Sin Zapato

The first, the only

After meeting with my last client today, I headed out for a quick walk in the late afternoon winter air. It was bright and blue and white and green and glorious.

I turned to face the sun for a bit, keeping my eyes open not only so that they could see, but so that they could feel. After a day at a laptop, the cold air right on my eyes is the most soothing sensation. Like ice water on a hot summer day.

It dawned on me that I should check in on the Batmobile, turn it on for a bit to make sure the battery doesn’t die in these freezing temperatures. I was stoked to find that the street I was parked on was plowed down the center and that thanks to my generous and heroic neighbors, I was not plowed in at all. In fact, when notice arrived later in the day that we all had to clear the street for an early morning plow tomorrow, I was able to get out of the parking spot pretty easily.

With other spots on other streets under piles of snow, we were given permission to park at a nearby church. So just after sunset, I drove to the lot indicated in our group message. When I got there, though, I found that I was the first one to get there and the only one parked in the entire lot.

It was a little off-putting. Pulling into a large, empty parking lot is…uh…a thing a woman on her own does not do without pause. But it was 6ish p.m., my surroundings were well lit, the night was still very young, and I figured that others were still on their way home from work.

You’ll be fine, I thought. Lock it up and go home.

As I took my first steps back to my place a couple of blocks away, I walked my thoughts past the creepy part of the evening and into other parts. Like being the first to arrive somewhere. And being the only one. Not just in a parking lot, but in other lots in life.

My mind traveled to the Royal Firsts and Onlys like Celia Cruz and Carol Burnett and Sonia Sotomayor and Rita Moreno.

Then to the Titans I’ve worked with and coached over the years, the SVPs and students and Dreamers, all of them walking into classrooms and meetings and workspaces entirely and traditionally owned by men.

Then to my Mom, my personal Gladiator, the first daughter in a family of seven, making endless decisions on her own, being the first to provide, sustain, thrive in two different worlds, without her father (who died when she was a toddler), without my father (who died when I was 15).

Then to the endless firsts and onlys in my own existence, noteworthy only to my own self. No prize, no witness, no partner in crime. Just the knowing that I’ve arrived at something on my own, something first, maybe not to the world, but to me.

It was twilight when I got home. I’m almost never out there at this time anymore. Work from home and the gadget scrolling habit have deprived me of my favorite time of night. My favorite color of sky.

I came upon a single bench on my last slow lap around my courtyard. I’ve past it a thousand times and have never seen anyone in it. It struck me as a small throne. A sign that all first and onlys are royal.

S