“I may be a "B", but I am not yours.”
-Grandmama
Strike One
I found myself sitting in the student center trying to take a break before my ten-minute walk to my dorm. During my rest, I began having a casual conversation about the consequences of being Black in college. My longtime associate asked me,
“What do you think makes you Black?”.
Quite frankly the question puzzled me, not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I had long determined what made me African American. There was no need to fully process it or reflect on it because that explanation had been laid before me long ago. So, the answer I gave was simple and quick.
“I think that my skin, my hair, and strong-willed attitude is just a reflection of history and culture but all of it doesn’t make me Black.” I paused to give myself a chance to comprehend my own thoughts, and when I spoke again I used my hands to emphasize myself, “It’s understanding my own history and culture that makes me Black….Yeah, That’s what it is.”
I began nodding as I turned my eyes to her.
The beautiful girl with the large afro and mocha skin nodded her head with an agreement, but her eyebrows rose with an impression of deep and worrying thought. When she realized that I was looking at her to gauge her mind, her outer appearance changed with the opening of her lips and the showing of her white teeth, “That’s good.”
What’s good?
My answer or that I can answer? Or maybe it’s that I have worried about it enough to have an answer.
One thing I can say that I admire about the almond tint of the melanin in my skin is that there are moments when it creates such strong stereotypes--expectations of being a Black woman with three kids before age thirteen and dropping out of high school at fifteen were fears that encompassed my very being—stereotypes that can be so deceiving that when you least expect it you are proven wrong.
This moment of being proven wrong doesn’t just apply to White people with green or blue eyes.
No.
This applies to my community as well- my Black community that was made up of boys and girls who were raised by their grandmama’s and were restricted to Southwest Little Rock. In a way, I grew up being wrapped in a community full of African American students that didn’t want the best of the best for themselves and I was the oddball out - wanting to surpass those incomplete truths that made up the very existence of my community. For some reason, the community I was surrounded in was so use to hearing that they could never be completely accepted into the majority’s world because they themselves were incomplete, they didn’t fit the standards of society. They themselves were restricted by their Grandparents and schools, that just couldn’t find a way to teach their children to accept themselves. Instead, they preached the “White is right” mentality, while pressing on the continued Slave mentality. In return, the children fulfilled those stereotypes and allowed Black expectations to create insecurity with them.
There are times when the melanin in our skin creates insecurity amongst us; and everyone on the outside looking in can only see the results of our self-doubt, anger, and reactions of fear. We have been convinced that we have to take back what was always ours. This is to say that we are constantly fighting against our own history and culture, hoping to rewrite it--finally taking control. This can be seen in the way Black people have yet learned to agree on using nigga as a word of greeting or praise. We have yet to truly get rid of the oppression of the word, but we are constantly putting on the facade of superiority, power in our use of the word.
This is only a part of being Black. My history and culture creating the divide of my community, in turn creating a divide within myself. Our insecurities also brought us the two strike system- the determinant of where I stand underneath the glass ceiling.
Yet, for everyone else, my history and culture are only a small dot of Blackness.
At a young age, the me that grew up with smoked almond skin and short, neutral hair was never fully convinced that it mattered how much my personality reflected my skin. That wasn’t until the only two White girls in the seventh grade started calling me an oreo, thinking that I found compliments in it. Because being Black on the outside and White on the inside was more acceptable of explanation for my existence.
“You’re not Black, Marrissa.”
“Yeah!”
“You’re an oreo,” smiles and laughs were exchanged; A few of them my own in hopes that this meant that they accepted me. My hair looked nothing like theirs and my skin was full of a protective coat of color. My lips thick and nose round. My attitude bold and circumstances determined by the Black stereotypes.
My battle was set. Mission: Discover what makes you worthy of being you?
What really became acceptable then? Was my commitment to proper English explained? Was my love for country music now understandable? Was my choice in style better? Was my culturally abnormal desire to know and accomplish now smiled upon?
Was it strange that any of that was me?
Could I really become someone that was defined as Marrissa, instead of “oreo”?
Less of a nigga is what I became.
