Self-Portrait: You

Pssst. Here I am. Here. I. I am.

Nearly everything I have ever created—whether it’s a poem, a story, an essay, a song, a mosaic, a photograph, a dinner, or my own daughter—is, to some extent, a self-portrait. Maybe it’s a philosophical argument, but I’m willing to go there. Here.

My poems, even if they never happened, as in “Core Breach,” are all parts of me. I didn’t kiss your husband, but I might have wondered about it. A short piece of fiction about a woman and a little neighbor boy takes place in a house where I lived and involves the rescue of a neighbor’s dog, which I did. There was no impaled head on the basketball pole that summer, but the details that were true gave the head a breath of life.

My first piece of mosaic art (as distinguised from craft) was entitled, “Midlife Crisis.” I made it just before my 40th birthday, and it involved a biological clock, anxiety, hypochondria, and so many other aspects of my personality, right down to the butterfly in the stomach. It is no less a self-portrait than the mosaics that feature plaster casts of my own head surrounded by cut-up credit cards (“Princess”) or glittery glass and a jester’s crown (“Fool”) or a tree of life (“Poetree”).

The things I make do not—should not—say to the viewer: Look at me! I’m so great!; rather, they say: Look at me! I’m just like you!

When I write an essay, it’s not because I want to show how special I am, how superior my thoughts are to those of the average Joe or Jane, how clever I am, how witty. It’s to show you to you. It’s nearly a celebration, albeit sometimes sad, of our flaws: feelings of inferiority or loneliness, trouble sleeping, mania, terror, sadness. Unless we are perfect or soulless, we’ve had at least one of them.

Do I go about my days thinking of the butterflies in my stomach or the credit cards I’ve abused or the loneliness I feel? Well, sometimes, yes! Don’t you? Does it keep me from doing what has to be done? Does it keep you? I can think of the time, singular, that I have lain in bed over the past eight years pitying myself, fretting about my lack of sleep, worrying that I was going insane. That's probably the number of times you've done it.

With few exceptions, our school lunches get packed, our dinners get cooked, the papers get graded, the kids get picked up at school, the spouses get physical attention, and the bills get paid.

So my self-portraits are not only mine. They’re yours.

What I write here is nonfiction. It is all true. Barbara tells me she likes my blog because it is so personal. Truly, it is as close to naked as I could ever be in public; it’s likely nakeder than naked. But it is you, as much as I, who is being exposed. And neither of us is embarrassed.

It comes up now because someone I respect, admire, and love is not at all happy with my recent foray into the photographic self-portrait. She’s not happy that my Flickr account has so many pictures of myself recently, and that myself is often depicted in the midst of a mental crisis. (For the record, out of 1,509 pictures, exactly 41 have me in them; I am wearing a mask in three, nine are distorted, and one is of my shoes; in many of the others, I am with my sister or husband or daughter.) She’s speaking, mostly, of my set of seven collages.

I don’t know why I ventured into this new art field. I’m guessing that I’ve been stuck at my computer for so long, doing this MFA project and book reviews and freelance graphic design and writing work, that it became the thing I could do without going having to commit hours, like I do when I go down in the shop to cut glass. With these, I can fiddle between jobs. I used to play endless rounds of Free Cell to blow off steam. I like to think this is better.

My most recent photo collage is called, “Tuesday, She Leaves With the Devil.” It began as an accident. I noticed the bead I bought at the Renaissance Festival looked really cool with eyes. I gave him my husband’s eyes. I thought it needed some color, so I added the leaves. It was called, “Leaves With the Devil.” The top needed something, so I added a drop of water, gave it a little lens flare, so it looked like some odd magic was happening. I didn’t add myself until the last moment. The background—butcher’s block countertop—looked so boring. I added the word Tuesday to the title because, well, I got a great new job, which starts Tuesday, and I could now add the photo to a group called, “Six-Word Story.” Truth is, I’m a little anxious about it. I haven’t gone to work in more than nine years.

When I asked her whether she liked it, my beloved just shook her head and said that I looked, to people who didn’t know me, like I was weak—not at all like the together person she knows me to be.

I don’t think she’s right. I don’t think you can put yourself out here in this way and be seen as weak.

I write and cut glass and, now, manipulate pictures, as if to make it OK for us to hurt sometimes, for us to not get it all done. We should be allowed to grieve over our losses, even if they don’t make the nightly news. They are insignificant, yes. We are not living in Afghanistan or Iraq or Lebanon or Israel. Most of us didn’t lose loved ones in 911 or our homes in Katrina. We are just Joe and Jane. But sometimes it hurts to be those guys!

I don’t think there is a soul within the sound of my words who thinks that we are not a bunch of tough bitches. Because we are. We are superheroes every day.



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The music playing in the background of this essay is, "Everybody Hurts," by REM. But you already knew that.

When the day is long and the night,
the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life,
well hang on.
Don't let yourself go,
'cause everybody cries,
and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it's time to sing along.
When your day is night alone, hold on, hold on.
If you feel like letting go, hold on.
If you think you've had too much of this life,
well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts.
Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts.
Don't throw your hand.
Oh, no, don't throw your hand.
If you feel like you're alone,
no, no, no, you are not alone.

If you're on your own in this life,
the days and nights are long.
When you think you've had too much
of this life to hang on,

Well, everybody hurts
sometimes.
Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts
sometimes....

So hold on....

You are not alone.