Category: Women

Mindblowing: Could Good People Skills Be The Next Professional Field And Subject?

By

On April 18, 2023

In Future Now, Health and Fitness, Women

We teach our children how to brush their teeth, tie their shoes, and button their jackets.

One summer long ago, I got a call at work.

“Come pick up your daughter. She is being expelled …”

People together by Hurca! licensed from Adobe Stock

Yes, my daughter was expelled from the YWCA preschool at age 4 because, and I quote, “She pinched Bob with her scissors.”

Bob, age 5, was not injured.

“Honey, why did you pinch Bob with your scissors?” I asked my miscreant, delinquent, expelled child —

“He tore up my collage.”

I forgot: her other expulsion-worthy offense? She had licked another child’s shoe.

“Well, honey,” I said. “I would have pinched him too.” Thanks to my child being declared an anti — social delinquent before 5 years of age, I got to spend the best six weeks of my life at home with my little girl before she entered Kindergarten at Redlands Christian School and I started attending Chapman University full-time.

Meredith wasn’t the only kid who got expelled. Four of her little girlfriends and two little boys were also kicked out within a week or two.

The person with the problem with social skills wasn’t my daughter or the other little kids.

It was the new preschool director — unable to coach and lead teachers and with little to no knowledge of appropriate activities and structure for young children — she eliminated daily conflicts among toddlers and preschoolers with a flurry of expulsions and suspensions.

Of normal three, four, and five-year-olds.

By the next year, the entire program had shut down.

So, what’s the takeaway?

In my opinion, many centuries ago, somebody invented “math.” The first engineer is said to be Imhotep, the builder of the “Step Pyramid” in Egypt. No one knows who “invented” art, and Hippocrates is said to be the “inventor” of “modern medicine.”

Of course, these are just today’s versions of origin stories. Does it matter who “invented” anything? It matters more that people right now, do things to make their own lives, and the lives of others … better.

Most human activities are about making our own lives … better. Or, they’re about making the lives of those we love and care for better.

Some people are very concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) being dangerous to humans. They are also concerned about programs like ChatGPT or AI art programs taking over human jobs and eliminating professions like mine (writing) or like my friend John Picacio’s (illustration and art).

Yet I can think of one area of interest, and it involves creativity, intuition, persistence, and lifelong practice — where there aren’t many, if any devoted academic researchers — and no professional jobs in the area that I know of, as the jobs or roles we see are more like ripoff artists than actual professionals with defined duties and measurable results —

People Skills: AKA What Carl Rogers Knew And Taught

From the moment I first read the Rogerian Argument chapter in the college textbook I used for almost two decades, I was fascinated by Dr. Carl Rogers and always made sure to include assignments using his communication techniques.

I know we have “communications” departments and degrees. These skills are typically put to work in fields like advertising, marketing, and work “training.” Many people with communications degrees go to work for networks, streaming services, and government agencies. Communications and PR go hand-in-hand.

Those are one-way streets and one-way degrees. “Domination” or “Deception” might be better monikers than “Communications.”

The Machiavellian among us have a text written by their namesake which tells you everything you need to know about lying, cheating, doing others dirty, and maintaining a good public reputation with the ignorant and gullible rabble.

The people in our world who have the best soft people skills can sometimes be great salespeople. They can also be our favorite teacher, favorite counselor, and often, favorite friend. Good moms have excellent people skills. So do — sometimes — good dads. I was fortunate to have been raised by my grandfather, who is, to this day, one of the best with people I ever knew or saw.

Learning how to get along together and accomplish things together is the biggest challenge of the 21st century, and it’s going to continue to be the biggest challenge and hardest job as long as humans are around.

According to a 2020 article from the New York Times by Eric Ravenscroft, “Unlike topics like math or science, social skills are more of a ‘learn on the job’ kind of skill.”

Today’s social media is anything but “social skills.”

Social media was invented by, and it is owned and controlled by, people who have minimal social skills. Many workplaces are owned by people who have negative social skills.

Anyone who has been a server in any upscale restaurant, or a flight attendant, or a nurse, can describe the behavior of poorly-socialized people. All of those people know how to handle the poorly-socialized.

I am not going to be the “inventor” of the official field of “social skills” or “empathy.” But I am someone who recognizes that for everyone’s lives to maintain their present comfort and for our country to move forward into the future with a good life for our children and grandchildren, these skills can’t be taken for granted any longer.

We don’t rely on parents to exclusively teach their children trigonometry, computer programming, or brain surgery.

