Ready? Set? Halloween!
Who will YOU be this year? I’m a lucky duck, my granddaughters have given up on being princesses so I don’t have to be a gentleman or a pirate. Whew! People always guess it’s me, anyway, so where is the fun in that! Don’t get me wrong, I love men’s stuff – tweed jackets, fedoras, walking canes, the smell of pipe tobacco. However, I prefer to dress up in something that disquises me so well I am not recognized.
Is that even possible?
The Christmas I was nine, my parent’s friend lent them the Santa suit from his store. With Mum in disguise, Dad filmed “Santa” filling our stockings, “laying his finger aside of his nose”, and waving a cheery goodbye.
After breakfast on Christmas morning, Mum and Dad announced the big surprise. It was a magical moment for me until I recognized that the gloves were my mother’s, a fact that, as the older sister, I kept to myself. After a long pause, a small but firm voice spoke up. “That’s not Santa, it’s Mummy. Look, see, those are her eyes!”
The younger sister was not fooled by the costume. She had honed in on the essence of the filmed Santa – my mother’s mischievous, twinkling eyes and her elegant wave.
Maybe we are in disguise a lot of the time – hiding our true nature so well that we may fool our family members or even ourselves.
I believe we are all like crystals with many sides– some we share with the world, some only with ourselves, and some we are totally unaware of. Within each of these faces lies our irreducible self. For my mother it was her elegance and brilliant blue eyes dancing with intelligence and knowing.
It takes openness to see into the heart of someone else. If we are distracted by a person’s external appearance or act, we can easily miss their essence. Furthermore, if we are afraid to be seen for who we truly are, we can easily fall prey to the prevailing opinion of those around us and lose touch with our core values.
If each of us steadfastly remains true to our quintessential self, we can share our many faces with the world and be open to life’s glorious diversity.
“What is your favourite colour, Maya?” I asked my 6-year old granddaughter.
“I like all the colours,” she replied without hesitation.
