Who Do You Think You Are?

I was talking with my friend the other day. About life, the universe, and making things, about ourselves and the difficulty of putting ourselves out there for others to see. We talked about how there are these ideas we have and we would like to express, but how there's so often something holding us back. And how the most potent of those somethings is that one insidious question: "Who do you think you are?"

After I got home, I kept thinking about it all. "Who do you think you are?" And it crossed my mind: what would happen if, just for once, I answered that question?

So, let's try it. Who do you think you are? Well, I think I'm a 5'9" German, with blue eyes and greying brown hair. I think I'm a mother. I think I'm a grad student. I think I'm a writer. BAM!! I just ran into an invisible wall.

Not unlike the visitor we picked up from the airport, who, after collecting his suitcase from the luggage carousel, in his jet-lagged state walked right into the glass wall that forms the little foyer around the exit doors. I'm afraid I laughed - it did look just a bit too cartoonish how he bounced off that sheet of glass, and he wasn't, after all, really harmed. Just a little stunned. And all he had to do was take two steps to the left, three forward, turn right, and - Open Sesame!- the sliding doors parted, and parted again, to let him emerge into the spring sunshine. All of which, I'm happy to report, was accomplished without any further mishaps or injury to health or dignity; and we had a lovely visit for the remainder of his stay at our house.

However, not all invisible walls are as easily dealt with as the sheet of glass at the airport. Or are they?

Steve and a Glass Wall

You see, brick walls, even the ones that have been tidily plastered over and painted a delicate shade of rose pink, they're easy to identify and avoid. "Who do you think you are?" Well, I don't think I'm an Olympic gymnast, because I've known I'm athletically challenged since at least the first day of gym class in grade one. D'uh. No difficulty in avoiding that particular wall. But writing, on the other hand - that's something I want to do. It's something I've tried to do, in the last few years. It's a door I was confidently heading for, pulling my little suitcase on wheels behind me, when suddenly - BAM! "Who do you think you are?" It's those insidious glass walls that have you bouncing off them like any old rubber ball. You thought you could go that way, and then suddenly your nose gets flattened (and the person walking beside you, who hasn't spent the last twenty-four hours on assorted airplanes and still has all their mental faculties about them, laughs at you for it).

But, really - all it takes is two steps to the left. This isn't a thirty-foot-wide picture window we're bouncing off of, it's just a little foyer around a genuine door, a door which will obligingly part for you if you just move over a little. No, don't try to go the same way again! Don't keep smacking your head against that solid glass. It'll make you look ridiculous and annoy the airport janitor because you'll leave greasy forehead prints on the glass. Two steps over, three forward, turn right, and there! See? A wide-open door, and the soft air of a sunny spring day blows in your face.

Easier said than done, you say? Well, yes, of course. I'm once again preaching to myself here. But just think: what if, next time that insidious question rears its ugly little head, you just answered it? Maybe you'll find that the glass wall you're bouncing off of is only the foyer around the exit.

Who do you think you are? Two steps to the left, three forward, turn right: I think I'm a writer.

Life, the Universe, and Glass Walls that are merely Foyers. Who do you think you are?