Take Me to the Water

PART 1 // My Parents

I haven't always been a healer.

I inherited the gift from my mother. She was the majestic one. My father said he knew it the moment she wrapped her arms around him.

It was 1982. My father's band played every Thursday night at a bar in Columbus, Georgia called Ray's. Thursday wasn't a big bar night back then, but if my dad wanted his band to be heard, he had to play on Thursday nights because on Friday nights he had to go to jail.

My dad loved to drink, and he couldn't just drink and sit still like normal people. He had to be up and moving—sometimes driving. The Friday he was arrested, he and a few of his buddies were out celebrating a friend coming home from overseas. My dad said he threw back drink after drink that night, but he still felt good enough to drive home. However, he crashed into a stop sign on his way there. My dad told the judge that he swerved and hit the stop sign because he didn't want to hit the two officers in the street. Unfortunately, there was only one officer in the street, and he told the judge my dad was drunk as hell.

My dad was sentenced to 90 days in jail, but since he was a wounded veteran, the judge showed him some grace and let him serve his time on the weekends. On Friday nights, he had to sign himself into the Columbus County Jail, and he could sign himself out on Sunday afternoons. That meant his band could only play on Thursdays.

The Thursday he met my mother, his band was in their groove, singing The Track of My Tears by The Miracles. My dad was playing the piano and singing lead. My Uncle Calvin, his older brother, was playing the sax, and their friend Rich was on the drums. My dad and Uncle Calvin put the band together when they were teenagers, and they had big plans to go up north and get signed by Motown when they had enough money saved, but that plan changed when my mom walked into Ray's.

My dad said he noticed her right away. It would have been hard not to.

My mom didn't drink at all, and she wasn't into bars, but her little sister, Yvonne, was. That night, my mom was the designated driver for my Aunt Yvonne and her girlfriends as they bar hopped in honor of my aunt turning 21. My mom had driven my aunt and her friends to three other bars before they came to Ray's. By the time they got to Ray's, all of the women were so hammered that my aunt could barely stand on her own, and mom could no longer control her.

My aunt and her friends came into the bar yelling and dancing, and my mother tried her best to quiet them down but it wasn't working, and everyone noticed them. They danced around the bar, pushing up against random men and hopping on tables. My mom pulled Aunt Yvonne off a table and forced her to sit down, and all eyes were on them. When my mother caught my father looking, she mouthed "sorry" to him and my dad smiled, which made her smile.

To my dad, it was funny seeing my mom try to tame my aunt and her friends. Even when she tried to be stern, she still seemed so gentle and caring, and that's who my mom was: a nurturer. She had been that way her entire life: a sweet church girl who loved the Lord and loved her family.

Aunt Yvonne was the complete opposite though. She was a rebel, and she pushed back at anything that hindered her complete freedom. While my mother was in church praising God, Aunt Yvonne was out participating in black power and feminist rallies. Aunt Yvonne thought that church and organized religion was keeping the black community from progressing. Slave mentality she called it. She especially didn't like how the church handled women.

"It's patriarchal, sexist, obsolete garbage! That's what it is, Camille!"

Aunt Yvonne always tried to get my mom to be free: spiritually, sexually—you name it—and when she saw my dad looking at my mom from across the room, she saw an opportunity to get her loose. She nudged my mom and nodded her head to my dad who had his eyes locked on her as he sang.