Formally Teach and Learn Social Skills in School

It’s about time that we formalize the teaching and learning of social skills in the U.S. There are many precedents in other countries: in Singapore, high-priced international schools emphasize social skills and give direct instruction and practice in “how to get along” and work with others.

In Denmark, students meet for an hour each week and share a “Class Hour cake.”

During Class Hour in Danish schools, the entire class comes together, eats their simple cake, and relaxes. If a student has a concern or problem, they say what it is, and the whole class talks about a solution together.

Because I live in today’s America, I know what the reaction of many people will be to this.

And it will be negative because the reactors are unhappy, miserable, isolated people who lack the ability to even shake someone’s hand or greet them appropriately while passing on the street.

The majority, of course, aren’t like that.

The majority of us suffer daily because unfortunately — there are too many unsocialized, low-social-skill, unhappy, miserable, angry, self-entitled, greedy, mean, selfish others out there —

So, we do not expect kids to learn how to do trigonometry or brain surgery because their parents taught them how to make change at the store or do the dishes.

And — I’m about done with the angry, mean, dumb, tone-deaf others out there: the men’s rights advocates, the diehard political adherents of any politician, the backstabbers and the gossipers, and the garden variety liars and cheats.

The only way any of this will get better is if those of us who aren’t this way and who recognize that our own health and happiness comes from our own strength, wellness, and well-being —

Work on these skills ourselves, and support these skills being formally developed and taught in our schools.

My friends, there is a reason why ultra-conservatives want to eliminate public schools.

It’s because they are greedy, evil, dishonest, and bigoted (at best) and want society to return to the angry, dangerous, risky, genocidal and murderous days of the “Wild West.” Most people did get along back then: if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be here today.

But I doubt the majority of people would like their neighbors to be like John Wesley Hardin, a serial killer who shot a man in the head in the hotel room next door …

because the guy was snoring.

Social skills. It’s a thing. It’s like math. Thousands of years ago: no math. Then somebody started marking lines on a stick.

Like it or not — that’s the low level in this field of endeavor — we are at.

Sources:

Alexander, Jessica. “Teaching kids empathy: In Danish schools, it’s … well, it’s a piece of cake,” Salon, 9 August 2016, url: https://www.salon.com/2016/08/09/teaching-kids-empathy-in-danish-schools-its-well-its-a-piece-of-cake/

Ravenscraft, Eric. “An Adult’s Guide to Social Skills, for Those Who Were Never Taught,” New York Times, 23 January 2020, url: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/smarter-living/adults-guide-to-social-skills.html

Can Getting Outside Save Your Life And Make It 2 Times As Happy?

By

On April 16, 2023

In Health and Fitness, Nature, Women

Research shows: yes, 120 minutes a week in nature benefits many aspects of health

Gasparilla Island, SW Florida — photo by author

Cognitive Function and Brain Activity

Have you heard of the term “executive functioning?” In psychology, executive functioning refers to the ability of our brain to manage the things we need to handle: setting goals, planning, and getting things done.

Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Health

Nature is so good for our blood pressure and heart health that some psychologists are even using the term “Forest Therapy” to describe its relaxing effects. A 2018 study of patients at a Louisville, Kentucky heart clinic showed that out of hundreds of patients, the ones who lived in greener areas healed more quickly and had lower blood pressure than the patients who lived in more urban areas lacking trees and grass.

Mental Health

In 2019, researchers from the University of Exeter in the UK studied 20,000 people from throughout Great Britain and Europe. The study showed that if people spent 120 minutes in nature or more each week, they had better psychological health, were happier, and had less anxiety than those who spent less than 120 minutes. The two-hour amount of nature time was a real boundary, according to the research. If people spent less than two hours, they didn’t share the mental health boost the people who spent more time outdoors received.

Microbiome

Scientists now recognize that our gut microbiome is an organ like our heart, kidneys or liver. The microbiome plays such an important, complex role to benefit (or harm) our bodies, minds, and even spirit.

Other Ways to Strengthen Health

The many benefits of being in nature made me think of other ways we can benefit our health. I recently took a fun stretch limo trip with about 50 of my friends. Traveling with a friendly, happy group is more relaxing and enjoyable than traveling alone.

I Just Burned 320 Calories Walking — Can I Please Eat a Donut Now?

By

On April 11, 2023

In Health and Fitness, Nature, Women

Food quality is more important than calories for health and wellness

I just got back from a brisk one-hour morning walk with my 16-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Gambit.