At a young age, I didn’t know that what I thought I was to the eyes of my skin deep sisters and brothers was something foreign, while in the eyes of blue, green, and gray I was decent. I was “different from most Black girls”, the saying goes.
“You are Black, but you aren’t Black,” Mama laughed as she said this. But I took no offense because what I said before stands true.
I can smile now…. At my answer. I answered quickly because as I stare at my skin, touch my hair, look at my thick lips and large nose, I realize that I had played myself into believing that everyone would only care about my actions.
They are the things that speak louder than words is what I have heard.
You were wrong, baby girl. Armor is what you need to survive in the red, white, and blue because this is strike one.
The knowing that your Black is an entirely different level of knowledge than they believe you have. Luckily, though, the knowledge you have of your Blackness is confirmed, while theirs is just assumed.
In 1677, during the Enlightenment, Sir William Petty of England wrote an article that solved the unfulfilled confusion of Aristotle’s “Great Chain of Being”. The issue had been that the Enlightened philosophers were trying to find the ‘proper’ place for man on the chart- giving an explanation to their need for a system based on skin tone. The “Great Chain of Being” was meant to represent the hierarchy of the “natural world”. Fortunate for Eurocentrism, this meant that they got to define the “natural world”. So, Sir William said that what was missing was the place of “savages”- those that were similar to beast in looks and character. In the end, the assumed place of the people was like this:
God (Nonpersonal, Pure Reasoning/Logic)
= White Males
Humans (Nutritive/Sensitive/Reason) Kings/ Rulers Priest/ Nobles
Soldiers
Workers
Slaves/Serfs/Peasants
Animals (Nutritive/ Sensitive) = Black Men and Women
Plants (Nutritive/Medicinal)
Living
Nonliving
Gold/ Diamonds
Although no one comes up to me today and calls me ‘monkey’ to my face, I can never forget what I know. I remember my strike. It touches my every decision and is the link to my pride. This diagram is only a small piece of what defines the assumed Black- the “most” Black, but knowing this helps me to stand up and speak in the class of fourteen White people.
In situations like the ones that occur during Black history month, my strike becomes a sunbeam towards my culture.
“No offense, but if White people had a White history month Black people would go crazy and if we had a White Ms.America they would go even crazier.”
What can I say to this? What I can say that represents my pride over my ‘monkey’ stereotype? Whose story do I want to rely on to defend my people; the eurocentric history lesson or the infamous Afrocentric narrative?
Whatever my response, when I do speak I do it without a doubt. I can see my value. I can see my strike. My surface is the first thing seen and the first thing responded to. All of this because of someone assuming and shaping my eugenics. I know without a falter in mind or skipping of my heart my Black runs deeper than skin.
So...
“What do think makes you Black?”
I do.
Strike Two
“We teach girls to shrink themselves. To make themselves smaller. We say to girls: ‘You can have ambition but not too much, you can aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you threaten the men.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Feminist Rhetoric was one college course that simply swept through me leaving very little gained knowledge behind in its wake; part of this was because it, eventually, turned into a feline therapeutic session. There was this tense, breathless vibe that felt like a boring competition to see who could make the discussion more complicated with female issues. At one point I decided to speak in hopes that I could contribute to a conversation that I could in no way relate to.
“I find it interesting that the men of the first wave of feminism found ways to twist the Bible into a control panel for their women.”
This one sentence led to an argument about how Jehovah believes that women are worthless and how men opening the door for women is a way to belittle their physical strength.
The other part, though, had much to do with my inability to relate to the issues of the other 16 White females in the class. Even with this, the course has taught me one thing if it hasn’t done anything else. That one thing being that women rightfully complain about the cycle of their oppressions; their womanhood is hopelessly defined by the phallocentric ideas that surround them. Then women fight those definitions and make them their own, successfully sometimes and unsuccessfully most. The unsuccessful being that women eventually assimilate to their given environment, simply finding ways to continue to have their moments of outrage and falling back when they are finished. Unfortunately, women failed because no one sat down from the beginning and tried to define the “with” factor of the feminist fight.
So, this reflected in history.
In the first wave of feminism purity and piety were the running definitions of real women. Men began to interpret The Bible and tell women what their role was- restricting them to the home and children. This meaning women were confined to being defined by what a man felt was the perfect woman. Many willingly sat in that square; others fought it wholeheartedly.
