I am continuously amazed at what this process is bringing out of me. Xiane observed last night that I’m clearly impacted visually – I am thinking more visually, and it’s coming out in my writing not to mention in my urge to draw and paint. Also, I like lowbrow art. This shouldn’t surprise me – I have a prankish sense of humor.
There are people who think they know me well who approach me as though I’m dead serious all the time. Those who do know me well know that couldn’t be further from the truth: my laughing phases are just as intense as my angry phases which are just as intense as my working phases. It just hasn’t occurred to some of these folks that I still exist when they’re not in the room. I’m guessing if any of these folks picture me as a child, they picture a solemn, lonely little kid. Yes, I was lonely most of the time, but I wasn’t solemn. I had a sense of humor about all of it, and I played jokes on my family because I knew my schoolmates weren’t advanced enough to distinguish between “prank-you mean” and “prank-you-I-like you” behaviors. My saving grace was an innate sense of knowing that all my circumstances were temporary.
So, looking at 5 traits I had as a child that I liked, I want to say that most of these traits were from first grade and before. By 2nd grade the onslaught from family and the world started to damage me, so these traits began to disappear. But looking back at them, I liked them. They still inform who I would like to be, someday when I’ve evolved past all the internal muck.
- 1. The duck-coating. Up until age 8, meanness would generally just roll off my back. I even remember being attacked quite literally by the neighbor boys in a sandbox and by the time my bath was done, I’d forgotten it.
2. I accepted people as they were, wholesale. I was all about the opportunity to be nice.
3. I sang a lot. I loved to sing – in May, I’d yell the lyrics to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer from my backyard swingset.
4. Sensual enjoyment – silk between my fingers, the leap in my stomach when the car went fast over a hill, and the delicious pleasure of pushing a button. I still love pushing buttons.
5. Love. I loved everybody, and believed fervently that everyone had kindness in them, just that some needed help unlocking it.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I grew up to be exactly who I was as a little kid.
