life raft | Jane Strong

Question 10:

Says who?

The Childhood Litany

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Jane Strong

In my childhood, the litany went something like this:	Sez who? Sez me. Yeah? Sez you!! Yeah. Sez me. Yeah? Sez you?!? Yeah, sez me! You and what army?!! (Withering tones.)
The coup de grace	The blow that kills. You alone, by yourself, aren't enough. You're not good enough. So begins the lifelong effort to evade that accusation, that 3 o'clock-in-the-morning voice that lets you know how far you've fallen from protection... Oh?
Ah...	What I meant to write was "perfection"; but what I really wrote was "protection." What voice was that? Some inner voice at the core of me that asks for protection from this external--eternal--demand that I finally perfect myself. That I become better than I am, different from how I am. In effect that I cease to be me. Because what I am is not enough. Not good enough. Because I could be better. Because there's always room for improvement--right? Because you can't sit on your laurels--right?
Sez who?	Come, come, let's not be difficult. The Real World is no picnic. It's a tough competitive dog-eat-dog world out there. Nobody promised a rose garden, even a rose garden full of thorns. Remember Alice, in Through the Looking Glass? Remember how fast you have to run to merely stay in one place? If you want to get ahead and make progress, you'd have to run twice as fast. Life is serious business and you're doomed to failure unless you--Hey! where do you think you're going? You can't walk out like that. Who do you think you are? I'm Me. Whatever that turns out to be. An imperfect bit of raw material that you and all those Other voices (external? internalized?) were constantly trying to mold into something more acceptable. That's who.
But the hour grows late.	At my age, it's high time I was doing it, whatever "it" turns out to be. It could be creeping up the beach out of the undertow, out of the backwash of the waves, above the tidal markings, to lay my eggs in the sand--or not lay them if that's what I decide--and after that to take my chances. After that I'll decide whether I want to crawl back into the water. Or crawl on up into the edge of the forest and explore a bit. Or, possibly, just to lie in the cool clean sand and bask for a while. And do nothing. Scandalous? Who sez?

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