Why?
Because to man, we were as close to animals as the Black man alone. Our emotions were too high and our minds too small to comprehend all that the world had to offer.
Over time, our independence changed.
Now, her voice is loud and her mind is used as Jehovah had planned for them to be used as the other half.
She has all of the natural rights of a human.
Even with this, it is continuously proven that no gender is fully correct or perfect. A woman without her skin tone or her individualized personality can be said to mirror the Black community because of her insecurities. Inconveniently, this means that the response to her insecurities is to challenge the women around her--forcing her own ideas of womanhood amongst those women.
In the end, our womanhood is stared at through the eyeglass of intersectionality.
I didn’t know these things while being raised by Grandmama or Mama. The words feminine and intersectionality were not casually said in my home. Part of this was because we are not a political family; none of us vote and we stay on the surface of any worldly issue that has nothing to directly do with us. On the other hand, my lack of knowledge of femininity was prevalent because I was always surrounded by women. If anything I was being taught how to be a feminist but that was being shadowed by the teachings of being a human. I only knew that I was meant to be strong and that I could accomplish anything. There weren’t enough men in my world to stop me from achieving anything, not enough men that cared, nor a man that had the strength to realize my potential.
Neither one of my fathers were a part of the moments in my life where I was developing free-thought and ideals. My step-father, Eddie, was in prison until I was a Sophomore in college. My biological father, Jerome, often appears and disappears.
My closest uncles, Fa’Dell and La’Dell, weren’t very different. Uncle Fa’ Dell didn’t come around often enough to be an influence. Uncle Alex was only around to sleep and eat.
My Mama’s father had dedicated himself to another family years ago after cheating on Grandmama and she divorcing him. My stepfather’s father became the only Papa I knew, and yet, I don’t know him as well as I should.
So, the support I grew to love and rely on was that of Grandmama and Mama’s. None of the men in my life showed any interest in what made me a woman. And definitely, in one way, that is great, but in another, it is a harsh reality.
This means that there is still apart of my womanhood that isn’t fully developed because I lack that male influence in a way-- a conversation for another time.
All of this to say that being a woman in my household is simply being human. Yet, in college I have gained a different perspective; a perspective that is forced upon me as I enter into the real world, the existence of femininity, specifically, Black femininity.
The words ‘Black femininity’ wasn’t something preached in my home because it wasn’t necessary. I was raised under a neutral blanket that gave a heavy amount of oxygenated security. If anything only its characteristics existed for us because the women were the dependence of our men. We had to be strong and intelligent or our men wouldn’t survive.
This is another part of my Blackness; a firm part of my Black female necessity.
During the first wave of feminism in the late nineteenth century, Black women began to realize their place alongside the typical White feminist. The Black woman’s issues were about more than whether they were innocent and pious. Instead, they were seen as tailed- human beings, good enough to screw, but beastly enough to throw aside. That was what shaped their womanhood- their labels: nigga, gal, and Black bitch.
White women couldn’t represent them. They couldn’t tell the Black woman what her real problems were because they didn’t know a thing about her problems; nor did they care. In their eyes, she was still a Black beast, just with the same reproductive organs.
For this reason, White feminists used the fight for civil rights as a way to support their movement by asking persons like Freddrick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to be the token Black representatives for their cause. They saw value in numbers, but not value in brains.
So, Black women separated themselves, unbeknownst to the White feminist. Today, feminist or not, Black women live in constant fear of underestimation. We walk around with our heads held high and place our foot in the sand path- leaving our mark. For this reason, the people outside of our community think that they know us enough to give us a strike. But they don’t know that we carry a mask in our back pockets to hide who we truly are, just to get by in this world.
The mask’s name is code and while many gray eyes think that we, the Black women, are strong-willed and intimidating, we allow code to be our most important have-to-have item in order to make it through our daily routines.
So, for this I am more cautious than I could ever be because I am observed by two layers, my skin and gender.
I have learned that my greatest strength is being able to distinguish between the two and seeing how they both create me.
What makes me woman?
