Zora! Zora! Zora!

If I were a believer in that hoodoo crap of numerology, I’d say that there’s something suspicious around the birth, life and death of Ms. Zora Neale Hurston. I’ll get to who she is in a minute. Her dates are: b. 1/7/1891 and d. 1/28/1960. Numerology works by adding all of the digits together down to one digit. It doesn’t matter how you do it, you’ll always end up with the same one digit. In Zora’s case, her number is 9. Allow me to illustrate.

Taking her birth date, 1/7/1891, it doesn’t matter if you add 17+1+89+1 or 1+71+8+91 or 171+8+9+1, you’ll end up with 9. See, 17+1+89+1 = 108. Since you have to end up at one digit, you arrive at that final digit by adding the digits together thus: 1+0+8 = 9. If you take the second example, 1+71+8+91 = 171 you still end up with 9 (1+7+1) and so on with the final example. If you do the same thing with her death date, you’ll also get 9. While nine is a nice number, it’s not as cool as 8 since eight is all connected in one pen stroke and when flipped on its side, it becomes the symbol for infinity which I like so much I had it tattooed on my thighs, but I digress.

Since I don’t believe in the hoodoo crap of numerology, I’m not intrigued with the above revelation. Her death date is my birth date (1/28, NOT 1960 though) and that always sparks a little interest. I don’t know why, it just does.

I could go on further if I believed in any of that reincarnation hogwash and say that I have a connection to her since she died on the day I was born except that there was also eleven years between those two momentous occasions. I could then go back to numerology and say that there is still a connection because the 11 years brought down to one digit is 2 and my number is 2 (1+28+1971). Oooooooooooo…..are you creeped out yet? Me neither.

Oh yeah, I was going to tell you who she was. Zora (what a kick-ass name) was a writer but was also called an anthropologist when she agreed to do some story-collecting in the south. Yes, that’s right…I watched American Masters again.

I haven’t read any of her stuff yet and can’t wait to do so, but until then, I’ll have to be content remembering lines like what she called “the boiled down juice of human living” when referring to games, songs and customs of a small town. I’m not sure I agree with her on that but I love the phrase. I just took a few moments to think about it and I’ve changed my mind, I now do agree with her.

I also agree with her when she commented on the intensity of waking up in the night having to write saying “There is no agony like bearing an untold story that is up inside you”. I blame Halle Berry’s post-Oscar curse for making me completely disinterested in seeing the big-screen adaption of “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Halle and Oprah. I’ll blame Oprah too mainly because I don’t like her.

In comparison, Maya Angelou is a complete wimp and a no-talent hack. “I know why the caged bird sings….” Oh boo hoo! Zora would simply be astonished that you don’t want to be in her presence. That’s more like it. Zora must have agreed with me because it just thundered* when I wrote that. Either that or there is a point of contact between a cold and a warm air mass creating instability in the atmosphere which could subsequently cause a sudden release of electrical energy in a flash of current, or what we would call lightning, which would then be accompanied by a sudden change in temperature, pressure and the expansion of air surrounding the lightning bolt creating a sonic boom.

*I actually wrote this 4/10 at 7:30pm but since I don’t have a computer at home, you’re getting it this morning.