Alas, a Blog

Today is Father’s Day.  So I called my mother.

My mother mostly raised me and my two younger sisters by herself.  Dad divorced us when I was eight years old.  He moved to a town half an hour away, and I rarely saw him, despite promised weekend visits.  The Friend of the Court assessed him $35 a week child support.  He didn’t pay it.

My mother had a few boyfriends, but up till I went to high school at the age of 15, none of them seemed interested in marrying her and instantly acquiring three daughters.  So she supported us on her own.  At one point she held two jobs and went to school.  I don’t know how.

My mother had risen through the ranks of the Michigan Employment Security Commission, from part-time switchboard operator to Executive Vice President, before she married my stepfather.  He wasn’t worthy of her, and he knew it, and he beat her.

But that’s another story, and besides, he’s dead.  Long ago.

We’re talking about today.  Father’s Day.  I called my mom.

My dad answered her phone.

My dad was visiting my mom.  Dad’s on his fourth wife now, a school teacher exactly my age who was out of the state today, taking care of a crisis in her family, so Dad was visiting his.  My mom saw my number on her cell and handed him the phone.  She has always done her best to facilitate relations between Dad and us girls.  Probably why she never sued him for child support.

“Hi, Dad,” I said.  “Hope you’re having a good day.  I love you.”  (Translation: “If you like.  I’ve been cornholed.” Yes, years have passed since Dad fell off the worthy-of-my-anger list.  Smile and nod, smile and nod.  Less effort that way.)

I’ve seen pictures of my dad as a teenager that I thought were of me.  I go by “Nisi,” but the name I was born with was “Denise.”  My dad’s name is Dennis.  My name was his, feminized, and before the divorce I was Daddy’s girl.  Afterwards, well….

I did write him a poem.  Like to hear it?  Here it go:

Dear Father

I’m supposed to hold a job?
 I’m supposed to tie my body
 to your iron clock,
dragged round by the axe-hands,
 cutting me off in pieces,
minute by minute?

 I’m supposed to report and record my impulsions
for your
 leisured appraisal?
I write one word a day.
Guns.  Color.  Voodoo.
 Yippee-yi-yo-ti-yay!

Wrote that back in 1977. 

Thing is, I know I’m not the only woman in the world with an absent father.  My housemate, for one.  Holla if you another.

My father’s father left him when he was quite young, see.  I figure that’s part of how he became as hopeless at loving me as he is.  My father’s father, Vandeleur, moved to Ohio from Michigan and passed as white.  Broken, broken, our lineage is a broken thing, like a thin and brittle stick.

Can anger be sad?  Can anger be dry?  Can anger be charcoal?  Can it burn twice?

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I practice a West African religious tradition known as Ifa or Orisha.  It’s very closely related to Vodun, Santeria, Lucumi, and similar traditions in the Western Hemisphere.

Among the Ifa pantheon are many goddesses.  One could say they are black, as they originate in black Africa.  And at times one could say that they are angry.

Oya is the owner of the whirlwind.  A rushing river.  A copper current.  She is electricity in the air, the crackle of tension as it builds, the sizzle as it releases.  Her name means ”she tore.”  Oya cleans away dirt and decay with her powerful broom.  To quote my godmother, Luisah Teish, she is “a warrior against stagnation.”

Yemaya is the mother of fishes.  She dances on the surface of the ocean, silver and blue and pearly white in the sun and moon.  But in a storm–watch out! And like any mother she is ready to defend her children to the death, stashing a kitchen knife in the pocket of that June Cleaver (!) apron.  Don’t make her pull it out.

Oshun is sweetness personified.  She owns erotic love, money, culture, and the finer things in life.  Oshun is honey and oranges, cool spring water and trilling birdsong.  She is also the vulture soaring high, casting her shadow over what is spoiled and needs work, over all that must be changed.  From her I learned that engaging others with my anger is a blessing, a precious gift I give them.

Some divinities in the Ifa pantheon are asexual, and appear not to have sexual characteristics.  Others seem to embody both sexes, either simultaneously or via different “faces” or “roads.”  I’ve written here about three of the Orisha who are primarily seen as female, but there are others.

Even the briefest discussion of Angry Black Goddesses would be incomplete without mention of the Iyami.  This is a word in the West African Yoruba language meaning “our mothers.”  The Iyami of any community are that community’s witches.  They act in secret to further women’s interests.  They are able to disguise themselves as birds when going about their business.  They are very dangerous to oppose.

Those who follow my tradition believe that each of us is closest to one Orisha in particular, and that Orisha is said to rule one’s head.  Men may be ruled by female Orisha, and women by male Orisha.  In fact, each of us has a father and a mother; the Orisha who rules our head and another of the complementary gender.

This is true of all people, no matter one’s race, origin, or religion.

Do you know who your Angry Black Goddess is?  If you want to find out, you can ask a diviner.

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