I believe it to be my desire to fulfill the purpose Jehovah gave me. The characteristics of a woman are not set in stone, but our purpose is. We are meant to be a partner to man- a gift to man. The characteristics of me are only possible because of the experiences I have and can not be avoided. They can not be controlled by another- man or woman.
But what I can say is that I am meant to be more than man’s ideal woman, his cherished gift.
I am meant to be a human.
Strike Three: Invisible Questions
“Hey, Black Child”
-Countee Cullen
As I get older I deliberately look at my life knowing those two strikes exist against me. I am constantly observing myself in layers, Black and female. During the time of adulthood- as I sit at my desk contemplating the desired students for Graduate schools, what I will do if I don’t get in, and what jobs will accept me as Marrissa- I take notice of those things that I would have laughed at as a child whenever Grandmama pointed it out as being a criticism to me. From small things, like my love for Korean music to large things like, my need to defend my heritage and its right to be learned.
While I don’t want to shape myself around those two strikes I have no other way of knowing whom I can become, as shameful as that is.
So, what’s strike three?
Me.
The me that isn’t created by my Black and female. No, instead, I am shaped by my final decision.
What makes a Black woman?
On the surface, it only takes two strikes, a one drop ruled nigga and reproductive organs.
The question isn’t simple to answer because what you wish you could say is that being a Black woman is no different than being like any other human, yet there is this wall, or small glass dungeon, that allows only a few of us to the top level. We are still low on the scale of worthiness and value, forgotten to even the inferior.
So, I ask again what makes a Black woman?
Is it her anger or her willingness to sacrifice for her children and her man?
Is it her strong will or her bullheadedness?
Is it her big hands and booming voice?
Is it her knowledge of her history and her culture?
Does she know her place in this world?
I ask again because I don’t know. There are too many possible answers.
Is the surface all it takes?
Do these questions matter?
They matter to me but do I count. Does my Black femininity make me a Black woman? Does my Black femininity make me unworthy of asking questions?
I would hope not. I would hope that my strength and will to define my own character, not based on the color of my skin or the ways I contribute to society's population, would all make me worthy. As I get closer to leaving my shell, the world breaks my childish thoughts of real freedom. Instead, I am restricted by the invisible domains of power. Domains that are only invisible to blue, green, and gray. Yet, to me, they stand obvious.
Those same domains for, so long, were invisible to even my young eye. That is until I heard words like “institutional racism” and “token nigga”.
That is until my White friend's grandmother decides she doesn’t want you around her grandchildren and kicks you out of the house.
That is until I heard that the American corporate law finds ways to question your right to go to work with a natural crown of hair befitting of the Black woman.
That is until you find out that no one expected me to break the baby curse.
That is until I realized that there is more than what was underneath the blanket.
I smile at the thought of seeing the things that I wasn’t able to see before and, at the fact, that I was pounded with all of those expectations and acceptions in the short time of three and half years.
Those things that can be compressed into short, distinct sentences seem so small, but as you explore their meanings and the thoughts behind them unfold like the fluff from a cotton plant- slow and brittle leaves at full bloom- you realize that there is so much work to be done.
Whether the solution of the Black community armageddon is self-reflection on what we need to improve is something that may be up for discussion. Maybe that will help me find the definition to my Black femininity.
Maybe it is all the fault of the green, blue, and gray eyes. Maybe my strikes are really controlled by me and there isn’t a mediator that bestows them on me.
More than likely, I am being too optimistic.
Do I have a right to hope that my natural-born strikes will eventually wash away? Will I be able to define myself then?
Now, I cry at night imagining waking up with those green eyes and pale skin, thinking that it's the only way I can really make it in this world. There would be no systematic ways to tear me down and no waves of doubt in my steps.
To you, gray eyes, this may be an over-exaggerated pity party, but for me, this is a loud cry for help. A cry for you to notice that I have had two strikes since birth. And while others sit around and allow those strikes to negatively shape their footprints, I refuse.
I will speak louder and stand as tall as I can before allowing my footprint to be mutated. Be prepared, World, I am coming with the third strike.
