How do I reconcile being on stolen land with my mother’s experience? And my children’s experience of being of mixed ancestry?

The chai is being poured out of the copper vessel into the bone china tea cup. The tea cup is inherited from my husband’s grandfather. The audio is the sound of a buffalo stampede that shakes; and this disturbance also recalls what my mother said when she flew on that airplane to Turtle Island at age 17 to live with her husband—she shook for that whole flight.

This piece started from a very specific memory—an early memory from big dinner parties where at the end of the night, everyone would be drinking chai and the parents would pour chai into the saucer to cool. It’s a sweet comforting memory.