I live in a place that takes Halloween very seriously. Not just excessive spider-web-like drapings and a jack-o-lantern with a knife in it, but lawn displays with two-story tall skeletons and giant (like seriously huge) spiders (see above). (I’m thinking Christmas might feature a robotic Santa, Mrs. Santa, Jesus, elves, wise men, not-wise men, livestock, and maybe a huuuuggggeee candy cane. Stay tuned.)

Having lived in NYC for thirty-five years, Halloween for me meant taking a taxi home if I’d gone out since the throwing of rotten eggs was pretty much a citywide sport for a certain age, or rather, personality. It was my least fave holiday next to the fourth of July (M80s thrown down airshafts anyone?). I’m not one for horror movies either given I can scare the crap out of myself by simply taking a look/listen to the news or, at certain times, lingering on my bank account. I know there are theories around why some folx are drawn to horror movies. Something to do with recognizing what you’re seeing as fake while feeling endorphins pump through your body, kind of like riding a rollercoaster. While I went through a period of riding the Cyclone (in the front car) at Coney Island and can relate to the sensation of having the bejeezuz scared out of me and then it ending, that rush never transferred to watching Jason or Freddy. The psychological twist-case films are hands down the worst for me. Back in the day, my friend Mary and I went to see a Silence of the Lambs matinee and were so freaked walking out onto the streets of Manhattan afterward that we either A) went for creature-comfort hot chocolate or B) went to a bar and did shots. I can’t quite remember which, but it was something not normal for a summer afternoon. But it felt absolutely necessary. Watching Seven actually pissed me off. The horrors that weren’t shown stressed me out so much I got angry because my mind tried to fill in the unseen and I couldn’t let it go.

Of course, investigating the inner scary is an almost daily activity. I mean that more in a full-spectrum of feels way. Personal look-sees. Throughout a day, there’s the joy, the fear, the sad, the thrill, and all kinds of other things, even if in little seismic movements that I have no idea are happening. I step into and through them like puddles, sometimes feeling a slosh, other times stomping around a bit longer. And no surprise, I’m often more aware of other people’s splashing around than I am of my own. Nature of the beast.

The other day I read an article a good friend brought to my attention that hit like a tsunami. I gasped, cringed, no-she-didn’t-ed. “Who Is the Bad Art Friend” in the New York Times. (If you don’t want to scale the paywall, click here.) It’s truly worth a read for a whole lot of reasons, navigating levels of humanness like some Super Mario Brothers game gone berserk. A kind of choose your outrage tale that covers, in no particular order…it’s one big quilt…the question of authors and ownership of ideas, of extreme virtue signaling (or what we used to simply call “showing off” although this particular type is nuanced), of tone-deaf and blind-spot moments in service of privilege, of some exposure to mean grl/gy activity, and also a gaping chasm where self-awareness would normally live. It’s got it all.

As I read it, there was one particular section that really poked at me sharper than the rest, and I’m not gonna lie, the ENTIRE piece was like emotional acupuncture top to bottom. Although I hate exposing myself to things I know will scare me like, say, horror movies, I have come to understand through oodles of therapy and such that being curious about the thing that makes me squirm is really useful. And insanely hard. Of course, my entire self attempts a getaway. A look-shiny-object-moment just so I don’t have to pay any mind to why that emotion is gripping me. In the case of this article, it was the sense of a woman seeming so desperate to be the person she’s presenting to the world, or in fact thinks she actually is, that her unawareness of how people are receiving her is null&void. Her proverbial blindfold tied as tight as the choker in that horror story “The Velvet Ribbon.” If it comes off, she’ll fall apart. The world will see/she will discover her whole self. Scary prospect. Necessary perspective. A great quote heard on the TJL podcast this week (didn’t think I could go a month without mentioning them, did’ya?): “It’s incredibly seductive for us to want to see ourselves as virtuous…. We can fool ourselves into thinking we’re paragons of virtue but something inside of us always knows when we’re full of shit.”

This fertile subject struck a chord for me. Last year when George Floyd was murdered, the question came up, “why now, white people?” and of course there were myriad answers. For me, the toggle between paying attention quietly and being active loudly was a learning curve I’m still riding like the Cyclone. Another TJL podcast quote: “Moral outrage [often] assuages feelings of personal responsibility for bad things going on in the culture and reinforces our own status for ourselves and for others as a ‘good’ person.” Yes, I get that absolutely. It’s the thing that pricked me particularly in the “Bad Art Friend” piece. If having the confidence to stay where I am and listen to the small voice inside means I’ll act based on a purer instinct than reacting, that’s a direction I’d like to move in. But if given the keys, my ego will get behind the wheel and just flatten, drive over, leave in the dust whatever self-reflection I may have around the work and the quiet it takes for the small voice inside to be heard.

Understanding I present as much of a cliché to the world as anyone else is a useful start to bodychecking that ego into the back seat. Meet me: white, woman of a certain age, feminist, liberal, college-graduated, meditator, vegetarian. Them’s a lot of boxes checked. And although even if I had a lawn, putting a “Love Lives Here” sign on it isn’t my thing—nor would I put a giant skeleton or spider—anyone just meeting me might imagine would. And for sure there was the Biden/Harris banner that stretched across our window for many months last year. This is who I am. But I also have a trunk full of stuff that stays hidden. That I look away from. Like being at the gym and pretending the woman who I assumed was homeless was invisible. That stung me on a few counts: my assumption, my ignorance, my unkindness. There are the racial and social judging thoughts that flash into my brainpan. I more often than not assign a mental post-it to them that reads “investigate later.” Sometimes I get annoyed hearing people laugh. My trunk jangles with unexplored moments like that. Do I think they’ll just disappear? I know they won’t. Do they scare me like a horror story? Sometimes. Because I think to expose them, invite them into the passenger seat, will let people see a side of me that’s ugly. Human. I am the cliché for sure, but I’m also a good bit unexpected monster. And perhaps in understanding that creature, a little twist on Frankenstein, I can continue to understand how to do better by it, warts, bolts, and all.