I often find it too eerie to start digging out the Eastern tradition from my parents’ mouths. It is inevitable that they will put spotlights on all the borders that might ‘hinder’ me from falling in love with the bird my heart caught for itself. Hence, I believe some questions are best answered with silence.

But I might say I am fortunate, or unfortunate, to have been a Northerner by birth. I can tag it fortunate because somehow, I am untying myself from this web called tradition by earning a new indigene outside my culture through birth. But unfortunately, I am also detaching myself from my heritage, which has triggered the questions people throw at me about why my “Igbo” dimmed drastically, even on my tongue.

Upon reading an essay by Marline Oluchi about “blending traditions,” I am forced to question certain traditions of my parents towards how they decide our joy — I mean, why are they made to seem so necessary? How can I hold hands with them when they are often frail and barbaric? Like Marline, after reading her, I am leashed into believing that marriage/loving is another art we must/have to learn. Yes, because undoing traditions from yourself just to love someone outside your race demands, like waist beads, much untangling. It leaves you suffocated in the process, until your tired throat forcefully spits out the questions, “How does it concern me?” and “Why must you choose my joy?”

I cringe whenever I have to think of the fact that to love someone, we must consider how to fit our bodies and our emotions into said traditions, resulting in total absurdness or loss and grief. I strongly second the quote that, “love is beyond borders,” and believe in how our cultures can grow into learning how to accept others into their traditions. Plus, how we should be thirsty about embracing diversity rather than rebuking our feelings and emotions for people because they are not our colour, tribe or race. Like every other decent lover, I do not believe in tribalism, much like a vase of flowers does not believe in one species of flower. I believe in beauty and love, regardless of whether it points to someone outside or inside my race or tribe.

Fortunately, as an Easterner by paternity, and a Northerner by birth, I am happy that my diversity has slackened to the north, causing a pinch of it to reflect on me. At the very least, it eases me, giving me a free plot to plot with who I love, not whom I should love just to make traditions smile.

My father once said, the aim of tradition in choosing a partner of the same race as us is to make sure that we choose the right shoe for our legs. But the question springing up here is: If I do not fix myself into many shoes, how do I know what the gaps have to say? How do I explore? Contrary to my father, I believe in the exploration of love like the birds believe in the sky before fluttering for adventure every morning. I do not bother where it takes me, I just want to be free and light like a feather in the journey because where it lands me must always be a nest.

Winding up, I must say I like how slowly but steadily, time is swallowing up all these traditional barriers stationed around us, allowing us to spread our diversity through love. Just as the beauty of an artwork relies on the diversities of colour, the beauty of love relies on the diversity of our tongue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Silvia Trigo from Pexels