Chapter 3 Carved Out

Raphael came to visit her and found her at the altar to herself. He understood the need of this practice but wanted to know how it came to be. There at her writing desk Yay practiced the power of words on paper. The author California Cooper has come to her 3rd grade class to teach the construction of a poem. It was published her 5 word haiku. Writing was her Savior in a home of bias and restriction. Writing allowed her to exercise her imagination and release all that didn't resonate in her world and the world. Everyday was accounted for.

It featured missing daddies, choreography across Broadway and the homeless woman who fed pigeons. In her pages she could question it all without seeming disrespectful or guilty of talking back when answer given were unacceptable. It was her therapy. A method to conjure a future out and away. What she was born into was not her creation but she made do and prepared for the day she could.

Raphael saw she had beautiful wings and was very expressive thru dance while her tongue was silent. She lived in a house with a Baba Yaya who released fire when she yelled and wounded her physically with her anger. Age 9 suicide was considered until she came up with a plan to leave. She watched the corridor to this physical plane battle within herself because her Soul hurt. Beneath the Baba Yaya was a fragile woman who had never been loved or heard to her satisfaction. She possessed a woman's heart that had been trampled, disregarded and thrown away by a Man guilty of paying homage to his demons. They made his behavior self-centered and selfish. All the Baba Yaya wanted was Love and to live in a safe space where she could be soft, fertile and creative. Gifting the Man a haven he could return to knowing there was a place in the Universe carved out just for his healing and rest.

He sought no such place with her as he half assed played house while acting like a single man on a Friday night out with a mission that did not include her. No one at a club could have imagined he had a wife and a child with his disrespectful escapades. She, Baba Yaya was young and passive due to indirect teachings that women stay even when there's no love at the table or the mere fact you're married. The vows, ring and government contract that bonded them meant nothing. She carrying his second seed he would divorce her to marry his mistress. The betrayal would not end because as the Baba Yaya was being formed she quietly decided protect her heart by choosing to be only the other woman. Until the day she didn't her constant betrayal of Self festered anger and she grew violent. Her Soul ached uncontrollably, failing in self-mastery and the years were marked by the lack of trust.

The lack of trust in self gave her permission to let a man decide if he desired her. No self-reflection on her part to determine true compatibility. All he had to do was show up because this validated the parts of her that had once been rejected. Because there was no moral fabric around who, the exchange always went awry. This resulted not in healing and rest but carved out pained that was spued upon her seeds where she offered 1 stern instruction and the other enabling protection. They faced guns in broad daylight and fires put out before reaching the structure of their house because she wouldn't choose until much later to withdraw belief in the lie.

So she studied the Baba Yaya and all the other women that crossed her path as a young girl to be clear how she would govern her steps into womanhood. She would select him until she didn't and told herself that she would never love. This to avoid the anguish she observed. All the other women in her family were married on her mother's side but this didn't mean they or their children were happy. It didn't mean that they too weren't suffering quietly in a jail with the facade of being a home. She never saw the women of her family held tightly and tenderly by the men they called husband. Her teachers appeared more vibrant with life not assigned to only 2 titles, wife and mother. They demonstrated there were other things to be and to do that had nothing to do with being obligated to other lives outside of their own. If they did, it was a choice to do so and not consciously relive family cycles that didn't work.

It was choice no matter what the choice was. It, the choice depended not if it was informed, passive or labored. It didn't matter if was whispered, avoided and/or shouted from down the street by God herself. The choice would also be laced with benefits or consequences and always directly or indirectly impacted another life. Who would she be? She didn't know but she was clear on who she would not be.