I had to disappear from the world, on repeat occasions. I didn’t even always know why, so I couldn’t really explain it fully at times when it was asked of me.
Especially in 2020.
This has been the best year of my life so far because in this year I fell deep into my wounds and I cried hard, afraid of a future I couldn’t see. And I pushed through those painful days and have come through to the other side (for now, until the next time). I’ve learned to stop being so consumed with my fears. I re-learned how to trust my own heart.
I’ve been gone, away from everyone I’ve known in recent months. Did I know this is where the writing would take me? No. Would I have kept going if I knew this is where the writing was taking me? Hell no! Because it would have looked too scary and impossible to me. Or maybe I would’ve announced it to loved ones, inviting them to sometimes keep me company on the phone; also, I might’ve invited interested/curious onlookers from social media, providing updates on another soul-journey. But it wouldn’t have yielded the same fruits, the incredibly beautiful results I’ve seen so far in this newest version of Self.
I had to become bolder. I had to discover a side of me I had rarely seen before.
I had to acquaint myself with masturbation during daylight hours.
I had to stop wearing panties.
I had to notice how uncomfortable panties are on a black butt, a butt descended from female African ancestry. I had to notice that the underwear made in the patriarchy—after spending so many years searching for panties that fit properly, finally giving up and just wearing them unflatteringly or uncomfortably. Whose bullshit idea was the g-string anyway?!—were never made to fit black bodies.
I had to stop being so ashamed of my body.
I had to stop being so ashamed of my own sexuality.
I had to release the shame which continued to overshadow my choices, my relationships, my mindset and especially, my writing. I had to see my entire life—every splendid moment and every darkened corner—for the necessary and preparatory gift that it has been.
In my childhood I was regularly molested, raped and beaten by my father. I was beaten, neglected and reviled by my mother. When they weren’t hurting me, my parents did try to show me love in their own way. But they were too deep in their wounds to do the parenting job required of them, too hurt to shield me from their own pain and self-loathing.
I carried these experiences—all packed tidily in the baggage of my mind, wrapped tightly in ribbons of shame—into my adult life. Shame governed over everything.
All these years later, as I’ve tried to become the woman I wanted to be, especially as I’ve engaged with loved ones and also pursued artistic passions to infuse me with more life, more hope and more love, it has been a constant struggle. Where was the reconciliation? I often wondered. How might I tie these all together?— everything I have known and now know, everything I have done and am now doing, everything I was and now am, everything I am trying to be? How can I reconcile them all?
And why does it seem that whenever I try to unite all the things together, those things which add up to me as a whole person, SHAME continues to show up?
So I left. I left everyone (except my husband, of course, because he lets me be all the ugly and beautiful things I desire to be).
I stayed at home. I stopped getting on the phone. I stopped texting.
I basically cut myself off from The World.
At home, I started walking around naked. For the first time, I began to really take notice of my body, staring at myself in the mirror (I’m 54—better late than never). As I took notice—new age marks, the pouch at the base of my belly, a raised mole here and there, cellulite on my thighs, fuller breasts that sagged a little, strands of gray hair in the pubes—I saw my own raw beauty for the first time. And I’m pretty sure the angels sang and clouds parted. Because it was like, finally! No shame. I can see the woman I am now, in the mirror. I can stare into her face for long stretches, and I can let my eyes climb up and down her own body without looking away. Finally.
(A woman hasn't fully lived until she has danced, completely naked to a seductive song while staring at herself in the mirror, holding her own stare, and allowing her eyes to comb over her body in the same fashion that a lion eyes fresh meat. Yes. I did this. It has changed me for good in an excellent way.)
And then ….
Along comes Beyoncé’s film, Black Is King.
Resonance. I feel the tug on my heart with every song, and with every move Beyoncé and her dancers make. Resonance. I feel goosebumps as I listen to the lyrics of each of the songs performed during Black Is King.
And the artists! Those performers. Oh my god, all those beautiful brown bodies. All of those beautiful Africans and African-Americans. All the gorgeousness and royalness that is blackness and black people.
On our television!
Blackness that isn’t watered down: no white-washing of stories, no diluted entertainment to diversify, no American patriarchy as far as the eyes can see. All the magnificent and numerous black men filling the television screen, in proud and loving clusters. All the dazzling and plentiful black women swinging their hips, in grouped camaraderie.
I saw myself everywhere! I saw shades of my own light brown skin. I saw shades of my mother's dark skin and her own mother’s darker skin. I saw my attitude. I saw my effusive love. I saw my sneer. I saw my brute strength. I saw my come-get-some, swinging hips. I saw my vulnerability. I saw my fear. I saw my rage. I saw my forgiveness. I saw my sexuality. I saw my power. I saw my passions. I saw my nappy hair, my beautiful dreadlocks, and my shaved head. I saw my children’s (girlhood) cornrow hairstyles. I saw my husband’s broad chest and his bearded brown face. I saw blackness in all of its many emotions and physicalities.
Bey’s message was loud and clear: I am a queen, among countless other black queens. My husband is a king, among countless other black kings. This life I am living is my birthright. I am descended from queens and kings. I am not insignificant as I have so often thought; I belong to something bigger in this universe.
This has been my private agony, trying to embrace this truth I’ve known intellectually but struggled to believe in my heart: the fact that I matter. Going from a childhood home that failed to infuse me with a healthy sense of self and any real sense of worth, into a world that has either made me feel invisible or unleashed hatred and violence against other black people like me.
I’ve searched my entire life for a way to sustain the bits of self-esteem and self-worth I managed to scrape up and piece together. Shame and the absence of belonging has repeatedly gotten in my way. No matter what I accomplished—and I’ve accomplished a lot, including raising brilliant, loving children and also, marrying an amazing man whose love is constant and unconditional—I’ve often nursed a private sadness about my occasional feelings of shame and unbelonging. Maybe this will always be with me, this malaise, something to learn to live with in the way one learns to live with grief.
And yet, the choices I’ve been making lately has informed a new way of thinking and living in my demeanor. I’ve become a more splendid self, a black woman of much higher self-regard. Not only do I have my own heart to bow to and appreciate for all this new goodness which I'm reveling in. I also have Beyoncé and her film, Black Is King, to thank for reminding me that blackness is indeed King and each of us wears the crown.
I used to have mixed feelings as I gazed upon the seemingly sexually freer black women in the world around me, staring in some fascination at the way they dressed. I wasn’t sure if spilling cleavage was really necessary. Nor was I sure about spandex clothing that seemed to leave so little to the imagination. I also wasn’t sure about pum-pum shorts or crop tops. But I tried to give an appearance of not judging (I’m not sure how well I actually pulled that off).
After sequestering myself for the past few months, discovering my body in a whole new way, I am seeing things quite differently these days. I realize, it sure as fuck wasn’t a woman’s idea to hide her body in the guise and cloak of modesty (words like modesty, chaste, demure, celibacy and shy, has fingerprints of the word, shame written all over them). But somehow, as women, the tendency to judge each other harshly has become our habit. I realize that within the patriarchy structure we have been pitted against each other. We tend to live in factions according to our “goodness” and “badness.” We also tend to live in factions, grouped off, according to differing cultures and ethnic backgrounds.
We have been divided and conquered, having our separate powers of individuation usurped. Especially women. I’ve been putting this together the longer I have spent time alone, sequestered away from The World.
Now when I see women showing their beautiful selves in whichever way they have chosen to express, I smile and nod. I get it now. Peacocks were never born to shrink and hide their feathers. Well, neither were we.
Black Is King more than affirmed this revelation for me.
Beyoncé, from one queen to another, I bow to you in humble thanks.
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