But to be fair about my level
of greediness, it’s not the gluttoness, day-to-day, eat’em’ups kind of greedy.
I’m not judging that, because well, after I tell on myself, I really won’t have
an argument worth defending. We’re just…just…opposite side of the same coin.
Anyway, back to what I was
saying. I didn’t come to the realization that I was greedy by happenstance.
It was actually when I was having a much better, kind of amazing, life
epiphany.
It was when I realized one of
the earliest times in my life when I saw Black Girl Magic.
So, take it back a minute. Sit
back in your chair at work – you’re reading this at work, don’t front – and
think a minute. *conjure up the spirit of Sanaa all of her brown sugariness*
When was the first time you witnessed some Black Girl Magic?
Enter: My Greed.
Okay, so every Thanksgiving is
so special. It takes me back to that time in my life when my mother was playing
the starring role in I Don't Know How She Does It…
I mean, 7 girls, a full time job, a husband with particular food needs, bowling
league, usher board, and Lord bless it, pressing seven heads a week?! Can I get
a witness up in here?
…she just did it. All of it.
And for a time, she did all of the cooking, every holiday. All by herself. I
seriously, not using the pun because it works, have NO IDEA how she did it, and
I was growing up right in that house with her doing it.
Every Thanksgiving we would
have a feast. And two to three days later we would be totally over the
feasting. I had no idea that I would come to love Thanksgiving leftovers they
way I didn’t love them back then. It was around this time, the magic began.
Mama would go into the kitchen
and pull out the remains of the turkey. Our hearts would sink because this
would be day three or four of eating the same darn thing, right? Well, not
exactly. She’d pull out a really big bowl, and begin to picking. I watched her
because when I was a kid I had this weird thing with dead things. Like, looking
at the skeletons. Inspecting the deadness. That stayed with me all through UCLA
#cadavers.
Anyway, she would pick and we would sulk.
Something strange would happen
next. Mama would start chopping. It was this bizarre wizardry, because it
wasn’t cooking. Like she used no pots or pans. Just a knife and a spoon. OMG, did my mother go to Hogwarts? I bet she was a
Gryffindor with her ole usher board righteous first lady self. Maybe she’s a
witch? I bet she took one of Snape’s classes. I mean, she been in her late 30s
forever. She must drink the blood of unicorns. Like Voldemont? OMG, my mother
is a dark wizard!!!!! O_O My father is going to be heartbroken when he
learns of this. Maybe we can have an exorcism or something?
Wait, like what in the entire hell
was I talking about? Do I really get off topic this easily??
Oh, yea… Chopping away. All
those leftover remains of turkey. Then some of that celery/onion/bell pepper
crap she started all of the holiday cooking off with. Some hard boiled eggs.
Then a bunch of other stuff my fragile mind was too young to understand because,
look at all the glitter coming out of that
spoon shaped wand
#SheIsAWitchAtBest?!?!?
I have no idea what’s happening but I am in a trance. Hypnotized by the
symphony of stirring and chopping and tasting and sprinkling and OMG what is she doing now?!?!
Then, right at the moment when
my little underdeveloped heart could take no more, Daddie would walk by, grab a
ritz cracker and dip it in. Then walk off. Yo, he’s like a food sniper. You
never see it coming, but you always see him going. He has a food radar that
knows when a dish is just about done because his timing was more flawless than
Beyoncé.
She would wipe the side of the
bowl, and leave it on the counter. Grab the white bread, and make sandwiches.
Spreading that magical concoction on the bread, sans edges, cut it in half, and
hand it off to kiddies to and fro.
That’s when I tasted it.
Magic. Black Girl Heavenly Magic. Thank You Jesus! Yes Lord! My Soul Says Yes! My soul is anchored in…this
bowl!
Had to be magic. It never
lasted long enough to be anything else. It was magic that only happened around
the holidays. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Easter. Never more than three times a
year. Never.
Eventually, my scheming got
good enough to figure out that, if we don’t eat the turkey, like wait her out
those three to four days, she would have more material to make magic. And so it
happened. Every holiday we would eat less and less turkey, so Mama could make
more magic. We banked on her failing memory (no magic, bruh…unless you
count coffee)
remembering to purchase the same size turkey every year because she like had a
big family, so she needs the biggest effin turkey they have, right? Magic.
So what she caught on to us.
The point was, negros was knee deep in magic for decades. I had to come clean
with her one year. It was too obvious. One of my sisters got a little turkey
happy, and I almost came across the table with the might of Moses and the Red
Sea behind me. Like, what are you
doing? Are you crazy? YOU EATING (MY) MAGIC! So, I told her what I
was doing. How, I live for the magic that she creates after we’re done with the
turkey.
The next year, I bought a
separate turkey for her to make magical and still policed the Thanksgiving
turkey because I’m hella greedy son. I told you that in the beginning.
I never realized the
creativity it took for my mother to create dinner day after day, year after
year, and almost always get it right. Anyone that’s gone out to dinner with me
knows that I can be a smidge particular with my food order. I mean, the waiter
gets a tip. My Mama got nothing from me yet she actually made double turkeys
multiple years! Damn…like why yall never tell me how greedy I was #BeenEatinLongEnough? And
you call yourself my friend?
From sweet potato pies, to
strawberry shortcakes without the strawberries, and fried cabbage – yes Lord!, to
turkey salad – I lived with incredible magic from the first black girl I knew. But
the thing about magic is, if you stay around it long enough, you pick up some
of your own. It’s not the same magic. It’s a magic you learn to harness,
without even knowing you’re perfecting it. You just end up in the store one
day, down the turkey aisle.
Yup. You are absolutely
correct that I made a turkey this year. And ate like 3 pieces of it. #choices
Yes. There is a big bowl of
turkey salad in my refrigerator right now.
Get your own Black Girl Magic
Mama.
