It is what it is

Sula and Female Friendships

Excuse the brief hiatus as I furiously tried to clear my desk of things I owed folks. I am still trying to figure out how to work on this blog and will need to work on how to put this into my schedule.

I had been meaning to write this on finally finishing Sula. I already know I’m going to have to reread this book. Everyone has asked me if I like the book, and many friends have admitted that Sula is their favorite. Mine is Song of Solomon. But this book was excellent and challenging to read. But, I wasn’t thrilled the same way I have been for other novels of hers or like hers.

The first key that this book was pulling something unexpected out of me: It took me a while to finish. This isn’t unusual for me. My reading process is a lot like how I write. I usually struggle to start. Once I’m going, I speed through the drafting process, just getting all my ideas out. (I like to call this part of the stage brain vomiting because it is mental purging, and I like the visual of it.) Then, when I’ve gotten through like 65 percent of reading or writing, I somehow realize it’s time to slow down and finish the process at 1/16th the speed to make sure I am giving myself a chance to process and put together thoughtful ideas. So with reading Sula, I finished the first third of the book in a week and half of the novel in a month. It took me another two months to complete the other half.

But despite liking the book and finding it enjoyable artistically, I resisted what I was reading.

The dynamic between Sula and Nel made me frustrated AF. Through their first conflict, I realized I couldn’t really pick a side and stan the way I would watch an episode of Real Housewives of Wherever. Reading about Nel struggling with the expectations of her community and Sula with being an uncontrollable outcast and how those realities clashed in their friendship, I was reminded of something my sis often reminds me about people I love but have a conflict with. “It is what it is.”

One of my least favorite idioms. Often my mom or sister says this to me as they try to convince me to let go of anger or frustration at a family member. Their point usually is that people rarely change very much, and so I have to be able to love someone through their shitty actions if I am to be in a community with them. I felt the same impetus to be nonjudgmental within Toni Morrison’s prose. Sula and Nel watch someone drown without trying to save him; Sula and Nel’s husband start an affair; Nel cannot figure out how to love Sula and also fit in. I sometimes felt myself trying to pick sides and becoming disappointed and exhausted at how Morrison could relay their conflicts without taking a side.

After finally finishing Sula, I needed to reflect on my friendships. In my twenties, I have had some dramatic friendship endings, slow fizzles, and ghosting happen. My grandmother told me this would happen, and I didn’t believe someone I loved so much would ever fade from my life. But it happens. And the ways these endings unfold, fault or placing blame, isn’t always the issue. You stop being able to speak the same language to each other.

Cara and I have been petering out for about a decade. Every so often, we turn back towards each other, missing what we were but not knowing how to relate as the women we are now. But, for the most part, we check in sporadically and wish each other well from a distance. She is someone I never thought I would have had to part from in my immediate circle. But there were moments when I was Sula crossing boundaries and fooling around with men from her past. Moments where she was Nel so concerned about fitting in that she was willing to leave me behind. And moments when our lives turned away from each other, we couldn’t relate anymore.

I can’t tell you yet that I have closure with how my female friendships ended. However, reading how Morrison could navigate these conflicts on the page without letting ego and pride color the truth gives me a path toward learning to forgive myself for how I have held on to folks while simultaneously hurting them. I probably need to reread Sula, though.

Rapid Fire Thoughts:

😫 I am trying to be better about posting regularly. I probably need to be better about drafting throughout the week and finalizing Friday instead of doing everything the same day.

📚 I’ve been reading about Frederick Douglass, including his memoirs, secondary sources about the 15th Amendment, and Black people in the universal suffrage movement.

🎵 I’m on Martha’s Vineyard, which means I’ve been playing a lot of old favorites because being here makes me feel nostalgic.

📺 I started The Bear on Hulu because my cousin told me I am like Sydney.