This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more helpful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.
– Alice Waters
It wasn’t until I read Gathering of Waters that I understood what turning 30 is all about. As I approach my 30th birthday in a few days, I’ve been searching for some omen or sign that would bring this milestone full circle. Like many of you my first 30 years of life ain’t been no crystal stair. However, it wasn’t until I read Gathering of Waters that I realized I was about to turn 30 without acknowledging the steps it took to get there and being grateful for them all.
Narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi Bernice McFadden takes us on a journey through three generations of women. Through the use of magical realism, McFadden explores the themes of love, hate, racial injustice, generational curses, and the power of life and death.
The book starts off introducing us to a young girl by the name of Doll who has become possessed with the spirit of a mad woman who was also the town whore named Esther. At first like most people I thought how evil of this whore to come back and posses a child and literally make the child a mini version of her, then McFadden tells us about Esther. She describes what it was like for Esther, loving men who didn’t know how to love her back, and how Esther failed to realize that sometimes love just ain’t enough. I instantly started singing some Monica because: truth.
“I love you aint that enough?
They said it was, but it wasn’t and they didn’t know why. So the men beat her for loving them. They beat the goodness and the sweetness out of her. They beat her into the streets, into back alleys, down into the dirt, into the gutter, onto her knees, her back, and then they climbed on top and emptied their miseries inside of her.”
It was then that I realized that Bernice McFadden was the spirit of my grandmother and I sat reading Gathering of Waters religiously until I got to the end. As much as we don’t want to identify with the jezebel archetypes that tell us embracing our sexual freedom is bad, there’s something we all can take away from Esther. Not just Esther but all the characters in this story.
Lesson One: Thanks to Esther I learned, you are enough; even if others don’t realize it or appreciate it. You are more than enough, and from the mouth of my other grandmother sister spirit Beah Richards comes this jewel: “In this very moment you are perfect. Maybe not yet realized but perfect.”
So as Esther’s spirit unfolds in three generations of women. Each generation becomes either the vessel that houses her or is affected by her. In the first generation (Doll) we see the spirit reincarnate itself and indulge in the freedom of sexuality. Freedom comes with a price though. The first generation’s reincarnation of Esther affects the entire family and troubles the second generation, Hemingway, so much so that she goes on to despise everything that is her mother and in the end smiles in glee as she watches her fall to her demise.
Lesson Two: Be willing to pay the price for your freedom. A long time ago I learned a lesson in mean versus maintenance. If I have to be what you deem as “mean” in order to maintain my sanity, then just call me mean but also call me free. I’m more than willing to pay the price now.
Esther did more than just affect three generations of women, she also takes on another innocent soul and embodies in him rage and discontent. This rage and discontent resulting in a murder that no one saw coming but would reverberate through history. The murdered, Emmett Till, was the love of Tass’s (third generation) life. He saw her. He loved her. As McFadden describes it: “On this day, the sight of her moved something deep within him that he didn’t know he owned. “ Come through McFadden!
Lesson Three: There is nothing worst in life than experiencing mediocre “love” , love with conditions and excuses, and love with no return. When you get right down to the heart of it, that’s not love, it’s settling. As you turn 30 you realize that you are too old to not know a love that is so strong that it moves something on the inside of you. And that refers to self love, as well the love of another.
As the story of Emmett Till unfolds and Money describes the events that took place, it’s as disheartening to read here as it was in history books. However, here you feel the pain of a young love loss and the toll that death can take on the heart. Though Tass never truly got over Emmett (and vice versa…you have to read it!) she continued to live the best way she knows how, relocating and starting a new life. But after a significant amount of time passes and she’s in her later years of life, she decides to return back to Money in a most liberating scene.
Lesson Four: You are never too old to return home. Home, however isn’t always as others define it. At 30 you realize that home is not where the hatred is but instead where the love and peace is. Wherever that is, whoever you find it in, know that you can always return.
Returning home proved to be good for Tass, as the book starts to come to a close we begin to see strange behavior exhibited by Tass. She believes that she is seeing things that others aren’t quite seeing. In an effort to not sound crazy she laughs it off as just a dream. With McFadden we know that everything isn’t always as it seems and maybe this “dream” Tass is having is more than that. While the reader tries to figure out whats going on with Tass a storm starts brewing in the background of the pages. Initially Tass and her friend decided not to leave but to wait the storm out (sound familiar? Shout out to my NOLA family). By the time they realize how bad it is, Tass is in more than a dream, and McFadden leaves you stunned with how she blends the realities of our present, past, and future existences.
“It took forever, the space between them seemed to stretch for miles.”
Lesson five: You are worth the wait. This doesn’t have to be Meagan Good and Devon Franklin wait. But you are worth the time it takes to earn your love and trust and companionship. You are worth fighting for, waiting for, and working for. In the words of Olivia Pope “ Earn me!”
As you may recall I told you that Esther affected three generations of women. She also affected nature, just like Money, the town was a spirit narrating the novel, Esther got in formation as a storm, and the truth of what we can weather just brought it all home.
The sixth and final key to turning 30 that I gathered from McFadden was, for every bad thing that happened in my life, for every storm that had my name on it, I’m still standing. Look at me surviving and stuff. It was as if coming to the end of Esther’s story I came to the end of my 20’s and now see life differently and through the eyes of McFadden. So for McFadden, Doll, Hemmingway, Tass and even Esther I vow to make sure 30 is a lot different and that I will live more joyfully and delight in knowing I have conquered something, because I have.
Check out Bernice L. McFadden‘s Gathering of Waters if you haven’t! And look out for her next novel The Book of Harlan hitting shelves on May 3rd!
