May 2: A Story from “Hugging Monsters”
from These Wilds Beyond our Fences By Bayo Akomolafe
When you were two years old, you took me by my little finger and dragged me out of the house we were staying in while we were in Richmond, Virginia, with your aunt Ifeoma. You wanted to swim in the pool at the center of the residential estate. That morning, I had made a conscious decision to let you lead me anywhere you wanted to go. We waved good-bye to your mother, and left the house--your determined gait pulling us in the direction of the watery goodness ahead.
When we didn’t make a right turn to the pool, I realized you had missed the way. But an implicit aspect of my promise was to follow your lead, even if that meant going in the “wrong direction.” So you continued to run ahead--in the direction of a nearby lake, while speaking animatedly about swimming in the pool.
As we approached the lake, you stopped dead in your tracks.
“Remove your shoes, Dada!” you said. So I did. I liked to walk barefoot so it was just as well. But I didn’t expect what was to come next.
“Wear my shoes, Dada!” you said, as if it were a very natural thing for a thirty-year-old man with size 45 feet to wear pink sandals that hardly protected his toes. But, as you already know, I did. And then you slipped your little feet into my own flip-flops, and initiated our journey. At this time, I could sense the first restless stirrings of the politics of adulthood, as I struggled with feelings of embarrassment.
Moments later, we were standing by the lake, at its loamy edges, watching the ducks, the faint ripples occasioned by their gentle retreat. We simply stood there. You, by my right hand, just stared at the serene body of water. Small innocent seconds rolled into uncomfortable minutes. At some point, I wondered whether this might be a good time to chip in a fatherly lession or two, or to connect with you in a deep way--anything to fill the disturbing void of silence that had enveloped us. I tried to talk, but you shut me down. “Dada, don’t talk,” you said, with the cavalier eminence of a two-year-old. I had promised to let you lead, but I wasn’t sure what the joggers nearby were now thinking of the queer voiceless figures standing by the lake.
Then, I heard the birds. I am not good at identifying them, but those distinctly avian sounds came wafting through, bending and melting with the wind, ruffling the green leafy protrusions above us. A murmuration of sound, creature, and surprise. It felt sudden--like the arrival of a triumphant gestalt where there were merely bits and pieces of the puzzle. I noticed lichens crawling around a tree, the exuberance of the soil beneath our feet, the quack-quacking of the ducks intent on making themselves heard. It was a soft “a-ha” moment: I noticed that everything is alive. I understood in that very tactile and embodied way that the material world wasn’t just a backdrop for human activity, wasn’t just static being or template awaiting the ordainment of meaning.
You and I ended up playing after our unexpected libation of silence, decorating our faces and hands with mud, poking little twigs into the wet loamy soil, occasionally interrupted by the leitmotif of quacking around us. We walked back to our apartment like veterans of an exquisite order of things. Neighbors through quizzical glances at us; I stammered out weak explanations like “she likes dirt” or something else to account for our very dirty appearance. Your mother was even less forgiving, and ordered us to the bathroom.
The stains of your lesson in silence were the only things that didn’t wash off that day, and have lingered ever since.I am grateful to you for teaching me how to come to watery edges. Yes, you brought me here first. I am grateful to you for teaching me how to remain there for a little while longer than is comfortable. For teaching me a tangential lesson about obstacles.