Perfect Timing

At work the other day, a plumber had to come fix something for us. I hadn't seen him yet, but knew that someone was in the restaurant doing some work.

Some girls up in the counter area were having a discussion about the baby one of them is having. She is white, the daddy is black, and her nickname happens to be "Panda". Someone said that she was going to have a baby panda, too, because of the mixed races (1/2 black and 1/2 white). That comment was followed by someone putting out the old, worn out, "Once you go black, you'll never go back."

This, of course, set me off. I have had boyfriends, lovers and yes, even husbands throughout my life - relationships which were based, not on color or race or culture. These relationships were based on who that person was and who I was. (Except for Dennis, whom my parents forbade me to date during high school, because they didn't want me to be called a "nigger lover". Yes, really.)

So, my immediate reply was, "Wait just a minute. I am married to a black man, but that doesn't mean that if something happened, and I lost him, I wouldn't find myself with a white man, or some other race the next time around."

As I was finishing the sentence, I turned from the fry vat to walk over to the counter and finally looked up to see what was blocking my path. It was the plumber: a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed mountain of yummy. And he was looking at me and smiling.

I don't often turn red in the face, except from physical exertion, but I'm pretty sure Santa would have looked pale next to me at that moment.

If all I looked for were physical beauty, he'd be it. But I also looked in his eyes, not just at them, and I'm sure from that and from a brief interaction later in the day, that he would have fit in my world somewhere if things ever came to that, not because of what he looks like, the color of his skin or any of that. Because the person I saw behind those eyes, and the person who spoke to me, felt like the kind of person with whom I can relate.

It could be that on further interaction I find this to be untrue, but that's not the point. The point is the person that I am is not just what people see physically - the 44-yr-old who is overweight and whose body is not happy with her current job. I am the person who loves nature, the world, space, who looks up at the sky and says, "There is my church!", and wants very badly to be back in the same home with her husband. You are the person who loves what you love, who believes what you believe, who desires what you desire, who works through your struggles.

We are WHO we are and not WHAT we are.

(And that guy was really yummy to look at.) ;-p