Pt.5 Yes,You Are Lucky -- Now What Will You Do With Your Luck?
Pt.5 Yes,You Are Lucky -- Now What Will You Do With Your Luck?
The final chapter:
In December of 2023 I embarked on a 20 day trip to Ethiopia after not being back for 25 years. The revelations that followed suit have arrested me. This is Part 5 of a series dissecting my identity as an Ethiopian-American called “Now What Will You Do With Your Luck?”
Click here to read Part 1: I Could’ve Been a Hannah
Click here to read Part 2: The World of Addis Ababa
Click here to read Part 4: An American in Ethiopia -- An Ethiopian in America
The following is the final chapter.
Africa is certainly Africa, and for the most part it won’t let you forget it. Yet, on some drives a feeling washed over me that I was driving through Los Angeles. In parts of the city that rendered more polished, Ethiopia and California seemed to mirror one another. Their mountainous terrains and golden light felt psychically connected. Within those brief moments, Ethiopia didn’t feel like such a far-off entity. Only a subtle shift of perspective.
At night while on my laptop writing, it jarred me how much it felt like I might have been in New York. The energy of Addis Ababa pulsing through my window. As I’d rise to stick my head out, instead of skyscrapers and bodegas, I saw wild dogs, horses, and traveling people. The energies of the two cities felt synced. Maybe its because of their high concentrations of people. I just found myself thinking a lot about New York while I was there.
We were near the end of our 20-day trip and I was exhausted. 20 days is a long time to be away from home. Especially without western world privileges. I just wanted to eat fruit, raw vegetables, and meat again. All things I had to avoid because they upset my stomach. I wanted to brush my teeth and wash my face with water from a sink and not clumsily from a water bottle because of water outages. I wanted to rely on public toilets without carrying the fear that there might not be toilet paper or soap. I wanted to buy things. Specific things I liked and wanted. Not the version of things available here most often degraded in quality.
Most of all, I wanted to return to my life.
While on a drive my parents thrillingly pointed out the United States Embassy. Above the road on a hill, it laid daunting and formidable. The American flag waving in the Addis wind. Looking into it was like looking into the American regime. Its design was not predicated on aesthetics or humanity. It was culture-less, outside of its commandment of extreme power. I turned my head back to the road and returned myself to Africa. Unsettled by this glimpse of home.
To celebrate on our last night, our relatives took us out to eat at Totot Traditional Restaurant. A massive, elaborate hut created for diners, mainly tourists, to experience authentic cuisine while watching a rotation of performances.
Upon being seated, our waitress asked us if we wanted to eat individually or on a large plate to share. It’s common for Ethiopians to eat communally with an array of dishes. For the majority of our trip we had eaten this way. But, now as I was so close to entering back into the hands of America, I was eager to resume my old eating habits. I quickly interjected, “Individual!”. Absolutely giddy at the thought of having my own plate again.
Yet, later while eating, watching each of my relatives with their own plates, a small sadness broke inside of me. A disconnection had now formed between us. Having my own plate suddenly felt more isolating.
After bottles of Tej, Ethiopia’s delicacy of honey wine, we watched an extravaganza of performances centered on the kaleidoscope of regional dancing and music throughout the country. All my life I had been too shy or embarrassed to dance the eskista, one of Ethiopia’s noteworthy dances — yet, after being transfixed watching the performers on stage, when a dancer gravitated towards me and asked me to dance, after fighting a bit of nerves, somewhere within me I raised to dance with him. And even though I never dance the eskista, I somehow knew what to do. My family members hooted and hollered in amazement and shock. Soon, everyone began to rise and dance together. I sat back down, my face hot with embarrassment and thrill.
Some memories don’t show their meaning until enough time has passed. They will transform as years go on. Life is a shifting, effervescent thing.
As we said goodbye to my aunt and our driver, who had now become inducted into our family we became so fond of him, I looked at them and tried to memorize their image. Of them, by the car outside the chaotic airport, understanding this would be my final memory of this trip. The feeling inside me of being so happy to return back home rubbing against the wondering of how, and what, would I be leaving here that I wouldn’t be able to bring with me? I hugged them with a tightness that it might be years until I see them again. After our goodbyes and a faux airport employee who attempted to steal our bags, my parents and I entered Bole International Airport to begin our journey home.
Though, to my surprise, we reached the western world before even leaving the country. After transporting through security we were immediately released into a bright, flashing duty-free mall filled with luxury stores, dining, and familiar fast food chains. Somehow, I had already crossed over.
My knees buckled.
