Finding Me

by Viola Davis

I would flaunt my gold star to everyone I saw. It was my way of reminding you of who the hell I was.

Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.

It is a powerful memory because it was the first time my spirit and heart were broken.

“Why are you trying to heal her? I think she was pretty tough. She survived.”

Man, I’d rather go ten rounds with Mike Tyson than face some inner truths that have lain dormant.

And, every time she retells it, she tops the story off with this wonderful addition: that she ate a sardine, onion, tomato, and mustard sandwich right after she gave birth to me.

A disgusting concoction, I know, but she explained, “It was the best sandwich I ever ate.”

I love staring at my mom. I take in every detail of her face, hands, skin.

It was on a day off from shooting How to Get Away with Murder.

“You ain’t got no bowlegs or big stomach. Ya head is big, but that’s what make you a good actor!

“Vahla, make ya mama another one of these memeesas or . . . you know what I mean.” No matter what, I cannot get her to remember “mimosa” so I stopped trying because I sort of enjoy it.

Picture the stereotypical ’70s hippie. That was Howie. He would play the guitar for us and give us candy. Just regular candy; no hippie “additives.”

“But I did fall in love with my gynecologist.” I perked up. “OHHH! Really!”

As stubborn as a bull, as innocent as a child, and loyal even when she has been abandoned.

Plus, she would whoop my ass when I saw her next. I’m not kidding. Two generations removed from slavery, as docile as she appeared at times, she had a brutal right hook.

“Oh, Dan! Is this your baby?” I wanted to say, Heifer, I’m MaMama’s baby! Not yours!

She left our apartment and went down to the bar and slapped the piss out of Patricia, who fell right off the barstool.

But his love and his demons were fighting for space within, and sometimes the demons won.

the first man we all ever loved.

The best comparison I can make to what happened next is that boulder coming after Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. If he didn’t run, it most definitely would’ve flattened his ass.

Only, my dad came downstairs. The Closer. The big dog. The one who cannot be named. Lord Voldemort. The HNIC.

We wanted to be somebody. We wanted to be SOMEBODY.

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”

Anita the brawn. Deloris was the mastermind. Me? I was the one who could either drag the whole team down or up miraculously in the final hour.

Success pales in comparison to healing.

Suddenly, a stray cat we had unofficially adopted came walking over to this man. We screamed, “Cat!” We hadn’t named the damn cat yet.

That was the day I decided to be a teacher. It devastated me so much that I didn’t want another kid to go through what I went through.” Deloris has been a brilliant teacher for the past thirty-five years.

If you’re hungry, you can’t focus—you have no energy.

I didn’t know the butterflies that were ever present in the pit of my gut were actually massive anxiety.

The world was our enemy. We were survivors.

Your first instinct when you love a child is to protect her from the pain of the world . . . and life. The most excruciating revelation is when you realize you can’t. To be human is not to be God.

“May you live long enough to know why you were born.” —CHEROKEE BIRTH BLESSING

As white as he was, Jeff taught us a lot about Black history.

“You’ve run out of excuses.” And he was right. It was now time for me to, as I’ve heard Black people say so many times, “shit or get off the pot.” So, I shit.

“Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.” —RAY BRADBURY

Family starts counting your money because they always feel like you’re making more than you are.

I told God the list. I said I wanted a big, Black man who was an ex-athlete, preferably a football player, because I love football players.

and thought If you give me what I want, the church may blow up when I walk in there.

The men I had dated wanted to come over to my apartment to do the Boom Ghazi.

One thing I will not have to worry about is this man calling me. I do not have to wonder where this man is.

He invited me to church again, and when I went it did not blow up.

“I was going to find you! It’s late. Hell, you called from the set but that was a while ago. I thought something happened to you. I was going to put this bat on somebody’s ass.”

“I was gonna split somebody’s ASS!!!!” he said.

My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past.

I was also waking up to the hard-core reality that life unexpectedly throws curveballs in your life.

When his mom died, he sat with her body at the mortuary for six hours.

In fact, money exacerbates the problem because it takes away the individual’s ability to be held accountable.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past. They tell you successful therapy is when you have the big discovery that your parents did the best they could with what they were given.

The shooting of the movie took place right after 9/11. Literally, the week after the attack I had to fly to Cleveland. The airports were empty; it felt like death.

When he died, a part of her went right with him.