For My Girl Traycye

Because I promised...

I got home from a ski strip recently all set to blog about it at the request of a good a friend.  But life got in the way and lo and behold it is now a full week later!

I have to laugh because I texted her from the lodge and told her: "If I ever wanted proof that I am not white, being at a ski lodge in the middle of WA state is a good place to have it confirmed." 

You see dear reader, I usually do count myself as white because, well, I just do.  Until I get hit in a the face with the big dose of reality.  Which does tend to happen from time to time out here in the great Pacific Northwest, amongst all the Nordic descendants that populate the region.   But I think it goes way beyond the color of skin.  It is definitely a cultural difference. 

I should be able to relate.  I mean, I grew up in limbo.  My mom's family is white.  Irish Catholic white to be specific.   My dad's family? Mexican Catholic.  

Now, one would think that the Catholic part would be the shared influence there.  But surprisingly, even in religion there were significant differences that made me feel like I never belonged to one or the other.   I must admit, I spent more time with my mom's family and so I tend to relate more to the practices at the "white" churches.   But fear not!  I have a healthy respect for novellas and Our Lady of Guadalupe! 

I always felt separate from both sides, never knowing which culture made more sense and never strongly identifying with either.  My Irish cousins had such blond hair, green eye features.  They looked so exotic to me when I was a child. True, I looked more like the Mexican side, but I didn't know the language and for some reason that made them set apart.  Silly, when most of my cousins bitched about having to speak Spanish and did their best to avoid it. 

Aside from my mixed home life, I grew up in a neighborhood in Detroit that evolved from entirely "white" with my family being the oddball mixed race couple and their mixed kids to an almost all black neighborhood.  I listened to rap, tried to double dutch, cornrowed my hair a few times (much to my mother's chagrin) but never really fit in there either. 

But now, I rarely give it a second thought.  I usually just am.  Content with my place in the world and secure in just being me.  No color associated with my skin.  No culture to assimilate.   But last weekend in  that lodge, I was aware.  I didn't fit in.  And to be fair, I don't know that it was necessarily a true race thing. 

It was a cultural thing.  And the majority of people happened to have white skin. 

Did it ruin my weekend?  No.  I was able to laugh it off with my friend.   My ill at ease feeling fading as fast as it arose.   My fear of the unknown was evident and just needed to be mastered.   I chameleoned myself once again.  Watched.  Learned the language.  And soon I was once again lost amongst the sea of perceived homogeneity.