Ko Remi te iwi

Ko La Montagne de Reims te maunga

Ko Meuse te awa

Nō Ardennes au

He Tauiwi ahau

Remi is my tribe.

La Montagne de Reims is my mountain.

The Meuse is my river.

I am from the Ardennes.

My mother was born in Château de Kerjean as a war refugee.
She did not meet her father until she was four.

Most of my mother’s ancestors come from Picardy Wallonia, a region shaped by shifting borders, once Spanish, then Dutch, then Austrian, then French, now in Belgium.

My mother’s father was a fox hunter and a factory worker.
He spent four years in Germany as a prisoner of war and returned hardened, carrying an anger that never quite left him.

I used to fish for pike with him along the river.

My mother’s mother, my grandmother, was gentle, with a beautiful smile.
I helped her hang the clothes to dry in the sun.

My mother’s uncle was a sailor whose ship was sunk, first by the Germans, then by the English.

My father worked for the train company and was an avid gardener.
He taught me about plants and seasons. And the moon.
He was also a champion on the gymnastics rings.

My father’s father, my grandfather, hunted rabbits with ferrets and sold illegal newspapers under the Nazi occupation.
I remember the Big Ben clock ringing in the kitchen.

My father’s great uncle was a cooper missing half a thumb.
He used to say he lost it from sucking it too much, and that story was enough to make us stop sucking ours.

My ancestors come from the Gaulish peoples and the Gothic peoples, a lineage shaped by ancient Celtic and Germanic worlds.

My name is Jocelyn, a name that means “Goth” in Old German.