Finding Me

by Viola Davis

The final stretch to finding me would be allowing that eight-year-old girl in, actively inviting her into every moment of my current existence to experience the joy she so longed for, letting her taste what it means to feel truly alive. The destination is finding a home for her. A place of peace where the past does not envelop the Viola of NOW, where I have ownership of my story.

I learned from writer Joseph Campbell that a hero is someone born into a world where they don’t fit in. They are then summoned on a call to an adventure that they are reluctant to take. What is the adventure? A revolutionary transformation of self. The final goal is to find the elixir. The magic potion that is the answer to unlocking HER. Then she comes “home” to this ordinary life transformed and shares her story of survival with others.

As a child, I felt my call was to become an actress. It wasn’t. It was bigger than that. It was bigger than my successes. Bigger than expectations from the world. It was way bigger than myself, way bigger than anything I could have ever imagined. It was a full embracing of what God made me to be. Even the parts that had cracks and where the molding wasn’t quite right. It was radical acceptance of my existence without apology and with ownership. I

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

I still see my younger self so clearly from that fateful day in my therapist’s office. She stands up, in tears, on a mound of snow. Pissed off, she shouts, “Bitch!!! I’m not going to be swallowed!”

One of the beauties of getting older is really getting to know a parent.

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

As much as I try to chisel into MaMama to get at the core of who she is, I never can. There are decades of suppressed secrets, trauma, lost dreams and hopes. It was easier to live under that veil and put on a mask than to slay them.

She shows her claws only when those she loves need protection or to protect who she feels belongs to her. She never raises her fist for . . . her.

When you’re clutching to live, morals go out the window.

But in my mind, no one cares about the conditions in which the unwanted live. You’re invisible, a blame factor that allows the more advantaged to be let off the hook from your misery.

We were just ensnared in the trap of abuse. The constantly being beaten down so much makes you begin to feel that you’re wrong. Not that you did wrong, but you were wrong. It makes you so angry at your abuser, the one that you’re too afraid to confront, so you confront the easiest target. Those you can. Until your heart gets tired. No one ever, up until that point, talked to us, asked us what our dreams were, asked us how we were feeling. It was on us to figure it out.

There is an emotional abandonment that comes with poverty and being Black. The weight of generational trauma and having to fight for your basic needs doesn’t leave room for anything else. You just believe you’re the leftovers.

I had to feel alive. I wanted to squeeze out any level of joy and laughs I could. But the worst part is, deep inside there was a demon, and another part of me that was wrestling with the “alive” me. She, the demon, kept whispering, “You’re not good.” But the other part, the fighter, the survivor, screamed back a resounding, “No!”

Suddenly, I saw her. I saw her. It was Miss Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She had a long neck and was beautiful, dark-skinned, glistening with sweat, high cheekbones, thick, full lips, and a clean, short Afro. My heart stopped beating. The shame, pain, fear, confusion, all these negative feelings I had about my life and my situation were blasted through a brand-new doorway. It was like a hand reached for mine and I finally saw my way out. The beauty of that moment was that my sisters saw an exit too.

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

We all wanted out and our bonds of sisterhood helped make a way.

Our parents were just trying to keep us alive the only way they knew how. They controlled what they could and injected ritual, joy, hope in little ways.

Sexual abuse back in the day didn’t have a name. The abusers were called “dirty old men” and the abused were called “fast” or “heifers.” It was shrouded in silence and invisible trauma and shame. It is hard to process how pervasive it was. What made us sitting ducks was our lack of supervision and lack of knowledge. It was a different time.

But this is the journey! The only weapon I have to blast through it all is forgiveness. It’s giving up all hope of a different past.

When I look back at what I’ve seen, my only thoughts are that it’s amazing how much a human body can endure.

There were so many times that we would see droplets of blood leading to our apartment and we just knew what was happening. It was chaos, violence, anger, and poverty mixed with shame.

brilliant teacher for the past thirty-five years. It’s funny that with the complaints about hygiene, no one ever asked us about our home environment. No one asked us if we were okay or if anything was wrong. No one talked to us. There was a lack of intentional investment in us little Black girls.

There was an expectation of perfectionism without the knowledge of emotional well-being. What it left in me was confusion. How do I get to the mountaintop without legs?

The invisibility of the one-two punch that is Blackness and poverty is brutal. Mix that with being hungry all the damn time and it becomes combustible.

still alive. Well . . . that’s what I felt like. Imprisoned and possessed by outside forces that were way more powerful than me.

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.

I can clearly see the Lord’s face, staring at me, taking me in and saying, “You never thanked me for creating you as YOU.”

I thought I had only two choices: either succeed or absolutely sink. No in-between. I had no understanding that I possessed the tools to dig my way out if I somehow made a mistake. I had no understanding that there would be hard times and then joy would come, or sometimes the shoe would fall, but failing wasn’t permanent. None of that emotionally healthy thinking was instilled in me. I only understood secrets, suppression, succeeding at all costs, overachieving. You make it or you don’t. You either sink or you swim.

“You know what, I’m just going to do it.” That was when much of the depression fell away. The cure was courage. The courage to dare, risking failure.

“A hard head makes a soft ass.” That means some lessons you have to learn the hard way.

Working hard is great when it’s motivated by passion and love and enthusiasm. But working hard when it’s motivated by deprivation is not pleasant.

