Origins: Poetic Justice

Where are you from?

I asked my wife this. We've know each other for more than half our lives and this seemed a silly question, but she always plays along because she's known me half my life. She knows when I'm onto something.

"Lincolnton," she answered. My pet name for her has been LC for years, my little bit of Lincoln County Georgia. She was, is proud of that heritage.

Where am I from?

We compare, contrast our little nothing towns playfully all the time. Usually she boasts about hers having a grocery store and two traffic lights. My claims to fame are a state park named for a Confederate traitor and access to the interstate. The latter is super convenient, the first is... what it is.

"Crawfordville...", I love being from this place the same way people love when a baby smiles at them. I asked what would be my final question:

Where is Jordan from?

Bruce Wayne is from Gotham. If you know anything about comic books, you know this. The Bat belongs to that city of refuge. It's all very straight forward, much like mine own origin story though admittedly more exciting and with much taller buildings.

Superman is from Metropolis where he frequently leaps tall buildings, bounding singularly. Yet, Superman is from Krypton... if he were truly from Metropolis we'd have a boring story. Speaking of boring, what of Clark Kent? He's Smallvillian. I wonder how many traffic lights are in Smallville.

As you can see, place of origin isn't always straight forward. Jordan has five months. In that time he's visited two cities: Spartanburg and Greenville. Is he truly from either? Is it something he'll get to choose?

A great friend of mine was born in Brooklyn and lived there until he had about... we'll say six years. His parents then moved to Atlanta like every Black family must do at some point (I don't write the rules). Where does he tell people he's from? Bushwick. All day. Early. That's an obvious choice that he made and makes. He's radically proud of being from New York. I know, that's a huge surprise and you've never heard anyone boast of that before. 

Can a case be made for parental influence, aka whatever I say goes? Can I just make him be from Crawfordville like me, even though he's never been there? That gets touchy.

My ancestors are from a place called Nigeria (don't get too excited). They're also from a placed called Sub-Saharan Africa. I have no idea where they're from. Ancestry DNA told me I've throwing a very Black social gathering genetically. Ghana is there too, and it's not a party until old Mali blood shows up with a gentle splash of England, Norway and Ireland – the slave trade was really an evil piece of work. So am I from any of those places? Heck nah, but also yes. Africa is my Kryton, and the reason I have these super powers. Crawfordville is my Smallville.

I haven't been able to answer the question: where is Jordan Wesley from? Right now he's from me, and his Mama. Right now I think it's okay that he's from Greenville and Crawfordville, and Lincolnton, and Ghana, and Nigeria, and Jesus why does this thing say Southern & Eastern India? Right now he's in a position where some learned peoples can tell him about his genetic history all the way back to after the chains were broken. We don't know what was going on before freedom, but we know there's something powerful in him, in all of us.

So I'm gon' ask you one more time, homie. Where is you from?