY HOOD - Jon Batiste, PJ Morton, Trombone Shorty | Black - Buddy ft. A$AP Ferg | Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