I could be a shopper again!!!!!!!! Okay yeah, capitalism is bad, but oh my god did access to extensive, elaborate shopping feel so good!!!!!!! Finally, a sense of familiarity! Bright, liquid lights spotlighted expensive bags and shoes as we walked through the mall-like arena. A Burger King sign flashed in the corner of my eye and I ran to it as if running into the open arms of a priest. I was home again. Because home to me is filled with artificial light, consumerism, and familiar frozen food items.
As morning hit and we reached our layover in Munich, I watched how the Earth changed. The golden, neon-pastels of Ethiopia’s earthy terrain traded in for rich dark greens, grayer skies, and more particular land zoning.
While entering the airport an opera commenced inside my head. My eyes soaking in the opulence of the architecture, palatial advertising, and lush shopping glazed throughout the terminals. Even the floor felt pristine. I walked into the gleaming bathroom with my mouth ajar and looked at myself in the mirror as a childlike excitement washed through me.
This was the real western world.
It was like being dunked into a glistening pool. As if I given the world again, as if it was new.
Things I would have considered normal suddenly exalted themselves into ornate experiences to take note and awe of. I pondered this while eating schnitzel before our last flight.
On the plane, I turned on the The Intern with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. I couldn’t tell you anything that happened because I watched the movie without sound. But, I still cried the whole time. I felt so happy watching them live a life in New York.
Even landing in Denver, where I was to stay with my parents for a few days, felt like an immense privilege. Suddenly, what I thought was a fairly mediocre city, transformed into the pinnacle of nature meeting cosmopolitan suburban living. The sea of Denver-ites who I would normally not take note of, felt like esteemed citizens who I shared a gift with. For the first time in my adult life, I felt true and profound luckiness to be American. Dare I say, I even felt proud. But, what an embarrassing sentence to write. Given the nature of America’s conscience.
I told myself I would never look at my life the same way again.
Coming back to LA, I felt like I had won the lottery. The air was shocked with opportunity. Ordinary life was suddenly dripping in luxury. I touched walls noting the sheen of nice paint. I used sinks with reverence. I entered a new relationship with my surroundings.
There were times it had felt like I had lost my mind. When telling people stories of my trip, I urged them to see the blessings in their lives. I tried to shake everything I saw into their heads, to help them see their own experiences differently. To tell them, “You don’t know how lucky you are — but please, please, let me begin to tell you.”
Yet, there was also this dual feeling of isolation. Of now being around swaths of people who do not look like me. Anxieties which I had not felt for weeks slowly crept back into my mind. The internal monologues of what it is like to exist as a black woman whispered back into my body frequencies. After 20 days of experiencing what it was like to be the majority, I was now the minority again.
Before my trip, I wondered what it would be like to connect to my “roots”. I’d heard stories from others but I’d always felt a sense of detachment. The story felt cliché. Obviously you discovered something new about yourself when you went back to where your parents are from. However, I didn’t realize it would be like this. I didn’t realize the revelation would not stop occurring. How even while I was there I was not able to grasp what was happening. How it has been here, in America, dwindling in my room how I’ve watched my neurons change course. How it is not a new self that is finding me, but instead a self that is coming back. Something had returned to me.
In a way, I look at myself in a before and after sense. These were 20 days I was able to step outside of myself and into another realm of reality. I was able to look at my life from another point of the world. Though this was not a place full of strangers. This was not just a place I was visiting. It was a place that elicited feelings that I was returning, in some sort of way, to a home. It is an odd feeling, to be meeting people, and be in places you may have never been before, or had only been once, many years ago, and still feel a familiar sense of I belong here. I never got the feeling of “Whoa! I’m traveling!” — I instead got the feeling that wow, there is so much here I do not understand, so much that surprises me, jostles me, makes me feel uncomfortable, makes me feel heard, but also, does not feel foreign to me. I am in a foreign nation and I do not feel foreign. I am here and I belong in a schemata of people.
My entire identity in America was built from me being categorized as “something else”. Whether it was being labeled as a minority, or “unique”, or simply just the knowing that I was other. I had built a self disconnected from something and I saw no problem in it because I did not know what that something was. I just felt really alone. But, I got used to it. I thought it was just the way I should feel.
Coming back to Ethiopia brought a sense of completion to me. I am not “unique”, I am not a minority. There, everyone is like me. I say this in an encouraging sense. That in all of my uniqueness, there is still a part of me connected to something. A kind of cosmic blueprint. How I am not a loose end. I am tied to something endless that perseveres.
Even though Addis Ababa was chaotic and often left me off my center. Looking at the plains of Ethiopia brought to me a sense of grounding that felt cataclysmic. Like the whole world starting over again. Like trust. Like lives go on and leave us and come back again. Like all of this is a cycle to which I’m returning to. And how there is nothing to be afraid of in this life because you have lived. At some point, here, you had lived. And now, you’ve returned.
