Problem Chylde: Live from Pressure Cooker, USA

a guest post from blackamazon

Oh Wifey.

Every time I try to write this I get those two words.

I have started and restarted this post so many times, wanting to be eloquent wanting to be dazzling and mesmerizing, because Oni Faida Lampley deserves no less.

and i have pages and pages and posts and posts of failure.

And as I get it now with tears running down my face and tension in my jaw like you wouldn’t not believe.

That is what Oni gave me.

The courage to have pages and pages and posts and posts.

To abandon perfection instead for honesty , for reality , for vulnerability.

That IS Oni.

I call Oni the patron saint of our wifeydom, one of the most important relationships of my life.

And that was about courage, who else but Oni could give us a name? Our bickering loving poking head smacking , choking crazy amazon machete wielding,flying blonde,Getting your peaches on ,glee in and for each other?

Oni lives in that , my eye brow raise reaction to people going ” well you have to understand why people think your lesbians…. ” , the fact we don’t question each other but instead the world, that could not understand the ability to have a love for a person that needs the word wife to describe not ownership , or erotic intent, but love simply love.

Oni lived in my blog, when I was searching for a way to just get it out after everything, a way to not kill myself . I remembered the books he gave us.

And you just keep writing.

Oni changed the way I saw theatre and life and work. Oni learned me the difference between attention and ” DRAMA !!!!!!!!” and theatre and forming community.

Watching Paul rap about being Jewish and Melissa write about her family , and Sharon about being in love and you write about Abby and finding somewhere in there the voices the amazingness of watching that of listening to it, of being part of it, of helping craft that.

Oni made our first exercise about watching each other , about seeing each other as we were,making us aware and present and feel responsible for what we said to and about each other. Not about lauding us , or damning us or our opinions or each otehr, but about making us responsible.

About putting pen to paper about putting fingers to keys and eyes to page every moment committed . committed

About how much we should expect for ourselves and each other About the force of doing the work not in huge booming productions but in one magical woman. WHose magic was that this 

This you work out and at and on EVERY DAY

“This writing is your blood, sweat, tears, your shit, your air,”

Oh wifey 

Oni lives in my decisions about writing, to stop and  take care of myself , to give  up when no one had the same commitments, to come back to take care of myself. To believe it could change the way we saw the world.

Oni lives on in my HAIR!!! When I wrote everbody’s hair , I’d like to say I was proud and sure , in reality I probably thought wistfully of no lye relaxer every month, upon hearing every three weeks about how good my hair was and i could just straighten/relax blow dry/ tame it.

Oni said I could say it out loud, I could admit to being frightened, I could admit to not knowing what to do , and people could FEEL it. And it lives on my head.

Oni lives in the day I realized she was really gone. 

I was so tired wifey,  I forgot to put my work voice on . I forgot to put on that voice that makes folks comfortable, I forgot to  make folks feel good and I spoke.

And someone saw me. 

Someone picked it up who I was , because I was real.

Then you sent me this .

Oh wifey 

Oni lives .

She always will.

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