They Call it Freedom

Group of women in decorated carriage. Photograph by George McCuistion of Juneteenth celebrations in in Corpus Christi, Texas, 1913. — Source

Long ago they cried freedom.
Yesterday, they finally told us we were free.

But before yesterday,
they changed the word, distorted the definition.
Long ago freedom became the word they baited, the word they taunted, word they made theirs and hung in defense of their many robberies, their drowning offense.

Long ago we cried for freedom.
Today and tomorrow still weep, still burn.
We find new words, new sounds to wail out and wish and manifest our untethered glory. Love, liberation, light — lifetimes.
Always I will want, want for something like freedom.
For the release of that weight of a lineage.
And also always, I will carry, will be guided by familiar feet following phantom footsteps.

I have long been free.
I have always been free.
No matter how you call it, we were, we will, we are.

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Freedom has long been a word in troubled relation. There is so much want, so much fear, weaponry and cringe. But still freedom points towards something, guides us towards a familiar knowing. I honor today for what we celebrate and what we still yearn for. For what has come long ago but has not yet been told, the still arriving message. As we sit in the delay between dark and deliverance I pray we remember who we are, who we have been and where we are already going.

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Juneteenth feels a troubled holiday, I think of the delay it is itself. The delay it represents. The delay it reminds us we are in.

How long did we take to celebrate? How long did we take to remember? How long did we forget who we were? Did we hide in those who conquered? How long have we forgotten we are free? Are already.

What do we do in the delay between release and return? How do we reclaim and refuse? When you find out you are free, how soon do you leave? How long does it take to pack your bags up from a cage? To say goodbye to a home made in captivity? How do you say goodbye to the home you made in someone else’s? Where do you go when you’ve forgotten?

May we not forget our freedom. May we right now remember we have no shackles. May we every day dance and feel the length of our bones, that great distance without chains.

And may we remember to collect the bones of those fallen. Those drowned, and those buried. May we carry them home with us. Traverse the seas and stars to remember and recollect a lineage. May we make freedom reach farther, into the shape of new worlds. May we be more and more free in every iteration.

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Today I wonder who else needs to be told they are free. Notified of what is already true. As I love in world-building wonder, as I collect friendships so precious they near fantasy, I wonder how I can share this message.

How must I remind those kin near and those in mirrored parallel that we are already free. This world is already over. We are already making many anew.

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