charisma noun /cha-ris-ma kəˈrizmə/
1a divinely conferred power or talent.
2the ability to talk three of your friends via email to pay you to
pay someone else $65.00 (+taxes +team uniform-you don’t get to
select-fees) to get up at 7:30am and run more than 6 miles on a marathon
relay team in the City of Oakland and go to work the next day.
Because if you want to identify three Black women to pay someone they don’t know run around the City of Oakland on a Sunday morning, you better have something like charisma. Or a medal. Or a mimosa.
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| Basically. |
We are 13 days away from my first
Marathon. This marathon happens to not be a marathon at all, but a 4-person
marathon relay team. Because if you have 26.2 miles to run in Oakland, and you
don’t have a car, you better have some friends to help. As much as I am into
this running thing, I am not 100% sold on running 26.2 miles by myself, on the
same day, in the same race. I am not so sure about that one #2015maybe. So until then, I pray all my marathons come with at least a 3 piece leg
option. #popeyes #strawberrysoda
I am no stranger to teamwork. After all
there are seven of us in my family. There were not too many things that could
be done alone in our house on Baylor Street. As such, I have assembled the
proverbial League of Extraordinary Black Girls Runnin… Allow myself (and me, and I) to reintroduce
us’selves to you…
Leg One: Getting this party started is the friend you wish you had
but I ain’t sharing. No ma’am! I promise I’m doing everything in this life to
get into heaven on some of her residual goodness. The smile alone is going to
have Peter asking Paul to get Luke & John an’nem to find out her name. I
don’t know why, but I personally believe that there is a special place in
heaven for black female musicians. The good ones are so rare, and honey chile
she knows music! …and Jesus! #Tall1 #GreenOne
Start: STARTing Line
End: Rockridge BART Station
Distance: 6.2 miles (uphill)
Favorite Memory: There are many. Like her Sangria. Listen, that Sangria right
there will have you forgetting stuff you never remembered was first, in the
second place. It would be a favorite memory, if I could remember more than the
fact that I had the Sangria #butthatMadDog2020tho #neverforget. Anyway, we email about #14in2014 all the time! Coordinating our travel, races, and awesome
themed running events, right? Like this one we’ll need plane tickets for… Well, as it goes with great ideas and limited budgets
we came to realize that we might need some sponsorship for all these medals,
right?
Okay.
Livermore race is like $85, Shamrock is like $70 something. We need to decide
and commit. There are only like 30 spots left for the Shamrock!
eeeek! Yes. I was supposed to use my boobies and find us some men'folk for
that urban challenge race, huh?...Izza work on that rat'naw boss!
This is
getting expensive. The swag from Livermore seems better. Only 30 left???
See, the way my money is set up. Lol
We’re going to
be running with no bibs on the sidewalk next to the race!
Oh no!! You
ain’t getting me arrested for stealing running lol
…email
conversations later…
Did you
register for the Bay Breeze 10K this weekend? Of course, I did not...yet. I am
trying to now. What do you think “donation registration” means, and why would
it be $89?
I am lame,
beyond words for this. I may just have to “steal” this race and run alongside
of you. LOL
Are we doing
the Urban Race? Can we please get our lives?
I would never know if she was unhappy.