Two Strike
April 15.2018
I know nothing about romanticized love. I have never had my heart flutter, stop, pause, ache, or rip. I have never received sweet words of romantic lullabies to make me curl up beneath my sheets with blind goo-goo eyes, echoed giggles. I have never, “I like you” and “I like you too” (ed). I have never shared significant smiles with him or giggled with my girls about how we ‘did this’ or ‘did that.’ I have never listened to a song in remembrance of a moment in the rain where our lips touched or we held hands for the first time. I haven’t ever really wanted to be liked or like anyone else to the point that I would burst, let alone ‘love’ or ‘loved’ someone.
And I guess for this, my mind refuses to open up to the poetry of something as infinite as love itself.
We moan about its complexity and pleasure a lot. I know that. And it may sound whiny, but I am just joining the crowd on this: we blame it for its existence but never our lack of knowing it. I know that. We roll our eyes over what we have never experienced with words of ‘...that’s too sappy.’ or ‘It never happens that way.’. And we fumble around with it until we think we have gotten it right.
Then there are those like me. We seem to hide in our tiny world’s firsts. They look nothing like everyone else’s, and the ones that are expected haven’t come yet.
As I think about the audience that could consume this, I find it even more difficult to express what I understand. There is a fear here of allowing the experience of the consumer to deter this ached need to write the words down. But this is my need for realization 200 at age 23.
Ketan V. The first and only crush. It was a fleeting fourth-grade, unrequited grin fest. If memory could ever serve me right with this guy, it could have easily been that I was entranced with the look of him. There is a look to the smartest boy in the class, and he carried it well. And at 23, with random bursts of self-realization, I have to say that I feel bad for the crush. Luckily, it isn’t because of the bending and masking self-hate that comes with being a Black woman, you know? That of which, in this situation, would have had me thinking that it isn’t acceptable for an overweight, Black woman with gapped teeth and introverted tendencies to ever, or could ever, commence a romance with a 6-foot-tall, muscular Indian genius—the only words to describe him now, according to my recent Instagram discoveries.
Along with self-realization has come self-love that finds that level of hatred towards being to be disgusting and unrealistic, for lack of flowered words.
No.
Instead, I find it oddly satisfying, a reeling feeling of joy when I think of never having fallen in like or love to my happy detriment. Like I said, with realization comes self-love. There is this self-intrigue that settles in you. Once you see everything that makes you “beautiful,” animated, alive, and able, you suddenly want to know about yourself until you are full of information about your wants and needs. And when you lie around thinking about what-could-have-been’s, you suddenly realize that there is so much you are blessed to have never happened because they shaped you that can write this now…
Can I attest such love and acceptance of self to Ketan or this time in California completely?
I mean…comfort is never that easy to come by, nor is ever that direct on revealing itself.
So where does it come from, one or two layers?
Maybe 10.
I had many people that wrote the lone girl guide to happiness.
Adrienne, my first Bible study teacher. Ms. Penny, the fashionista, science, and social studies teacher. Ms. Kelly, the assertive, lone White female math teacher at Mabelvale Middle School. Ms. Ellis, the mystery best friend of Grandmama. Then those who were only lone in spirit and lay with physical bodies at night.
Grandmama, at age fifteen, found herself sitting in front of her mother’s coffin, alone, regardless of her six other siblings existing, and from there, realizing that she could only rely on Janey- raising herself. A woman that now finds comfort in her loneliness, in driving herself from Little Rock to Hot Springs just take a drive, without ever leaving the car. A woman who has owned a private school, daycare, an Avon shop, sold Tupperware, raised three grandkids after raising three of her own children at 18, and almost all alone. There was a time when my Grandfather’s unfaithfulness wasn’t the axel that turned the family atmosphere.
Then there is Mama. What can be said about Mama simply?
Nothing.
In Mama’s house, we don’t talk unless there is a need. Everyone spreads out to their corners and does their own thing. Not because we dislike each other or can’t stand the way the fact that breathe around one another. We all, simply, have different interests. But there are those rare occasions where we all step into a room, and you can see our love for one another. A familial love that I often believe Mama will never realize she created by allowing us to be ourselves-- accepting self-isolation and reservation.
Mama called a family meeting.
