Zora Was a Genius

You ever think about the slights and micro-aggressions you experience in your day-to-day? I don't, usually, but a few days ago, I remembered a particularly weird incident that happened when I was just out of college.

As I was finally working in my field full-time, my mentor and former Temple University instructor asked me to come in to speak to his undergraduate photojournalism class about what a day-in-the-life of a woman earning a living shooting images for a daily newspaper was like. I don't really remember much of what I talked about specifically or what questions I answered, but I do remember one student who would not look me in the eye and actually laid down across the edge of the table - flat on his back - as the class gathered around to see my portfolio. He wasn't disruptive as he stared at the ceiling, but his body language and behavior said he just didn't want to be bothered and had no interest in anything I had to say. I wrote him off as an insecure know-it-all idiot and kept it moving.

A few months later, we ended up freelancing for the same suburban Philadelphia newspaper and I was right: He as an insecure know-it-all idiot.

Whenever out of the ordinary stupidity like that happens, my first response is usually to be a bit taken aback - in a "Wow! Did that just really happen?" sorta way. After a few minutes of processing it and trying to figure out what the heck would possess anyone to act in such a way, I next quite honestly feel a little stunned that anyone would have the audacity to try such foolishness with (or to) me. Then I channel my inner Zora and keep it moving.

But sometimes, I remember the bigger crazy and try to decipher what the deal was - like when:

• I was 18 and working as an automotive sales associate in a department store one summer and a fool grabbed my butt as I lead him to the back to check out two tires he needed (I spun around with my fist up, ready to clock him square in the nose until I remembered I was at work which was the only thing that saved him). 
• I was 26 and a man in the pharmacy I saddled up next to (when I was nine months pregnant and my swollen hands hands made wearing my wedding ring an impossibility) who looked over, saw my huge belly, immediately dropped his eyes to my left hand and sucked his teeth in disgust before turning his head away to look in the other direction.
• A few years later when the elderly female owner of a house my (then) hubby and I were going to rent - which was about 400 meters away from her own home - took our security deposit but waited until we got home 30-minutes later to tell us she didn't think our living in such close proximity would "work out."
• Four years ago when a male boss at a newspaper I was working for refused to give me Mother's Day off because, although was the only female out of five editors on the desk, the men had plans to spend the day with their children or mothers. He said the same thing when Father's Day rolled around.
• Two years ago when publisher of an area magazine interviewed me for the editor position I'd applied for, told me I was hired and she would connect after Thanksgiving to give me starting date details. By early January, after she never returned any of my calls or emails, I figured out that I probably wasn't going to ever get that "Here's your start date" correspondence.  

If I spent time examining each of the above, I'm sure I could find some plausible explanation as to why they went down like they did, but, I'm good. I'm sure I didn't misread or mis-interpret at all. And no, there isn't more to any of the stories than what is there, so the "yeah, but..." really doesn't apply.

Sometimes, people are ugly. Sometimes, they can do things to try to make you feel less than significant or important. Sometimes, they succeed.

But the option to straighten your crown, channel your inner Zora and step over the BS is always, always there. 

Legacy

This has been a heck of a year so far. I've lost several friends and acquaintances to breast cancer and several more to heart attacks and accidents. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, a call, email, text or Tweet would come about someone else's passing. The memorials and funerals have truly exhausted me, but they have gotten me thinking about legacy a lot more than ever.

My reality is this: I am a breast cancer survivor. Since there is absolutely no cure for this disease, the chance that it could come back with a vengence and take me away from my family is very real. Other than some meories and a few blog posts, what will be left of me after I'm gone? And what will those life left-overs say about me and what I did with my time here on earth?

The frineds whom I lost recently ranged in age from 21 to 65 years of age. Their legacies include their children, their writing, their advocacy and the promise of what life had in store for them had they been here still to live it. They leave behind husbands and wives, children and Internet sisters, girlfriends and parents, relatives and friends who all remembered them "when" - when they were alive and kicking, doing their thing and living life like they had all the time in the world. Sadly, they didn't. How will the memories of who they were live on?

A few days ago, I was asked to write a bio for a presentation this spring. I was warned that writing about myself can be difficult - which I already knew, but I really had no idea why until I sat down to write this particular bio. Most of the people reading it will know me from the world of martial arts, although the award is for teaching outside the dojo. The truth is that I'm more than just a teacher and a karateka, but if you only see me in a gi or behind the podium in a lecture hall, you'd be none the wiser. The difficulty in writing about all you do and all you are, I found, is all about what NOT to include. Who wants their bio to read like they are a superhero?

But isn't that what we all are? Nobody just does one thing all their life - be that world politics, a more mundane day job or heading a fabulous yearly fund-raiser/event. We're all much more of a multi-faceted entity than how we can describe ourselves to someone we're meeting for the first time.

So this is who I am: mom, wife, advocate for at-risk youth, college professor, karate student and instructor, track coach, former soccer coach, dancer, drummer, rabid Prince fan, editor, writer, publisher, photographer, track star, best friend, payer of tuition, chief cook and dishwasher, dog walker, cat litter scooper, blogger, dreamer - still, none of them completely capture my essence.

What I want people to know about me when I am no longer here for them to get to know for themselves is not the sound of my voice or my love of R&B. I want folks to know about my passion for doing what is right - be it in the dojo or with people who expect to learn something from me in the classroom or for folks who stumble across my breast cancer blog. I want people to know that I felt things while I was here - and that I tried my best to do something to help right as many wrongs as I could.

I've learned a little something from every person I've ever come in contact with, too. All of it - the good and the bad - have helped mold me into the person writing this today. As I learn more lessons, I have come to understand that I am still a work in progress - and I hope to be until the day I draw my last breath.

Thanks for being a part of my progress, dear reader. Thanks for letting me be a part of yours, too. But thanks mostly to the wonderful souls who have gone on. The facets you let shine were appreciated more than you could ever know.