Not My Words

To be great, this ideal of big or is it just a heightened awareness of what could be. I couldn't be sure but what I do know is one could only hope or dream of such things. Would it be appropriate to say "we" when I don't even know you at all? I guess we will find out only in time with trial and error. Who do you think "we" are any way? We are a voice that rings, a crowd that sways, and hopefully more than just a book on the shelf collecting dust with all the rest of the strong trees we used to print words on that reach the universes vast distance of excellence. Is it pompous to say that I want to be great or that I am great or even that you are not that great? Maybe you like a good book or maybe filling your head with every definition you can find but what about pulling out what's already deep inside of all of us. I had pictured myself being this strict politician, speaker, or beautiful caveat. Might have I just been a dreamer grown up on too many films or could it be that I had discovered that which was in me all along and that which I have no idea what to call this.

A force now to be reckoned with and a girl who wouldn't take no for an answer, one the man would often brush off like a new suit. Did I really compare myself to a new suit, no not really, I just get tired of that one guy who thinks he can put us on and replace us as if we were no different than that previous blue suit, you know that suit that looked real good before he came across the black one in the window.

Please don't underestimate the power of a strong black woman, no, a strong white woman, no a strong woman. That voice just keeps yelling out my name telling me to sit down and shut up and I just keep standing up in the audience saying thank you and where's the microphone check? I had started writing about "The Linguist who saved and destroyed my life with Syntax" and "The difficulty of being a woman in America," and then I found it, "Not my words," was all I really needed right now to get my point across as I imagined once again standing in the senate seat trying to explain who I was and how I made it through all the lies that so strategically tried to squash my dignity, my womanhood, and that light that I held so dear deep within the brambles of pain and the memories I tried so eagerly to forget as though it wasn't who I was and it really wasn't.

Who was this character, this younger than middle-aged woman who had never really grown out of twenty-five and who still saw life as a mere destiny or legacy that must be fulfilled. My biggest fear to not accomplish my goals in this life, this one life that I had, that we all have. How many of us think about greatness and wanting to make our parents proud even if one only views from the sky. How many stars are in the sky? I often ask myself that knowing that I have no idea and it keeps me humble enough to say, if you don't know, you probably didn't create them. But we all know how much we tend to forget even the smallest of things but how could something so vast be mistaken for something so obvious. It never will be that plain and how often do our kind come and go leaving but a trace of dust? Does a big name do something or can we find that we just keep running into ourselves over and over again. I don't know, maybe I don't want to know, maybe the mystery of what we are is that great appreciation for the human life even if we are only part human. Can we ever really explain it and to describe such a great creation indefinitely bound by no end to discovering all we are or never will be.

As I read the pages of the presidents lives and how they made it, I got this idea that "Not my words" makes more sense to me than I could even begin to describe. My infatuation with books and how easily I could get absorbed into someone else's story. You have to get to a place that you just will no longer put up with everyone else being successful and reach for your own depth and power that you have within your own core--pulling it out and plastering it on the wall or to a pen and paper or just a clanky typewriter with it's loud keys driving us all mad as we engage in an expectation of what will come out of the mind of one creator to another and hopefully not a blank page. How long would it take me to finish this one and to somehow make sense to the reader? I shant not know or understand it. Who am I kidding really? I had to be more than just another book on a shelf, and I knew I was more.

My ankle was throbbing from a huge blister I somehow managed to develop from a new pair of second-hand shoes. They looked good on me but they were not walking shoes at least not the kind you walk for miles in. I got so used to walking everywhere that I forgot to wear the appropriate shoes. And now I'm reminded by the painful old crippled woman limp look you get from trying to walk in pain. It's late again and I haven't been sleeping well probably because the room is so hot.

Some of the most encouraging speeches I've gotten have come from leaders who didn't think I could accomplish much especially because I'm a woman. It's frightening how much words can grip us or hinder our growth if we allow them to. A whole lot of nothing becomes a whole lot more than you ever gave me credit for but I know you really believed in me you were just too afraid to admit it. Shame and desperation, two words that do not go well together and two I choose not to let into my circle. Not desperate but driven and never again will shame have it's place within these walls. I guess if I'm honest, I was a little desperate, to make sure I was successful this time and to not fall flat on my face without a graceful getting back up again. And this time holding my chin up high with a smile.