I finished reading Sula this morning. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet I apologize for the upcoming spoilers, but it must be commented on, because it touched me very deeply. A friend, and a sister, two women who for the most part of their childhood and preteen days were thought to be the same person came together years later after one got married. In the end, one half of the duo slept with the others husband, not out of malicious, intent, not out of spite to hurt her friend, but simply because the male in question filled a space in that point in time. Obvious pain, and anger ensued on one party's side, and when I read this, I mirrored her abhorrence for her once soul sister.
But then.
I thought about my relationship with Jane, I thought about how strong it is, I thought about how I could never imagine any sort of a man coming in between us, husband, father, brother, uncle nothing. A lot of guys had tried, but what we had found in each other, mirroring yet parallel voices triumphed over all. I thought about how I would feel if she were to do this to me, to my husband, about how if he'd left me as a result she would be the very first person I'd run to. About how I could not possibly resent her, especially if she had not been trying to hurt me, about how I would try and fill that space she was trying to fill with the men my husband fell in the category of. About how we'd sit and laugh, spit on his belongings with a glass of wine and endless rounds of spliff's as we set everything on fire.
And then I understood Sula's pain. I understood Sula's anguish. Somethings transcend the realms of simplicity, I'm a very level headed human being, I don't get jealous, I only anger at stupidity and I understand the concept of "I just did". Because I myself have "just done" so many times, sometimes there are never viable reasons for actions, just human fuck ups.
Sin is in our nature, but we do not define it.
Does that make sense?
A woman sleeping with her best friends husband is a disgusting ordeal indeed. But in all cases it isn't just a plain old case of self hatred. In Sula's case, she was lost, she was searching for something, and her friends inability to notice this huge fracture before it was too late, before she had destroyed everything around her including herself was just as much to blame as that man conceding defeat to lust and sticking his useless penis in his wife's best friend.
It makes me think very deeply, I mull over the waves in the ocean of my love for the very dearest friend I've known, who in all her faults still makes me laugh without even having to say 'Hello', who gave me the purest energy I have ever experienced, energy comparable to my own mother's and who I know will love me no matter what I do to her.
Who I will love no matter what she does to me.
She's my soul sister. We transcend, just as Sula expected from Nell. How could she throw away their whole life together for a man who clearly didn't love her in the first place? How could she blame Sula for such a pig? Lamenting over the loss, claiming Sula 'took him away'.
Taking and leaving are two different things.
I understand it now. Where your true strength has to lay, keep your head rigid when around these boys, take care that it doesn't fall off, don't be as malleable as a paper doll, they're selfish by nature, thousands of years of warped ideals have made the male race believe that they are entitled to absolutely anything, even though they possess one incredible evolutionary flaw.
They cannot give birth to life. To continuance. Yet, we, the great mothers and masters of the human race, remain unimportant in comparison. They tear our unions apart, they make us look like fools, they kill, they maim our very souls and we allow it all.
"I ain't known no nigga that hasn't left his kids"
Knowing all of this, I still want to love one. I still want to make one. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, or simply too much of an optimist.
We'll find out when the time comes.
Love Morrison and Sula is definitely in my 'favorites' rotation. I appreciate your personal application... I think it's interesting, how Sula expects Nell to come up and over the whole ordeal, because of thier connection, because Sula could have restrained herself in the name of their connection as well. I've always wondered why her desire for whatever she is searching for, is enough to overrule the laws of decency, if Nell's angst isn't enough to overrule the laws of soul-sisterdom? I don't know if I think she is just selfish or if there is some defining reason that only super free people can understand. Ho hum.
ReplyDeleteI can understand that a bond between soul sisters should be stronger than anything a man does. But there’s a kind of respect that exists for your soul sister’s man, that does not border on that sexual and intimacy kind of love. Remember because she is your soul sister chances could be that you’re attracted to the same kind of man. But that intimacy l’ve is reserved for two, between them and if you as a third party come into it, it upsets the balance. For instance, my boyfriend and my soul sister’s look like brothers, though they are not even the same nationality...it’s very cool...and he is attractive to me only in the regard that he’s my bish’s man. It’s an automatic gauge. He could fill in a gap for one at that point in her life, but the respect for one’s soul sister doesn’t allow a sexual intimacy, because it in turn upsets the balance. Soul sisters are that like because they are in harmony. And on a mental and spiritual level. It is thus impossible to transcend into physical disharmony. If so, there was a glitch all along. Mind over body, will over mind.
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