"CHOSEN FAMILIES"
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The concept of family has been defined by heteronormativity so much so that it appears more than ever necessary to re-appropriate it, to allow ourselves to make families beyond (but not excluding) blood ties, encompassing all the forms of love that tie us together to other beings, that make us feel safer, better, more at home in this world.
Some family ties are tied with the time spent together. Others instinctively feel like familiars. For the SΓ‘mi and other minorities, family can be the people who understand what that means. They can, at the same time, be the people who experienced traumas, inherited them, and passed it on. It can be the one safe space where difficult things can be talked about, in a society where shame continuously is being used as a way to silence our voices and stories.
We all deserve a village. We all need one.
Some family ties are tied with the time spent together. Others instinctively feel like familiars. For the SΓ‘mi and other minorities, family can be the people who understand what that means. They can, at the same time, be the people who experienced traumas, inherited them, and passed it on. It can be the one safe space where difficult things can be talked about, in a society where shame continuously is being used as a way to silence our voices and stories.
We all deserve a village. We all need one.
How do we choose family, and get chosen back? How do people find the villages we need, if the village we are born into canβt make enough room, or if we need multiple villages to have enough space for all of us? What have we been taught to expect from family, and what do we actually need?
To choose to stay, or to choose to walk away. To choose to believe that others will be there. Growing up surrounded by people who didn't know how to find the words to describe, to explain or understand. Meeting and hearing about the people who tried, who found words, changed words, made new ones, in an attempt to speak the unspeakable. We talk, and keep trying to find words that describe, and we need someone who listens. Who hears us and responds to what we are saying. So we gather around the table, the bonfire, the places created for us to get together. We gather together in bed at night, or on a cold bench somewhere no one can see us. We call and we miss and we reach for each other. We need and we need to be needed.
To choose to stay, or to choose to walk away. To choose to believe that others will be there. Growing up surrounded by people who didn't know how to find the words to describe, to explain or understand. Meeting and hearing about the people who tried, who found words, changed words, made new ones, in an attempt to speak the unspeakable. We talk, and keep trying to find words that describe, and we need someone who listens. Who hears us and responds to what we are saying. So we gather around the table, the bonfire, the places created for us to get together. We gather together in bed at night, or on a cold bench somewhere no one can see us. We call and we miss and we reach for each other. We need and we need to be needed.
Where and how do you make your home with those you choose to stay in relation with? Lovers, friends, animals, allies, plants, activists, children, elders, art creations, acquaintances, artists, neighbors, many more? Who are the beings that populate your life, and in which living situations are you with them?βββββββ