My mother is always teaching me things she’s never taught me. A few months back she came to my apartment and said:
“If you straighten out your shower curtain after you wash, it’ll dry and won’t collect so much dirt.”
So brilliant! I had no idea. Who could teach me something so simple and smart other than my mom?
Last week, I spent the whole week with my mom. She taught me so many things I never knew.
“When you wash your coat, don’t put it in the dryer. Just hang it to dry. And then, spray this stuff on it, it’ll be easier for the dirt to come off when you wash it next.”
“We have to color the plastic on the rough side so when we put it in the oven the shrinky paper will take the color better. Watch the shrinky curl and shrink. You’ll know it’s done when it’s flat.”
“Your great great grandmother was a white woman. And my grandma was considered a mulatto.”
“Before I had my kids, I was agnostic. I didn’t like all the hootin’ and hollerin’ at my aunt’s church. Or how poor people would get poorer giving their money away to tithing. But then I found The Church. And I liked how much structure it provided. So I stayed to raise my kids in the same environment. Because there was no structure where I grew up. But after all this time, I think I’m agnostic again.”
The only holidays my mom believes in are birthdays. Because of this we never did Christmas. I did not grow up amassing every far fetched and fleeting thing I wished onto a piece of paper. We still joke that my mom is the Grinch. (Which is actually very ironic because she happens to be the most generous person I’ve ever met.)
I know you must be dying to know, were we Jehovah’s Witnesses? That’s about the second question I’d get returning to school after winter break.
“Hey, so what did you get?”
“Nothing. My family doesn’t do Christmas”
“Nothing? Wait. Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?”
No, we weren’t Witnesses. We were Church of Christ-ers. I could argue that an off-brand conservative church feels a bit worse ‘cause how do I explain how strange it is? Here’s a short list:
- Women aren’t allowed to serve, preach, be deacons or elders.
- In order to be saved, you must be totally immersed in water. Even an inch out of the water disqualifies you from the kingdom of god. And. Never. Mention. Sprinkling. You might as well just go straight to hell.
- Of course, no premarital coitus.
- Anyone of the LGBTQIA alphabet community is safer on a Sesame Street episode than inside of a COC building.
- Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose after three days of being stone cold dead to then die again and come back on a nondescript day in the ever-nearing ever-not-now future and…
Think similar to the Duggars. Think Harry Potter is the devil. Think child marriages. Think pedos. Think. Scoff. Gasp. Furrow.
To her credit, my mom is one of the most progressive Boomers I know. When I came out to her, she took a college class on gender and sex and then joined the DEI committee at her job. She uses all my friends’ pronouns correctly. And she’s not just a Boomer who tries to “stay woke” for the sake of not being canceled. She’s a huge nerd and reader who has always been very anti-establishment. That’s why she homeschooled us for so many years. (And it’s also why she stopped cooking soon after getting married (which reminds me of this poem I love by Brazilian poet Cristiane Sobral)).
But this church she found in the late 80s was odd. She was baptized into a Black congregation, but soon after I was born, we moved. And we started going to a church with kids from our homeschool group. The congregation out in Laurel, Maryland, was icicle white. Whiteboard white. White as the inside of an Oreo. In those early days, there were only about three other Black families.
All of my early concessions of what a home is, how it should be, who should be in it, how it should be kept, who should keep it, and how it comes into being are rooted in this Biblical soil.
Every summer I’d go to COC Christian camp. (One summer my friend and I were kicked off the talent night stage for singing Christian songs in the persona of British Christian rock stars we aptly named The Little Skittles. Apparently, we were “teasing god.” But why would we write original holier than thou lyrics? Design our own costumes? Rehearse for hours if we weren’t as serious as the afterlife?) And I loved it. The mountain air. The endless hikes. The snakes and beehopper mosquitos. The sportsball competitions. Memorizing entire books of the Bible for “perks”– extra concessions, blue ribbons, certificates in cursive. I loved it. Except when they started talking about boys. A healthy snuff of stuff we learned during devo was all about how to grow up, get married, and make a home and a man happy. Yawn.
Last week, my mom and I went to Crystal Bridges, a museum in Northwest Arkansas, about 9 miles from where she lives now.
The museum sits over a lake and folds out like an accordion. The sun was up. People were out. The museum was free. I ran into a cat on the walk to the building. All the signs were glowing green GO.
