Weeks of traumatic discussions and rage-filled rows in my family home, with my younger brother as mediator, eventually led to a confession from my mum; she’d had a one-night stand with a dark-skinned stranger in a pub she didn’t know anymore. The shock of first losing the generous, funny man who’d raised me, then finding out a year later that we weren’t related, made me feel as if my heart had been ripped from within me. I could barely speak to my mother through the cloud of rage which engulfed me and left me choking on all my words. So I looked for an antidote – which came in the form of travel. My mother’s confession – although devastating – gave me the courage to finally embrace my blackness, which I’d tried to suppress for so long. I decided to head off to spaces where I wouldn’t stand out, in an attempt to process all that had happened and uncover my place in the world. My first stop was Brooklyn, New York City.