Toni Morrison | 2012 | Book
The necessity of it all
To return to community for full body healing
The need for the sun to call on gods to solidify your transformation
To bury the child
To admit you're no longer the child, but the adult perpetrator
To look yourself, raw in the mirror
And claim difference
To say -
I know you
I am you
But no longer
This dies here
A life of mourning already submitted
Freedom to move forward
Chapter Nine
Super reminiscent to:
Words I Loved...
"...tried to pull her trembling into my own bones..." (4)
"Well, you know, doctors need to work on the dead poor so they can help the live rich." (12)
"And while sometimes being near her made it hard to breathe, he was not at all sure he could live without her." (21)
"'What you want to be when you grow up?' ... 'A man,' he said and left" (33)
"Ycirdra... Of course, she waited the nine days before naming, lest death notice fresh life and eat it." (40)
"Although only street women, prostitutes, went to hospitals when they got pregnant, at least they had a roof overhead when their baby came." (44)
"...she had no defense. That's the other side, she thought, of having a smart, tough brother close at hand to take care of and protect you- you are slow to develop your own brain muscle." (49)
I never thought about the other side of this coin. Knowing only what it feels to be alone in the lion's den, I didn't think of the weaknesses that could've been produced if one the lions had chosen to protect me. The weaknesses I hold now, would they pale in comparison to those? That's not my story to know.
"She tried; she really tried. But every bit of housework - however minor - was hers... Complaints grew into one-sided arguments, since he wouldn't engage." (78)
"The fog of displeasure surrounding Lily thickened. Her resentment was justified by his clear indifference, along with his combination of need and irresponsibility." (79)
"...the loneliness began to dissolve and in its place a shiver of freedom, of earned solitude, of choosing the wall she wanted to break through, minus the burden of shouldering a tilted man. Unobstructed and undisturbed, she could get serious and develop a plan to match her ambition and succeed." (80)
"Who could mistake a sign that clear?" (81)
"...mindless work in the fields you didn't own, couldn't own and wouldn't own if you had any other choice." (84)
"Now she had to be content with the company of the person she prized most of all - herself" (92)
"I think he felt tempted and that is what he had to kill" (96)
"And time for old men to gather outside a storefront and do nothing but watch their dreams go by..." (106)
"Forget it, brother. Stay in the light." (107)
"Take me to the water. Take me to the water. Take me to the water. To be baptized." (117)
"No stem, no hands - the way time functioned in Lotus, pure and subject to anybody's interpretation" (120)
"they took responsibility for their lives and for whatever, whoever else needed them." (123)
"Sleep was not for dreaming; it was for gathering strength for the coming day" (123)
"sun-smacked" (124)
"Look to yourself. You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. Seed your own land. You young and a woman and there's serious limiataion in both, but you a person too. Don't let X or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are. That's slavery. Someweher inside you is that free person I'm talking about. Locate her and let her do some good in the world." (126)
"she had agreed with the label and believed herself worthless" (129)
"Sun-smacked or not, she wanted to be the one who rescued her own self.
Did she have a mind or not?
If she did not respect herself, why should anybody else?" (129)
"...house surrounded by those women with seen-it-all eyes" (128)
"somebody somewhere should have said those words and meat them" (129)
"Why not? I can be miserable if I want to. You don't need to try and make it go away. It shouldn't go away. It's just as sad as it ought to be and I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts." (131)
"She could know the truth, accept it and keep on quilting" (132)
"How could I let her live after she took me down to a place I didn't know was in me?" (134)
"That's a devil's decision-making. Any way you decide is a sure trip to hell" (139)
"As annoyed as she was now at her relapse into doing what others wanted, she nevertheless cooperated" (142)
"Cee.. forcing herself not to look away, not to be the terrified child who could not bear to look directly at the slaughter that went on in the world, however ungodly" (143)
• 14 January 2023 | Barbados •