I can’t quite remember where I was in the living room. You can typically find me laying across the couch, staring at Ji Chang Wook, or whatever man I am crying over. On this particular day, though, it feels like I was staring at Mama from the computer desk. My siblings scattered themselves across the room, in positions of self-comfort. Mckinsey on the couch. Keke stood closets to me at the computer desk but distant from the rest in the kitchen entrance. Eddie stood next to Keke but closest to the garage door.
Mama stood in front of the black-screened TV with her hands on her hips and a soft face in concentration.
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t yell. She doesn’t throw things or hit us. Yet, her hurt is clear in every word she uses- tone and diction. And with her throat clogged up and eyes watered, you could only observe such an atypical moment. And like any family talk in the Garrett house, we children sat, listening to her with tension in our brains- probably blaming Mckinsey for the moment.
We haven’t had enough of these talks for me to be this clear on memory but enough that I can tell you that Marrecca Garrett’s children’s reactions were shocking.
‘I was in Barnes and Noble, trying to buy Keke’s gift card, and I looked over at the children’s section and saw all of these books that I never got to read to Keke. And I couldn’t help but think about the fact that there are so many books that I never got to read to her. There are so many things that I never got to do with her. And now she is leaving.’
Mckinsey sat in silence, self-reflecting. As per usual.
Eddie cracked some jokes in the hopes of relieving the tense moment. As per usual.
Marrissa found things to say to help carry the conversation. She can never not add in her two-cent, but who will if she doesn’t?
Keke… well, she cried.
Not at all usual.
And at the time, as she wiped at her eyes and her body jerked with unfamiliar emotions, Marrissa couldn’t help but feel for her.
‘And pretty soon, all of you will be gone. And I’m gonna have to figure out who I am without kids.’
I am not even going to lie to you; the thought sits with me as profound as the sun rising every day. It’s such a moment of coming to grips with one’s self before the devastating experience. It could only be said out loud to expose its full force.
From my perspective, Mama had spent years wanting to be a woman who was allowed to be. As a kid, her display of romanticized love always appeared to me as a co-dependency agreement between her and Daddy. He depended on her for allowance to be a child for as long as possible. She leaned on him to allow her to feel comforted and trusted with whatever decisions she made, being who she wanted to be in front of those who weren’t the ward of Janey Lawson.
And here we are talking about appearances.
They weren’t the happiest couple to any degree. The strongest memory I have of them together is Daddy holding Mama up against a door to take the car keys. He could never stay off of the road; it seemed like his therapy, along with his cigarettes- and whatever else. I can remember watching Mama cry as her face and body melded to the kitchen closet door, the keys being raised as high as she could hold them. Daddy wordlessly pressing into her, who gripped the keys and jerked them higher than Mama could reach on her own.
And he was gone for a few days then.
I sat in the living room, their bedroom, eating peanut M&M’s. She didn’t and wanted to cry. We finished the bag of M&M’s.
And now, there is a tension that goes beyond them simply having been apart for nine years.
Year 1 of being alone:
And Mama was physically alone, depending on air and anonymous ones to allow her to be. She was suddenly a single mother at 30. The bright, naive eyes of her children burned into the back of her scalp as she drove to the Walmart parking lot to sleep for the night. The car stands to be her only place of solace as those bright eyes roam the nearest libraries- audiobooks being an escape. The moans of hunger could be heard from all of their stomachs, Mama and kids alike.
Until she was ready to take her break, that consisted of sitting on her brother’s couch and sending her kids to her mama’s house for a time, she didn’t move to shower, brush her hair or teeth, she barely ate, and she sat.
-Until she could move again.
Slowly… things came into a perspective that looked the same at 30 that it did at 18.
As prison does, Daddy had been stunted in growth. After only seeing his kids grow from infancy to fourth grade, there was a disruption to him as he walked into a physical house of his own, the first time. His feet emerged from the dark home garage into the home’s small foyer, his eyes turning to be immersed in bodies that weren’t tiny anymore and eyes that were full of awareness that, certainly, was not there the last time he could check.
And after a while, those mature eyes came to be backed by exploring minds of reason. His wife wasn’t the same woman she was in 2007-young at mind and enamored with self. His oldest was never home, as she was finishing up two degrees at what seemed to be a university that was two days away. In reality, it was 45 minutes away from home.
