Roots

I called my sister today.
It was nice to talk to her again, but weird in plenty of ways.
I hear my parents in my choice of words sometimes, but talking to her, I realize how much I really have changed since I left that life. My own words seemed so unfamiliar as I spoke. There was a part of the Maya Angelou book I just finished that said something about that it is not that you can never go home, it is more than you can never leave home, because those places, people and situations are carried with you for the rest of your life. I suppose that is true. I suppose the memories and pains and joys I've had will be with me for the rest of my life. Everything will continue to change, as it always has and always will, and so will I.
I just wonder, sometimes, what exactly it is that's made me the way I am.
Much of who I am, I have been since before I can remember why.
I remember being very young- maybe 3, maybe younger- and being very upset by the concept of race. I corrected adults from a very young age. That man was not black- I knew what black was, I had owned many boxes of Crayolas- he was dark brown, so why did they insist on calling him black, and why did that matter? White was an even bigger issue for me. Plain paper was white, I was not that color, nor was I plain. I grew up in a Mexican and Apache area- there were very few of us 'white' people around. I don't remember race or the way people spoke about it being something I just accepted, ever. I remember in 2nd grade discovering that Martin Luther King Jr's birthday was the day before mine, and having an immediate fascination with him from that point forward. What about before that, though? What created my inherent dislike of race at such a young age?
I have heard some very racist people use excuses about being molested or raped by someone of this race or that to explain away their clear and wrong prejudice, which is another rant entirely, but what of the opposite?
Beyond this one thing, I have always had a strong sense of justice, a love of music that my parents have assured me goes back before my actual birth, and my intense love of all things bright and colorful.
There's many things, perhaps some things I, myself, have failed to even realize.
What is it that dictates these things?
I am somewhat like my parents, but different enough from each and both of them that I know genetics surely cannot be completely responsible.

On another note, I had something pretty random but very meaningful come to my attention last night... My first pregnancy, the daughter I speak of now and again, Astaria... She was due April 4th, near as I could ever figure, and I always looked at that as her birthday. Last night, as I lay reading my Maya Angelou book (A Letter To My Daughter- highly recommended!), I read a passage about her friendship with Corretta Scott King. She speaks about Dr. Martin Luther King's death, and the fact that he died on her birthday. She writes about how Mrs. King and she would exchange flowers and phone calls every year on that day---- April 4th. How I have read biographies of Dr. King's life and never before realized this coincidence, I may never know. It was, at once, both startling and soothing.

It is lunch, and I am feeling sick, sore and very, very tired. I am going to lie down for a nap and hope there are answers on their way to the many questions in my mind.