My dear and wonderful Blogmate, Happy Frog, recently tagged me to do some kind of a list.........things I like, things I hate, things about my deepest secrets, etc.
First, I must confess that I read down her list of nominees with some wistfulness wishing that someone would tag me for something someday.....read right to the bottom and about 3 minutes later realized that I had read right past the name of my own blog without even recognizing it. Since the title has been one of my most profound truths and my favorite utterances for lo these many years that says bad things about either my self esteem or my perception......probably both. Even worse, I was immediately filled with dread..........what should have been a joyful opportunity suddenly turned into a looming threat. Horrors! What was this all about?
It was at that moment that I realized that I was a most despicable fraud and sniveling coward. Here I have been strutting around for years arrogantly declaring that I had no secrets and a person could ask me anything and get an honest answer. I thought I had been flagrantly revealing the innermost Me in my blogs and frank conversations. Ha! What deceit....what a sham I am. (Not to be confused with Dr. Seuss's masterpiece). Once more I am having my nose rubbed in a puddle of humility. What was that precept about Pride and a Fall? Fuck those damned deadly sins........
The prospect of having to reveal a list of any sort, whether it be most despised things things or even favorite movies fills me with dread because, I realized, some of my tastes are so dull, plebian, low class and downright silly that they totally destroy this cultured, sophisticated, enlightened (?) image I thought I had of myself and that I hoped I projected to the outside world. I hoped I had progressed to the point that I didn't care what anyone thought of me...........here I am cringing at the idea of revealing that I might kill for a Strawberry Twizzler. M & M''s might be a barely acceptable choice.....at least they are chocolate, but Twizzlers with Gummy Bears as a runner up as motives for Homicide are too mundane, loathsome and childish to be borne. With each wretched revelation the unflappable World Traveler turns into a cringing guttersnipe who not only loves Twizzlers but (horror upon horror) washes and reuses Baggies..... (well, don't forget I WAS a child of the Depression).
I am so shaken by this newest insight that I can see it will take me a number of blogs to force myself to look into my soul and reveal more of the most loved and hated that I find there, regardless of what the revelations say about the real me. I can see the list of followers diminishing till I am left with only the stalwarts of my family....(and who knows how much their disillusionment will cause them to withdraw to the point of simply sending me an occasional Christmas Card.)
However, the one redeeming feature I may still have is my honest search for the truth so I intend to struggle through this resistance and reveal yet another shocker in a subsequent blog. (Funny, this reminds me of my very first major insight during my psychotherapy when, from the depths of a morass of self loathing I finally admitted and accepted that I was a pile of dung without a single redeeming feature and suddenly heard a voice within declare, "Not true, Lois.....after all you ARE good to animals." That was the turning point in my psychological recovery and has been a truth that has stood me in good stead to the present moment.....and now you must excuse me........I have to go and put out the tray of watermelon and fig newtons for the possums and raccoons.)
The New Yorker covers: September 26, 2011
2 hours ago
