Spectacles
March 24 2015


When I used to act
strictly amateur
and mostly bad
but friends and family clapped anyway,
the best part was dressing-up

in costumes and wigs.

Because transformation begins
from the outside in.
Because if clothes make the man
they also unmake him.
So behind my mask
I felt permission to change,
free from fear
and expectation.

And how given lines, ready-made
I could be witty, urbane,
instead of the usual tongue-tied stumbling dumb mistakes.
And how, squinting into blinding light
I was spared the sight
of being watched.

So can I re-invent myself
with a new pair of frames
from the optical emporium,
eye exams free, 2-for-1 sale?
Will the world seem more forgiving
through scratch-resistant lenses?
Will I see new possibilities
and be seen, fresh?

Dress-up, and make-believe
are child's play,
the standing ovation
intoxicating as love.
How willingly
we suspend disbelief,

how easily fooled.
How we are all impostors, inside
keeping-up appearances.

The optician's mirrors
are bathed in flattering light.
Get close, look directly into your eyes
at the child peering out.
And smile lovingly back,
the leading man
his lines down pat

invincible 
in trendy plastic frames.

Whose grand entrance

centre-stage

awaits. 

A uniform does much the same:  inhabit the clothes, and it becomes easy to re-invent yourself. I felt this in my professional life, slipping-in to the white coat, draping the sacramental stethoscope around my neck: an extreme introvert, temporarily transformed into the opposite.

On stage, as well, I could be incredibly brave:  bigger than myself, free of being judged. This was in high school and summer camp. I never did community theatre later in life.

I've recently been looking for new frames, and realize it presents a simple and painless way to transform my image (or perhaps just reinforce it, in a classic horn-rimmed frame in a nice tortoise-shell; the pair I've yet to find!) Or maybe this is an illusion: that a minor change seems so much bigger to me than it does to anyone else -- just as only you notice the big red blemish in the middle of your forehead. Anyway, the power of outward appearance is a necessary part of the "impostor" syndrome. This is a well-documented and surprisingly common feeling that afflicts prominent and high-achieving adults: that they're unworthy of their position, don't deserve their success; and that at any moment they'll be found out and unmasked as impostors.

(Which is at least better than its envious and bitter opposite: to feel far more deserving than those who've "made it"; to feel entitled but ignored, or deprived or even persecuted. Is it odd, or is it normal, that at times I've felt a bit of both?)