Ebony Dorsett

I empathize with Eve, the first woman. It took one apple to change the course of life – the same apple that grew to define a decade (and counting) of my life. 

The year was 2009, the sun projected his gilded rays over my tiny island in The Bahamas. It was a scorcher of a summer, but not enough to keep my brothers and I from frolicking on hot asphalt during the day. When the heat proved too formidable, we would spend hours inside drawing, painting, and creating 2D worlds and characters to explore. At dusk, we would immerse ourselves in the open worlds of our online games of choice well into the AM. At the time, it was purely for enjoyment, but this would eventually become my first escape from what I and the rest of my family would be thrusted into that year. 

I noticed the changes in them rather quickly. I found my father glued perpetually to his computer screen. He rewatched the same video on YouTube over and over again – it got especially maddening when it started rubbing off on my brother. “The Bible vs. Rastafarianism”. They became obsessed, I tried to ignore it to the best of my 12-year-old abilities but it spread like gangrene. Soon I had no choice but to chop off parts of my autonomy. No more cute, frilly girly clothes in my closet, now only dark colours, long skirts, long sleeves, pure fabrics, a head-covering. No more delicious aquatic food that defined my culture, no more Friday nights at the movies with friends, no more art that wasn’t for the Lord, no more music that wasn’t about the Lord, no more opinions, no more speaking, no more, no more. It wasn’t long until I couldn’t recognize myself nor my family. We had officially and unwaveringly been converted to The Black Hebrew Israelites – a misogynistic, abrahamic based cult that is responsible for not only the suffering and abuse, but also the oppression and deaths of countless Black and Hispanic women and girls across the diaspora. I became a shell of myself, my brothers said “All praises”. 

I shrunk myself to the point of singularity, all my wants and desires, hopes and dreams squished inside of myself to create a dense, angry, never-ending hole of despair and self-wallowing. The depression was so palpable that I would lose myself in whatever made me feel good in the moment. For some time, that would be making art and the video game I had become addicted to – until I was introduced to marijuana. 

Opal was an adorable addition to my college life. We were both art majors, she was soft spoken, sweet, naively funny and had made her desires known – it didn’t take me long to return her feelings. Although at this point I was 7 years deep into cultish programming, my love, lust and attraction to other women had gone nowhere, that was one of my only constants. One hazy evening after classes, Opal had found herself in my dorm room bed. Seemingly out of nowhere she looked up at me with bright eyes and asked “Have you ever smoked weed before?”. I paused, and said no. My lack of push-back gave her the opening that would alter the rest of my life. Before I knew it, she, I, and another friend were in a car on our way to the local Walmart in Ada, Oklahoma. Our mutual friend went inside while we sat in the car giggling and beaming with excitement for what we were about to experience together. He returned to the car with the nugget of kush he had previously bought, a blue papermate pen, and a red apple. 

I watched in awe as he used the pen to carve a tunnel in the apple, through the top and out the side. He carefully placed the nugget on the crown, lit it, and instructed me to inhale. My throat sizzled as the smoke entered my lungs for the first time. He drove us around the small town while we shared the fruit back and forth, floating higher off the earth with every rotation

until we were nothing but blubbering, cackling love-birds in the backseat. I went to bed smiling, eyes red like the apple. 

That night would be the start of my decade-long relationship with marijuana. I carried this secret for as long as I could, I feared what this would mean if my family ever found out. What cruel and unusual punishment would they conjure up this time? This anxiety, of course, only strengthened my bond with the plant. What started out as a weekend reward for my hard work eventually spiraled into a physiological necessity. There were days where I hadn’t drunk water, but I had smoked thrice. Ebony became synonymous with weed. When weed alone couldn’t scratch the itch, I would add a little more to the roster. Tobacco, cocaine, mushrooms, MDMA. I was actively filling that void inside me with anything that could change my brain chemistry – even if only for 30 minutes. 

Now, at 28 years old, marijuana is a monument in my life. She’s a best friend, a lover, a therapist, a muse, my ritual. I end my days standing amongst the trees of my neighbourhood parkette breathing fire on a nightly basis. This is how I ground myself, how I plan my future and dissect the present and past. I speak to the trees and they listen, whispering life’s mysteries back to me. I find it hard to imagine life without her. Though I feel the pull of sobriety, and sometimes I’m even strong enough to abstain for a week or two, a month or three, I always seem to find myself nestled in her grasp. I fight with myself about the word “addiction” and its connotations. Would we refer to a diabetic as an addict for physiologically needing their insulin shots? How different is a need and a want? Should you only demonize a substance when it’s doing more harm than good? What’s good for my brain is simultaneously bad for my lungs, where does one draw the line? 

As it currently stands, I have little answers for the questions I pose myself; and speaking honestly, I don’t have the capacity to dwell on it very long before I feel the urge to spark up again, or trip again. Though still an active user, I’ve cut back significantly on the marijuana intake, and no longer need the aforementioned additives (not including mushrooms, of course). I can partially contribute this to reigniting my love of art, and using my talents to facilitate therapeutic arts in the community services industry; all while going to therapy myself to work through those core childhood wounds. Combining my first love with something as fulfilling as helping others – especially those dealing with addiction – has done wonders for my overall wellness, but the roots do run deep. Depression and anxiety remain a constant hum in the background of my life, and maybe it always will. The events I’ve survived have left a raw and vulnerable version of myself that finds her solace in plants, and I’m fine with that; like Eve in her garden.