“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
~ Mary Oliver
Happy International Women’s Day!
I love this Mary Oliver quote, (well, I love just about ALL Mary Oliver quotes) but this is a reminder that wherever I am there I am in a place of feeling blessed. Just to be alive.
I know you like I have some key highlights in your lives that celebrate this day—either for you personally, or remembering other women that you’re honoring.
There are far too many special key chapters, moments in my life to talk about now that made me who I am today, but there is one that I am so blessed to have experienced. It truly made me better.
I was once a Banquet Server at the age of fifty, starting over after divorce, bankruptcy, finding myself hitting bottom in a way I could never have ever envisioned in my life. I look back on those days working in two major Monterey hotels with an entire crew of women and men—all ages, married, divorced, parents, single, gay, straight, all races and religions—that I ultimately adored as family. I think about them today as one would think about their company of soldiers in the trenches. We laughed and cried together. Lifted and carried together. Inhaled all the great leftover food together. Loosened our back braces together. Shouldered each other while we served thousands together.
I remember the words of this mountain of a man, Rob, an African American, placing our trays and the heaviest meals on the planet on our shoulders before we entered the convention center. Filled with trepidation that I couldn’t carry that weight, I stammered in fear that I didn’t know if I could do it. And then Rob firmly but kindly said the words I say to myself to this day, “Cara, be strong.” I had to bring it and I did. And I learned how strong I really was in more ways than one.
In this beautiful, and oftentimes challenging, life I’m proudest of the many hurdles I leaped over and hopefully will continue to be able to do for many years to come, but it’s those days as a Banquet Server that will still move me to tears and remind me of a strength I always had and still have.
And, BTW, my dear ones, so do you. Be what you already were born to be. Strong.
(Just a hint: the bowls of soups are real buggers to carry. Walk slowly!)
