Faking it*
Surely there are hidden meanings everywhere, waiting to be uncovered. This was my hypothesis when I started my latest self-improvement project “Barbara’s Weekly Epiphany.” All I had to do was approach the world with a childlike sense of wonder, to keep my eyes and mind open, maybe even wear my heart on my sleeve. All of that information that has beaded off my consciousness, repelled by my cynical attitude and “been, there, done that” grubby cliché-ridden approach was going to be captured now, in a mind as open as my VW sunroof on a light-pierced June afternoon.
I started a blog about the project, wanting to share my insights with others: epiphanyquota.blogspot.com. First epiphany? You have to sell your ideas, sell yourself, if you want to succeed. You have to believe in you, or no one else will. Second epiphany: fake it ‘til you make it is more true than you think. Third epiphany? In the middle of a crowded public park, if you close your eyes and quiet your thoughts, you will hear the vibration of the world, the sound of its heartbeat.
The blog started getting a fan base, made up mostly of earnest young men drawn by the stock photo I’d put up that looked vaguely like me fifteen years ago. They were drawn by that and the supportive and slightly flirtatious comments I’d left on their own blogs, encouraging observations on the quality of their writing, the strength of narrative voice and character, how close I felt to them though we’d never met. These exchanges led to other epiphanies, ones that I didn’t share on the blog: bullshit actually works; the reality of the online world both mirrors and denies the reality of the solid world; men will believe anything.
One of them -- let's call him Brad, a name that fits in its brevity and practicality, that matches his corny, Hemingwayesque writing style -- got a little too interested. How was I supposed to know that he would take my ego-stroking seriously? I thought I had covered my tracks (always cover your tracks, a too-late epiphany), but somehow he found my phone number. I have an old habit of letting the machine pick up and would stand over it, listening to these silences injected with anticipation, the light touch of breath, the occasional throat-clearing. The messages hovered in the air, sticky and thick, for hours after the caller hung up. Brad eventually told me he was responsible, in an email where he attached a photo of someone, I presume himself, in flagrante. I immediately moved the sordid pic to the trash, changed my number, and blocked his emails. There are some sick fucks out there.
I type this in my ratty old bathrobe, a mangy Pomeranian on my lap. But I could be lying. You never know.
*From a Round Robin prompt last winter ("my latest epiphany"). Every word of this is made up. Really. And I'm all for positive thinking, have spent years faking it and am on the cusp of making it.
Image: "Epiphany," Henry Ascensio. From Tavistock Gallery.