Monday, June 2, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman: A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my compute...
Black Magic Woman
A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my computer listening, taking myself back to my childhood, I recalled how I loved that song. Loved that song because I believed that he was singing, "black, magic woman." When I listened carefully to the words, I felt stirring inside myself a truth, a truth because I heard it sung, called out, pleaded on the radio. It was the promise, the proof that there was such a thing as a "BLACK, MAGIC WOMAN" and that maybe, as I suspected, I might be magic too.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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