The Book of Genesis- Maranda Gaines

God created the earth and all its inhabitants from dust, according to The Book of Genesis. He created the sky and heaven and then dry land between the waters. He created fish and beasts and livestock and vegetation to feed them all. He created this beautiful and plentiful Earth over the course of a week, the seventh day becoming his day of rest which he would now designate as the holy day. God wanted to create a creature that would rule over this world and the animals that roamed it— so he made man. Man was lonely so God made woman from man. The man and woman lived together, unclothed and innocent, until the woman, Eve, ate a fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. Infuriated, God punished his humans, as he had warned them not to eat from the tree. He would punish all future humans because of Eve’s mistake; their children, their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children would now suffer.

The women of my family are very tempted by the oh-so forbidden “trees” and I blame Eve. My great grandmother was married at 12 and was carrying her third child by age 14. My grandmother had my mother at 17 with a tattooed, motorcycle riding bad boy. She has now been through 5 husbands and I can assure you she’s gotten crazier with each one. My mom broke the spell for the most part and is more normal than her mom and grandma. All of my family is from Kentucky and Ohio. I am 1/16 Cherokee but I like to claim that I am a lot more Native American than that. Half of me is African American and the other 7/16 are "white," whatever falls under that category. I'm not exactly sure where my ancestors come from. Out of my family, my immediate family is the only ones of us living in Lexington. Everyone else that I am aware of is either located in Paris, KY or the Cleveland, OH area. Even the oldest of my family are still very young, considering I've never met someone in my family that is now passed away, thankfully. I am very close with all of my family members, including extended, and love them very much.