Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be Read online

  He didn’t offer me anything, and my life didn’t become immediately better after all of this. I didn’t start proselytizing. I still hated the social obligation of church, and I couldn’t wait to get away from home for college so I could avoid it without anyone making me feel bad. (I ended up at a school that made us attend chapel every Tuesday during our freshman year.) College magnified the hypocrisy of Christianity. I learned about the pagan rituals folded into the religion to make it more palatable as people were forced to convert, like the meanings behind Easter eggs and Christmas trees. I’m not going to get all sophomore year here, but I was the college-educated cliché, rejecting the structure of religion, even as I knew I still believed in a higher power. I mean, I honestly don’t understand why God and evolution can’t exist at the same time.

  Years later, when I lived in Los Angeles, I felt very lost and wanted…something. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I joined an AME church with great historical significance to Black LA. Going to church again gave me something to look forward to. The sermons finally made sense to me. I even attended Bible study and bought CDs of church services that really spoke to me. Barack Obama made the church one of his campaign stops during his first run for president of the United States and brought Stevie Wonder with him. And I was there! I was able to witness a part of history in a loving community attached to a Black legacy I felt so proud of.

  I even got baptized! Mama went against tradition and did not have us children baptized as babies. She said she wanted us to make our own decisions about our commitments to God. I’ve always appreciated that, because I would’ve felt even more conflicted about my complicated relationship with God if I’d been forced into a promise I didn’t understand the weight of.

  When I worked at a nonprofit job, one of my supervisors, Maria, was a woman who kind of adopted me as a sister-friend and helped me find an affordable apartment. She was pretty devout and often asked me to attend church with her. I was a little hesitant, but she assured me it would be the thing I needed. The church was deep in South Central LA, and it felt like a revival inside an old storefront. There were no pews. Everyone sat on a folding chair or stood, because it was so crowded. The pastor and his congregants spoke in tongues when the Spirit moved them, and one time the pastor prophesied over me, meaning that I stood before him, he placed a hand on my shoulder, and he predicted my future in front of the whole congregation. This was not the structured AME church I was used to, at all, and I wasn’t fully into it, to be honest. The revival feel made me think of a cult, but I guess any religion is a cult, so perhaps I shouldn’t stick my nose in the air.

  I didn’t attend this church often with Maria, but one day, she told me the pastor was going to be baptizing people at Dockweiler Beach (the beach where all the Black people went) and she asked if I wanted to get baptized. I’m not sure she expected me to say yes, since I’d been dodging other services, but I surprised myself. It felt like it was time. I could’ve elected to get baptized at the AME church I was attending, but there was an entire production behind it, and I didn’t want to do it in front of everyone there. Plus getting baptized in the ocean sounded cooler—somehow more significant.

  On the way to the beach, I started feeling a little panicky. I can’t swim well. These people, the church members who’d be holding me, were strangers. What if this really was a cult? I wore a plain one-piece swimsuit under my clothes but had an extra outfit in my bag. When we got to the beach, I thought about walking away and getting lost in the crowd. I’m not really sure why in this fantasy I would have had to become a fugitive if I didn’t get baptized, but that’s how my anxiety was manifesting.

  The beach was pretty crowded, bringing on the added stress of so many people watching me during a somewhat intimate moment, but I convinced myself that maybe none of the people in the crowd would be paying any attention to us. And that’s exactly what happened. We church folks left our bags on the beach and walked into the ocean. We didn’t go very far. Sand was always under my feet, until the moment the pastor coaxed me into bending backward, the sounds of his prayers muffled against my heart’s thrashing and the water’s lapping against me. I don’t remember what he said over me, but I remember rising from the water, eyes closed tightly so I wouldn’t lose my contacts, and feeling…no different. I’d wanted a big spiritual sign, like I’d look up into the sky and God would give me a thumbs-up and then I’d start to levitate, but no. I seemed to be the same.

  What I remember most clearly is standing under the shower next to the restrooms and a woman from the church, who was there as witness, walked up to me and said, “You have such a glow about you. You have been anointed, do you know that? God pays special attention to you.” I didn’t know what to say to that, especially since she was not the first person, at this church or in my life overall, to have told me something along those lines. It didn’t really feel like I was special to God, considering how much I disliked church and how angry I was at Him for causing so much pain in my family’s life. I smiled at her and told her thank you, but I didn’t go back to that church again.

  And then something happened that left me fully disillusioned with churches and relying on men to interpret the word of God. The pastor of my AME church was accused of embezzling money, even transferring ownership of the low-income housing and other nonprofit entities from the church to his wife, and having an affair with another pastor. It was the height of the 2007–08 recession, and I was working various educational nonprofit jobs, which meant I was making dust as a salary. I would tithe and sometimes give the last of my money, literally nickels and pennies, to the church. Things were so tight for me financially that I actually went to one of the church’s food drives in order to get groceries, but I felt so ashamed at being a single, child-free woman in need of help when the line was full of families and the elderly that I left without food. All the while, the pastor was (allegedly) spending church funds on jewelry, excessive trips, clothes, and more.

