I had the neat experience of meeting a local celebrity last Sunday night.

It’s an experience because when you meet a celebrity, you kind of wonder if the magic of who they are in their celebrity-hood will rub off on you at all, and somehow also make you more special. Well, I don’t know if anyone else thinks that way, but at times I do. No doubt, most celebrities probably don’t.

I wish I knew what it is all about, this inner pull to be validated- to be deemed worthwhile by others- that many of us are familiar with. Not everyone who is a celebrity wants or needs this validation, but it seems like a lot of us 7 billion people do. We all want to be loved, and many of us wish we could be admired for something we can do or be, but the magic behind the emergence of celebrity is not easily formulated. Why some people find fame is as mysterious to me as why socks disappear in the dryer. And I’m also sure not all “celebrities” really seek fame out with all of its trappings. But fame has a way of changing people, and how we approach them. And there is something about interacting with those that we know are famous that makes many of us change the way we act, or how we think in the moment, or our disposition. It’s weird- and I do it. And I reckon folks like myself do it because we just aren’t fully secure in ourselves.

Anyways, I went to the Smith’s grocery store by my house Sunday evening after I chucked a hundred free throws at a basket at a nearby school (never mind that I only made 34 of them). I needed some French Vanilla creamer and some yogurt to get me going the next few mornings, so I picked those fellas up from the dairy section and decided I needed some fruit as well, so I wandered across the store to the produce section, and there, standing in the aisle between the apples and the oranges she stood, picking up fruit.

It’s Holly (Holm)!

Well, the good thing is that my sister knows her, so, despite the logical part of me trying to say “Hey man- she’s a celebrity, leave her alone!”, I saw her look up and towards me as I approached the apples.

“Hi Holly- how are you doing?”

Responding as though she was familiar with such awkward exchanges, she quickly responded with a canned politeness. “Very well, thank you. Thanks for asking.”

“I just wanted to say ‘Hi’- I am Kristi’s brother. She enjoys working out with you guys over at your gym.”

Her face quickly softened, and she looked at me as she offered a more familiar response. She knows my sister. “I see the resemblance”, she quipped, holding one of her hands over her head. I laughed mutely, thinking “That was a good one”. “Yeah, I see her pretty frequently. She likes to get in there and mix it up. She’s always pleasant to talk to.” She asks me if I am younger or older and I admit my sister is the older wiser (tougher) one, and then I answer her next question, saying we have a brother who is also tall, but who does not live here.

I converse and I am aware I am talking casually to this tall boxer of a woman with piercing eyes and bruises on one side of her face and a large promissory ring with a really wide silver band on her left hand (because I don’t know much about her, I don’t know if she’s engaged or married) and pink nails painted to match her sweats and we’re in a grocery store produce section and I think “she’s famous”, wondering if other people stop her like this all the time. But while my brain goes away, she is still talking with me, interested in our family, which has to stem from her knowing my sister and knowing what a quality person she is, and I am balancing on the coattails of my sister here.

And I also think, she is a woman. A woman who gets in the ring or the octagon and punches and kicks and gets pounded and takes knees and gets bruised and who trains like a maniac to be the best at what she does, which involves a lot of pain, and I remember I am a guy who likes to watch TV, and we’re casually chatting in the produce section of a grocery store. I tell her my sister is pretty awesome, and that I am amazed at what they both do, working hard as they do at the gym, and I offer my respects, and then the topic shifts to my sister’s foreign exchange student and how he goes with her to the gym and really likes it. That subject goes spins off a brief second to another one that relates to the other foreign exchange student my sister’s family hosted, and then the chatter stalls, and I feel the moment is done.

“Well, I just wanted to say Hello. My sister thinks you’re a great person, so I just wanted to meet you.” I pause, and then say I better let her finish her shopping.

She graciously extends her hand and in a firm grip, tells me it is nice to meet me. Above the bruise over her left check, behind her serious demeanor, under the twirl of blonde hair crowning her head, her eyes have a gentleness in them, and she offers a smile. “Take care of yourself”, I offer. “Nice to meet you- come by the gym sometime” she answers as she then turns and heads for the bananas. Awkwardly, I realize I need bananas too and I follow her, muttering as I approach her, “I need bananas too.” And then the huddle breaks, and the meeting is done.

I see her once again 10 minutes later, passing near her as she is weighing check out lines and I am heading for the self check-out area. She doesn’t appear to see me, but baffled by appropriate acknowledgements, I decide to put my head down and pass on by her and leave her be. And I feel awkward.

I think what I truly appreciate, and realized after the fact, though, was that the exchange was really pretty human. Because she knew my sister, and she knew my sister as real, she also talked to me as someone real. Affiliations impact connection and affection. But what was also real here was the reminder that behind the celebrity persona is a person who thinks and feels and strives and wants and loves and hurts. Holly’s not just a famous boxer. She’s a preacher’s daughter, a gym teacher, someone’s love, a kind acquaintance of my sister.

Celebrity. It’s a strange costume, worn by some by choice, and by others by chance. Still, it’s a strange costume, that stirs both intrigue and apprehension within me, and I always wonder who is really behind the persona that must be maintained, because the facade can often become a fortress, and for some, a prison.

But Holly was a generous conversationalist who could have crippled me quickly if she wanted to. I’m glad she’s a kind woman, and that I got to shake her hand, and really, that she was just another shopper in Smith’s on Sunday night.

A shopper who needed her bananas.

Thanks for being real there, Holly, and nice to this regular guy who has a 34% free throw shooting average. Those bananas were pretty good, weren’t they? I used mine in a smoothie.

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Image Credit: “Boxing Gloves sitting in a ring” by Aberro Creative via Flickr. Creative Commons license.