ONUS // ON US: A Story About Nourishing Memory
I think I’ve been thinking about time all wrong. I’m not sure it’s linear, but maybe that it accretes and infuses itself into itself. What does all that mean? This quilt says it better than I ever can.
In this SEAMSIDE conversation, I share some stories about:
① how we need a new way of thinking about time
② the life cycle of a single garment
③ how we can tend and nourish the past
WHY LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE?
Explore the concept of time and memory through the lens of a quilt using ONUS // ON US to illustrate how the past and present coexist and influence each other. The episode offers a profound reflection on how personal and collective histories shape our understanding of identity, responsibility, and the ongoing impact of historical events.
REFLECTION PROMPTS:
Consider the ways in which your family's stories (or perhaps silences) have shaped your understanding of your own identity.
Reflect on the concept of the past and present coexisting side by side. How does this perspective change the way you experience what we call the present?
This quilt highlights the idea that "the onus is on us" to get history right and to learn from it. What steps can you take in your own life to learn more about the less discussed parts of history?
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This is an auto-generated transcript.
[00:00:00]
ZAK: Hey, there seems ciders. Today I got a special quilt talk force about a quilt. I call onus on us. It's a bit of visual poetry. It's part of the Southern White Amnesia collection that I've been putting together for the last couple of years. The examines, the stories that Southern white families tell and don't tell about their own family history.
So sit back, relax.
And let me share with you a few stories and thoughts about onus on us.
I'm starting to think the clocks give us the wrong idea about time. One minute we look and it's two o'clock and the next minute we look back, it's 2 0 1. It's done. One thing happens and it goes on and turns into something else. I think we need a better way of thinking about time. And that's why I've made us this quilt.
This is what I want you to know. That the past sit [00:01:00] side by side with the present. Always has always well.
This piece is officially called onus, But in my mind, What it is. Is the manifestation of the spirit of history, And the spirit of history only ask one thing of us. And that is to remember because when we remember. We see that the past and the present set. Side by side. It always has. always well.
On this quilt, You can see a line of poetry and the bottom left hand corner.
Computer Audio-1: That line comes from a collection of family letters written during the civil war from a group of brothers from Stokes county. North Carolina.
ZAK: They would write home to their sister Marion. Uh, perspicacious woman who God bless her, saw the value and those letters from the battlefield? And tuck them away. Safe guarding her family's stories for the future.
[00:02:00] Marianne's the reason I can sit here right now and share these stories with you.
There were seven brothers. That went off to the war. And their mama and their daddy only saw one of their seven boys come back home. That was Riley. Boyle's the grandfather of my grandfather. That's how close we are to slavery days.
Sometimes you hear folks say, but that was so long ago. And when they say that, I think what they mean is that. People have had plenty of time to. To get themselves out of that mess.
And it's understood that when we say people. We mean black people, the descendants of the enslaved.
But I don't have to think long and hard. To go back through my family, parents, grandparents. Great-grandparents. And great, great grandparents. That's just four generations. The blink of a genealogical eye.
If you've heard me talking to you about my quilt, silver [00:03:00] dollar, you know that in my family, we can draw a straight line from the slave owning class who had access to higher education. And the fact that I myself Have access to higher education today. Those benefits accrued from the exploit, a wealth of black labor continued to pass themselves down generation after generation. For short steps to me.
I inherited these benefits. And in a similar way.
The inherited challenges that are set up in this country for folks of color. are obstacles that they've had to confront for generation after generation.
Leading up until the present time.
These are the gears of history at work.
One thing. That's curious to me about all those civil war letters. All 208 pages of them. Is it those boys, my uncles. never once mentioned slavery. Let alone black people.
They talk about whiskey. They'd even talk [00:04:00] about quilts. They'd talk about sauerkraut and apple pies. But they never once Mentioned a single person of color.
That just wasn't part of the story that we told one another in my family. The two oldest brothers, John Jr. And a guy named Squire at Kyle. You like that name Squire. Went to fight first. We have a real nice professional portrait of them handsome. Mustachioed. one hand on the other shoulder.
We don't have that for the other brothers. We can imagine why.
