Monday, April 2, 2012

MY LOVE LIFE...


LIKE CHESS, LIFE IS A GAME WITH ALL THE MISTAKES WAITING TO BE MADE

A bunch of what I do is guided by my inner kenning.  I can’t recall a time where that wasn’t the case, where I would have an extra-sensory feeling about something and what I call “the nexus of realities” would open up.  It would be as if I could see where all the roads to where my decisions would take me once I made my decision.  There were no guarantees to anything, more like they led to where the probabilities took them and that they all hinged on me and the choices that made and subsequently would be responsible for.

I never “search” for love because I believe that I am love.  Literally, that is what I am and so are you, and so is everyone else in this world.  That was part of what I first tapped into when I was going through my disaffected youth and my against-type character began to really define itself.  The philosophy that you attract what you are is one that I believe and know that it works for me.  Outside of a precious few, it seems like it is a “power” that I have… the ability to draw people to me and want to be in my company.  It sometimes feels as if I have virus, only people want to catch it, as if “niceness” is something that could be transmitted through the air that we breathe.

When I met the woman who would be my starter wife, I had gotten home from my hitch in the Army.  I felt that I had the world by the tail and was on my way to doing big things.  But my saying “big things” is akin to the “top men” that took charge of the Ark of the Covenant at the end of ‘Raiders…’ My being vague isn’t only to keep a critical distance from others but because whatever is next for me has either been revealed and must be understood (like a certain concept that I got into actualization), or is something yet to come and I need to continue on the path that I am on and let it take me where it will.  Understandably, as an older, more responsible (but you gotta wonder how much more responsible she was at the time… after all, she DID marry me!) adult with a daughter to provide for, she was more doubtful about my approach to life.

I don’t know why I was moved to get married when I did.  With being ‘short’ and doing all the outprocessing to return to the world, I had plenty of time to think about what I was going to do with my life when I finally ‘got back home to where I belonged’.  Upon returning home, I bought the requisite new car, actually a used one my first ‘Z’ car and enrolled at Henry Ford Community College, to get started on using up my College Fund money.  At home I was still seen as the conquering hero, and had resumed my amateur boxing career.  Then I met my starter wife and …

Now I think I have spoken enough about my marriage and how it was a bad matchup of a couple.  One of the major problems that she had when she was young, at least, was disrespect for African-American men that seemed to be more of like a resentment that she bore as if it was a grudge she held against brothers.  Despite this sign and others like it, I made the hour drive down I-75 willingly and from there, the interest on my mistake began to compound by the day.  Her insecurity over a host of external/internal issues was as responsible for the implosion of our marriage more than my callowness.  It wouldn’t be until I realized that she had not any belief that I was going anywhere that I finally (after one last beating from her) decided I had given her all that she was going to get from me.


Going to an HBCU was never on my radar until I saw a mini-riot on ESPN of at a basketball game between Carolina Central and A&T.  I knew ‘the why’ to what pulled me down south and after my marriage dissolved, I loaded up and left for Greensboro.  It was NOT easy, sleeping in my car and trying to get baths at shelters and whatever.  But I made some friends and got things going and began the ‘run ‘n shoot’ era.

Now I actually consider the period of my enlistment to just before my marriage combined with my A&T experience to be the ‘era’.  My attitude towards women was less fully formed at that time and I confused ‘respect’ with ‘information’, that by telling a woman that I was simply ‘out there’ was good enough.  Live and learn, learn and live.  Still, I think that by declaring an intention was better than trying to ‘game’ and I will live and die with that.  So though I was doing my best to live the “pretty is as pretty does” aesthetic, when I met the Delta Girl, I was looking for my way to something more worthwhile than being out in the streets.

With her, I was in a relationship where I was with someone who was as captivated by me as I was with her.  I have to say that until I met her, I had not considered how bad my behavior was towards women.  I had started reading authors like Andrea Dworkin, Greer Garson, Camile Pagilia, and had a smattering of Gloria Steinem thanks to my Mom already as a part of my feminine understanding.  This helped to further the fostering MY personal sense of sacrifice in the belief of something larger than myself.  The feeling of emptiness that I had because of my monochrome view of the world through a sexist lens, led me to consider the utility of relationships and what did I have to offer someone.

Though she would graduate and go off into her career field, after one year of traveling back and forth on the two-lane blacktop we decided to ‘shack up’ as we considered our marriage a foregone conclusion and did not see a problem with the arrangement.  I found decent enough job, went to school and helped out with her and her class of 5th graders.  For our first two years together, things were smooth like glass.  But I still had boxing in me and had come off a run that saw me impress enough to fight professionally.  So I would commute an hour one way to Ft. Bragg, where I knew the Army boxing coaches and had a good relationship with them.  After fighting several club shows in the boxing hinterlands that is the Virgina-Carolinas area, I got a ‘call up’ to a show in the D.C. Metroplex and won.  Little did I know that would be the beginning of the end for me and the Delta Girl.

2 comments:

Babz Rawls Ivy said...

You are stripping down for us all to see. I am moved by your honesty and willingness to share.

I hope it feels good for you too.

Cheering you on!

Ken Riches said...

The fight can be more painful when it is emotional versus physical...