Nooks

Lately it feels like I'm at the bottom of a very tall pile of precariously stacked items. To talk about needing to achieve balance would be putting it lightly. I feel the conflicted impulse to both stand out and recede into my comfort zone. To noticeably be un-noticeable and therein lies a paradox.

You can't have people take notice without standing out in some way. But I don't have a knack for flair, I don't dress in any manner of avant-garde fashion and I often spend too much time thinking about what I'm going to say rather than saying what I think. I try to be good in the little ways: chasing after a person who has dropped something, returning lost items, giving directions and taking pictures for tourists. I even gave a free hug along with some spare change to a homeless man. Yes, I still feel weird about that but sometimes a fellow human being needs a hug.

In doing good things I don't feel as oppressed by the cigarette smoke that billows in my face no matter how I strive to avoid it. I try to smile at strangers and hope that what I think is a smile doesn't look like a sneer to them. Maybe putting on happy airs will help alleviate the panic I feel on a daily basis. I wonder if I'm capable, if I can manage my finances, if I can move out, if I seem confident, if I might actually know what I'm doing.

When life feels complicated I need to remind myself that the best ideas come in simple packages. Musicals are good for this. Often daily life fails to remind us of the things we learned from Mary Poppins and The King and I, films I still go back to after all this time.

I might be as brave as I make believe I am.