  I stopped going to the church after the accusations came out. More than betrayed, I felt ashamed. Megachurches have a reputation of being ATMs for greedy pastors, and I had been naïve to think this one was different. The situation made me doubt God again. Why did He allow so many charlatans to benefit from His Word? How could I learn if all the teachers were corrupt? I had fallen for one of the oldest grifts known. I’d thought I was smarter than that.

  When the pastor’s alleged misdeeds came to light, no one in the congregation seemed to talk about it. Everyone was in a state of shock. In the last Bible study session I attended, I asked, “How could he do that?” One of the elders shook his head, his eyes on the table, and said, “The Lord will deal with him.” The answer didn’t satisfy me. I didn’t want revenge, but I knew the church would no longer be a place of community and strength for me. My shame and betrayal had turned to anger. I couldn’t figure out what lesson I was supposed to have learned. It seemed like yet another example of Trust No Man.

  * * *

  I pray in bed now—in the morning when I open my eyes, and at night when I close them for the day. I pray when I see 11:11 come up on clocks because maybe an angel is keeping watch. When my rent check clears, and I log out of my banking app, I whisper, “Thank You, Jesus.” I don’t go to church at all anymore. God knows how to find me.

  Kermit the Frog

  When I was a little girl, I had a lot of Miss Piggy stuff. I remember most vividly a white sweater with her in a hot-air balloon shaped like a heart. I used to walk around the house, doing little karate chops, backhanding imaginary people, and yelling out “hiiiYAAAH!”—like Miss Piggy whenever she saved the day or needed to get rid of someone who was working her nerves. After I graduated from college, I took a karate class for the summer and my mother remarked, “Well, you finally get to be Miss Piggy, don’t you?”

  I connected with that felt porcine femme. She was stubborn, bossy, and passionate. She loved Kermit, and Kermit loved her back. His frowns and exasperated sighs went along with
all the other images of put-upon men in relationships, like Mr. Furley from Three’s Company or Archie Bunker on All in the Family. The world kept telling me that men, even as frogs, hated relationships, especially with women, and they tolerated both because they had no choice. The way to a man’s heart was to wear it down.

  Kermit didn’t even have anyone else he was interested in. He had too much on his plate as the logical Muppet, the leader, the one who tried to keep all the other creatures from getting into shenanigans. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter why he didn’t want to be with Miss Piggy. She refused to take no for an answer, vacillating between high-pitched baby talk and snuggles to woo him and backhanding him through walls when he refused her. As a child, I laughed along. Miss Piggy’s mood swings and violence were supposed to be funny. If nothing else, they were familiar.

  * * *

  My father drank and did drugs. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) hold a job, resentful that someone as intelligent as he, even without a college degree, would have to do manual labor to make a living. My mother was the breadwinner. After my mom had my brother, J, the last of her three children, she tried to be a stay-at-home mother, hoping that would force my father to get a job and provide for the family. It didn’t work. We remained in the projects, living on government assistance, until my mother went back to her old job as a dialysis nurse. Around the time my brother turned two, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Mama knew she needed help to make sure my brother had the resources he would need; meanwhile, my father blamed her for making his son “retarded,” for ruining the legacy of his name.

  My father would beat my mother. I don’t know when he started. It was long before my brother and I came along. My sister, Izzie, has a different father, and mine, in his drunken rages, would express all manner of jealousies about Mama’s previous relationships. If my sister tried to stop him, he’d sneer, “What’re you gonna do? You gonna call H? You think he can save you?” He never beat me or my sister, but he would be so mean with the belt to my brother when he misbehaved. I don’t know if he thought whooping J would make him “normal,” but it was terrible to see.

  My mother’s hard work plus the help of a relative on my father’s side pulled us out of the projects and into a three-bedroom house in North Nashville, a working-class neighborhood. My father’s violence and addiction came along. One night, I watched him punch my mother so hard she flew backward across the room. Her fall broke the coffee table. I’d stubbed my pinky toe on that table once, leaping from chair to couch, and my toenail had fallen off. I hated that table, mad that it had ruined my flight. I used to wish I were magic so I could make it disappear. Watching my mother land on top of it, seeing it break beneath her weight, my father hovering over her, his face red and sweating, I was mad all over again. Why couldn’t I have made it disappear or even better, made a portal appear, a gateway to safety for all of us?

  My father went to jail that night. When he got out and came back home, he pulled me into his lap and explained how much he loved my mother, even though sometimes she made him angry. So you see, I was used to seeing someone use love to send the object of their affection through walls.

  * * *

  I would eventually realize how abusive the relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy was. In 2011, I went to see Jason Segel’s revival movie The Muppets and almost cried at how peaceful it felt seeing the pair appear on-screen. The Muppet characters made me remember what it was like when all I had to worry about was how many bowls of Toasted Oats (the Kroger store brand of Cheerios) I could eat. Then Miss Piggy began exhibiting her jealousies. As an adult woman, I saw her issues magnified. She craves attention and flirts wildly, but if Kermit even talks to a female Muppet, Miss Piggy flies off the handle. Kermit is sensitive and thoughtful but walks on eggshells. He is afraid of her. He gives in to her demands to avoid her anger and violence.

