My Roots
Written by Dominique Cherie
My roots run deep. Reaching through the rich soil of my proverbial ancestral legacy, the close-knit relationship with the earth that generations before me once had, sprouts and blooms throughout my life. Stories of slaves, sharecroppers, and a distant motherland have intertwined to create a beautifully delicate and intricate union with the existence I lead today.
You see, I didn’t plan to take their sacrifices, their move from the South for better lives and better jobs, to end up once again out in a field, breaking up the earth in hopes to receive a crop. But, my fate was sealed.
Although physically in a different place, my grandparents’ and great-grandparents' experiences in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Kentucky were something they carried with them, and freely shared with their descendants.
Things like respecting nature, harvesting pears and apples, making pickles, caring for plants, and even allowing your feet to be exposed to the sun, wind, and earth are part of what they brought to the Midwest: The place I now call home.
What once meant suppression in generations before, rings true as liberty for me. I take pride in knowing how to cultivate a garden. I love attaining knowledge about how to grow and raise what I eat. It is an ever-learning process, but I am leaps and bounds from where I once was.
As I grow in my journey, I am coming to understand the power in saving seed and the importance of putting back into the soil what you take out. I have even come to know the joy in hearing your ninety-something-year-old grandmother say, “This is what tomatoes used to taste like.” I have found myself, I dare say even a bit of my purpose, in the food I have been blessed to cultivate and care for.
In a consumerist throw-away culture, with herbicides and pesticides galore, as well as more genetically modified food than our bodies know how to handle, I am grateful for the knowledge I am gaining. To me, this knowledge for generations gone by was almost second nature. It is now presenting itself as priceless gold, in a culture where people are so far removed from the production of their own food. The raising of a flock, the use of compost, and even the art of butchering are now like fine wine, an asset that has gotten better to have as time has gone by.
No plant can flourish without a properly established and healthy root system. I am no different. I am thankful for my roots. I am thankful for the people before me. I am grateful for their victories as well as their hardships because, without them, I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today.
Dominique Cherie (she/her) is the author of the series I Never Saw My Dog Again. Dominique has taken to writing children's books, working as a Doula and Birth Educator, while developing a small hobby farm.