365 Inspirations—239: Are you an Actress?

My true namesake, Katharine Hepburn

"Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily.  If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented.  So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise."—Maya Angelou

 I had one of those surreal moments at the bank today. Yoon and I had just walked around Greenlake, dined in Wallingford for lunch and made our way up to the bank so that I could deposit a royalty check from my agent.

I handed the banker my check and he said, "I see that you have a royalty check there. I don't see many of these. Are you an actress or something?"

I had to just stand there for a moment and soak those words in.

Am I an actress?

Could I be an actress?

After staring off into space for several seconds, I came back to the task at hand.

"No, I'm not an actress, " I heard myself say, "I'm a writer."

I'm a writer.

A writer.

I let those work sink in. Did I say them? Is that what I am? Is that how I would define myself?

And then it dawned on me that yes, you are a writer. You have an agent and published a book in North America, Croatia and soon Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong. Who knows where else?

Sometimes this just doesn't seem real to me still.

"A writer?" The banker said in amazement, "That's not easy to do...to publish a book I mean."

"What's the genre?"

"I write memoir...nonfiction."

"What's the title of your book?"

I wrote the title of my book and my name on a piece of paper and handed it to the banker who said he'd check it out. For all I know, he may be reading this blog post right now.....

Just before I left the bank I said, "My name's Kathy, what's yours?"

"Chase," he responded.

"Chase as in the bank Chase? As in where we are right now?"

"Yes, that's right."

I looked at his name tag and sure enough it read CHASE. And right behind him in big letters on the wall the same word was there.

"Well, I guess I won't forget your name, have a good day..."

And with that I left the bank and joined my husband who was across the street peering into a shop window.

"That was an interesting encounter," I exclaimed as we journeyed down the street arm and arm.

I sucked in a deep breath and whispered, "an actress" on exhale.

"A what?"

"Oh, nothing."

Have you ever had an interesting exchange with a stranger that made you think about your life in a new way?