INHERITANCE
We make deep connections with people we only know through the old photographs we hold and the stories about them we are told. I think of Wallace Morland’s Great, Great, Great Grandpa who dates back to 1853—gambler, bootlegger, sharp dresser, Wallace’s Spirit Man. Spirit Man, that took my breath away. Grandma said I had her Aunt Cassie’s hands. I looked down at the square nails, my hands seem indistinct but, they are strong and capable. Grandma told a story of me, three-years-old, picking up a brick in each hand and waddling them across the yard. My hands are full of the bone knowledge that I collected from Cassie. I can knit and crochet, sew a neat stitch. Beautiful coverlets and quilts now stored away in linen closets were made by Cassie. I picture the intricate detail of a pattern in fine Irish linen she crochet over the span of a double-bed coverlet. When I pick up a tool for working with fiber, her wisdom guides me.
From Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, Chris Ainsworth ponders “Questions Across Bloodlines” in which he cues the next set of writers with provocative questions about personal responsibility within the very code from which we unfurl. He asks, “Am I just a product of the blood in my veins?/Genetic Memory, the residue of ancestors that remain?” When I read the residue of ancestors remain, I immediately recall the handprint in Austin Clark’s cover illustration. What gifts come in the form of genetic code, and how are those gifts cultivated to enhance our better selves?
Inheritance come with costs, Scott Bitter of Oregon State Penitentiary explores the work of ancestors who travelled to the Americas to make a better life for themselves, but also contributed to a legacy of oppression and systemic racism in his “I Am Sorry: Land Acknowledgement.” Institutions of higher learning, museums, and other performance spaces have begun to introduce events with a listing of Tribal People who have been displaced by the white colonial settlement. What is curious is that there is an acknowledgment but no apology. The land remains in the hands of the institution. In his piece, Scott places the genealogy of his family in direct relationship to the people most impacted by these encounters. It is the beginning of a conversation.
Ricky Fay, who writes at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution inspired Bridgeworks Oregon to build the PonyXpress project. In the fall of 2022, we met Ricky as we toured prisons with the OSP writing group’s anthology “Prisons Have A Long Memory.” We are indebted to him for sharing his stories and encouraging us to make a space that could include more voices. This spring, he submitted a series of flash fiction and some fleshed out tales. “An Overwhelming Sense of Security” illustrates how families seem to relish in a sense of humor that reverberates even in the face of serious events. Of all the things to inherit, perhaps the ability to laugh is most valuable. | TDS