What I’m Leaving Behind, What I’m Taking With Me
Photo Credit: Camille Baldassari
Written by Ayeesha Ash, this essay reflects on the rituals, reckonings and choices that shape the new year. Drawing on culture, friendship and lived experience as a Māori Grenadian woman, it traces what she is leaving behind, what she carries forward, and why joy becomes an act of resistance and survival.
On New Year’s Eve in 2009, my friend Phoebe and I sat on the verandah of my old Queenslander making promises to ourselves and each other. Phoebe gripped a lime-green lighter; in two pieces of printer paper, I held our futures. We willed the flame to release us from our burdens so we could enter the new year anew. It didn’t work.
On January 10 this year, my friend Gianna and I stepped into the ocean at Maroubra Beach. The water was like pinpricks, and I felt my breath catch in my chest, but we had committed to a new beginning. The ocean was part of it.
As a Māori Grenadian woman, I see the new year in the rising of Matariki and Grenada’s day of independence. Gianna, whose paternal lineage was cargo taken from West Africa to America’s South, had been reclaiming ancestral rituals and practices. For both of us, January 1 had lost its shine. We counted down from three and held hands, dipped beneath the waves and surfaced committed to our own kinds of new. Here are some of mine.
What I’m leaving behind
Not enough-ness
A self-doubt so heavy that it becomes debilitating. To be a mixed-race Black woman in Australia is to fight for crumbs and then be admonished for eating. It’s to become so accustomed to systemic separation of identities – you’re too this to be that or too that to be this – that existence becomes synonymous with isolation.
From relationships to representation to rage, feeling less-than has sat at the head of the table and demanded more. Having nothing left to give made me pause.
Why? I asked myself.
Seriously. Why do I think that? Where have these deep-seated insecurities come from? Is it because the profitability of the modern world depends upon the continuing dehumanisation of people who look like me? Dehumanisation maintained by erasing us from history and society? The low self-worth experienced by Black, Brown and/or Indigenous isn’t a coincidence; it’s by design. It keeps us in fear, and fear keeps us from freedom.
We must make our own freedom. So let your hair out. Let yourself ~ go. Stretch your arms wide and take up the space that your ancestors fought for.
I’m no longer waiting for someone – anyone – to tell me I am worthy. I invite you to join me.
Validating ignorance
Late last year, a man confused me for a Black co-worker. She is the Grace Jones to my Diana Ross; sis is fabulous, but we look nothing alike. I didn’t correct him. I sat at my standing desk with a closed-mouth smile until another co-worker (not Black, so no confusion there) pattered over in her wheely chair and gently corrected him. For the next week, I avoided eye contact and the staff kitchen.
A few weeks ago, it happened again. Different man, same confusion. His level of confidence was astounding; he was referencing a conversation that we did not have and offering cooking tips I did not ask for. Instead of waiting for a white saviour, I saved myself. ‘I’m Ayeesha’. It was a moment of truth for both of us. My intention was not to embarrass him, but to release myself of the responsibility of pandering to someone else’s ignorance. We don’t all look the same. My name is Ayeesha, not Amorphous Black Girl*.
*Except when I am ordering a takeaway coffee. I welcome your creativity: Aisha, AISH, Iesha, Aysahs or my personal favourite, Vanessa. Surprise me!
What I’m taking with me
Intention over time
Time is elusive, and as much as I’ve tried to hold onto it, I can’t. So instead, I’m focusing on intention:
With my energy. ‘Busy’ is not a personality trait. We’re all busy and tired. Work it out.
With my consumption. Where money rules, I will use mine to speak truth to power. I will cancel subscriptions and boycott brands. I will not fund a genocide. I will support local businesses and invest in my community.
With my words. I will speak clearly and for myself. I will ask questions even if I might not like the answer. Silence will not be my safety net.
What I’ve learnt
Joy is a choice
And I choose joy every day.
Man has become so misshapen with greed that atrocities are committed in full view and worn like badges of honour.
My elderly neighbour was siphoned from the hospital to aged care with nothing but the cotton gown on her back – no wallet, no shoes, nothing.
Ego trumps intelligence; the algorithm doesn’t encourage critical thinking skills.
I wake up in the morning and want to rip my hair out and scream until my lungs burn.
Still. Be still. Close your eyes.
Breathe in. Out. Open your eyes.
There is joy. I feel her as I run my finger down the bridge of my cat’s nose. She follows me between the shelves at Marrickville Library. I hear her in my elderly neighbour’s ‘Egészségére!’ as she raises her midi of VB. I see her on the dance floor, reflecting off the faces of my friends.
Joy is love. Joy is resistance. Joy is survival.
I choose joy every day.