And when he did see her, she was focused on everything else but developing a drifted and dragged relationship. Any conversation with her was full of ‘know-it-all’ tones and certainty. She was no longer one to call him Daddy- as if she could finally only recognize him as her stepfather.
A hard pill to swallow.
His second daughter, quiet and reserved, had one foot in the college dorms and the other in bed.
His twins, boy and girl, were well into their teens, dealing with puppy love and low grades- emersed in figuring out…
None of them adored as they used to. And none of them wanted to adore him. Almost as if they recognized him as stunted, they slowly pushed along with him as he relearned the world and his family.
What this has seemed to do with Mama and Daddy, an observation that can only be made based on fractured time and memories is that they have changed.
Although they kiss the same, their speech seems to be filled with disgust, suspicion, and personas. And I am just their oldest kid, so…
No, don’t ask me for the how’s and why’s of it all.
I can only tell you that they smell the difference. Seeing may take some time. Doing will definitely take a bit...
And as I watch Mama turn 42, I can’t help but have her words radiate through my mind as she says so much without giving the answers. Her decisions are planned to meet an end now, as opposed to just getting by and passing the time. While there are moments that she wishes others would see her for today’s Marrecca, she doesn’t wish for validation. Her words are more centered on the household and whether her kids can survive in this world. And she recognizes the necessity of herself as she is without validation from anyone. A great part of that through the way she recognizes her empty nest, but also through a bird’s view she has of her upbringing and her definition of mother.
I only have thoughts on this through our phone calls now. As we sit for 2 to 3 hours, discussing my Bible studies and therapy sessions, she simply stares at me through the camera. Soft smirks brighten her face, and she allows me to fumble around with epiphanies and diagnoses of my family with the need for therapy. There are times she breaks into the conversation with agreement or rectification, but she stays quiet most of the time.
And my heart flutters at the smirk. It is also rare. It looks rather new to me, but I find it more comforting than the hugs she doesn’t give.
While there are a trillion reasons that I have gathered, and others have put into my head, about why Mama isn’t the mother of generation z, I have never, haven’t ever, and (hopefully) will never agonize about her being Mama.
She is just who she is, by choice and choices.
But again, as I watch her age, I can’t help but remember a post she made on Facebook when I turned nineteen. She admitted to something that I had figured out years before, but it couldn’t have been more important to say it out loud. Mama and I grew up together.
At 18, Mama hid her rounded stomach in graduation pictures. At 23, she was well into two little girls and coming up on twins.
“...a kid yourself.”
I can only imagine the thoughts that went into her every day as she stared at us, oblivious to her confusion and pain. Suddenly, her ‘reckless decisions,’ ‘selfishness,’ ‘rebellion,’ and whatever else is explained to me. She didn’t have the time to think as I do. She didn’t have the time to cry alone, smile alone, eat alone, sleep alone, think alone, fight alone, dance alone, or breathe alone. When she did those things, by force of necessity, something went undone and unsettled. And she could only do it herself- even as he lay beside her and she stare at the floors her children sleep on across the way.
Was there time for realizations of self-evaluation, a moment to love one’s self, whether victorianized or romanticized?
On my end, if I am anywhere near being able to gauge Mama’s path to realization. I can only pinpoint the moment that I saw her pick a road and walk towards herself.
At the moment, for herself, she has been steadily taking humanity classes and preparing for law school. She is speaking to me for hours on the phone about the moon and Earth. She has begun opening herself to herself, in ways that I know she wouldn’t like me to tell and those I know nothing about- all as he lays beside her. And he can do nothing but watch and want her to grow as he relearns.
Then steps in Jehovah.
I remember sitting in a feminist rhetoric class during my senior year of my undergrad and praying to Jehovah to help me get out of there. I was 1 of 3 Black girls in a class of 16 girls. We never seemed to find a comfortable enough environment to enjoy the class. Of course, there were different types of feminists in the class, but the loudest were those we would consider radicals.
One day, during a discussion on the first wave of feminism, I found that it was important for me to point out the role the man-made Biblical interpretations played in the shaping of the pious woman.
