Was I too much for the brother?

By Wanda Sabir

Hey baby! I heard a voice call. It couldn’t be me he was addressing. I’d given the man no indication that I was even remotely interested in something like a “hey baby,” tweet, "Tweedlee Dee.”  I’d gotten a reading from a healer at Great Zimbabwe years ago. The elder told me that my fate did not include a man, man as in life partner. I asked her twice if she was sure and she told me yes. She also told me that I was a healer and that I had within my possession the medicine I needed to heal my community. She said that where my folks landed in the Disapora, we have what we need to heal ourselves and our community. That we did not have to consult with healers who did not have our experiences.

I could heal a people, but not a broken heart? I decided to put off hanging a shingle since everyone knows how “love potion” flies off botanica shelves. Me, a sista from New Orleans who couldn’t stir up a man. Don’t call us, we’ll call you, the Yellow Pages sang as they skipped my doorbell.

So here comes the brother. I tell him the prophecy and he tells me the elder was wrong. I am like, okay, how do you know? What are you basing your assumptions on? He still has not answered. But I was feeling self-made legacies—I am what I think, not what the woman in the Africa says, no matter how sweet the bitter fruit. He didn’t bite and so far I was immune to his poison or so I thought.

I think he just saw this prime rib lying around and decided to pick it up and break off a bone. He’s still picking his teeth and me, well I am on the spit circling round.

A bit dizzy, I decided this past week to untie myself. I think I pretended that the fire was warm when in fact it was kind of hot. The brother kept on basting me. I kept asking when would he be back to see about me. There was no plan and he never got back to me, so I eased on down from the cross and grabbed what I could and jetted before he returned with a plate and utensils. I am still hiding out nursing my wounds.

Cosmic Revelations

Okay, so I knew better but the bed was cold; Covid-19 had me in intentional isolation, so I started accepting his calls and then he got a car.

First the flowers and then the cards—undated. He’d show up and sleep in his car. The first time this happened, I didn’t understand how he could sleep in a car when he had a bed. The next time he slept at a friend’s . . . more recently he laid low as bullets flew by the apartment building. How quickly it can all be over, he told me later. I was on the phone when he was paralyzed by silence.  A Black cat always got his tongue. Maybe it’s on lay-a-way. Maybe he’s lying in wait—for what I don’t know.

Okay: ME.

No clarifying missives posted here. I used to check my mail daily just in case.  I am just tired—there is no dirt left to fill the hole in my life. I just sit here and wait, wait to grow myself up and out. I know I am capable—I just forgot myself for a minute.

“Don’t touch that phone.”

I sit up and smile. I am still here. I am still here.

Spontaneity has its place

Wow, this fine Black man wanted me? Hum. Maybe I might take a chance. What could go wrong? We are both mature and honest or so I thought as I stumbled into 2021.

I don’t know why I carried him across the threshold. Don’t the guys usually carry the bride? I almost dropped him many times. He’d sit in my kitchen and watch me work. Sometimes I’d watch him eat lamb or chicken. Once I got naked and he fell asleep. Yep, I felt embarrassed and stopped asking. He promised me all kinds of things, you know like guys do—but then don’t deliver. I kept listening for the doorbell to ring or the mail slot to open.

De Nada—nothing. Sex hurts yet I make all the accommodations. He forgets I am there. I don’t know why I bother. Is he worth the pain?

No. I tell myself. If I say it enough, perhaps I will believe it. Damn the program kicks in quickly when the trigger goes off.
 
Now it is January 2022 and I have quit him, yes, once again. I have to sit on my hands, tape my fingers so I won’t call him. I ignore the email.

I resist the pull. You can do it Wanda, I cheer myself on.

Yesterday (Jan.22/2022), there was an electricity outage. All the power was off until almost 12 noon. It is time for a reset. I had to change all my clocks – check all my settings just in case the outage made reset inaccurate. The most important item I needed to reset was my heart. My air filter was blinking red too.

