She’d been pickin em up and layin em down, moving to the next town for a while, needing a rest, some moss under her feet, plus a solid man who enjoyed a good fight with a brave woman. She needed a man who didn’t mind her bodacious manner, varied talents, hard laughter, multiple opinions, and her hopes were getting slender. He had great big eyes like diamonds and his teeth shined just like gold, some reason a lot of women didn’t want him, but he satisfied their souls. He needed a woman who didn’t mind stepping down from the shade of the veranda, a woman capable of taking up the shaft of a plough and throwing down with him side by side. They met in the glistening twinkling crystal light of August/September sky. They were both educated, corn-fed-healthy-Mississippi-stock folk. Both loved fried fish, greens, blues, jazz and Carmen Jones. He was an unhardened man of the world. She’d been around the block more than once herself, wasn’t a tough cookie, but full grown woman for sure. Looking her up, down, sideways he said, ” So tell me baby, what do you know about this great big world of ours ? ” Smiling she said, ” Not a damn thang sugar. I don’t mind telling you my life’s not been sheltered from the cold and I’ve not always seen the forest or smelled the coffee, played momma to more men than I care to remember. Consequently I’ve made several wrong turns, but with conviction I can tell you I’m nobody’s fool. So a better question might be : what can you teach me ? ” He wasn’t sure, confessing he didn’t have a handle on this thing called life either. But he was definitely in a mood for love. Together they were falling for that ole black magic. In that moment it seemed a match made in heaven. They walked, not hand in hand, but rather side by side in the twinkle of August, looking sidelong at one another, thanking their lucky stars with fingers crossed.
Carrie Mae Weems, text with photographs, untitled, 1990
