Do I know you?
Make-believe boldness and the giant web of intersecting egos that is us
Life has been feeling really personal lately. Plentiful and plot-thick — like a soap opera, or comical stage play. Story abounds, but a lot of it not mine to tell.
This has me thinking about how much we rely on characters to shape our understanding of what in actual fact is going on, both inside and outside. Me in relation to you. How much of a feat it really is to stick with the script when none of us have been given a chance to rehearse a single line together before showtime. How delightfully fumbling and weird it can all get.
This summer really has me singing up luxurious old friends. I recently visited one and proceeded to fall into 6 hours of easy, balanced, uplifting, hilarious, comfy company. It was just one of those evenings where absolute presence takes over. I was so inside the conversation and interaction I actually had a moment - as we sat around the dining table in low night light - of complete forgetfulness. Jolted out of association with the everyday details of my own existence beyond the walls of her house. Just so rapturously ‘there’ and happy to be falling into deep connection and time with a dear friend. By late evening we were both yawning, declaring we should go to bed but still so eager and energised by the level of conversation neither of us made a move to actually break it.
Like teenage sleepovers. Those nights you feel so bound up in kinship you become impervious to every possible consequence of sleep deprivation and the immense-sugar-consumption comedown that will most certainly be descending on you at dawn. Secrets spill forth — crushes declared, celebrities discussed, plans to start a dance troop activated, until the harrowing shock of a Mother’s stern “GO TO SLEEP!” is thrust upon you through a gap in the door. Or, perhaps better relayed through the adult equivalent Pillow Talk theory. Or why vulnerable heart spewing seems so much easier on a walk or driving side by side in a car. Only to be chased by instant regret and the urge to dilute yourself with a rational follow up explanation.
Earlier in the year I looked after two 7 year old girls for an evening - best friends. I watched them as they played happily together in their bubble of fantasy and innocence. The scene would begin: accents chosen and acting skills deployed, as their improvised world took shape and their pseudo-selves fast inhabited it. Until one of them would interrupt the momentum. “Ok, now pretend we…” would be the preamble that came before some risky suggestion or sudden shift. Then came a “now pretend you…”
And this was where I really got invested, because this was also where all my own childhood tiffs with best friends would usually start. Someone would take the harmony and tweak it to their own vision and preference, and conflict would inevitably ensue. I found it sweet to be reviewing it from the mature platform of adulthood. Until I realised, all they were doing in those moments was in fact cleverly voicing inner wishes, expectations, and semi-uncomfortable ideas. Their little hearts were bidding for the exploration of big feelings and personal curiosities under the guise of ‘pretend’…. It’s the rhetorical question. The self deprecating comment. The pillow talk/car ride/text-convo openness we all lean on as grown ups. The safety of fiction as a tool to really, truly, say how we feel while hopefully buffering the peril of harsh judgement.
To be known - seen, heard, affirmed, safe and sound inside the mutual co-star agreement of “my story is your story”, is such a precious thing. All consuming and over-saturating at times, requiring tender acts of fairness and equal airtime, yet undoubtedly intertwined here we all are. But what happens when the writer’s edit doesn’t quite go where you thought it would. Close friends become less available to you as their character evolves to fit a new season’s theme, or the talk just isn’t as flowy and scratch-itching as it used to be. Beyond words and dialogue, story and significance, where do we go to understand that our validity remains?
My chiropractor once gave me sound advice as I prepared to head off on my travels. “Find your Everyday Angels”, he said. Those figures placed in your path to remind you you are here and you are visible - witnessed and fastened into unspoken reliability. They don’t know you, but your presence means something to them. I can think of many who I, to this day, frequently engage in silent energy dialogues with over the most trivial and habitual happenings. And some not so silent. Our family even has nicknames for a few of the shared ones: there was Cheese Roll Dave (bless him), there’s Neat Meat Guy, there’s Leaning Forward Man. Correspondingly, we all get to take on the role in reverse. To Paul, the local organic store owner, I am renowned for my predictable snack rotation: even after 6 months away, returning for my first shop I handed him a small brown paper bag of goods to process and was met with “let me guess….it’s either cacao buttons or macadamia nuts?” Dad has over the years been known as Lentil Pie Guy (a repeat offender to one particular Lebanese lunch spot), ‘Dahl Makhani No Oil Kiwi Hot’ as we placed weekly Indian takeaway orders on the phone, and most recently Double Espresso Dave…So consistent with his allocated coffee shop seat and routine there is genuine staff-wide concern if he arrives 10 minutes later than usual. But my favourites are Glen and Tracy — the couple who mind the Moke Lake DOC site, my favourite place on earth. Wearing his too-tight tucked in t-shirt and akubra as he laps around in his little white truck and yells out the window: “every time I see you ladies out here I think, ahhh, summer has begun.”
I think my point here is, say the thing — to the friend and the stranger. Tell them what they mean to you, or at least give them a chance to feel it. Everyone is a character in your story, but never forget you also play a part in theirs.
Connect the threads. Merge the plot. Broaden the cast. Because nothing is more uplifting than the brazen sharing of unanticipated, edifying thought.