ONE OF THOSE DAYS

It's been one of those days. You'd think after 12 years that I'd be accustomed to it. I'm not. Before I enter the all white room, I get queasy and nervous--embarrassed because I know what's coming. It's not a university event. Before I walk into the room, I breathe deeply and hope that there's at least one person I know at the event. I enter. I feel the stares. See the raised eyebrows. I'm mortified. I smile. I'm miserable. No one ever believes that I'm painfully shy in social situations; more so in this kind of situation. I frantically scan the room for one familiar face. And then someone "recognizes" me. "Hi, Shaun." I get a big hug. How do I tell her that I did not deliver that "powerful sermon" last Sunday? Do I embarrass her because I'm embarrassed? I let her think that I am Shaun. I smile. Another assures that he "has met me before." Indeed, I've been to a party at his home. It does me no good to tell him that I've never seen him before in my life or set foot in his home. He assures me that I have, and he's sure because "I" am the only black women he's seen. I was at a meeting at SUNY Potsdam last week. Nope. I work for dining services, don't I? Nope. "Are you the one who.......?" No, I'm not that one. "Where are you from?" Mars. "What do you do here?" Teach. "Where?" St. Lawrence. "Ohhhhhhh, how nice for you." Why? And no, I wasn't at IT this morning or the gym or in ODY. It was Gloria Naylor who spoke a graduation, not I. And no, doctor, for the third time, I have never been pregnant. No miscarriages. Wouldn't I have been pregnant first? No, no abortions. Yes, it's possible for a black woman to be 60 and never pregnant. I wasn't in your "check-out line" yesterday. You didn't serve me at your restaurant last night. No, I'm not one of "the ones" who lives in the apartment complex on Judson. Here, in this special place, my people are still referred to as "colored people." When my students who "have never had a black teacher before" or who "live in an all white town" find me intimidating, I need to be patient. After all........ when I talk about "race," I'm reflecting my "bias." When I'm being the only me I know how to be, I'm too "scary to approach." Curio, that's me. Later.