Serial Self #1

Serial Self #1

            There’s this poem by Denise Levertov: There’s in my mind a woman/ of innocence, unadorned but// Fair-featured, and smelling of/ apples or grass. She wears// a utopian smock or shift, her hair/ is light brown and smooth, and she// is kind and very clean without/ ostentation—/ But she has/ no imagination./ And there’s a/ turbulent moon-ridden girl// or old woman, or both,/ dressed in opals and rags, feathers// and torn taffeta,/ who knows strange songs –// but she is not kind.//

            The woman that I have in mind is one modeled on a certain song. This woman has a face that is a map of the world. She fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white. She walks in a silver pool of light. She makes you calm. She holds you captivated in her palm. But she likes to leave you hanging on her word.

            This woman’s day begins at ten in the morning, when she comes out of the salon. She wears silk as smoothly as if it was her own skin. In fact, she doesn’t wear silk; she is silk herself, on heels. This woman then goes to a party of the organization where she is a member. She knows that she is a full hour and thirty minutes late, but this word doesn’t exist in her vocabulary unless it is preceded by an adverb. To her, she is late, but fashionably so, and this is the most normal thing in the world if you’re going to a party.

            She believes in graceful entrances and exits. There is something graceful and spontaneous in the way she innocently stands for a moment at the door, looking at the roomful of people, as though she’s naively horrified that the show has started without her. However, this is completely belied by her studied walk which doesn’t remind of you of silk at all.

            This woman strides over to her table in maximum confidence and capability. Silk is her subtle armor, a smoothness to win over people. And she does win over people. Although her walk is studiedly innocent, possibly even subtly predatory, there is nothing calculated in her talk. She laughs with others sincerely, and even exerts effort to bring the outsiders in to her circle of conversation. She is in her element in this; she exchanges wit and humor like she’s done it all her life.

            But there is heart in her too. When she takes the podium to talk about the people in front of her, she drops her predatory subtleness. In this trembling second, she is fragile. Open to sniper shots that will probably come from everywhere in her audience, she takes the risk. The perfect picture of herself is the confident woman in silk and heels, poised at the podium, pausing for a tender moment before speaking, pausing for a moment to calm her fears that are throbbing.

            When she takes her seat with a shy smile, what matters more to her is not the applause of the others but the sincere hug of the friends she talked about. In another tender moment, she will almost reveal herself by crying. But the moment passes. The clear smoke in her eyes remains.

            The rest of the party will happen inside the frames of a digital camera, her eyes uniformly staring, as if defiant, at the transparent lens. In a different time, this look would be offensively piercing, provocative of anger; as it is now, this is her stare, piercing, but ultimately makes her herself. In a different time, this stare would have intimidated others; as it is now, this lures boys who think they’re men.

According to the song, this woman that I have in mind has got the power to be, the power to give, the power to see. That’s why the singer suddenly sees that this woman is what she wants to be. She doesn’t have these things however. I do.

At the end of the day, when this woman that I have in mind comes home to a rented room she shares with three other college girls, when she washes the oil off her face, this woman becomes me. This woman that I have in mind is only me in a different package, which makes everything that is me acceptable.

            The difference is that I created her. I gave her her subtlety, her silky smoothness, but her soul is my own. And at the end of a day of getting acquainted with others, she will be reduced to silk.

            And I, I will get a rest from minding this woman, and will go back to myself. Me with what they say is my intimidating stare. The me that has the power to be create my own serial selves, to give of myself, to see what is worth seeing.

            This is the me I want to be.