The word from my heart pocket is Disguise.
It doesn't take much. A little make-up, a pair of glasses, a wig. yikes. Scary.
In anticipation of Halloween, I thought it might be fun to talk about the word disguise. Halloween was one of the best holidays enjoyed when I was a child. The memories for me are about family and neighbors, working on my costume, weeks of anticipation, bags full of candy and tummy aches, mystery and intrigue, my brother's scary stories and the opportunity to "be" someone else.
Dressing up in a disguise is a valuable experience. Actors do it. Writers do it when they create characters, putting on paper the personalities - costuming them, giving them dialogue, saying things the writer might want to express in his daily life. Artists do it in their paintings. We all do it a bit in our daily lives. We affect a style, a persona and we act the part. We may not do it consciously, but take a minute. Look at what you're wearing this moment. Why did you choose it? Comfort? Dressed for a special meeting today? Going to exercise? To the city? To work in the garden, to clean house, to impress someone at work?
We disguise ourselves in other ways. We pretend to agree when we don't. We disguise our opinions in double talk. We cloak our thoughts in silence. We dress our egos in grand style in an attempt to appear better than we feel we are. We affect mannerisms and language and attitudes to fit in, to impress, to be accepted, to compensate for areas we feel are lacking. We laugh too loud, we always have the last word, we sympathize when we don't really care. We say we will when we have no intention of doing so. We disguise our lives with unnecessary travel and business meetings and self-importance. Sometimes our disguise is such a good one and we wear it so often, we actually thing it's who we are.
Wearing masks, misrepresenting ourselves to the world always ends in exposure. Disguising our feelings only delays an outburst or unwanted display and never gets the desired effect. Calculating some sort of deceit, disguising any inadequacies we experience only manages to complicate any situation or relationship. We are never as heavily veiled as we think. People often see through the disguise to the personality beneath.
We disguise ourselves in other ways. We pretend to agree when we don't. We disguise our opinions in double talk. We cloak our thoughts in silence. We dress our egos in grand style in an attempt to appear better than we feel we are. We affect mannerisms and language and attitudes to fit in, to impress, to be accepted, to compensate for areas we feel are lacking. We laugh too loud, we always have the last word, we sympathize when we don't really care. We say we will when we have no intention of doing so. We disguise our lives with unnecessary travel and business meetings and self-importance. Sometimes our disguise is such a good one and we wear it so often, we actually thing it's who we are.
Wearing masks, misrepresenting ourselves to the world always ends in exposure. Disguising our feelings only delays an outburst or unwanted display and never gets the desired effect. Calculating some sort of deceit, disguising any inadequacies we experience only manages to complicate any situation or relationship. We are never as heavily veiled as we think. People often see through the disguise to the personality beneath.
Every Halloween my goal was to not be recognized as myself. Every Halloween, I would go door to door and my neighbors would always say, "Ooooooo, Kittie, what a wonderful costume!" I finally asked, 'How did you know it was me?" "You can't hide that giggle!", they would say.
Some things, you can't disguise.
Some things, you can't disguise.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment