Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [15]
Throughout my life, Balé’s had guided me through the critical periods. He kept me and my friends away from the “bad boys.” He had taught us what it meant to be young African-American women. In fact, he bought the first piece of African cloth I owned. I made two skirts with it. One for myself, and one for Balé’s younger sister. She was my best friend. She was the one who pawned her wedding ring to help me bail my husband out of jail. I had spent most of my teenage Thanksgivings at their house. When I was pregnant with my first child, Balé and his sister gave me a baby shower. Looking at him now, I realized how much I had missed him and how much he had influenced my life.
Balé is a Yoruba priest. He had been initiated when I was still a teenager. After his initiation, he left New York. He lived in Africa for a while and then relocated to Florida. I had recently discovered, purely by accident, that he was now living in New Jersey. When I called him, we were both thrilled to hear each other’s voices. We wanted to celebrate our reunion. Now I was sitting in his house and trying to catch up on our individual histories. He had heard that I was living in Philadelphia, practicing law. He knew that my first husband and I were no longer together, that my second husband had died, and that I had been initiated as a Yoruba priestess. Now he wanted to know everything else.
I now remembered that the feeling I had sitting in Balé’s house on that day had been just like being at Grandma’s house. I had been banished to a room by myself. I could smell food being prepared, but I dared not ask for anything to eat. I was starving. I could hear people having a good time, but I was not being allowed to join in. The longer I sat, the angrier I became. The angrier I became, the more frustrated I became with my inability to express my anger. By the time my mind finished bouncing from anger to frustration, frustration to rejection, rejection to starvation, I had one doozie of a headache. I was just about to gather my things and head for the front door when Balé called me. Only then did I notice that the house was silent. All the people were gone.
“I know you must be hungry. Did you think I wasn’t going to feed my baby? Come. Eat.”
Balé had set the table just for me. He had placed an enormous portion of Brazilian chicken and rice on a china plate. He talked from the kitchen as I devoured the food.
“Don’t be so fast to jump to conclusions. You have never seen this day. You have never seen the beauty this day holds. Just because it rained yesterday and the ground is flooded, that does not mean you are going to get wet today.”
I dropped my fork in midair. Damn! Damn! Damn! He had been in my head again. My appetite disappeared.
“Do you know what I am talking about?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You have been through a lot. I know you have made some mistakes. But I also know that nothing you have done has been because you are a mean or malicious person. Most of what you have done has been what you were taught to do. Do you know that you are not a bad person?” The smell of the food on the table was making me sick.
“Sometimes I think I almost have myself convinced. Then I will do something, somebody will criticize me, and then I’m not so sure anymore.”
“You are not a bad person, but you have placed yourself in bad situations. If you could be anything in the world—I mean any animal, food, fruit, mineral, or person—who or what would you be?”
I really had to think about it. At first I was trying to think of the “right” answer, the answer that would most impress Balé. Realizing how impossible that would be, I began to think of what would be most useful to the world: What would most people like or find useful? My criteria: useful, likable, and abundant. I did not want to be a rare thing or an unfamiliar thing.
“There is no right answer,” Balé said. I had already