Here’s where we went and how fast we went (this accounts for pee and sniff stops) —

Map of our 1 hour walk
Speed, distance, estimated calories “burned”

I was happy with this pace, because Gambit likes to stop and sniff and I don’t want to deny him this pleasure, but I also want to get a little bit of cardio in as well. This was our typical Tuesday walk at one of our nearby Environmental Parks.

So, I burned 312 calories according to my brand-new Garmin Vivoactive 4S.

All right! I can have a donut now!

Bzzzt!

Not so fast.

That’s the way I was thinking during all that time I was eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups every night. I was not only not losing weight despite calorie counting and eating relatively decent meals — I was slowly gaining weight.

How is this possible? Had I slowed my metabolism so much that I could be advancing my cardiovascular health and doing over 11,000 steps a day, every day — and over 300 minutes of weekly cardio exercise as well as strength training —

How on earth?

Check this out: here are my last 12 month totals from Garmin. Yet only in the past three months have I begun to lean out.

All of my recorded fitness activities (I record about 90% of them) last 12 months
As you can see, my daily goal is 11,000 steps and I average significantly more steps

I eat approximately 1,600 calories a day. I log nearly everything I eat and drink, and have been for over a year.

Here are my calories burned: it averages a little over 1,850 calories a day

I was eating fewer calories than my fitness tracker told (and tells) me I was burning and still gaining weight —

I’ve already written about the metabolic harm that strict, short-term dieting does to the metabolism. When scientists studied people who had been on the television show “The Biggest Loser,” they discovered that their metabolisms had slowed to adjust to the low-calorie, high activity weight loss program. This phenomenon is called metabolic adaptation.

I think that my Garmin fitness tracker is accurate: these are close totals for the calories I am actually burning.

Many women may be shocked by how few calories they burn, even if they are quite active. But I don’t think I had “metabolic adaptation.” I wasn’t dieting strenuously, and I’ve only done that a few times in my life.

I have, however, counted calories nearly my whole life.

What was I doing wrong?

Eating highly processed foods every day: notably, my evening Reese’s Peanut Butter “Big Cup.” I was so fond of this treat that I’d work out harder so I could eat not just one, but two Big Cups. Bruce loves me so much he was buying them for me.

Thanks to the way our bodies handle highly-processed foods, especially ones as sugar-laden as a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, I was “magnifying” and increasing the effect of these sugar-filled, highly-processed calories on my body, my digestive system, my microbiome, and inflammatory responses.

I can work out 20% more each week, and my fitness tracker shows me a measly 1 or 2% increase in calories burned.

This is because fitness and weight are two different things.

I was pretty fit all those times I worked out. I had good cardiovascular health and low blood pressure.

But I was moving toward prediabetes and also scoring high triglycerides.

This is due to the way our bodies digest highly-processed foods. The older we get, the more difficult it is for our bodies to handle these foods without developing insulin resistance and all of the other related problems that come from chronic inflammation.

Part of this phenomenon is certainly due to our microbiome and its composition. There are sugar-loving microbes that predominate in the microbiomes of most people in the U.S., especially those with obesity and metabolic illness.

So, I might have been loving that Reese’s and my gut microbes were too.

Today, I did enough cardio exercise to be able to eat a donut.

But I’d rather eat an apple instead. Followed by a handful of nuts, and maybe a few carrots.

That way I know I’ll continue to feel energetic and well.

And I won’t be training my body to crave sugar and processed foods and be slowly, inexorably, turning into a human Weeble. I’d rather not wobble, and at my age, the last thing I want to do is fall down.

Sources:

Pugle, Michelle. “How Your Body Tries to Prevent You from Losing Too Much Weight,” Healthline, 28 January 2022, url: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-your-body-tries-to-prevent-you-from-losing-too-much-weight

Walking Among the Jacarandas With John Fowles

By

On November 29, 2022

In Nature, Women, Writing - HA HA

Jacaranda trees with purple flowers in Queensland, Australia

Thoughts on the well-regarded British author

For the privilege of sharing a common favorite book and an interest in natural history with the noted British author John Fowles, I earned a book hurled at my head.

Not by Fowles!

It began with Wiwaxia and ended with the jacarandas and a cup of tea.

My aunt, I told Fowles as we walked among the beautiful jacarandas in bloom on the Chapman University campus, always had loved these trees. Although their purple flowers always draw comment and interest, their pods were what she had loved so.

The pods are like purses, or perhaps herbaceous oysters. They’re strong and durable.