Somehow, after my long-winded explanation for how the Bible continues to be the manipulating force for how women see themselves in the world, I am subjected to:
‘Well, God doesn’t give a crap about women anyway.’
I find myself being irritated as I write this because I wish there was a more elegant way to write that sentence. But then I realize that the hate in the words is more important than poetry right now.
At the time, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the statement the way I wanted to…
I knew she was wrong. I just couldn’t find the words to say what needed to be said.
Recently, I have been blessed to experience my importance to Jehovah as a woman. There was a Sunday when the study watchtower asked us, “Why do we cherish our Christian Sisters?”
The paragraph gave us examples of women who were not only used as representatives by Jehovah but were known for their faith during trials.
Naomi, Ruth, Lydia, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, and Sarah.
And while my answer to the question was more focused on the fact that we live in a world where men and women devalue womanhood and the physical woman while Chrisitan women work for peace and Jehovah God’s will to be done, that wasn’t the only answer.
The scriptures provide those women as examples of what can be done with Jehovah’s help, but at your own right to choose him. And for me, this is encouraging because the more I learn, the more I realize that the peace I wish for isn’t far off or impossible, as the world says. As those women actively pursued their joy, happiness, knowledge, and wisdom, I find myself being moved to do the same at my own prerogative. Along with that comes the reminder that Jehovah’s main purpose of allowing us to have the Bible is to allow us a space to live. He just wants us to live. I can’t help but see the value in myself as I learn from Him that I am of value that can not be defined by fleshly, imperfect men.
Especially as those fleshly, imperfect men are just as the woman, if not more so.
We can see how He views women through his choices to use them as messengers and, more importantly, the second half to men. Unfortunately, we have allowed men to convince us otherwise.
And in the same way, just as Jehovah teaches men to protect and love themselves, He expects us, women, to do the same. We can see this with women like Prisca and Aquila, ministers during the congregation of 1st-century Christians.
Teaching us to:
Forgive ourselves.
Know our own conscious.
Be well prepared.
Know and be righteous.
Not only have I been blessed with the wisdom of the experiences from the women of Bible stories, but those sisters within the congregation are now a source of inspiration to be happy with myself.
Sister Hammond. My first Bible study teacher in California is a special pioneer, a witness that does full-time ministry work. At a time when I was new to even the vegetation of Cali, she was like a mother away from home. She fed me and guided me to the best of her ability. There were plenty of days where she would pull up in her bright blue Ford Focus, smile bright and loving. She held herself up with confidence that could only be defined as elegance and joy. Even as she found housing with another sister in a tiny bedroom, she could be the dictionary picture for positivity. Her goofy, corny jokes and open laugh could only describe her as comfortable with herself.
All on her own.
She also served as an example of a woman happily traveling on her own, so much so that she moved from Cali to serve in the Simoas at the beginning of the year. And almost immediately, I fell in love with the idea of being happy, traveling, and serving Jehovah from place to place with nothing anchoring me.
And does this mean that I don’t want romance with a ‘him’ someday?
Not at all. That love is an experience of its own. It requires an awareness of self that I am just now grasping. And while the question may be cliched, we must ask ourselves:
How can I love someone else if I have not defined love within myself, for myself, and about myself? How can I comprehend loving someone else if I have no regard for its presence, good or bad? How can anyone comprehend the way I need to be loved if I don’t know that for myself?
These are the ways in which Jehovah benefits me.
This is the way in which the women of my timeline have mapped the road of loneliness for me, married or not.
This is how I choose to grow forward until further notice.
I am on my schedule daily, monthly, and yearly.
And even that moment showed me how much I loved my moments of silence, random eating schedule, Bible studies, and cleaning schedule.
Revealing: I don’t mind negative people, even when they come to me with advice. But if I give you advice, you can’t be negative about it. You want to stay sad and angry, and that’s irritating because you put on a show about wanting change.
Revealing: I can’t stand cooking for myself.
Revealing: I have a severe moral compass that, if it is not followed, causes me to have anxiety.
And these small things I have come to love and respect. They have made me see how I can improve and continue to be.
On my own.
Realization 200
October 29,2020