The
Illusion That Is Me
I know that I’m still handsome,
for an old bloke –
what a fucking joke –
and have wide shoulders,
a powerful voice,
and a strong presence,
but all this only gives
the people I meet
and even those I’ve known somewhat
for years
the wrong
impression.
I’m really
an insecure
nine-year-old boy
with no self-confidence,
low self esteem,
and no self-belief
who’s afraid of everybody,
and have been since 1955.
Vertigo
I
don’t know if it’s all in my mind
or
just in my middle ear,
but
vertigo’s been a part of my life
for
as long as I can remember.
It’s
not that I’m afraid of heights –
I
can enjoy the view
out
of a twentieth-floor window or from an airplane –
but
whenever I’m unsure of my underpinnings,
whether
I’m walking across
the
outside lane of a windy bridge
or
changing a light bulb three steps up a ladder,
an
icy sensation shoots back and forth
between
my ankles and my knees,
I
become dizzy, disoriented, or both,
my
sense of balance seems to desert me,
and
I have to fight to prevent myself
from
lurching into a disastrous fall.
I
Am A Thing
Although some may find
things that I do
to be competently useful
or mildly entertaining,
I find it hard to believe
that anybody gives a shit
about what goes on in my mind
when I’m alone –
which is most of the time –
or about my feelings
or my pain.
My experience has been
that other people –
and even my dog –
behave toward me
as if I were a thing,
rather than a human being,
and I long ago came to accept
their judgement.
Motivations Obscure To Me
I’ve observed these people –
on TV and when I’m out and
about –
who have full beards and shaved
heads,
and it’s beyond my capacity for
empathy
to understand in any meaningful
way
why
they do.
It’s the same with elaborately
trimmed-and-shaped beards
that require high maintenance,
and trendy hairstyles
that require frequent barbering
and expensive product.
Words come to mind –
fashion, machismo, vanity,
narcissism,
obsessive affectation –
and I know what all those words
mean,
but I’m incapable of knowing
what those things feel like.
Although I did experiment once,
extremely briefly,
with a goatee when in my early
twenties,
I stopped shaving,
or allowing barbers to shave,
any part of me when I was
nineteen
because I didn’t like to do it,
didn’t like the way it felt,
either during or after the
process,
and could find no compelling,
rational reason
for doing it at all,
and that’s it.
A Brief Assessment
I’m just a psychosocially deficient old
man
who occasionally churns out amusing words.
I Don’t Feel Ethnic
I
don’t feel ethnic
even
though I was born into a definite ethnic group.
Ashkenazic.
Eastern
European Jewish.
Two
grandparents from what is now Poland
and
two from what’s now the Ukraine
Still,
I love most of the ethnic food I grew up with –
chopped
liver and sour green tomatoes and kasha knishes
and
sable, which is smoked black cod, and,
although
I haven’t had any in many years,
gefilte
fish with hot horseradish – comfort food, all,
but
I also derive comfort from stuff from the hot bread shops,
and
just about every other kind of ethnic food,
and
when I cook it’s more likely to be
some
form of Mexican or Italian or Indian or something
I’ve
improvised
than
Ashkenazic.
I
don’t deny my heritage,
but
the religion part,
and
most of the in-group cultural stuff of it never stuck.
I
guess the thing is that although
I’m
a member of the tribe for sure,
I
just don’t dance with the rest of them
around
some metaphoric campfire.
I
don’t dig klezmer,
and
I didn’t dig it when another member of the tribe
came
up to me at a recent function
and
told me an ethnocentric, ethnic-stereotype joke,
having
lost my ability to appreciate
humour
based on ethnic stereotypes – except Australians –
many
decades ago.
I
didn’t feel simpático with
that landsmann,
to mix my Spanish with my Yiddish.
What I felt was alienated from my roots,
just as I do from the wider culture.
My
Own Confirmation Bias
When I don’t feel confident
about being able
to do something competently,
but have no choice but to do it anyway,
and it comes out okay,
this result has no effect
on my underlying lack of confidence
at all.
I Come Last
One of the many things
that I internalised as child,
having learnt it within
the dynamic of my family,
that my life in general reinforced,
and that became solidified during the years
when I was primarily a spouse and parent
is that when I am involved or engaged
with one or more other people,
my interests, my preferences,
my feelings, my desires,
my needs, my time – my life,
definitely have less importance
than those of the others.
I accept this as natural and inevitable,
but I don’t like it.
Early
in the Morning
For a long time now,
the worst part of almost every
day for me
has been that early-morning
moment
when I grudgingly have to
acknowledge
that I’ve awakened and am
unable
to get back to sleep.
From time to time, however,
things become worse,
such as when I’m at my desk
before dawn
and am unable to distract
myself sufficiently
to maintain mental numbness.
Without When Within
It got to the point
at which even whisky gave no comfort
from my rattlings about in my own absurdity;
I had no children, or old men like myself,
around to connect me
with card games or dominoes
and laughter about nothing.
I no longer had even pathetic congress
with the plants in my pots.
No new facebook notifications.
No new emails.
No phone calls or text messages,
as usual.
No hugs and cuddles.
No cosy time-passing.
No sharing of secrets.
No enthusiasm or expectations
that the courage required to hit the world
would result in reward.
Of all the music in the world,
much of it at my fingertips,
I didn’t know what to play –
something that would reach me
but not really touch me
would have been most appropriate for the situation,
but the situation seemed incurable, anyhow,
even with jazz fusion.
Within
When Without
Fear afflicts me
most of the time.
It afflicts me the worst
when I’m away from my hole.
All sorts of fears afflict all
sorts of people,
but – except for vertigo –
most of the common ones,
such as the fear of death,
bother me little or not at all.
What terrorises me, of course,
is people.
Okay, most of the people who
take my money
in the shops and so forth
are like balm.
But when I venture into
the world of people
who may give a shit
or should give a shit
or pretend to give a shit
or who I want to give a shit,
I’ve learnt to keep my defences
up,
and let the performer hide the
child,
being highly suspicious of what
is actually there.
My form may be within your
range of vision, y’see,
but I’m not there.
