Color Struck: Re-fraction of Light
Refraction is the bending of light when it goes from one medium to another so, when a ray of light passes through a glass prism, refraction of light occurs both, when it enters the prism as well as when it leaves the prism. Since the refracting surfaces are not parallel, therefore, the emergent ray and incident ray are not parallel to one another. In this case the ray of light is deviated on passing through the prism.
Even though I loved my mother, I did not like her. She was uncomfortable and unsettling to me whenever I was in her presence. Her language was crude and southern country. A speech impediment further diminished her articulation. She wore too-small clothing that shouted, “Buy me!” She preferred cheap fur coats over wool or down, and even cheaper wigs over her own hair. She was the original hoochie mama in my life. I loved her for all of this. She drove obscenely huge cars in flashy colors as if she had a small penis to compensate for. We knew she’d bribed the examiner to get her license because she bragged about it. When we suspected she was driving the streets, we stayed a good eighteen inches from curbs – just in case she came by.
Before I was four years old, my sister and I called our father’s mother “Mama.” She was the one we ran to for healing hugs and lullabies. Cox Street neighbors in Jackson told us stories of seeing my sister and me leaving our parents’ home, crying for Mama while running towards our grandmother’s house in the next block. Our mother ran behind us screaming, “She ain’t your mama! I’m your God damn mama!” As soon as Mama could manage it, our paternal grandmother became MamaGran. When I hear stories like these about her, my heart aches for my mother’s struggle to hold on to her children. I loved her for wanting us to be hers, for wanting to be our one and only Mama.
Mama regularly told us, “There’s no bigger fool than an educated fool.” And in case you think she was delivering profound wisdom, you need to know that any small complaint from one of us was enough to excuse us from school. “There’s no bigger fool than an educated fool” was her rationale for keeping us home. Even before I learned that she had not finished beyond 8th grade, I understood that she feared school and what happens there but I never learned why.
When I was in college, Mama berated me for choosing to stay home and study for an exam or finish a major paper that was due the next day rather than go to her house to help her clean up and cook. She would scold me, always ending with “There’s no bigger fool than an educated fool.” Nevertheless, when graduation day arrived, she was insulted that I did not give her one of my two tickets to the ceremony. One ticket went to my father who had helped me pay for my books and supplemented my tuition. The other ticket was for my stepmother who had taken a job at a laundry to add to the decreased household income. I loved Mama for her audacity, expecting a ticket to celebrate an auditorium full of educated fools because one of those fools was her daughter, educated despite Mama’s best efforts to prevent it.
Whatever Mama’s intention, I was charmed and not guilted when she told me how many hours she labored to give me life. A big baby, I tore her so much that she could bear no more children after me. When she first told me this story, I must have been under five years old. I only understood that I had caused her pain and felt badly for it. But I never regretted being her baby. When I was younger, it was not a strain to imagine that I had torn her on purpose to make sure no other children usurped my position. Guilt never once entered my consciousness neither then nor now. I loved her for the pain she suffered on my behalf even as I wondered if she really wanted more children after me.
But I did not like my mother.
I did not like my mother because I was her favorite child. And she made sure my sister knew it. My sister spent most of her life futilely trying to gain our mother’s favor but nothing she ever did lightened her skin to my shade.
Only after my second nephew was born did I realize why I did not like my mother. My sister’s oldest son has smooth milk chocolate skin like his mother’s; her second son was high yellow, like my father, my MamaGran, and me. I saw the way Mama gave my younger nephew extra servings of dessert, extra candy money, extra hugs and kisses. I witnessed her ordering my older nephew to clean and do chores while my younger nephew played longer. “You older,” she would tell him. “You can do better ‘n him.” No one pointed out to her that less than two years separated them. When he saw his brother with extras, he dared to ask for more and was denied. I heard my sister in his voice and caught a familiar look in his eyes when he looked at his brother. I saw myself in my younger nephew’s oblivion. How had I missed it all when I came first in Mama’s affection?
I loved my mother for most of her foibles and found them endearing. But I did not like my mother.
Crayola differs: black and white are two of the rainbow of colors in a box of crayons.
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