There was no cognitive understanding of the real complexity of race at the school or in its admissions process. How do you excel when you’re Southeast Asian, highly intelligent, hardworking but spent two years in a Cambodian jungle, two years in a refugee camp, and watched your family being massacred before coming to the country? Without the Preparatory Enrollment Program, there would have been zero students of color because we were starting with major deficits. Most destructive was the view that we weren’t worthy. It is the foundation built into the DNA of America, and when you couple it with personal challenges like poverty, violence, trauma, and compromised communities, it can become a death knell. Years later, Frank Sanchez was appointed president and totally transformed the demographics of the school.

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

Juilliard forced me to understand the power of my Blackness. I spent so much of my childhood defending it, being ridiculed for it. Then in college proving I was good enough. I had compartmentalized me. At Julliard, I was mad.

Juilliard’s academic approach did not connect the work to our lives. It missed the true potency of artistry, which is that it shifts humanity. Art has the power to heal the soul.

“How do you know? Viola, how many boyfriends have you even had? You don’t know what love is.” It was an exchange I wished I had had before I started dating. I never knew love had to actually serve the two people involved, establish boundaries and communication. I thought all that just happened.

For two years I thought the rule was to erase and negate oneself. That’s what I was doing. Lose the voice, speech, walk, face . . . lose the Blackness. Lose and bury the very essence of what makes you you and create something void of joy but steeped in technique.

Everybody has secrets. Everybody. I guess the difference is that we either die with them and let them eat us up, or we put them out there, wrestle with them (or they wrestle with us) until we . . . reconcile. Secrets are what swallow us.

Yeah, you can learn about birth control but . . . how to love? How to be consistent and responsible, in control, create boundaries?

I have a Jewish friend who is Modern Orthodox. He said one of his rabbis said, “It’s futile to ask why. Instead ask yourself, ‘What did I learn from this?’”

What have I learned from all of it? There is absolutely no way whatsoever to get through this life without scars. No way!! It’s a friggin’ emotional boxing ring, and either you go one round, four rounds, or forty rounds, depending on your opponent. And by God, if your opponent is you . . . you will go forty. If it’s God, you’ll barely go one because Big Daddy has rope-a-dope down! He’s a shape-shifter. You think you’re fighting him, screaming, punching, begging him for help. And he leaves you with . . . YOU.

Anton Chekhov, the great Russian playwright, once said, “The same time you’re laughing hysterically, your life is falling apa...

When I heard she was dying, I called her and her voice was so weak. She said, “How’re you?” I said, “I’m fine.” I was going to complain about how hard it was to get work and to work consistently but it seemed too small now. “How are you?” I asked. “I’m angry.” Silence. “Tell me what you’re angry at, Danitra.” I just wanted her to talk. Her voice was so weak and raspy. The cancer had spread and there was nothing the doctors could do. She was dying. “I’m angry at this. I’m angry about dying.” “Danitra, I’m so sorry.” “I know. I love you. I’m tired. I gotta go.”

A mutual friend of ours, Tommy Hollis, told me a story about Danitra. He said he saw a performance art piece of hers called “The Feminist Stripper.” She came onstage and began to take off items of clothing. She had music playing and was cracking jokes while stripping. Everyone was on the floor laughing and egging her on! She got down to her thong and her back turned to the audience, tantalizing them before ripping off her bra. She then turns around and reveals her mastectomy scar; a big X made of tape covered the scar. There was a collective silence, a brutal quiet in the room. They were forced to contend with the woman who was in that body and not just the body itself. Tommy said his heart stopped and he would never forget that experience.

Jealousy is the cruelest of emotions. The part that makes it cruel is its lack of ownership.

The kind of truth that’s like a hundred-pound hammer that knocks the wind out of you.

The thought of sifting through all my shit and reconciling me . . . it almost felt like cleaning all that trash and miscellaneous junk under our beds at 128 and fearing rats jumping out and biting us.

During Raisin one of my castmates, Joseph Edward, who played Bobo, asked me a more potent question, “Why don’t you have anyone in your life? You seem really smart. You’re a nice woman. Why don’t you have someone in your life?” Joseph and I had a great friendship of transparency and respect. “I don’t know.” I almost cried when he asked me that. It was a question that seared through my soul. One that I refused to even ask myself. By this point, I was a few years from my fibroid surgery. I was alone but not lonely, or so I thought. I was good if I didn’t think too deep.

“Have you prayed for someone to come into your life?” He just stared at me. That’s what he asked me next. It was a big moment for me. I said, “No, but I’m doing the work. I’m in therapy. I’ve gotta clean things up before I can invite anyone into my life to love me.” There was silence. He said, “This is what I want you to do.” I was so sensitive about not having anyone in my life that I paid attention to him. He said, “Do you know what you want?” “Yes, I know what I want,” I said. “Are you sure you know what you want? You gotta be sure you know what you want.” “Joseph, I’m sure about what I want,” I said. “I’m a grown woman.” “Okay, this is what I want you to do. When you go to bed at night, I want you to get on your knees and ask God for exactly what you want.” I did not have anyone in my life but I had no response to this surprise advice. He said, “You just give God your list. The frivolous stuff and the meaningful stuff.” I was skeptical that this advice would change my situation. He said, “You got it?” “Okay, Joseph.” He said, “Are you gonna do it?” “I will. I’ll do that.” He said, “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I’ll do it.” He said, “You gotta be really specific.”