This afternoon, after a couple of weeks of events and having “things” come up, I made it over to the nursing home for a couple of hours to see Emory and Kathryn. Both of them had gone in the facility van to a restaurant for lunch earlier and Emory was pretty tired, so when dinnertime came around, he convinced the staff to let him skip dinner and go to bed. Kathryn went on down to the dining room to get a cup of hot chocolate and after seeing her settled, I headed home.
Somewhere on Rte. 6 – on the bendy section of the Ind 9 dogleg – I started thinking that I don’t think of myself as looking the way I do in the mirror, and I don’t mean just shape. We’re talking face as well. Now, I recognize myself when I pass a mirror, look at a picture, or catch a glimpse in a window, but it’s not how I see myself in my mind. I have learned what the mirror says I look like, yet I am always thinking, “How can I look like that?” So what do I think I look like? Well, darned if I know.
Even thinking about what I see in my mind when I think of myself doing something comes up with a blur – just an ephemeral poof person.
In The Music Man, the method for learning to play an instrument was thinking; maybe I can think myself into a good look. Yeah, I’ll have to sit here and think.
Don’t feel bad, when I think of my Dad the image I see is how he looked in his 30’s. More troubling, I guess, is that I don’t really have a self image. I usually view the world looking out rather than in. That is to say, when I view the world, I usually don’t see myself in it. Sort of an observer-centered universe.
I catch myself looking at my reflection and thinking… but I don’t feel like that person. I know it’s me, but that’s not what I look or feel like. It’s like there’s an alien body that’s taken over who I really am. The thing is, I don’t remember it happening.
I see myself as a young Derwood Kirby
(in black and white)