Nostalgia in a Nutshell

Haiti Cherie is one of the first melodies I grew up with, sprinkled in the handful songs my dad would string for us on his guitar. Looking back I think he was trying to teach us how to love Haiti through his own memories, music as the medium. Now, I hear  it is a diasporic love song to Haiti. “The most beautiful land in the world” that continues to exist as such in our collective memories across the oceans. It is a longing for a country that we always meant to return to, that most of us can’t. Through this song, I was  taught how to miss home. 

As I continue to grow up this song now holds my own memories: of sitting in the living room watching my dad strum and my sister sing; of singing over my uncle at his funeral reminding him that the country he chose loves him too; of humming the melody under my breath as the plane touches down in port-au-prince; of my grandmothers kitchen; of my uncles jokes; of  winds that carry the taste of sea and sound of laughter. 

As I mature into my own self this longing for Haiti has begun to find its own meaning in my body. Next to my queerness, my americannes, the web of feelings this work is a process of untangling, the echoes of [memory] [imagination] this work is my practice of listening [with] [for].

by Zami