THE ASHES STORY 

Last week, I flew to France for a wedding in my family. It was the first -and who knows, perhaps the last- marriage in my generation and kind of a big deal. 

So my partner and I arrived in Paris and spent the night at my parents's. We were to drive West the next day, to meet with the party closer to the ceremony's location on the eve of the wedding day.
 
In the morning, as we were packing the car, I saw my father take out of the living room closet two velvet pouches. In chuckles my mom said

"say hi to your grandparents"

St Brévin Les Pins, a 15min drive from the wedding venue. Picture found on a random weather chanel (website.https://www.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-france/ville-214592/previsions-meteo-saint-brevin-les-pins-aujourdhui)

Seven miles away from the wedding venue is a small town people call "St Brévin". As a kid, my father, his brother and their parents would go on vacation there. It somehow became a highly symbolic place for my dad, who decided it would be the best spot to scatter his parents's ashes.

The town is bordered by the Atlantic. You can't see New York from the shore but, with a little imagination, you can.
My grandparents, who lived back and forth those two sides of the ocean certainly had the feeling my partner and I 
experienced as we swam on the French side a couple of hours before our plane took of and brought us back to the US. 



Fullness melted in tininess
[privilege]
a taste of how salty this world actually is

you and i with our righteous passports, white passing, anglicised names
we won't risk our lives to cross

we can just be
opportunistic and hopeful
glamourising
the odyssey it could be.

So we traveled from Paris to Bretagne with our grandparents's ashes in the trunk. And after the ceremony at the city hall, we, their son, daughter in law, grandson and grand-daughters tucked in the car and drove to St Brévin. 
The vin d'honneur was two hours later -we had to hurry up. 

We drove to the casino. My father remembered it faced the ocean. The five of us got out of the car and went scouting, leaving Frambi and Arthur in the trunk. 

Bear feet, we walked toward the water on the cold sand beach, looking awkwardly around us. Too many people, we'd have to come back at dawn. Maybe, we whispered, maybe it wasn't the right moment. Maybe we should come back another time. 
My sister, in a brave endeavour, stood up. "We are not coming back to Paris with their remains", she said. "We are doing this."

Extract of a conversation between my sister and our mother

-What is this? asked Lila. Is this a ham?
-Not really, answered mom.
-What is it, then? Is it eatable? 
-Well, some people eat it. Slowly, with boiled, mashed bananas*.
-Ok now what are you talking about? 


*according to Chaumeil in a chapter on endocannibalism in the Amazone (1997) which I am pretty sure my mother was referencing to, bone ash was traditionally consumed as a drink by certain ethnies and with honey by the Wari, either immediately after the incineration or over the course of several years.

My parents had put the urns in a tarpaulin bag, the sort of bags they both call "retour au pays", because they're commonly used as suitcases by West African Parisians who bring a "bric-à-brac" of things, gifts of all kinds to their relatives when they go visit them in Ghana, Mali or Senegal.*1

Once we had found an isolated corner -a concrete deck on the side of the beach- we took the urns out of the bags. They were cheap urns, made of some kind of cardboard. 

Most of Grandpa fell in the sea a little too fast than we wanted him to. We chuckled, feeling
mischievous. Grandma was still pretty well packed. 

We all licked a finger each. Dipped it in the urn. Brought it up to our mouths. 
Eat a little bit of them. 

When I arrived in New York, one of the first items I purchased was a beautiful kitsch New York plastic bag, to put my laudry in. 

Footnotes

*1 : I have been culturally aware of this nomination because of friend's stories, but my family is not from West Africa and my parents' use of "retour au pays" is a code appropriation https://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/765437/culture/genese-et-posterite-du-sac-tati-accessoire-de-mode-dun-monde-globalise/

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this is charm
forever a draft
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i hope this goes
beyond binaries