Immediately, I was entranced with this world created by Rivers Solomon, and the way life underwater was described, specifically the sensation and connection Yetu feels within the deep, of which she has to drown out. She describes what it feels like to let her guard down, connecting to her senses, and immediately being overwhelmed:
“Yetu closed her eyes and honed in on the vibrations of the deep, purposefully resensitizing her scaled skin to the onslaught of the circus that is the sea. It was a matter of reconnecting her brain to her body and lowering the shields she’d put in place in her mind to protect herself. As she focused, the world came in. The water grew colder, the pressure more intense, the salt denser. She could parse each granule. Individual crystals of the flaky white mineral scraped against her (2).”
As interesting as having this deep connection to the ocean may be, it seems to take a toll on Yetu. The currents and creatures within the deep, the remembering, these are sensations that seem to be normal to her people, but affect her differently, degrading her proprioception, her sense of self within space. It translates to me as depression that Yetu may be suffering from, and relates this fantastical premise to reality, in which mental health is seriously overlooked when it comes to young people, and in my experience, to young women. I can only speak from experience, but I’ve observed that especially within POC families, who have experienced poverty, abuse, racism, and who have endured, it is difficult to explain mental illness without being guilt-tripped. The same seems to be happening with Yetu, who is so affected to the point of putting herself in dangerous situations, stifled by the lingering grasp of the past: “Yetu did know what it was like. After all, wasn’t cavity just another word for vessel? Her own self had been scooped out when she was a child of fourteen years to make room for ancestors, leaving her empty and wandering and ravenous.(6)”
This is a very interesting insight. Yetu’s family do seem to echo what you discussed happens here on land. I think that generationally people have carried practices of enduring so much of the horrors of humanity and not being allowed or taught to express how it wears on the body and soul. It has been such a “that’s life” for so long, that stepping away from the pattern of thought does not compute to some people and they reflect that frustration on to those who do not want to participate in the way it has been done before. In this story, the single sacrifice for the whole is so frustrating to read because I ask why does the system have to be this way? It’s a scary thing to be the cycle-breaker and often those still part of the cycle will try to shame people for thinking outside the cycle.
Angelina I really love the comparison you find with families of color and the reaction that often comes about when we speak up about the things that impact us. It feels so all encompassing like Yetu’s experience with the water being so cold and scraping against her, but speaking about these feelings and ideas often prompts responses pretty much identical to her Amara’s, where it needs to be put away so we can uphold tradition. Usually teenagers really go through this experience of completely deconstructing themselves in order to make room, to become this vessel for being a part of the culture, rather than trying to understand why they are this way.