Fowles’ voice was soft and he spoke carefully, with a bit of sibilant whistle with some of his “esses.” I’m sure this is a British mark of something … but he wasn’t the least bit “crusty” (as in upper-crust). He was down-to-earth and courteous.

He was curious, almost relentlessly so.

He asked about the many rabbits on campus — escaped from labs ages before.

He asked about the large flock of green parrots — escaped pets, now breeding in large numbers (as did the rabbits).

He asked about the jacarandas. I had always thought this tree was from Australia, as were the many varieties of gum and eucalyptus we see everywhere around Southern California. But it turns out that jacarandas are from Argentina and in the wild, they are regarded as a threatened species.

But they are planted as landscape trees around the world and their purple flowers rival cherry blossoms for beauty.

I’ve been going over my work today and thinking, “Fowles treated me as an equal.”

Because he was egalitarian? Perhaps. Fowles is the author of one of the least-objectionable of the “man kidnaps, rapes, and tortures young woman” books, his first bestseller, The Collector. At the time I was walking with this man on the Chapman University campus, it hadn’t yet dawned on me that this type of literary subject might represent an extreme form of toxic patriarchy and that sane people might not regard such a tale as a subject for light reading prior to bedtime.

That issue was never raised at the time, not in any seminar where I was present, and not between Fowles and me.

We talked about Wonderful Life, a mutual book favorite of ours, written by the late (both men dead, now) Stephen Jay Gould. This book tells the story of the discovery and interpretation of the Burgess Shale animals, and Fowles had just returned from a trip to Canada to see the Burgess Shale with his own eyes. He wrote about other fossils, those found on the beach at Lyme-Regis. Collecting and studying these fossils formed a significant part of the story of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which was made into a well-received film in the 80s starting Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep.

I insisted that Hallucigenia was groovier than Wiwaxia, although now, I’m no longer sure. What do you think?

Hallucigenia (l) Wiwaxia (r)

Fowles read some of my work and pronounced it good.

He spoke with me some about being a writer.

He said, “You must always do what you do for yourself first and only. Never do what others want or demand.”

He signed one of several of his first editions, and a few not-first, to me. I took those with me in my single box of books when we moved to Florida.

I’m reading something of mine today, preparing it for publication.

In book form.

And I saw something else, as well.

Via social media, a young woman asked, “Are you proud of your skin color?”

I understand the reason why the question was asked, and though my answer to that question is “No,” I ask myself the question, “Are you proud of your work?”

The work I’ve done for a lifetime.

And to this, my answer, is “Yes.”

And I think, now that I am ten years younger than the 70-year-old Fowles was when he walked with me on that long-ago day on that far-away campus,

He was right.

I’ll never know why Fowles wrote The Collector. I see some material online that says he wrote it to “Fulfill a boyish fantasy of imprisoning a woman.” I hope that’s not really the case; certainly there was little to nothing of this left in the kind, thoughtful, gentle older man I walked and talked with.

He seemed to me to have been a man who had grown tremendously throughout his life. A thoughtful man, interested in the world around him and all of its creatures. All of life.

“You must always do what you do for yourself first and only. Never do what others want or demand.”

It seems like such simple, easy advice to follow.

So it seems.

The truth, would be quite the opposite.

The Crossing

By

On August 12, 2022

In Nature, Nonfiction, Women

Image of Gulf of Mexico/Gasparilla Island July 2022 by author

The Crossing

For some weeks, I would lie alone in the quiet night, imagining what it would be to take all my walls down. So long they had been up, so tall, broad and strong. Brutal and jagged, as thick as the Berlin Wall. I’d seen a piece of the wall, put up in the center of the Chapman campus like a hideous sculpture. It’s not far from Adam Smith’s bronze head.

Students pass by this monument every day and don’t know what the ugly sculpture is, just as they do not know Adam Smith. It’s a tall hunk of dirty white concrete topped with twisted rebar, splattered with graffiti, some written in foreign tongues, most written in no language save agony.

As Temple Grandin sees her life as a series of doors that she opens and walks through, so too have I seen my life as a series of bridges. One crossed with a path to follow, and then another, and another, and another.

And this bridge, the highest, like looking down from the Golden Gate Bridge to the chill gray water below. The drop is some 270 feet, 27 storeys. Of the 2,000 people who’ve jumped off the bridge since it was built, only 33 have survived, and of those, only a handful have recovered from their injuries.

One of the survivors said, “the second my hands and feet left the rail I realized I had made a mistake, I realized how much I needed to live, or didn’t want to die.”

For me, it is not to jump off the bridge, it is to cross it without falling.

