Why Zola Budd

Here's how women change my life. . .usually unexpectedly. I don't go out searching for it, well sometimes I do, but rarely do I meet with success that way. Mostly I open up to change and then some woman glances into my life, like Zola. My body sprang into adulthood in high school like an exploding mousse (not moose, though it sometimes felt like that too). It didn't open up like a beautiful blossom. No, I was a tiny hungry bony kid as a freshman and by graduation I had grown 8 inches and packed on 30 pounds. I felt huge and clumsy. I really was the girl with the great personality. Or more accurately, that's what guys said to console me when they admitted they liked my best friend and not me, and they were too chicken to tell me the truth: I was big and scary, more Sasquatch than Cinderella. So I developed a sharp and cutting tongue in high school to keep people at bay while I was busy growing. Like some sort of plant that has giant spines as a seedling to keep rabbits from eating it until its bark toughens. My new big body seemed to lump around, felt awkward in girly clothes. I had been a skinny little Tom-boy and the transition to womanhood happened just when social awkwardness hurt the most: high school.

The one perk to all this expansion was that my new body was strong. I had stopped being a vegetarian and all the beef went straight to muscle, especially in my legs. In high school I got into long distance cycling (another blog post for that later) and then I discovered running as a freshman in college. Zola Budd was like an old me running and I loved that. She was tiny, had a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. And she ran barefoot. I had gone barefoot for a year or so (vegetarian, barefoot, only wore red, rings on my fingers and toes, scarves hanging from my belt-loops, patches on my pants, me at 12). So I was fascinated that a girl like me (or that I could see resemblance in) could be so great at something. But there she was on TV, running her heart out. Then she supposedly tripped Mary Decker during the 1984 Olympics in the 3000 meter finals. I immediately sided with Zola. Mary Decker's picture had been on my refrigerator so long it was curling at the edges (for yet another blog post), but what I saw on August 11, 1984 was spoiled privilege berating a scared misunderstood me. Decker's picture came down. When I think of Zola, I mostly see those bare feet, her tiny body flying past her bigger, more trained opponents, and the bewildered look in her eyes after the collision with Decker. Of course she lost the battle of public opinion and whiny Mary won. That's how it is with us Zolas.