  I think of Kermit when I find myself spiraling, wondering why an ex refuses to love me the way I love him. When I find myself thinking, I can make him love me, I see Kermit’s lips folded in frustration, his cute little Muppet face shaking as he tries to keep Miss Piggy’s anger from rising. It may be a little silly to think of a child’s puppet in the middle of a lovelorn breakdown, but it’s my way of remembering that forcing myself on someone is violence in and of itself. I’ve had enough of that.

  * * *

  I haven’t always calmed myself down. I’ve been stupid and petty, leaving high-pitched voicemails, hoping to coerce a response. No felt or cotton here, but I’ve offered the softness of my body to avoid rejection. I have relished the glint of fear in an ex’s eyes as he glances around, wondering if I will cause a scene if he doesn’t come home with me. I am not perfect. Unlearning this kind of manipulation is a process, but thank God for the magic of maturity and self-awareness, portals of safekeeping that finally did appear.

  Miss Piggy still speaks to me—a passionate woman who knows her talents should be recognized—but Kermit is the totem I use when a broken heart tries to tell me I am my father’s child.

  The Women

  Muh’Deah with Her Hair Down

  Muh’Deah, my great-grandmother, ate onions and tomatoes like apples. She pressed money, wrapped in aluminum foil or Kleenex, into your hand as you were leaving her home. She kept candy in the trunk of her car, and if you were good in church, she’d walk you to that treasure chest and let you pick a few pieces. Muh’Deah would comb my hair, using a pink Goody brush with white bristles. She had old people’s strength, the kind that came from years of raising seven children plus doing farmwork, then domestic work. She’d pull my hair into a ponytail so tight I’d have a look of constant surprise for at least a day.

  Muh’Deah’s favorite color was red, and it became mine, too. We’d sit in front of her large floor-model TV—the kind with the knobs that thunk-thunked when you turned them—and she’d brush my hair into that death-mask ponytail while reruns of Gunsmoke or Bonanza, The Big Valley or The Rifleman ran in the background. I had a book of fill-it-in word puzzles. She’d give me a red-ink pen, slim and striped like a piece of peppermint candy, and keep half an eye on me as I connected words together. I’d show her my completed puzzles, and she’d say, “That’s good, baby,” before she touched my shoulder to signify she was done with my hair. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned Muh’Deah couldn’t read. I like to imagine that seeing me work those puzzles made her proud.

  My memories of what Muh’Deah looked like are cloudy. My mother says that by the time I was born, Muh’Deah wore her hair short, just under her ears, but I remember something different. Once, I saw Muh’Deah with long hair—a braid that rested curled on her chest.

  Muh’Deah lived in one of those senior citizen complexes that looked like a tropical vacation resort. It was late evening, and I was in the living room, fresh from a bath, smelling like Camay soap. I smelled good and had a belly full of biscuit and jelly. I was waiting on Muh’Deah to finish getting ready so I could use the mini steps that led to her four-poster bed, so thick and fluffy. Even though Muh’Deah would warm the bed with her onion-and-tomato-fueled gas, floating on the cloudlike mattress made it worth it. So there I was, fidgeting, trying not to ask if she was ready yet when someone knocked on the door. I froze in place. I knew I couldn’t answer it. It was nighttime and no one visited Muh’Deah except family.

  She came from the back of her apartment, wearing a long white cotton gown. She didn’t have her glasses on. And her hair…An unfinished braid lay against her right shoulder. If my eyes hadn’t fallen out of my sockets from all those too-tight ponytails, surely they would fall out now. I think I even stopped fidgeting, and I know I stared in that openmouthed, uncaring child’s way.

  Muh’Deah answered the door, and it was one of her neighbors. A man. His glasses were so thick I couldn’t really see his eyes clearly, but they were watery and shiny. He smelled like mouthwash but…more. Muh’Deah’s mouth pulled into a tight line, which I would see on my own mother in later years. She invite
d the man in and let him sit on the couch, closest to the lamp with the bright, bright bulb. She sat in a chair and would occasionally give me The Look that meant I better behave, but she didn’t send me to her room, out of the way, which is what usually happened when grown folks visited.

  I have no sense for how long they talked. Muh’Deah touched her braid and finished it. I watched, fascinated. Then I noticed that Mr. Neighbor Man was also staring. Muh’Deah’s fingers, taut with age and strength, moved quickly, working her hair into a simple plait, while she tried to remain polite. Suddenly, she dropped the completed work and made moves to stand. Mr. Neighbor Man struggled to be gentlemanly, despite his arrival without notice, despite his more-than-mouthwash smell, and helped her. Again, I can’t remember what Muh’Deah said, but she ushered him out and made sure to set the locks on the door.

  After wiping my face free of any more biscuit-and-jelly crumbs, Muh’Deah pushed me down the hallway to her bedroom, hand on my shoulder. She made me say my prayers, then held on to my arm as I climbed into her bed. It was a child’s heaven—all white sheets, a thick cushy mattress, with equally fluffy pillows and comforter. And full of love. The kind of love that leaves you with your eyes wide, that shares colors with you, that encourages you to be more than she could, and the kind of love that lets you protect her as she protects you.