At my wits’ end and frustrated with life, I stand up from my wooden chair and stride over to Oyá. In my cobalt blue and white Òrìshàs’ room, the flame of a white seven-day candle burns high, and a small transistor radio softly plays Latin music to keep my Òrìshàs calm. As I lift the lid of the floral and gold-gilded porcelain Chinese enamel ginger jar that Oyá lives in, I say, “Mama Yansan! Are you okay?”
Peering inside, I sigh with relief when I see that Oyá has all that she needs. After tucking a stray loc behind my ear, I whisper, “Àgó, Mama” as I gently pick Oyá up from the bottom until I have both arms around her jar, walk back to the chair and sit down. I am facing my other thirteen Òrìshàs arranged on and around the wood and steel etagere that is their home but focus on Oyá. Exhaling deeply, I lean back and plaintively speak to her.
“I want to drink because I’m tired. I want to drink because I’m lonely. I want to drink because I’m overwhelmed. I want to drink because I feel alone. I want to drink because I feel stressed.
I hesitate, then add, “I want to be free, but I don’t know what freedom looks like.” I pause as I ponder this. I can’t remember being free, I think. Then I mull over the times I feel free. No, I’m free when I’m in hiking the woods and climbing mountains. When it’s just me and the rocks,
the dirt, and the trees. That’s when I feel free.
Clutching Oyá to my chest and crying, I continue,“Sometimes I feel free when I run. But that’s usually when there are no humans around.” And this simple statement brings me back to Then. Then when The World changed colors, The World closed in, and I no longer felt free in my body. Then was when my classmates Vinny R., Kyle H., Brent A., and Jerry B. surrounded thirteen-year-old me in a dimly lit, gray stairwell at Random Parochial School, each trying to cop a feel. Then, they hemmed me in, laughing like the hyenas from The Lion King. It was the first time in my life that I ever felt literally trapped.
As I weep, from the corner of my eye, I see Oyá stride over to me, stand by my side, and begin to wipe my face, my tears, and my body with her skirt of nine different colors. Seeing this in the midst of my loneliness makes me sob harder. As I weep, proud and stately Oyá silently and gently cleans me with the folds of her skirt, tending to me like my mother never did. A smile creeps across my face as I take Oyá’s presence as a reminder that I am one of her children. Because I was initiated as a Yoruba-Lucumi priest of Ògún, I sometimes doubt Oyá’s impact on my life as my second Òrìshà, my ‘mother’ Òrìshà. But when I consider the way I cycle through moods and emotions like a tornado and the ease of my connection to Eggun and ancestor spirits,I know I am indeed also a Daughter of Nine.
When the tears on my face dry, I exhale, lean forward, and decide to have a drink. It’s been two years since I last drank and for a child of Ògún, that is a lifetime. Children of Ògún are known for enjoying a drink…or seven. However, Ògún told me several years ago that I am not supposed to drink, that for me, drinking alcohol is like drinking poison. But tonight, I am weary and tired of following rules. Tonight, I want relief. Tonight, I feel like drinking because it will give me space, room to breathe, and a way to check out.
As a therapist, a wife, and a friend, I am always so responsible and so present for others’ feelings and needs. I am always giving away pieces of myself, using my inner fire to support others’ evolution and healing. Tonight, I am full and want to leave my body, my life, my head, my heart. As my wife sleeps peacefully in our bedroom, I decide to make myself a Coco puff. A Coco puff is a drink that I made up and named after my favorite childhood hairstyle. Rum +anisette + lemon juice = Coco puff. Rum alone is too strong and bitter for me, hence the anisette. But anisette’s cloying taste is also too much, so I added lemon juice to make it palatable.
Even as Eggun encircle me, murmuring, “You’ve been abstinent for two good years!”, I return Oyá to her place on the etagere, and go to the kitchen to make myself a Coco puff. I pull out a heavy, crystal tumbler and splash some Goya Tropical Jugo de Limon into it. Then, I grab a bottle of Marie Brizard anisette and pour in some of that, and finally, I reach for the Bacardi Superior white rum and add that. As the fumes of the drink reach my nose, I accept that my two years of sobriety are shot. Reaching for the glass, there is no remorse or sadness for I know that these feelings will come later.
Fearlessly, I take a sip and wait. It is not until I feel the burn and sting of the drink in my chest that I remember what it was about drinking alcohol that I liked in the past. I liked that burn. That burn signified whatever it was that I was trying to make disappear—even if it was only for a few minutes or hours. That burn that reminded me of Life. That burn that reminded me of the Journey of Checking Out. Once I feel that burn, I begin to remember why I enjoyed drinking.
I take another sip. I rarely sip. Sipping a drink makes no sense to me, for it delays the sensation, the journey of leaving. That said, I sipped the Coco puff, and after a few minutes, I felt That Moment when I was both in and outside of my world. That Moment comes like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wing. It comes like a change in a river’s current. One minute, you’re there, and the next, you’re not. When I feel That Moment, that’s when I know I am drunk. It is the moment that I always strove for when I drank. That moment when I am everywhere and absolutely nowhere. At that moment, I no longer have to deal with my past, present, or future. At that moment, I felt relief, even if it was temporary.
