"Movable"

Carrying and Repurposing the words of my Ancestors

I’ve only had one living grandparent for the last fourteen years, my maternal grandmother. I lost my paternal grandparents at the ages of seven and nine, but I still remember them thankfully and nostalgically. My connection to my maternal grandfather who passed away when I was twelve was not as strong because I only met him once, in Ethiopia, when I was seven. However, I’m still bound to him through my mother. When I see his pictures, I marvel at the side of the beauty and power of genetics. That we can look and act like those who went before us and delight in the fact that we physiologically and spiritually carry our ancestors with us, though time and geography may have stifled a robust connection between us, is a wonder to me.

As I mentioned above, my paternal gpa (we called him Adada) died when I was seven, but we saw each other biannually as far as I can recall, who knows the amount before my brain was able to comprehend who possessed the storied hands that warmed my fragile, chubby, baby self. Grandpa Hawaz was a quiet man, but I knew he loved me. His gentle, quiet laugh and his brilliance—though I didn’t have the language for it at the time‚ left an impression on me, and I am sure he has helped shape the curiosity I hold for everything¹. He wrestled with diabetes and health long before I came to be, but I like to think the sugar he wished he could’ve had more of in his system was replenished by my energetic self.

Speaking of energy, one of the only words I have an actual memory of him speaking to me had to do with my hyperness. Adada once exclaimed to me through a chuckle, “Zeru, you are so movable.” I don’t remember how it made me feel then, but after he died my reputation in my family was that I was a “k’ezhik’azha”, meaning hyper active but with the undertones of me being a nuisant. For years, I would read back into the only and last words I hold of my grandpa’s the same attitude as my family (also, no shade to my family, I was a lottttttt).

If you’re a grammar police, then your astute self may recognize that the word “movable” indicates that the agent of action is someone outside of whoever or whatever is movable. But for an immigrant, calling someone movable lands as a precious way to give agency and value to one’s constant movement. But, I wonder if Adada also saw me as movable in a way that had nothing to do with hyperactivity and portability, but compassion. What if he saw that I was movable by virtue of seeing that from a young age my interactions with people have always consisted of affection and action? Conversation with me was never neutral and transactional. And, while the hyperactive interpretation led me to worry that I was too much, the empathetic interpretation is allowing me to repurpose and carry with excitement what my beloved Adada saw in and spoke over me.

Luh y’all big time,

Ru :)

Photo by D W on Unsplash

1. Several years ago, my auntie found, years after his death, a manuscript that my Ethiopian grandpa wrote in English, his second book! So my dad and his siblings found a publisher who translated it into Amharic and it’s circulating in Ethiopia now. Coincidentally, it’s about the politics of and poverty in Ethiopia, prophetically (especially now) speaking to the good, bad, and ugly of my ancestral land.