And I am so afraid.

Once when I was young, my grandmother was in a rare contemplative mood and wished to tell me of the days before my mother died. She often spoke of driving to Los Angeles from Redlands each day to see her. Well now I know such trips; when I was young I could not imagine them. But I was eager for any word about my mother.

Nana said she went in one day to find my mother out of bed and lying on the floor beside the window, unable to stand.

I immediately saw her, slim, pale arms and legs tangled, fingers reaching for the sunlight.

“I was dreaming, mother,” she said. “I dreamt I saw the most beautiful color, and I was trying to reach it. But I fell.”

I asked what the color was, though I already knew. I had dreamt of this color my entire life.

Before I could really write, I wrote about it. I told all of our stories mixed into one. Nana pointed out the old copper pot on the patio, and its patina. That was the color. It was, it is, the color of time.

These newborn eyes, the color of old copper pots which have been left in the sun. The color of a nugget of turquoise taken straight from the earth, of the sea off Laguna at sunset, of what you are moving toward, of what will be as well as what was. Your eyes. Your child’s eyes. Your mother’s eyes. Shot with time’s arrow, melted, forged into a pot.

To say that this is my favorite color is to say that I like to breathe air. It is as much a part of me as my blood, the muscles in my legs, my fingers.

I think often of the choice my mother made. I would have made the same choice. Rather than grasp for a few more miserable sick months, just let go. Give my life to my baby.

That baby was me.

I did make the same choice as was given to me and would make it ten thousand times over. But I had no real risk to my life, and instead it was the baby’s life that was taken. In terms of his eyes, they were blue. So blue.

Grief is like biting into a crab apple, over and over. Regret is a bittersweet orange bad at the heart. Loneliness the comfort of a rotten, threadbare sheet.

And how I have loved such things. My daily bread and meat. They have the comfortable familiarity of Poe lifting Virginia’s dusty white bones from her grave, gathering the bone and mold and death in a mad embrace.

And ahead, I see the color of time.

Yet I remain fearful to leave these things behind. Reluctant to cross the bridge and step into the clear blue sky. I do not wish to fall. But around me, the bridge is crumbling. The walls are cracked.

I must cross now; I have no real choice.

If I stay on the bridge, I will surely fall, and if I go back, behind the walls, I will die.

For some weeks I have been feeling the world around me more than I feel myself. First, while swimming, I felt the water about my body more than I did myself, and for the first time, swam with it. I went fast. Then walking with Gambit, his eager body pulling forth, I felt the world about my face and arms and hands, the warm sun on my cheeks.

Dancing on the patio after Jay Lake died, I said a prayer for his soul and felt the world about my hands, and I let it lift them, then felt it holding my muscles as I danced to the music of the air. The wind rushed through the trees. A bird sang, and then took flight.

Then came a bear, his black eyes flashing. A buck chasing a doe through the forest. A doe and her fawn eating calmly, no fear at all.

The sun on a high mountain rock, above the world and all its cares.

Gently, the sun touches my face, my shoulders, my back, my belly, my breasts. I am as God made me.

I already know that I will never truly live if I do not cross these steps. If I do not take his hand, if I do not truly kiss his lips, feel his blood rushing, feel his heart beating, feel his love through his hands. If I do not let this thing happen, if I do not let him feel me –

I will be ashes, clay, dust, mold, bones in a grave.

And like all things we think to be so difficult at first, the doing is as easy as slipping into warm water.

I slip from my skin into his, and he into mine.

We are the buck and the doe. We are one under the crystal blue sky. The sun is like fire; our shadows meet. My breasts reach up to meet his hungry lips.

We are as beautiful as the buck and doe. The forest is alive, and so are we. This savage black image, raw as hell, naked on the flat gray rock, is who we are.

I have crossed the great divide and have not fallen; he fell a short way, but got up again.

Yes, I have been afraid. I have shivered alone in the cold night.

But now I am warm and unafraid.

And on my finger, because we are people, and people make such things and do such things to remind themselves of eternal truth, things of which the buck and doe and bear have no need, for they never forget how to live, I wear a stone that is, improbably, impossibly, inevitably — the perfect, exact color of time.

Uhura is Brightening Another Galaxy

By

On August 2, 2022

In Women

Like so many other people, I was saddened to hear that Nichelle Nichols, one of the most positive, beloved actors I can think of, had died.

I’ve already written about how I had the privilege and honor of visiting for a short time with three “Ladies of Star Trek,” including my childhood idol and role model, Nichelle Nichols/“Lt. Uhura” from the original Star Trek series.

