On the Run...
Why do you do that?
Run.
From love.
Hide.
From your shadow.
Attach.
To people who only love your surface.
Deny.
That you want more.
Doubt.
That you are worthy of more.
The very things that are good for you you run from.
Why do you do that?
on the run~ Brittany K.W., 08/14/2022
It's hard, you know... accepting love that's unfamiliar. Accepting good love when all you've known is care. Finding yourself worthy of love when all you know is how to be used and abused in the name of love. Wanting love when the "love" you knew hurt-- starting with the love of your mother/father. Then, one day, good love shows up. Not asking anything of you but to accept it, and you throw it away because it requires more of you. You ghost it because ghosting doesn't require growing. It doesn't require communicating your feelings or reason for running. It leaves room for the cycle to keep cycling-- recycling the hurt, the neglect, the carelessness-- but this time you add someone else to the cycle.
Bedford Stuyvesant, August 26,1999
Kache's brownstone on Jefferson Avenue
She just finished up her Sturgeon Moon journal entry. The month had been heavy for Che`, and she just wanted to let the weight go. As heavy as it had been, Che` was still trying to find reasons to be grateful for the good and the bad.
"Even when it don't go your way, Baby, you still be grateful," she told Che` on the phone. "God didn't bring you to it if there wa'nt nothing for you to learn or gain. Find the gratitude."
Che` always called Ma on the night of full moons. It was a time to release, tie up loose ends and make space for new things. Ma taught her that. Ma was a rooted woman-- a highly spiritual woman, a Godly woman, a follower of the stars. She's a student of the world, holding stories that can be told for lifetimes. She's a Gullah Geechee woman and holds on to her culture with a firm grip. She "won't gon' let no colonizer take that from her." Che` learned all of Ma's ways, having spent every July at Ma's house in Anderson, South Carolina, in her twenties, before moving up to New York.
"You took your bath, yet," Ma asked, knowing Che's full moon rituals. "Don't forget to be intentional about it, Baby. You cannot expect anybody else to take care of you the right way if you don't do it yourself.
"I know Ma," Che` laughed, "I'm adding the rose pedals now."
"You go your jasmine oil, Florida water, sa..."
"Yes, Ma, you taught me well."
"That's my Baby. I'm proud 'uh you," said Ma with her sweet raspy voice. "I'm bout' to go on and get mine together. Grandma loves you."
"I love you more, Ma."
Before she could end the call, Che' saw an incoming call from Alana.
"Grand rising," said Che`. That was her greeting at anytime of day. It drove her tribe crazy, but they found themselves doing the same thing over time.
"Grand evening Che`," rolled off of Alana's tongue amidst a surface-level laugh.
"How are you," asked Che`. "How's your head? How's your heart?"
"That's actually why I called. Wanted to know if you had a minute to go for a walk."
Che` hesitated, knowing she had a list of things she wanted to do in accordance with her full moon rituals that she learned from and practiced with Ma during those summers, but in true Che` fashion, she was going to try to satisfy everybody.
"I'm about to take a spiritual bath and get some other stuff done after. It's 7:17 now; I probably wont' be free until..."
"It's alright," Alana said, cutting her off mid sentence. "We can go on a walk another time."
"I'd prefer that you not cut me off," Che` said in a curt town. "Now as I was saying before, I'll be free around 9. I have a garden; we can sit out there and talk."
"My bad. My bad," Alana said, stopping short of an apology. "I'll be there at 9."
On the dot. She knocked on Che`s red accent door, using the gold hook at 9:00:00pm-- not a second later. Che` didn't believe in door bells. If it was meant for her to share her personal space with you, she'd hear the knock on the door. Besides, pop-up visits were also not her favorite and punctuality was her thing.
"Thanks for inviting me over," Alana said, admiring the museum that is the walls of Che's hallways.
Floating shelves hold Black literature books, including every book written by Toni, Baldwin and Zora, mixed in with healing, planting and spiritual books, separated by color, amongst artwork highlighting the beauty of people of the Diaspora.
They walked straight down the hallway through another red door that leads to her garden. Budding sunflowers and roses lined the stone walkway that led to the back of the yard where a black-painted picnic table was surrounded by greenery, including a tree, doting white lights that lit the area in a delicate way. Che` had set the table with food and her preferred libations.
"Would you like some Alize` and pineapple juice," Che` asked Alana, in her most host-like voice.
"It's Thursday, I don't see why not," laughed Alana. "I really appreciate you, and this food looks really good. You made it or you ordered it?"
"Don't insult me," Che` said while pouring libations for her ancestors into the grass before pouring into Alana's cup. "I made it-- even used some of my vegetables and herbs from over there."
She'd pointed to her garden, where she grew her own fruits, vegetables and herbs.
"Who are you and who made you," Alana asked, staring off into the area that she hadn't noticed, having had tunnel vision for the sight of Che` while walking down the pathway. "Between you making time for little ole me, to you cooking with food from your own garden-- I'm speechless. I don't deserve this.
"Well, first I'm Kache Melody Walker. The daughter of Luna Smith-Walker. Granddaughter of Toni-Ann "Ma" Lewis-Smith," she said proudly. "The women in my family hold on to their names to remain grounded in their identity. Native American, Geechee women. Now, enough about me, what's up with you thinking you don't deserve anything good? Talk to me."
"You know how it is. Accepting good things is hard," she said before taking a sip of the ocean blue cocktail out one of Che's vintage glass flutes. "According to my therapist, the root of it is my issues with my mom."
"What made her say that?"
"I told her about how she barely talks to me when I call her," Alana said staring off into the night sky lit up by the moonlight. "She wants me to deny myself for her comfort, for her image. Wants me in a dress with somebody's son, but I refuse."
She began to laugh at the thought of her in a dress. It'd been over 10 years since she last wore one for her prom.
"I love her. Just want her to love me, you know."
"You deserve unconditional love," said Che` in a voice as sweet as Ma's homemade sweet tea. "One that doesn't require you to hide the most sacred parts of yourself-- especially the parts that require you to love bravery down your own spine to show them freely. You deserve love that considers you. One that speaks life into you. Waters you. Frees you. One that chooses you--not parts of you-- everyday."
Moments passed before Alana uttered a word, only requesting to know where the bathroom was without making eye contact.
"Why do you do that," asked Che`.
"Do what?"
"Try to find an escape every time I tell you about the good love that you deserve," Che` said staring at the back of Alana's head. Alana had begun walking towards the door without directions to her escape room.
"Because you always describe the love I want but can never show up for, " Alana said, holding back tears, while disdaining the burning sensation her pride was leaving in her throat. " I end up hurting the people who love me in the way I yearn how to be loved. I run away from good lovers because I know I don't feel worthy of it. My mom can't even love me; how can I accept it from another woman? I don't know how. It's hard. It's hard accepting love from you."
She turned around to face the woman whom she knew yearned to love her but kept it at bay-- the one who denied her yearning for the sake of another's comfort. Her levees broke, making way for her controlled tears to flow along her accented Diaspora bone structures.
"I've felt your energy Che`. Your love seeps through your pores," Alana said while struggling to look Che` in her eyes. "I know when you speak in generic terms, I know you're speaking of your own love for me."
"It's the love you deserve, and it doesn't only have to come in a romantic way. I need you to see that! Romantic. Platonic. Every dynamic," Che` said passionately. "Forget about me. Forget about your mother. That's the love that Alana Fulton deserves, and one day she is going to have to accept that!"
"You're mad."
Pouring herself another glass of Alize`, Che` responded, "I'm disappointed."
"Why?"
"Because you wanted to take a walk to tell me you think we shouldn't hangout anymore because you think I want to be with you when in actuality I know you need a friend," Che` said staring Alana in the eyes with her hand pressed atop the picnic table. "My last lover was a replica of you, and I know she needed a friend, and that was all I have been trying to be to you. So, no, I don't want to be with you. I was only trying to love you, but I won't try anymore."
"Kache`, I wasn't trying to..."
"You weren't trying to stop hanging out out of fear? You weren't trying to run again? Bullshit Alana! Bullshit! You settle for women who only know how to care for you."
Her hurt was turning into frustration.Her energy was traveling from the tip of the finger pointing at Alana, with increase power for each sentence that followed the previous one.
"You settle for women who only know how to take from you. You settle for shallow narcissistic women who look pretty on your arm but leave you wondering at night. You settle for women who make you questions yourself just like your mother, and I hate that for you!"
The levees completely crumbled, but her pride hadn't, forcing Alana to turn her back to the only woman who ever called her out on her survival tactic.
"It's the second door on the left when you walk in. And you can leave through the front door when you're done."
Just as she heard the door close, she saw a voicemail notification from Ma.
"Baby, I forgot to remind you to write letters to them folks who done hurt you this month or the feelings that no longer serve you, then, go on head and burn 'em in some fire. You can't go into the next phase still holding onto that which doesn't hold onto you, and you sure don't let the sunrise to'mar with today still on yo' mind. Always remember that. Be careful na'. Happy Full Moon my Baby. Alright na'. Grandma loves you, unconditionally."
--------
Sometimes, the people who were supposed to love us best don't know how to love us at all, but somehow we tend to go searching for them in others. We reject good people, the ones God sent to love us, and we chase after the people who've only used us, neglected us, abused us, hurt us... it's as if we chase a high that they managed to give while not giving much of anything.
And the crazier thing is, we crave more, but sabotage it. We know better is out there, but we label ourselves as undeserving. We keep running in the same cycle, but how do you go to the same people who hurt you hoping they'll heal you? And God bless the people who try to love those whom are on the run-- it's no easy assignment.
But can I tell you something? Even the worst parts of you are lovable. There is somebody, there are people, out here in this world waiting to love you-- just as you are without conditions. There is somebody, there are people, out here that God assigned to love you. There is a God who loves you. There are ancestors who love you. Don't you go around here rejecting love because somebody made you feel unworthy. You are the cosmos embodied. You are everything good and then some.
So, Beloved, you go let that somebody, those people, love you. No escaping. No hiding. No denying yourself a good thing because somebody from your past still doesn't know how to love you right. How dare you? You are made up of at least 1,402 ancestors and they didn't choose you to be apart of their lineage to not live freely and be loved freely. Let somebody be good to you.
You deserve it.
I love y'all.
Talk to you soon. xo- Britt 🌹