Toni Morrison | 2015 | Book
how long had childhood trauma hurtled him away from the rip and wave of life? (174)
Unclear if it's also our shared birthday that continues to draw me close to Morrison, but her writing definitively calls me home often.
After months of not picking up a book - largely in reaction to understanding their escapism elements in my youth - I packed my carry on full of literature for my month here in Barbados.
Last night, I picked up God Help the Child.
I'd never heard of it and had an inkling it'd focus on children/their nuances in life .. which transparently, was a divine nod towards my late intentions on giving Baby Ray her space to come out and be loud.
The novel follows Bride and the ways she confronts her past/present/future in the wake of losing Booker - a person she'd finally felt safe with. A deep safety that enabled her to speak on childhood memories she'd never acknowledged.
Her relationship with him, and consequent lack thereof, forced Bride to make sense of herself.
Morisson used this theme of Bride's body regressing to a child - loss of pubic/armpit hair, earlobes with no trace of their piercings, deflated breasts, etc.
All physical qualities that nodded to the emotional/spiritual undoing caused by the loss of relationship with Booker, and the clarity of her own actions.
The final chapter "Sweetness" reminded me deeply of my mom. The insistence that any abuses she inflicted as a mother, was to ensure her child's safety in this harsh world, and one day, when she becomes a mother she will surely understand that.
Sweetness, Bride's mom, further claims that "some of my schooling must have rubbed off. See how she turned out?" (178)
An idea I think of often in reflection of my own life - a gorgeous cultivation I've manifested for myself, a life I hold so precious I haven't spoken to my mother in over a year to safeguard the woman I'm blossoming into. A life built in spite of the harsh childhood I was raised within. However, Peggy can stake a claim on my life - I understand it and would be remiss to disacknowledge the energy she invested as a single parent. I thank you. In the same vein as Sweetness' words, I would not be the woman I am today without you.
They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow - some long ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin. She knew.. how hard loving was, how selfish and how easily sundered. (158)
"But how else can we hold on to a little dignity?" (4)
In relation to light-skin Black people choosing to pass as white.
"Lula Ann needed to learn how to behave, how to keep her head down and not to make trouble." (7)
This was an apt description of how I grew in my childhood home - quieted myself to ensure there'd be no reason to be targeted .. I didn't want to experience what my older brother was, while simultaneously trying to appeal and please him for attention he has forever withheld from me.
Now at 25, it saddens Baby Ray when she realizes what I've made peace with .. that the relationship did strengthen over time, but remains supremely distant.
"I always knew she didn't like touching me. I could tell." (31)
I always knew my mom didn't like me - that she was physically present but her mind was analyzing me ... trying to understand who I am, how I fit into her life .. so different from her first child, her beloved son - In videos my Dad filmed when I was first born, while still in the hospital my mom says "look at her .. she's acting like she knows what's going on.. she's been here before." A beautiful statement that manifested in our dynamic ... I don't remember ever feeling like I needed her - a guide, a mentor, a confidant .. yes, I needed that but in seeing it lacking with her, I went elsewhere. Now older, I can better understand the effect that had on her .. a child that confidently can do without you .. all it leaves is the personal 1:1, but she never liked me .. didn't know me outside of the silence and quieted personality necessary to survive in the white spaces that dominated by childhood. I was 13 when my life grew beyond her boundaries - in transferring schools I was gifted freedom .. new spaces to spread my wings - I never flew home.
"running the devil Mommy knew so well out of my life" (77)
"what where the rules and when did they change?" (79) Forever trying to avoid her mother's punishment"
"Taught me a lesson I should have known all along. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget." (43)
In prepping for my month in Barbados I chose books to push my thinking as I continue this intentional healing journey. Morrison was a natural interest in touring Politics and Prose, but finding God Help the Child was shocking .. I'd never heard of it before.
So much of this year, particularly the last few months, have been focused on giving a lot of focus to Baby Ray and how I can better honor now. It was beautiful to read this. My first book in months, my first in Barbados.
A necessary reminder to give voice to shadows long suppressed - it's the door to a life in the sunlight.
