When I was young we crowded around the pictures and we kissed them and
he wasn't my favorite but I knew he was everybody else's and I
pretended because I was good at that. He was objectively good-looking,
pretty in a girly way, and maybe that was my introduction to androgyny
and the appreciation of things that looked like other things or maybe I
was just trying to fit in, but anyway: it was a physical evaluation,
and oh, he passed.
And then in college laughing scoffingly at those people, because
then I loved a clever boy/man. I liked a person who set aside privilege
and if he did so from a bedroom that cost a fortune to make it look
stripped of grandeur I did not care about the hypocrisy because I cared
about a turn of phrase, an insight, a way of setting words to music
that made the words themselves music. And of course it was full of
principle and searching and striving, something better coming up,
glimpsed but not reached, hope. But mainly it was about loving what was
clever, and how that love is both complicated and pure.
Later, much, when I was even saying I didn't care, I would have
said that if I cared I would have gone for -not spirituality, but
spiritual searching. And ultimately, kindness. Thoughtfulness and
consideration and yearning, which is different from striving, because
it involves acknowledging that some things are out of your hands.
Understanding that it didn't have to be complicated in order to get the
job done, and understanding that getting the job done was important,
but at the same time devoting myself to what I cared about. It was
about showing up for the team but not necessarily being a team player.
And now, and now I really don't care, but if you asked me I might
say that my admiration is turning to the one that showed up every day.
Not the prettiest, not the cleverest, not the kindest, but the one who
chose to be on a team where he would, by virtue of the company of
diamonds, never himself shine. What would it feel like to be fully
confident that you were always good, but to understand that in the
context you chose you would never be seen as the best. I'd choose goofy, I'd choose an
utter disregard for appearance, a lack of interest in proving myself
every single second. I'd choose a silly affectation to give people who didn't really know me
something to work with in place of my real identity. I'd keep my true identity for people who mattered. I'd choose to get along with
everyone even when they're fighting with each other. I'm not saying I'm
there. I'm saying I'm realizing that it's worth my admiration.
tuckova 