Idols and role models aren’t always the same thing. For a time when I was in elementary school, I would come home from school and watch Star Trek before heading to softball practice, doing yard chores, or pretending I was a wilderness explorer. Most people would have said I was a tomboy, but I liked my Barbie dolls a lot — when I wasn’t operating on them to see how their legs worked.

I’m sitting here, tears streaming down my cheeks remembering how I would model my posture gracefully after Uhura’s motions.

How I wanted beautiful nails like hers. Shining brown eyes, a soft yet strong voice, beautiful hair.

I wanted to be confident, sophisticated, strong, and wise: like Uhura.

I just loved her so much.

It never crossed my 10-year-old mind that I wasn’t supposed to idolize Nichelle Nichols and Uhura this way because she was Black.

And I was Caucasian.

Years later, I read how Nichelle had wanted to quit Star Trek to pursue other performing opportunities, but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told her that her role was too important, and that she needed to continue. She agreed, and Lt. Uhura went on to be a role model for countless others.

I’ve written before about how when many noted women die, their obituaries refer primarily to their external appearance or their marital status. In Nichelle’s case, she was such an elegant and flawless performer, and her influence was so great, that most of her obituaries are more respectful, in-depth, and detailed.

But they still focus only on her status, similar to Jackie Robinson in Major League Baseball, as the first Black American to take a leading role in an endeavor formerly restricted only to “white” Americans. Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek was the first leading role in a U.S. television series for a Black American woman. Also at this time, Bill Cosby was on TV in his own show, after starring in I Spy. 

When I was young, the almost all-white television experience of the 1950s and early 1960s was changing. Today, the official reports and obituaries about Nichelle emphasize her historic role.

But the thing is, Nichelle was a gifted performer, not just on television, but also theater, as a dancer and singer.

Because she was Black and breaking these barriers, Nichelle got so much more attention than others. The picture above also shows the basketweave blonde hair of Grace Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand on the original Star Trek. This young blonde woman also starred in a few episodes, but I didn’t idolize her. She was just like many other blonde actresses of the day— I was even the flower girl in Susan Anton’s wedding. I had seen and been around more than a few blonde, blue-eyed female entertainers.

It’s true: just because she was Black, Nichelle Nichols drew attention.

But the inner spirit of Nichelle Nichols — her wonderful heart and soul — gave her performances their unique, spellbinding quality and kept everyone’s attention.

There is a great difficulty on the part of more privileged people to understand what it is that others who are less-privileged experience and feel.

Yes, I think I am a little bit fortunate in that it’s not as difficult for me to put myself in others’ shoes as it seems to be for so many others.

See, I’m a writer. I didn’t like this statement above when I first saw it. The statement implies that it was impossible for a Black woman to star on a network TV show, or for women in general to be part of the space program. None of those things were ever impossible: racist people were just blocking people from participating.

But now when I see it again? I guess I do find the statement acceptable, if not fully reflective of who Nichelle really was. Nichelle Nichols was so much more than just the first Black American woman to star in a national television show. She was so much more than a woman who spoke with young people and inspired them to join the U.S. space program.

That long-ago day when I had one of my only decent book signings and the “Ladies of Star Trek” were sitting nearby —

Nichelle is the one who saw me sitting alone with no people coming for autographs, and stood and gestured for me to come over and talk with them. If she hadn’t, I would never had experienced those treasured moments with her, Grace Whitney (Yeoman Janice Rand), and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi).

I only spent a few minutes with them but I could feel her life force, and it was an entirely beautiful one.

That life force came across in all of her roles, not just as Uhura on Star Trek.

I’ve been thinking a lot about cultural admiration, not appropriation.

As an adult, I can understand how Nichelle felt when she wanted to move on from Star Trek for her own career, and how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked her to continue — and she agreed. At the time, as a child, I didn’t have the context to understand why Uhura’s role was so important, and why he would have made that request.

As a selfish young child, I would just have wanted my favorite actress to continue to play my favorite part on one of my favorite shows.

And, I watched Star Trek reruns, like countless millions of others. It wasn’t just the original Star Trek show airing at night, which my cousins were old enough to stay up to watch, but I wasn’t.

I think Nichelle Nichols influenced millions of other young women (and men) not as a figurehead or a ground-breaker but because of how unique and beautiful an individual she was.

Poised, elegant, strong, wise, beautiful, resourceful, self-confident.

Who wouldn’t want to grow up to be someone like that?

Archives

Categories

Meta

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén