Missing Toni Morrison

As we approach what would have been Toni Morrison’s 92nd birthday on February 18, I am experiencing a deep sense of loss and longing due to her physical absence. I cannot speak for what others might be feeling, but I can imagine that for Black girls and Black women the loss of Toni Morrison the person, who died on August 5, 2019, remains profound. My being-in-this-world, my very self seems heavier and less intelligible without her in it. Sadly, there is no one alive who can provide a sharp, clarifying critique like Morrison. In interviews, she was intense, mesmerizing, and at times vulnerable. In a 2015 interview with Terry Gross, Morrison spoke candidly about regret:

Gross: Your younger son died of pancreatic cancer. I was very sorry to hear about that. That was a few years ago, and he was in his 40s ...

Morrison: Yes.

Gross: ...When he died. Why do you think later in life you started focusing on everything you thought you perhaps did wrong?

Morrison: I guess I'm depressed. I don't know. I can't explain it. Part of it is the irritability of being 84, and part of it is being not as physically strong as I once was. And part of it is my misunderstanding, I think, of what's going on in the world. And so writing, for me, is the big protection. But when I'm not creating or focusing on something I can imagine or invent, I think I go back over my life — I don't recommend this by the way — and you pick up, oh, what’d you do that for? Why didn’t you understand this? Not just with children, as a parent, but with other people, with friends. So it's a long period of — it's not profound regret. It's just a wiping up of tiny, little messes that you didn't recognize as a mess when they were going on.

Morrison’s political and social commentary could at times be uncomfortable, but it was always profound. For example, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, she published “The Dead of September II” in Vanity Fair. In her remembrance, Morrison contemplates not simply how to speak to the dead but how to speak to those who died by such violence. What does one say? How does one speak to a body and soul that has experienced this level of fissure? She writes:

First I would freshen my tongue, abandon sentences crafted to know evil — wanton or studied; explosive or quietly sinister; whether born of a sated appetite or hunger; of vengeance or the simple compulsion to stand up before falling down. I would purge my language of hyperbole; of its eagerness to analyze the levels of wickedness; ranking them; calculating their higher or lower status among others of its kind.

Speaking to the broken and the dead is too difficult for a mouth full of blood. Too holy an act for impure thoughts. Because the dead are free, absolute; they cannot be seduced by blitz.

For a person whose work is words, Morrison goes on to acknowledge that at times words are not adequate because they lack the strength to bear the moment. Even when words were not enough, Morrison found a way to honor and to love:

And I have nothing to give either – except this gesture, this thread thrown between your humanity and mine: I want to hold you in my arms and as your soul got shot of its box of flesh to understand, as you have done, the wit of eternity: its gift of unhinged release tearing through the darkness of its knell.

“The Dead of September II” is a short but remarkable piece. Morrison had range. She had the ability to capture the human condition of suffering in longer forms, as with her renowned novels, or in 329 words. And like Baldwin, Morrison too was a conscience of the nation.

None can doubt the complexity of Morrison’s writing style. And fortunately for Black people, Morrison’s writing brilliantly weaved together time and narrative to express the complexity of Black life. She made Black women in particular feel seen. For me, one of Morrison’s most powerful and compelling Black women characters is Circe. I encourage readers to sit with Judith Fletcher’s excellent article “Signifying Circe in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon,” in which she describes Circe as “a strange combination of appalling decrepitude and sexual power.” When the novel’s protagonist, Milkman, is angered because Circe refuses his offer of help, she is clear: “You think I don’t know how to walk when I want to walk? Put your money back in your pocket.” Having worked for a brutal family, Circe has made it her mission to ensure everything they owned and stood for in the world crumbled. Circe also provides Milkman with meaning and direction. Circe is vengeful, potent, and unapologetic. Circe reminds me of all the Black women who stand in truth and “walk it like they talk it.”

Making meaning or meaning making was Morrison’s superpower. In novels like Song of Solomon and the Bluest Eye, she uses this superpower to explain, challenge, narrate, and teach the stories of Black lives. I learned so much about being and becoming from Toni Morrison. For example, Song of Solomon helped me to understand the nuances of a love that sits outside the self; a force that is as passionate as it is unreflective and dangerous. Morrison called this “anaconda love.” I have used this term over the years to help me help others experiencing constriction within a certain kind of relationship. And it is Morrison who gave me the language to understand the importance of Black women’s community and the dangers of living outside of those walls. Hagar, Pilate, and Reba from Song of Solomon provide a powerful illustration of this. Morrison writes of Hagar:

She needed what most colored girls needed: a chorus of mamas, grandmamas, aunts, cousins, sisters, neighbors, Sunday school teachers, best girl friends, and what all to give her the strength life demanded of her – and the humor with which to live it.

Song of Solomon is a deeply reflective novel. I think of Morrison as a reflective writer who understood and knew how to craft imagery and emotions. In 1987 she was quoted in The New York Times:

There are certain emotions that are useful for the construction of a text … and some are too small. Anger is too tiny an emotion to use when you're writing, and compassion is too sloppy. Almost everything that makes you want to write, or feel like writing, is not useful in the act of writing. So it's the mediation between those two states, the compulsion and all those feelings, that make you compelled.

It is Morrison’s reflection or “meditation” that I perhaps miss most. Reflecting or meditating with Morrison can be discomforting and unsettling. For example, one way to read The Bluest Eye is as a reflection piece not on the brokenness of Black girls but on the brokenness of a society that breaks Black girls. The Bluest Eye is a reflection on what it means to live a life unsheltered or in a situation where the shelter you have is precarious at best. As a now middle-aged Black woman, when I read and reflect on The Bluest Eye, I see different iterations of myself and the women and girls I know and knew in Morrison’s characters. In my opinion, The Bluest Eye is also a reflection on existence and on what care and love look like in the midst of suffering.

There is nothing I want to do about missing Morrison; I am not interested in getting over her loss; I am OK sitting with the heaviness of her physical absence. What I feel for Morrison is the reverse of anaconda love. Rather than constricting me, my love for Morrison is expansive. It is the kind of love that helps me to breathe deeply. It is the kind of love that leads me to recommend her books. It is the kind of love that encourages me to tend to my collection of her novels with care so that I can pass them along to my daughter. It is the kind of love that roots me in my love for Black people, especially Black women and Black children. It is the kind of love and longing to carry for all time.