Tag Archives: inspiration

Woman in the maroon dress

Last night, I “worked the door” at the bar I work at downtown Nashville. That just means I checked IDs (GUH! 1990 = 21. I feel so OLD.) and attempted to beckon people in the door.

Knowing I would be the first face they’d see at the bar, I decided to take a little extra care in how I dressed versus my typical bartender outfit of tank top, jeans and comfy shoes. I wanted to present the bar well (and actually DID bring a few people in based on my appearance because, “you make this look like a respectable place!”) and beyond that my allergies have still been going nuts, and dressing nicer makes ME feel better and gives me drive to keep going.

Now, working the door isn’t my favorite job at the bar. I don’t mind it, but I’m not the best at yelling out to random people, “No cover! Live band! Come check us out!” I’m too much of a people watcher. I can easily sit for hours on end, just watching the people pass. And within that, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting ahead of time which bar a person is going to want to enter based on their dress, attitude, etc.

And boy! Let me tell you… dress, attitude, etc. is all over the board sometimes. I love the diversity! TV can never give the entertainment or variety of just sitting back and watching others interact with each other and their surroundings.

It just so happened, a large group had just come out of the bar I was at, and they’d come to a stop in the middle of the alley. I looked down at my phone to check the time, when a maroon purse and gold-ish (not gaudy gold, but gold toned) heels caught my peripheral vision. I could tell a woman was trying to get around the group.

My head snapped up to look as this woman walked away. And I’ll be honest. I was mesmerized.

Walking away was an elegant, sophisticated and confident black woman. Without missing a beat, she slung her purse over her shoulder, and she walked with a stride that never faultered. Her maroon dress hugged her curves just right, showing off a perfect hourglass figure without a single piece of skin needlessly being revealed. Her tall heels complimented her toned legs. Her hair a perfect round halo around her head, which was held high.

It was a little like something you’d only see in a commercial.

I couldn’t stop staring in admiration. I knew nothing of this woman. I hadn’t even made eye contact with her. And yet everything about her screamed confidence. Nothing she wore was flashy. She had not gone out of her way to be noticed. It was just her confidence in herself that caught my attention. Her confidence in herself burned itself in my mind.

After crossing paths with hundreds of people tonight, as I left to go home it was that one woman and her confidence that continued to stick with me. It’s kind of like reading a dozen blogs in one day, but only bookmarking one. This woman has inspired me to want that kind of confidence just radiate out — in what I do and in how I present myself. Deep down, I’ve been looking for inspiration lately. I just never expected it to come to me as a woman in a maroon dress walking down an alley.

On hope and resilience

Like, I hope, millions of others, I sat glued to my TV last night, watching the Jaycee Dugard interview on ABC. I actually rushed home from church and bought a frozen dinner (instead of cooking) so I could watch it.

I’ve periodically wondered how she is doing ever since she was discovered in 2009 after having been missing for 18 years. I understood her need for privacy (refusing to buy any of the magazines that claimed to have the scoop), but I still wondered. Almost exactly six months older than me, her story hit me deeply. I couldn’t imagine missing the 18 keys years of life — junior high, high school, college… marriage. And to have given birth… TWICE… in a backyard…. at such a young age! My heart ached for her, and I prayed she’d find peace and be able to make a life today for herself.

The few clips I saw leading up to the special showed me a strong woman, and I was already inspired by her.

So when I sat down with my bowl of microwaved jambalaya and a glass of wine, I wasn’t watching out of any weird morbid curiosity. I watched to be inspired more…

And I WAS.

What I watched was one of the strongest most amazing women I’ve ever seen. We look up to actresses and singers, etc. but its people like Jaycee that we need to look up to and be inspired by. Having gone through such a horrible ordeal, she faces her story head-on and hopes it’ll help others who have been victims of rape and kidnapping. She has been through a lot, but there was a peace on her face. She spoke of hope and living every single day to its fullest.

Her relationship with her mother made me so happy, and I got teary at times watching them interact. She speaks of her daughters — girls she gave birth to after becoming pregnant at the hands of her captor — with a deep mother’s love of her own. If she finds her “soul mate” and some day gets married, that’s great. But she’s happy in her life as it is.

She’s happy.

And THAT is what I so hoped to see. More than anything, I hoped to see a happy woman.

I’m going to try to pick up her book (A Stolen Life: A Memoir) soon. I want to read more of her strong, positive and inspiring words. Learn more about how she coped through it all. And I’ll read it knowing it is the words of a woman I officially look up to and admire. I pray I never go through anything like what she went through — NO ONE should go through that — but, more, I pray that in any trial thrown at me in life, I will handle it with even a little bit of the strength she has shown to have.