Super Bowl Sunday 2012 found me in Macy's of Midtown. I'd just come back from conducting my weekly Kemetic family fellowship in Brooklyn, emerged from the subway, and hopped into the indulgently peaceful aisles of classic chiqueness. As I perused the designer dresses for edgy inspiration I overheard someone say, "Nice treat, shopping with it this quiet. Everyone's watching the Superbowl."
"Oh yeah!" I'd almost completely forgotten. "Who's doing halftime?"
"Madonna," a few fellow Sistas of a Certain Age simultaneously called out.
We speculated what current superstar she was going to get to boost her set. "You know she still gon' kick it out though. Like, 'I'm STILL Madonna, dammit.' "
I got home and found the clip on my internet. Kick it out she did. See, it's all a matter of perspective.
Super Bowl weekends were holding pretty bleak memories for me. Super Bowl Weekend 2006 I'd buried my father. He died of pancreatic cancer. Just when we were getting our relationship really right. Just when the doctor said he had another five or six months. Two weeks later, the only parent who I could really talk to was gone.
Super Bowl 2008 saw the end of my marriage to the man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. For eight glorious months, romance bloomed as this hubby encouraged me to be completely myself. Then my his sister died. He fell off the wagon. Other life events he couldn't handle kicked in. His heart was distant. That Super Bowl Sunday, watching the game without conversation, was the first time I knew in my heart it was over. The following Valentine's weekend I was gone.
Four years have passed with another Super Bowl in the foreground. Walking aimlessly around Macy's, trying to bury my memories before boarding my train home to Newark, I'd made up my mind to liberate myself. I hadn't been wallowing, but I wasn't fully living out all of my goals. Yeah, I've accomplished a number of things. But I'd lost a bit of my edge because of the unexpected turn of events - and there have been many over the past few years since Dad died. The Renegade Wise Woman in me was sitting on a stool in a closet, waiting for me to yank the door open.
I arrived home, pulled up the laptop, found the Madonna Half-Time Show. Renegade Madonna. She's STILL here, dammit, after a Pop Queen career of what - thirty years? Yeah, she mixed pantheons, including my Kemetic religion, in cultural appropriation horror. I'm not gonna even mess with that. Yeah, she lip synced. I'm not gonna talk about that either. Nor about the fact that she has never been the best singer or dancer out there. I am gonna talk about how Madonna, at fifty-freakin-three years of age, was droppin' it, pumpin' it, kickin' it, ridin' it... Madonna IS still here. And why? Because the savvy, shapeshifting, culturally relevant, confidently controversial Madonna has always known how to put on a show. That is what has made her who she is. She was celebrating being a Living Legend. As an artist and theater professional I loved it (that Cee-Lo section was just too good). And as a fifty-two year old woman overcoming the pain of two Super Bowl weekends that just plain sucked, I celebrated edgy living with her. I rescued my Renegade Wise Woman out of that closet.
Dad used to always remind me, "You've got to take the time to smell the roses, Baby! Life is too short."
Yeah, Dad. You're right. So to all you Madonna Haters, go find a rose patch and change your
perspective. It ain't always about the daggone thorns. The Renegade Wise Woman rides again, living life full tilt. The roses smell mighty good to me.