"The gift that neither of us planned: the release of tears unshed for fifteen years. no more bottling up. No more filth. Now I am clean and able." (70)
"I don't think many people appreciate silence or realize that this as close to music as you can get." (69)
I didn't have access to music when I was a child, and so it was in college that I began developing my own music taste. I distinctly remember listening to The Kids Are Alright by Chloe x Halle, and feeling like I discovered something .. a treasure for me. It wasn't music I had heard from other people, rather a sound I stumbled across - a feeling I had when I first listened to Sault, Cleo Sol, Jamila Woods, Amber Mark, Doechii, etc. ... I had found the sounds I loved
In retrospect, I am deeply grateful for my personal journey here. I am so comfortable in silence. I rarely find it uncomfortable, or desire to fill it. Silence as a sister to music ... I'd never thought of it as such
"Or when my uncle started thinking of putting his fingers between my legs again, even before he knew himself what he was planning to do." (139)
I was around 15/16 when I noticed minute changes in my interactions with the older white men I had been raised around. I could feel their eyes. The lingering hands. This energy of curiosity.. desire .. towards a body that had changed in ways I mentally didn't understand until I was in college and embrace until now.
"I guess good isn't good enough for you, so you called Adam back..." (157)
My therapist would often say that when things were going really good in my life, I would reach back into the past and grasp at the familiar pain it'd bring .. the comfortability in that knowing was easier to revert to then standing confidently in the unknown to come in this unfamiliar feeling of peace and happiness.
The grass is greener where you water it. Remain appreciative for good, is great enough.
"But where is the [goals] I used to dream of..? Nowhere. Instead I ... [because it's] Easy. So easy." (160)
Prior to my flight I wrote my intentions for this trip - I will take a deep look at the dreams I've held because no longer do I want to invest more of my energy towards anything else but self.
Words I Loved...
"funny-colored eyes, crow-black with a blue tint, something witchy about them too" (6)
"Her color is a cross she will always carry." (7)
"Bullet taps on the windows followed by crystal lines of water" (9)
"You not the woman. How they rattled me so I agreed with them." (10)
"a promise is a promise, especially if it's to one's self" (12)
"Decagon Women's Correctional Center ... owned by a private company, is worshipped by the locals for the work it provides" (13) Doing a deep dive into the immense profits garnered by enslaving people in these systems, is disgusting.
"Memory is the worst thing about healing" (29)
"a little black girl take down evil whites" (42)
"Long ago, before I met her, she twisted her blond hair into dreadlocks and, pretty as she is, the locks add an allure she wouldn't otherwise have. At least the black guys she dates think so." (45)
"Both confirmed her helplessness in the presence of confounding cruelty"(79)
"It was too hard, too strange for her to understand the kind fo care they offered"(90) When the world you know is seeped in negativity and misunderstanding, what should've been your normal is to confusing to accept and implement.
".. the scary suspicion that she was turning back into a little black girl"(97) As successful, confident Bride retraced the decisions made to get to this space, she's physically/emotionally transported to the child version of self.. Baby Bride who was deeply ridiculed for her blue-Black skin and investing energy into seeking approval from her mother/those around her.
"what she believed was her crazed transformation back into a scared little black girl" (142)
"Booker was the one person she was able to confront - which was the same as confronting herself, standing up for herself. Wasn't she worth something? Anything?" (98)
"He had been shaped by talk in the flesh and text on paper... entertainment mostly free of insight or knowledge ... mesmerizing in pointlessness" (112)
"... could sugar the living and quiet the dead" (116)
"sneer, laugh, dismiss, find fault, demean - a young man's version of critical thinking" (121)
"the political world ... a theater seeking an audience" (122)
"beautiful, easy, had something to do every day and didn't need his presence every minute .. speaking eyes accompanied by the music of her voice" (133)
"the gasps her blackness provoked was invariably followed by the envy her beauty produced" (143)
"[Racism].. Taught of course, by those who need it, but still a choice. Folks who practice it would be nothing without it." (143)
I don't miss you anymore ... rather i miss the emotion that your dying produced a feeling so strong it defined me while it erased you leaving only your absence for me to live in like the silence ... I apologize for enslaving you in order to chain myself to the illusion of control and the cheap seduction of power. (161)
• December 14, 2022 | Barbados •