Remember to breathe. I say aloud.  Breath as in expansion. . . is also important.

The heart is pumping well, a bit saddened over the loss, but trusting in the Lord and Oṣun and letting desire and confusion and loss go. Like the clouds—this feeling will pass. The sky will clear and the weather will smile again.

She is practicing a selfie.

Crimson Moon

Today I visited two friends for a Covid-19 safe barbecue. Karla roasted butternut squash and organic free range chicken wings. I think I saw them flying by last night at the Port of Oakland in Alameda. It was evening and the Bay Bridge was twinkling in the starlight—Orion, the Hunter, was flashing his belt as wine poured on his head from the dripping gourd.

I guess it was a case of too many escapees in one night. Anyway, since I knew the bird in passing, I passed on the wings—bless them, but loved the squash with Turmeric and Mellow-sweet and Ginger tea.

Gather-round girls, I said when I walked onto the patio. Sunshine bright and beautiful and welcoming. I felt washed in light as I gave the quick and dirty version of the break up story. Shock broke the cement into pieces between us—I stayed on my side. I was not going to fall, not again into the chamber pot.

Karla assured me that 2021 was not wasted, even after she learned that the brother and I had copy written the “break-up game.” This was the fifth or sixth edition. I forget. I am always the one who calls it off and then calls it back on—this time I am not moving. My lips are sealed.

He doesn’t take me seriously—he just bids his time, doesn’t lift a finger or should I say a book or annotated reference material. He just waits and soon I pick up the phone and solve all our problems which he doesn’t see as problems until the next time.

Being invisible only works a short while. I think about the prediction and retract my decision. It is not a prediction; it is a reality. This is all in the past though. I am eating currants and dried apples with ginger, playing Tammie Lee Weber Step 2000 tapes and dreaming forward to tomorrow when I will start my Mindful Compassion course—if ever the timing were perfect, this is it.

Last week it was Cassandra Wilson— Solomon’s Song

I plan to do my 2019 taxes. Go to the Mystery Book club at the Alameda Free Library Monday evening.  Stay busy, busy, busy.

Makeda said that for the first 3-6 months, AA members are encouraged to not date. However, the brother and I weren’t dating. I thought we were a couple. Yes, I think too much. We both live in the space above our necks.

I get confused and pretend he’s real when it’s “just my imagination, running away with me” (really).  I tie it (my imagination) up at night and then get up for water and trip on the train of thoughts . . . tracks and box cars.

Perhaps he was never committed which is why it so easy for him to drop me and then retrieve me like a lost combination. Wire cutters are easier on deadbolts, except the lock no longer works—wide open, anyone can enter the premises when the door swings wide open.

Is this why nothing is sacred? I find my blood on public walls – spilled in public squares. Splattered on seat cushions, bed spreads.

Oh boy, I am really writing a lot. I am not calling him. NOPE.
I am not calling him.
I am not calling him.
I am not calling him.

Damn, this is harder than I thought, but I will get through this. Yes, let me go talk to my God and my Daddy. I am right. Right? Yes, you found support for your decision in your book and you have been here before. He just doesn’t beat you or call you names. He calls you nothing. He doesn’t know your name.

Which is worse? He knows you well enough to mess with you. Right? Yes. He does. He has you just where he wants you, dependent, needy, stuck.   

Damn! I need to get on the other side of this wall. The one erected months ago which he took a brick out and called it truth or was it truce? He said he didn’t like living with my script and he was coming clean. Was I supposed to cheer, “hooray!”?

What do I do with the revelation?

There were no answers in the narrative, just affirmations of his worthiness. Did I say he was unworthy or did he? I wondered who he was speaking to. I don’t have an answer. Mail arrives without stamps, addressee unknown. I put a slash across the envelop when my name would appear when light hit it. Lemon juice parlor tricks. . . .

I wander
Are we a joke?
Am I asleep?
Is my head where my feet used to be?
When will I feel like myself again?
How do I keep this from happening again?