There is so much laughter in my pressure filled #bullying emails and
her consenting responses. I couldn’t be luckier to have a person like her to
share Medal Mondays and Groupon running deals with! #MyBankCardStillDoesntWorkOnGroupon #IPromiseItsReal
Leg Two: Dat’s Me Fool! #Small1 #PurpleOne
Start: Rockridge BART Station
End: 580 Underpass on Maple
Distance: 6.6 miles (uphill #fcuk)
I’ll tell you all the interesting
things that you don’t know that you could probably figure out about me if you
keep reading this blog or run a race with me or meet me for happy hour after
Lent passes. #pressurekinda
Leg Three: …she is 40 and fabulous #IStillDontBelieveThis! Lord, you said in your will that Black Don’t Crack…and she’s a
living witness. Wait, that’s not right? Is it? I missed Church last weekend for
the 408k...what did yall talk about? Anyway, I hope her genetics are strong
and fast, because she’s running the longest leg. And, she might actually have
the longest legs on the team… #Tall2 #RedOne
Start: 580 Underpass on Maple
End: West Oakland BART Station
Distance: 7.0 miles (downhill/flat)
What I Like About Her: She is peace. Now don’t get me wrong. I am a firm believer
that if -ish got real, we’d be in better hands with her than Allstate. But, she
has this way about her. She can command the room with her silence, disarm you
with her words, and love you with look. You don’t make choices with her, you
involuntarily react. I am so comfortable being my most insecure self in her
presence. There is no judgment in that space. She has those MO.m qualities I was writing about… She doesn’t push me too hard
into my greatness. She just says what I need to hear in that moment to find it.
My dear, dear GirlieGurl. I’m sorry to have to
be the one to tell you this, but you won't be a writer one day. You are a
writer. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. Your blog is amazing. And I agree
with Mr. 20D. Get out of your own way and soar.
You are fabulous and you’re gonna be even more
fabulous as you continue to live your dreams afraid. Sometimes the fear of
success is more crippling than the fear of failure. Cuz what comes next? What
do you do when you have achieved your life-long goal? It’s scary. Be kind to
yourself, have faith in yourself - hell, fake it til you make it - just keep
pressing forward. Small progress is still progress. You know that, cuz you're a
runner!!
And it’s so easy to hear that truth
from her because if she hasn’t lived it, she’s running on your relay team to
help you survive it. My dreams aren’t too big around her, you know? It’s like
they’re so small, she wonders why I’d even waste time imagining so little? And
to be that person you have to have strength and wits about you that are from a
divine place.
So basically, I’m saying if Leg One’s residual holiness ain’t enough,
I’m borrowing some of Leg Three’s!
Leg 4: …and bringing up the rear styling her end in a fabulous
pencil skirt from the booty by beyonté line we have EBoogie aka the real donut monster aka that hilarious
lady who wrote this…that only took her forever to write.
Not that I would tell anyone else that it took her literally forever to write
it. #Small2 #BlueOne
Start: West Oakland BART Station
End: FINISHing Line
Distance: 6.5 miles (downhill/flat)
How’d We Meet: Wow. Atlanta: The Legend of Alicia Keykey and Beyonté. There
is so much to this story, but long story not as long as it could be, she was a
friend of (one of) my little sister in college at Clark
Atlanta. You know, the person going through the HBCU struggle and care packages
I sent, with my little sister?! The first time I came to visit, she thanked me
along with my little sister for the grocery money I mailed regularly #manners #you’rewelcome. One of my first memories of her is
when I braided her hair. Back when everyone thought they were fallin in and
out of love, but they were really feenin’ for the
dyslexic person that braided Alicia Keys’ hair with that pack of yaki #4. Yooo,
really though, Alicia had all the braiders, beaders and hat stores in business.
Okay, maybe I braided her hair so tight calgon couldn’t even take her away.
Point is, she didn’t have to do her hair for a long time, she still had edges,
and er’body wished they could get on her level. And that was how I said “thank you” (in
advance), to the person who had not yet become the person who would help
me rediscover myself when I would feel like all was lost years and years later.
She reminded me that someone was off in California
where it's never cold, ready to tell me that they love
me (and lowkey wanting their hair done), when others
disappeared.
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| It's Oakland. You should probably be hella fast... |
I know some really amazing
people. They honor me by trusting me with this. With supporting me in this.
With joining me in this task. Hell, believing that I could even do this. I have
no idea what I will become after all of this, and they are choosing to run with
me anyway. The gratitude I am filled with when I think about what they are
doing for/with me is overwhelming. Like seriously. There aren’t enough words,
posts or pictures to caption, capture or tell it all! #justcanttellit
That’s faith. Blind faith
running. In the City of Oakland.
*shots fired* #literally
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