We do, however, have a rhyme, a little piece of poetry. It comes to us through one of the youngest boys. Irwin. He was fond of signing his letters home with this couplet. When this UC remember me. Though miles apart. We may be.
Here was Irwin. 18 years old, 19. It's still alive. Not yet [00:05:00] dead. And already afraid of being forgotten.
And so in this piece, I've taken the words of uncle Arwin and put them in the mouth of the spirit of history. When this, you see. I remember me.
It makes me wonder at what point. Did Irwin's present. Become our history. What's the line between history and present between present and future.
I'm starting to think that the whole thing is just a fiction. That the past and the present. Side by side.
You can see that in the garment that makes up the bulk of this quilt. This is a shirt I found in my neighborhood in the middle of an intersection walking around one day.
It must've been there for weeks. Y'all getting run over by. Who knows how many cars it's been in, who knows how many hours.
And that har summer sun.
When I picked it up, It was flat as a [00:06:00] pancake and stiff as a board. One of the things that fascinates me about garments. Like this is it. You can see our whole lives live down a miniature right before us. You can see the history of this garment. Coexisting. Easily. With the present.
What I mean by this. Is this. We can use the power of our imagination to know that this cotton shirt would have started a natural creamy, tan color. That's just the way cotton is coming from the fields.
We can then switch over and use our powers of observation now to look deep into the deepest seams. Where now the creamy cotton has been bleached, bright, white. In preparation for the next step. When it would be died, an olive green.
On top of the olive green, we can see the warm tans that the sun coaxed out.
And then if we keep looking. [00:07:00] At those words of uncle Irwin. When this, you see, remember me? There's a color there that remained after I used discharged base taking away the olive green. The past and the present. Sitting side by side.
Sometimes though. The past and the present sits side by side in a way that's a little bit crooked.
All this reminds me of a time when I lived for a while down in Cherokee country in Western North Carolina.
There was a road there named after a local Cherokee leader named Situwake. He was one of the generation that believe if he just learned the white man's language, learn the white man's law and presented his case in white man's courts that maybe the white man would come to their senses.
History tells us they did not.
So, Situwake flanked by the U S army. marches with his people west for five [00:08:00] months and 1839.
To a place they'd never been called Oklahoma.
But here's where history and the present sits side by side in a way that's a little bit crooked.
That winding country road and Cherokee county runs by sit to. The walkies old home place. That road to this day, bears is memory. Or at least something kind of like it. You see, for some reason, some folks. While back, must've thought that Situwake was too hard to say. so they changed it to fit easier in their mouth.
They changed Situwake to Settawig.
So now what looks like it's a memorial. Is really just another case of whitewashing.
But the onus of that decision.
Doesn't just rest on the people who made that choice so many years ago.
We continue to mispronounce his name today. Even in the enlightened age of 2024, we deem his [00:09:00] name on important enough. To get it right.
And it's a sad thing that should a soul who drives by that road and see that sign that supposedly bears his name, who wants to learn more about its namesake. If they were to look it up online. They wouldn't find much about the man himself. What they would see instead. As a bunch of real estate listings. For all the new subdivisions that are popping up. We have claimed his name for commerce.
Not memory. The past and the present sit side by side sometimes. Often they say crooked, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
So, I guess what I'm getting at is this, the onus is on us to get it right.
Us the living. They here and now people. The past governs the present, whether we see those gears turning or [00:10:00] not. And so it's up to us to learnHow to see those gears of history and learn how they turn. When we tell our stories with all the voices of the people that were there. We learn what's important to us. When we tell our stories, we set up guardrails for ourselves and our children.
So we know if we're ever in danger of running off this road again.
I guess in closing. I'd like to leave you with this.
Uh,
remembering. Is simply this. Nurturing the living past. Making sure it's alive and well side by side with the present. So that the future. Can be the kind of place we all want to live in.
If you enjoyed. That quilt. Talk about onus on us I'd invite you check out some of the other episodes of record about other [00:11:00] pieces in Southern white amnesia. To date, I've talked about silver dollar snake handler and our children. All of those you can find in your podcast feed, wherever you get your podcast.
I'll be back soon with another story. But until then, Wherever you are in this world. I hope you're safe. I hope you're well. I hope you're selling something good. And I hope to see you soon. Take care.