Live well—wear your own shoes - Sisterspeak - Interview

Ebony, Nov, 2002 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

MOST women can't wear another woman's shoes. Even if they are the exact same size, another woman's shoes will pinch and hurt and will eventually be flung aside. But while we can't wear another woman's shoes, we sometimes let other women tell us how to live our lives. Overheard at the wedding of a much-married friend--"Is this her last husband?" Overheard at the supermarket about a woman with more than 2.3 children--"Girl, I hope this is her last baby!" General discussion from a group of singles--"How many jobs has she had? Is this her last job?" Overheard at a high school graduation--"You know that gal ain't gonna be much."

It is amazing how jackleg soothsayers can pronounce with great finality over your life. Even more amazing is that some women, particularly young women just starting out in life and older women afraid of gossip, try to live their lives by what others say. Focusing on their history instead of their destiny, these women may never achieve their full potential. It's better to just be yourself. As the old Black church Sister once said with ungrammatical brilliance, "It's hard enough being who you is, let alone who you ain't."

Serena Williams found that out when she decided to stop trying to copy her big sister Venus and just be herself. She told EBONY, "I was Venus." But she didn't become the No. 1 tennis player in the world until she became Serena. "I realized that I liked doing different things, things' that Venus didn't like to do. I realized that just because she didn't like it didn't mean that I didn't have to like it. It had taken me all this time to realize that my name was Serena Williams, not Venus Williams." She is now at the top of her own game.

We recently lost two powerful examples of women who lived their own lives and the world and Black people were richer because of their courage. The first, the Rev. Dr. Prathia LauraAnn Hall, became a preacher when few people believed that women belonged in the pulpit. In 1996 she was one of EBONY's 15 choices for "Greatest Black Woman Preachers," leading the nominees in the magazine's historic first survey of the best women ministers. A community activist since high school and a graduate of the Freedom Movement of the `60s, she told me that the central commitment of her life could be summarized in two words: faith and freedom. Her oft-repeated statement is the mantra of Black female ministers: "I stood in the total authenticity of my being--Black, preacher, Baptist, woman. For the same God who made me a preacher, made me a woman. And, I am convinced that God was not confused on either count."

We need women like Prathia Hall to stand in the gap. We need to stop wasting our precious time trying to fit our lives into an accountant's ledger, adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying and tallying the totals. We need to discover what God has called us to do, spending time in prayerful meditation trying to discover our own task. "Service is the rent you pay for living," says Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. "It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time."

There are some pronouncements that cannot be made this side of the grave. As long as there is breath in your body, you can serve.

Another Black woman who lived life on her own terms was the writer June Jordan. She knew that life is not a dress rehearsal and there is no time to do it over. Jordan succumbed to breast cancer this year, but she never allowed the disease to define her. The college professor was the author of more than 25 books, including poetry, fiction, essays, journalism, plays and even a libretto. She was defiant in the face of the disease. "I don't define myself by what assaults me or tries to destroy me, whether it's disease or sociopathic hatred," she said.

Jordan knew that labels tend to confine and distract and sometimes destroy our uniqueness as women. And what we learn from Williams, Jordan, Hall, Edelman and others is that every day is opening night. We learn from them that every day is a new day and that you are more than the sum totals of OPP (other people's predictions) on your life. The world badly needs your light, your own unique contribution to heal our land.

Wear your own shoes. And wear them well.