Then, out of the rear of an opaque red glass sculpture, I saw her. A girl I’d known since I was 5. Who I hadn’t seen since 18. It all came flooding back. She was with her husband and his parents. She was glowing and very pregnant. I stared for too long, thought to ignore her, then my mom blew up my spot.
“Is that a [Duggars-adjacent] kid?!”
Museum Girl turned around. Then, got so red she looked like an apple.
I played it cool. Having perfected the “I’m totally okay even though I’m totally uncomfortable but I gotta seem normal so these whites don’t read any aggressive or dismissive” vibe.
“Happy belated birthday. I was just thinking on the 28th that it was your birthday (and how much fun it was going to Build-a-Bear every year). How’s your family? Where do you live now? How long are you in town? When are you due? Enjoy your time here!”
But internally, I was spiraling. Like one of those noodles from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. All those steamy cabin nights drenched in pitch black (who needs electricity?) dreaming of husband and home, suddenly returning. My Little Self scoffing; hot with shame. How come you aren’t married, Jay? Where are your kids? Where is your house? Where is your man? You’ve failed. We were supposed to be normal so we could have it all.
But is that having it all? At the age of 20, I stopped going to church. I started thinking for myself.
Because I wanted to wear shorts above my knees! To kiss girls like Katy Perry! To have my womb to myself! To drink real wine and not just concord communion juice! To have premarital sex!
What those girls had stashed into their marriage chests, I’d thrown out with the baby and the bath water.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still want some of those things. Or really, just what those things symbolize: structure. Stability.
All the girls I was close to growing up are married with 1-4 children or expecting. I was a bridesmaid the summer before college. I watched a truly hideous 29 year-old man court my 17 year-old friend. I survived. None of the pedos got to me. Nor their sons. The worst thing that ever happened to me at COC was begging my friend to tell her mom that her older brother was molesting her and her sisters. The worst thing that ever happened to me was the preacher saying my hair looked like brillo pads. The worst thing that ever happened to me at church was believing.
And then there was the time me and Museum Girl were playing on a public playground in Howard County when we were like 8 or 10. We’d gone on a long walk from her house. It felt like 5 miles, but probably was only 3. We’d packed water and snacks into these really raggedy drawstring bags big corps like to give away to tweens. We walked and walked until we discovered this playground. Nothing fancy. Just a mesh of metal monkey bars and plastic yellow slides. We sat on the top platform and ate crackers when all of sudden, a cop showed up. I hadn’t seen him coming, but he walked towards us with purpose. I froze.
When he got close enough, he looked at me and said, “do you have something in your bag?”
I was confused. Anything in my bag? Duh, why would I carry an empty bag?
“Something in my bag? Um yeah, my cellphone and some water and snacks.”
Museum Girl said nothing.
“Don’t play with me. Do you have something in your bag?”
He was becoming more and more upset. I didn’t get it. I’d answered the question. I had something in my bag. Water and snacks and my phone. What did he want?
I repeated myself and said, “Do you have something specific in mind? You can look if you want.” He grabbed my bag and looked through it. Disappointed he said something to the effect of, “Someone reported teenagers around here with drugs. You should go home.” We went home. I felt so bad the entire walk back. He thought I had drugs on me? Museum Girl kept insisting that he was just doing his job; trying to keep us safe. But I didn’t feel safe. I felt violated. Targeted. Interrogated.
When I was in college, 12 year-old Tamir Rice was murdered by a cop on a playground. I thought about that day. How scared I was. How it didn’t make sense. How insistent the cop was that I was dangerous. And how disappointed he was when he discovered that I wasn’t.
My life is so different now. I don’t go to church. I make a point to not be the only Black person in a room (and if I’m going to be, I probably won’t go). I don’t even carry ugly drawstring bags anymore.
But one thing hasn’t changed: my mom is still my home. Unlike the church, she loves me without condition. And it’s fun to spend a week with her. For every hurt I hold onto from childhood, I forgive her for this one. She was doing her best. After being raised by the ’60s/’70s king of Sandtown, my mom just wanted me to have what she didn’t have: structure. That, and time to read in the afternoons. And I’m proud of her for giving me both the reason and the resolve to turn towards myself <3
