It’s heart-wrenching to be invalidated by someone you love. I was around ten years old when I showed my father a picture I had drawn and colored. Sitting at the dining room table, I was pleased with what I had done.
As I remember it, he grabbed the drawing, shook it, and yelled “You colored outside the lines!”
Oh.
Well, this tendency of drawing outside the lines has become a quality of character that I adore. It is a Christmas gift of immense proportions! I did not know in that moment that his criticism would become a mantra of sorts, kind of like my personal 11th commandment.
“Thou shalt always color outside the lines because that’s where learning, character growth, and love are placed.”
Ironically, the same man who was pushed to anger about my straying outside the lines was also the person who taught me about taking chances. In a booming voice Daddy would stride into the kitchen with vague ingredients in his large, deep brown hands and look into the boiling pots on the stove.
“Improvise!” he’d shout, and we’d watch with doubtful, although hopeful, faces as a splash of this or that was thrown into our evening meal. Sometimes, his improvising didn’t work, but most times, I was astonished to see, it worked out just right. So, yell as much as he might, my first lessons in straying outside the lines came from him.
I was sitting behind my desk and chewing. The rules in my third grade class were clear: no gum chewing; no eating. It wasn’t that I was being openly rebellious. It’s just that as I quietly watched my teacher chewing, I had decided that a rule was a rule. Didn’t everybody—even teachers—have to follow the rules?
So, as she chomped away, bold as you please, and drew math examples on the board, I put the gum in my mouth and began to chew.
“Take the gum out of your mouth. You know the rules.” she said.
So I said (my sister tells me that I always had to have something to say), “But you’re chewing gum, Mrs. H.”
Okay. If you’re old-school you may have some belief about child-adult relationship values, and how the adult has the final word. But I color outside the lines.
Mrs. H. glared at me.
“Why are you chewing gum?” I insisted as my classmates laughed, went silent, or coughed with surprise.
“It’s medicine!” she snapped. “On the black board, 100 times, I will not chew gum in class.”
I hate the sound of chalk on blackboard, but although I’d lost the battle, in the end I won the war. I don’t remember seeing her chew gum in class any more.
I found out later that it was a chewing gum laxative. But knowing myself as I do now, I’m pretty sure I would have asked “why?” anyway. That’s the mold from which this cookie is cut.
Drawing outside the lines—or in my adult persona, challenging the status quo— requires at least a dot of courage in order to ask the questions. I may not get the answers, but I will ask the questions. Asking puts me in the driver’s seat.
Drawing outside the lines is what compelled me to (politely) explain to a manager that she was abusive—knowing full well the consequences. I am healthier and happier for it.
Even when we try to stay inside the lines, twisting and shifting our personalities and behaviors to be liked, life’s pictures shift and change, and we find ourselves grabbing new colors, different inks, or sharper pencils to keep up. Sometimes we just have to go over those little lines to make life beautiful and–dare I say it ? –filled with dignity, love, and respect.
The cynical (you know how I feel about cynical…) might ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”
Excellent!!!
Happy Holidays, everybody. May the New Year continue to bring you peace, joy, prosperity, and courage!
Sala
Obreptitious
Sound has power. The sound in obreptitious fills the mouth, but breaks the air like a punctured balloon. It’s the unpleasant presence in relationships.
The dictionary says that “obreptitious” means to gain through concealment of the truth, and I gather that it is a word often used in law and associated with fraud. That doesn’t work so well in relationships.
Obreptitious a big word, and I had promised myself that I wouldn’t use such words. It has a lot against it. It has four syllables. You have to look at it three times to make sure you pronounce it correctly. Such words are generally a nuisance because nobody uses them in everyday talking. Imagine…
“Hey, Susan! That was an obreptitious statement.” Or whatever…
I don’t even remember how I found this word. But I knew when I heard it that there was something in it for me; something to think about. Do I want to live my life concealing the truth of what I believe in the hopes that people will approve of my life, ideas, and behavior, or do I want to live my life as an authentic person? I care about the habit of telling the truth. I care making an effort to be real, authentic, and open.
This word, ultimately, is about hiding; about keeping secrets, and secrets, as we know, are not such good “friends.” There are times when concealment seems necessary, but in the end, concealment is a deal-breaker. It kills trust and squashes vulnerability. Without trust and vulnerability, real friendships don’t exist. Ever tried to be friends with a corporation?
Corporations and politicians use concealment to gain money and power. Just look at the mess our political and economic systems are in. I know…the Supreme Court says corporations are people. Good luck with that.
I once witnessed a testy turf war between two former corporate business partners. The executives of one company had developed an elaborate strategy to announce important company changes at a staff assembly without the former partner knowing about the meeting. On the morning of the assembly, the back doors to the auditorium burst open and the executive team of the former partner sprinted down the aisle to take seats in front of the podium as the announcements were made.
It takes a lot of energy to live with concealment—a.k.a. secrets—for gain. Sometimes folks conceal information to get revenge or to hurt another. Like when an ex-boyfriend surprised me by introducing me to his new wife that he had married two weeks before. We were living together at the time.
Sometimes concealment is used to gain protection for the family or to gain stability in a changing and unstable world. Growing up, I had often complained (to myself of course) about not having a big sister who would take on all the big sister responsibilities I had. It’s been said to be careful what we wish for.
“This is her second daughter,” my grandfather would announce when introducing me to people who knew my mother. I was 19 and in the middle of my only trip alone to South Carolina to visit my grandparents. I dared not ask for explanation, and saved my questions for when I returned home. It was not a pleasant conversation, but worse than that, lives were shattered from good intentions. Sadly, more than 35 years later, the damage of that concealment—for my older sister—remains.
Over the past twenty years, I have made some hellish mistakes in my attempts to demolish the wall of concealment in my personal life. As determined as I was to level the wall, I found myself holding it up because it’s a fact that everybody doesn’t need to know everything–whether about me or anybody or anything else.
But, I’ll keep trying. And that is my New Year’s resolution.
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Posted in Commentary, Creative nonfiction, Humanity, Language, Life Stories, Memoir, Reflection, Using language, Values and Spirituality, World View, Writing