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As a man who was the eldest of my mother’s six children, I learned to nurture and caretaker her and her children. I did not realize the occurring split that was beginning. I understood its effect when I found myself fighting internally with my daughter’s mother. I wanted to be the mother of the child, as I had learned as a child. But, I had to be the father. I could be the teacher, the mentor, the nurturer, but I did not know how to be a present father because I was still in the silent abandonment of my own childhood. I was raised in a life looking like a double edge sword.
I learned to live with an open heart, I was raised in a woman’s household, learned to live through a woman’s eye. I knew the flavor and texture of woman love because I was surrounded by it. I was so intoxicated as a child that I attempted to exist and be that love in almost every aspect of my life. I did not understand this was not the operative context and the structure of my daily living world. I knew what love was, but I did not know how to maintain the lifestyle outside the kitchen, the sitting room or the walls of a church. I knew love as a living entity, but I did not always see that reflection in the faces and acts of my fellow male humans.
Being raised as a spiritual being love, being a child of the 1960’s and being a man of love who wants to be a part of the solution of our modern problems, I want to be love in action as an art of living.
For too long I was an angry black man living in resentment of my personal placement in society, cornering me into the black man in America box. I want to live outside of the sexual orientation box. I wanted to be able to be fluid politically, sexually, and spiritually. I just wanted to live outside of any preconceived box. Even as an artist, I wanted no walls and I wanted nothing but open doors to walk through. I respect traditions and its value as a foundation for forming a ritual of living that provides personal advancement, abundance, opportunities to be of service to myself and my community, as well as a citizen of this modern world.
I realized I was angry because I felt like a caged animal. I was tired of fighting against everything for something and decided to simply fight for something instead. I wanted out of the cage and I no longer wanted to be an angry animal on display.
In time I began to learn to live within the world of men without feeling like an imposter or outsider. Because that was how I felt for the majority of my life. I felt as if I was impersonating a man by maintaining my woman’s perspective or my male sense of the divine feminine. I was existing outside of the man box. I welcomed being androgynous. I carved out a being that was a balance of both male and female. It felt natural to me.
I had inherited my grandfather’s soft-spoken demeanor, his way of being strong and a man of a few words, except when it was time to speak of truth. He was a man of love, yet strong in his convictions and his passion for human justice. He lived his passion as a badge of courage. I wanted to be that man. He was deeply spiritual, yet a flawed man of deep dedication to traditions and honor. He was a humble human being, a man of faith. When he failed his own convictions he was willing to admit his failings and then promptly being able to redefine his walk, to move on without looking back. It felt natural to me.
As spiritual dedicated as my grandfather was to teaching gospel music and loving his God, he lived outside of the box. He was a man with a big heart, which he wore on his sleeve with no apologies. He was a womanizer, but he stayed married to my grandmother for over 50 years.
Their relationship was one of acceptance and constant conversations of where their love was rooted, tests of the water and the need to be willing to use water to wash everything clean. Their relationship taught me acceptance, grace, and forgiveness. I felt liberated by growing up experiencing their journey of love.
My role model of a man, my grandfather, was not conventional. I deeply respected his walk in life. My relationship and role modeling that was given to me by my mother was unconventional. It was role of being a man who could multitask, raise children with empathy, meal plan and be a partner in a relationship to honor a household. Most of my best skills were typically labeled as women’s work. I considered them to be people’s work, as I learned from my mother. I deeply respected her walk in life. It all felt natural to me.
As the years passed and I finally began to understand the journey of my human story, I realized I was a living balance of the feminine and the divine masculine. I was not a freak of nature, it was something natural. I was gifted with great human tools of existence, an ability to react to the world in a holistic perspective. It is the ability to live outside of both the man box and the woman box and create a more functional box of wholeness. It is the ability to use the gift of human choice where abilities have no sexual assignment. It felt natural to me.
I believe this balance is coming to be our natural state of being. It will just take time and practice before it becomes natural to us as a people. In our modern world power and sexual roles have to be shared and practiced by all in order to thrive as a people. It feels natural to me.
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Photo by Astaine Akash on Unsplash