I’ve maybe been on five dates in
my lifetime. Like actual, someone asked me out, or we’re getting to know each
other so we agree to go out, type situation. The first one, back in that high
school to college transition time was with a guy whose legacy can be easily
traced to Mexíco. He wasn’t my type or someone I was particularly interested
in, but I found it interesting (mind
baffling)
that he was interested in me. It was more or less a science experiment. Like,
people had not been interested in me (life
hasn’t changed much)
so I wanted to know what it was like to be out in the world with someone who
likes you. Also, everyone knew that he liked me, but me. So, there’s that.
Do you remember your high school
sweetheart? You know, that person you doodled your first name and their last
name? You thought about your life after high school – for me, we were going to
go to the same college. We were going to have that A Different World HBCU
experience at our in-state PWI. As fate would have it, we went to college in
the same region. But of course, you know me, I never acted on any of those
impulses. I just loved him (or
whatever it was back in the late 90’s) from afar. My boo thang from
islands locked away in the Pacific Ocean. Lord knows my teenage body wanted to …breathe you in, til’ gravity bends, and we fall through the
hole in the light, make this our kingdom, somewhere where good love conquers
and not divides… though
it likely would have amounted to a super close and extended hug then playing
Super Mario Bros. or something, because I knew nothing about those lyrics at
all.
Why am I brining all this up?
Not because I wanted you to know everything about my life (literally my life is in
these blog posts) but
because I have this song that I love, and how it absolutely has no relation to
how I have existed in this lifetime.
I mean, John Legend. Mayne. I
may not know a lot of things but I know that, my parents never prevented me
from having some of that surefire. *it’s
probably a good idea to watch the video before you continue so
you can have it in your consciousness for what follows*
Every time I watch the video, I
cry. I listen to a decent amount of music on YouTube which means the videos
play. Every now comes again and I accidently watch that video because of the powerful
depiction of love. My favorite love songs have a longing, a hardness to them, a
wanting so strong, that if you didn’t pay attention, you might not think it was
about love at all.
In the video, two people of
different traditions, find themselves in each other. In other words, they
become love, because falling into something that beautiful doesn’t seem
accidental. What bird decides it advantageous to fall in love with a fish? You
choose it as much as you are it. You’re scared
to love, but it’s alright because you are persuaded much
like the homey (apostle) Paul[i],
that this is it. You feel it in your chest. Just as our lovers decide to stay through the night unending with each
other, it’s stripped away because of, well, old people. *praying: Lord don’t let
me be an old person. Amen.*
Not so much old people, but what
old people carry with them: Tradition. Of all the things I worried and wondered
about, I never, not even once thought I could come to love my high school
sweetheart in a real way and be turned away from my father. Have a parent do
everything in their (and
the law’s)
power to end it because it wasn’t what their (our) tradition demanded. As much as
my father may have wanted me to prescribe to tradition, to what he knew, to
that which he believed in, he never, not once insisted upon it if it meant I
would be unhappy. Remember when I told yall the story of my tears? I’m
not kidding. My sadnesses broke him – which is why I gave him so few of them to
him to carry. I can still remember as a child doing something wrong and my
mother telling me that my Daddie was going to whoop me when he got home. Before
he arrived, I considered running away because I imagine there were lots of
things between getting the whooping and running away, but I was a kid, so two
options. When he arrived home, he looked me in my eyes, destitute – he had to
have seen what I saw, my little life flash quickly in my glossy eyes. He asked,
Are
you ready for your whooping? I replied, No. Then he
told me to go to bed. Neither one of us wanted it, my crimes be damned.
I imagine as I got older,
tradition began nagging at my father in different ways. I mean, how many times
can I graduate before we start wondering about the next celebratory thing in a black
southern (raised)
baptist
woman’s life. I mean, how do ministers spend their time? Advising engaged
couples, marrying people, christening babies, welcoming new families to their
church…I mean, c’mon! Forget loving someone of a different tongue and hue, bih
– can you just love SOMEBODY’S SON while your father is yet alive (we know the answer to this…I tried tho)?
Seeing your first born third daughter out here with all these degrees and
wonderful things, has got to nag at your insecurity that none of these
celebrations have been in the church (wedding,
baby christening – and in that order). If it did, the good rev. dr.
daddie never let on. Not even once.
I imagine when his
frustration with my life got as big as the faith he professed in those Sunday sermons, he committed me to the Lord’s care rather than condemn
me to his own understanding. Isn’t that all tradition is? One’s understanding
of the way a thing should be, unwavering, though times continue to change
around it.
My boo thang recently(ish) got
engaged. His partner is a (gawd!!!!!
he ‘drink yo bathwater’ fine) beautiful
soul who takes me to here when
I come to town. He also is a man of another tongue and hue, and I’m supposing
of another tradition of faith. Sure, the distance between the black and brown
crayon isn’t far inside the crayola box, but getting fried catfish and
empanadas from the same place is hard to do if you don’t live in California (it’s not a black + brown
thing, in CA we will mash up ANYTHING). When I asked my boo (the first one – he fine
too, but you know, order of meeting) about this, he fumbled his
words a bit, and he is rarely at a loss for them, especially online #HisFaceBookFingers
#ThatGIFgameStrong.
He eventually got it out, but I think he was trying to say, I may not know a
lot of things but I feel it in my chest. I won’t let the blue flame die. I
can’t lose hope just yet. Because if you know him, then you know a
feeling in his chest is serious. Surefire serious.
Oh, these are the times in which
I bless God in all of my grief and most especially my mess. To think that I had
a father like mine, faults, flaws, and all. Not just him, parents really, who
allowed me to love anything, no particular thing, all things, and assured me
that home was unchanging every moment of my life. To know that there was room
in their hearts to welcome whatever it was I would become and/or bring home.
Granted many of my life’s choices did not veer far from a traditional path, I
never thought, not even once, that there was something I could be that would
turn their hearts from mine. I imagine it’s because they understood love better
than most. Turning themselves from me would be turning away from their own
hearts, right? I am many things, but I started out as them – an (awkwardly) unique assemblage
of them.
When I see music videos like
Surefire, my heart breaks a lot like Daddie’s heart that day. I can’t imagine
wanting my tradition more than I want your happiness – if I love you. Situations
like that make me question if people understand the true nature of love. How
it’s beautiful, Valentine’s Day sunflowers, Alex & Ani bangles, AND it’s hella long suffering. It’s
problematically patient – like, you still ain’t figured this out – it’s 2019,
fam? No? I love you anyway? Basically. Thinking that my friends couldn’t have
what they have literally breaks my heart. To know that there could have been a
set of circumstances that could have kept the Brady babies from me? My God, on
today. The truth is, though the beauty of these relationships have come to pass
*oh, we
thank’ya Father*,
there are places where this doesn’t pass at all – even if you light skinned’d
like Steph & Klay. Today, in 2019 fam.
But that’s the thing about
loving something, right? I just got through saying it will make you suffer
long. I did not know what this post was about in the beginning, but I suppose
it’s a message to myself to love – love all things. Especially, the world in
the wake of ish like this here … Lord,
bless it all. And especially that baby that
hit ole’boy upside his head with that egg #TheKidsGonnaSaveUsAll.
World, you still think it’s cool
to interfere with how people love (pray,
bbq, drink water, shop, go to StarBucks, live, etc…) in 2019?
Yeah? You sure?
I love you anyway?
[i]
Romans 8 [38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
[39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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