We are all not as alone as we think we are. Our thoughts, in some semblance, have been thought before. Our feelings aren’t new to this world. They have existed in the people who came before us. Now it is our turn to have them.
What will I do with these new angles of myself?
Here, I have bypassed the American immigration system due to my parents sacrifices — and I received this just by being born. Instead of being from my homeland, a part of me, is now from here. What part is it? What parts of being Ethiopian can’t be taken away? And what can be rewritten by America? Or does it not work that way? Is it more subtle? Or is it a case of, if one thing is added, it doesn’t mean it will detract or take away?
My involvement with my culture is cellular and is in play during my every waking moment. Whether I know it or not, these are things that can’t be taken away from me.
Now, what do I do with this link?
Here, in America, with all of my invisible privileges that have now become visible, what is it that I want to do with this life I have been given? Because how could I here, not believe in myself? What more variables do I need life to give me? Because, why did fate hand me this deck? Why were my parents the ones to leave?
I began to see myself through the eyes of someone who might have been watching me. As if myself in Ethiopia was now watching myself here.
The guilt of being an American is heavy. This new graciousness I feel is a foreign feeling. At times I feel like I’m doing something wrong for being grateful to be here. I don’t want to feel that way. I’m thankful for my life. I don’t identify with the value system of the United States. But, this is where I live and this is the system I’m in. And the system has brought me comfort, despite wreckage in other places — so, what do I do with this? How do I try, on some micro level, to make things right?
I don’t know these answers and I won’t pretend I do. The world will always need healing. Humans will always prove their goodness and badness. We are creatures who have needs, who need to survive. We are animals, it is a fact. But, sometimes you can break into something else and find some peephole. Some small area where people give care. I think that’s the only way we can save the world.
Inside the individualistic, greedy America we’ve been given, there is something else I see in the people around me. I see people who care for one another and about bringing beauty to the world. Who care about making something new to help people see the world in a fresh, enlightened way. Of people coming together to pool their resources and time to help others in their community and outside of it. In all of these micro ways, nuclear things are happening. On a cellular level America is changing. At least in these small pockets, it has already changed. At least through the people I have the grace of being near.
Strangely, a woman came up to me on the street the other day and asked me as if in a dream state, “Where do you see the world going in the next 10 years?” — after assessing she was not a threat, I told her I was optimistic about it. How even though the world at large seems so bleak, the people I’m surrounded by and create realities with are birthing things so beautiful, because of that, I know something good will happen.
But, the distractions from this goodness, can be so loud. Immediately coming back, I heard the screams to BUY, SHOP, SPEND, SCROLL! And at first it was incredible, the chance to buy things in convenient and hyper-specific ways. But, after a while you’re drowning. Everything and everyone becomes a billboard. That’s the cost here. Everywhere has a cost.
Spit back up in America, I feel like I’m in some weird privileged bootcamp. I hope I can do something here to give my family praise. To shower them with my gratefulness for giving me the chance to not only grow a dream but see it through. I see how it is not just for me. With this luck here, maybe I can make a dent, or pop a hole, and give someone else a chance to reach inside their desires, too.
Through all of this, I have just become grateful. This heightened perspective has blown the doors off my closed-minded interpretations of my parents, my relationship to my culture/upbringing, and myself.
To finish this series, I'll leave you with these questions I have left for myself, to answer at some point with my own life:
So, what will you do with this link? With this new knowledge of the world? How will you show your life you have listened? That you were willing to change? How will you not escape yourself? How will you live in your conditions and vibrate into new realities? How will you respect your parents and respect your family? How will you find and recreate places to give you the feeling of being whole? How will your friendships change? How will your definition of love differ? How will you demand better treatment from those who enter your sphere or your body? How will you change what environments you place yourself in? How will you use the value of comfort, not laziness, to use as a sense of disarming of oneself, to access new, nether regions of identity?
How can you be a better writer? How can you be more honest and not leave things out? How can you crack new codes and not sell yourself short? What would happen if you believed in everything you did and everything you said, and believed dreams, dreams you have are not accidental visions, but promises? What if you treated everything you wanted as a promise to be delivered? That with time, and work, and belief, will be given to you? What if you believed that nothing in this life was an accident, though none of it seems to make sense?
How this life, the one given to you, was given to you?
What will you do with these variables? These variables now shaking like jewels? What do you do now that you feel your whole life has turned into room of gold? What you thought were blocks and boulders were secret treasures waiting to be transformed? What do you do now, that you caught a glimpse, that you already have everything? How all of the things you want, to be an artist, living in a city connected to a community of creative people, and making some kind of living, is already possible because it is happening? What is the difference if the scale grows larger?
You are already living the life you desire.
Wanting came to an end. It became having.
nearly cried
Uau!!!👏👏👏👏👏👏