"The old woman's face dissolved from my mind, only to be replaced by a series of others. The copper-skinned face of the Mexican maid, straining as she carries out the garbage. The face of Lolo's mother drawn with grief as she watches the Dutch burn down her house. The tight-lipped, chalk-covered face of Toot as she boards the six-thirty A.M. bus that will take her to work. Only a lack of imagination, a failure of nerve, had made me think that I had to choose between them. They all asked the same thing of me, these grandmothers of mine.
My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there.
At least that's what I would choose to believe."
--Been reading "Dreams From My Father" by Obama to try and understand how identity is narrated, and come to terms with going back to a past that can't, but must, be narrated, in order for me to meet what comes next with vitality.