Casting Shadows

Casting Shadows

Recently, I ran across a video of children discovering their shadows for the first time.  Their reactions range from fascination to uncertainty to outright fear.  Imagine!   Here you are minding your business on a bright, sunny day and suddenly a dark figure appears who (the audacity!) mimics your every move.

Once we grasp that our shadows aren’t out to get us, and assuming they’re not the rascally runaways like the shadow of the unfortunate Peter Pan, we learn how to manipulate them.  A tree outside my childhood bedroom cast long shadows on the wall in the evenings.  I’d form my hands into shadow puppets of birds, which flew about its branches, landing and taking off with dramatic flutters.  A talented friend of ours made comical bunnies, menacing wolves, and cunning crocs come alive with just his hands and a spotlight.

A shadow is, after all, just a projection made from light.  This mind-bending photo by shadow camelsGeorge Steinmetz  shows an overhead image of shadows cast by a caravan of camels trekking across the desert sands.  What earned this picture its status as one of 2005’s best photos of the year (National Geographic) is that if you look closely, you see the camels are actually the thin white lines.  The dark recognizable camel shapes are all camel shadows.   Whaaat?! Go ahead, enlarge it and see.

The light, directed just so, projects an image that creates a much greater impression than the object itself.  Perspective is slippery.  Had this photo been captured at a different time of day, the camel shadows would have instead been long wavy lines trailing behind the caravan. Nothing special.  When the light is strongest and at its best for creating projections, it changes what we see of ourselves; it changes how we are seen by others.

The shadows we cast change over time, or maybe it’s that time changes the shadows we cast.   In the morning of life, when we are unsure and unsteady, the strength of our shadow may frighten us, like the children in the video, and send us scurrying back into the comfort of shade.   Later, conditioned by rejection, loss, or a shaky belief in who we are or what we can be, it’s much easier to stand in someone else’s shadow rather than risk casting our own.  We don’t trust what the light might reveal, or perhaps we have our own idea what might be projected and we fear it’s more like a misshapen weasel than a swan.

Once upon a time, we might have been a child on a rocking horse or a wobbly duckling running for cover.  A few along the way, parents, treasured teachers, a best friend, see us for who we are meant to be, who know what treasures lie within.  They see us from above in the afternoon, and to them the rocking horse seems a galloping stallion, the duckling a darting hummingbird.

One day, we grow tall enough and brave enough to shadow duckling (2)stride into the day with confidence, casting our own shadows boldly and realize what we have been all along.  Armed with grace, we see what our own two hands are capable of shaping onto the wall, when we let the light in.

Now, well into my fourth decade, I feel more comfortable in my own skin than at any other time I can remember.  It feels good to stretch my muscles in the sunlight, and I find myself lingering to soak up its warmth.  I’m more curious than afraid of what images  its rays will scatter.

We, as a matter of course, extend this powerful light-wielding vision to our children, family, friends, and even strangers.  Why is it we so often withhold it from ourselves and keep our shadow casting small and timid?  Standing in the shade, we throw no shadow at all.  Our canvases are empty.   Afraid to be just ducklings, we never see the hummingbird’s gossamer wings flickering in the sun.

The truth is we are all a bit of both:   ducklings and hummingbirds, camels and thin white lines.  Each comes from the other;  each is lovely and full of light.  Don’t wait for permission, perfection, or “the right time.”  Cast your shadow, big and bold.

Thanks for reading! To return to the FICTION WRITERS BLOG HOP on Julie Valerie’s website, click here: http://www.julievalerie.com/fiction-writers-blog-hop-apr-2016

 

Impostor

Impostor

“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare said in As You Like It, “and all the men and women merely players.”  Maybe this explains why many of us feel like impostors.   We may master the lingo, wear the uniform, even get the degree, but there’s always this feeling of looking over our shoulder, waiting for the men in black to bust in and rip off our disguise:  “Aha!  Just who do you think you are?”  Back in the late 70’s, a pair of psychologists actually coined the term “impostor syndrome,” a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud.  Despite external evidence of competence, about 70% of us,  particularly high-achieving women, remain convinced we are phonies.

In my first class in grad school, I remember looking around the conference table at my classmates, all of whom seemed intellectually superior, able to discuss literary theory as easily as last night’s sitcom.  I did a lot of nodding and concurring, mastered pensive expressions, and all but took up pipe smoking in an effort to seem up to par.  What I failed to realize is that half of them were doing the same thing.

Martha Beck recounts a fantastic anecdote in her book Expecting Adam.  As a PhD student at Harvard, the bastion of intelligence, she once stopped in a friend’s lab and watched her performing a psychology experiment on some rats, monitoring them as they swam in a kiddie pool –a Smurf kiddie pool.   When she gets to her next class a little late, she apologizes, “I’m sorry.  I was in the Psych lab, watching rats swim around in a Smurf pool.”  Not to be outdone by her, the instructor, a fellow student, and a visiting dignitary all pompously pipe up:  “How’s Smurf’s work going?”  “I read his last article.”  “He’s had some remarkable findings.”   The important thing–more important than being smart–is the prestige bestowed by appearing smart.

I once presented a paper to a room full of scientists at an environmental conference in Rome, Italy.  I’d done the research, written the report, and polished the presentation until I could field any question, despite having had not one chemistry class in college.  For twenty minutes at least, I was the expert and knew the material better than anyone else in the room.  I would have been much more comfortable talking about themes in 18th century novels, but that wasn’t my job.  Sheer fakery.  But it worked out.  I met some interesting people, and the research was well-received.  I felt a little like Leo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can.  Just carry a clipboard and you’re automatically in.

The other day my son questioned another parent’s behavior.  I told him that she’d never had a teenaged son before and was just doing the best she could.  No one gets a step-by-step manual for every parenting situation.  At times, we are all flying by the seat of our pants.  I remember leaving the hospital with my firstborn, flabbergasted that these people  would just give her to us.  Clearly, we were unprepared.  Obviously, we had no idea what we were doing.   I spent most of my kids’ childhoods feeling like an impostor, amazed that The Experts weren’t bursting in with video footage, eager to point to all the evidence of my screw-ups, mistakes, and fodder for their future therapy.

I toppled off the lofty parent pedestal a long time ago.  My offspring are (all too) aware I’m not perfect and sometimes making it up as I go.  Here’s the secret:  we all are!  We are all first-time, amateur humans winging it.  No one is an expert, even if they’re carrying the clipboard.   Fortunately, that allows for lots of teaching moments on forgiveness, grace, and how we learn from mistakes.

Unfortunately, feeling like a phony tends to limit the risks we’re willing to take.  We’re so worried about being unveiled that we pull back–from opportunities, relationships, or dreams.  If we are trapped by the “appear competent at all costs” lie,  we keep our challenges–and consequently our victories–small.

Doesn’t it get tiring, this rationed life?   So many of us arehorse on the bit reined in, our potential and gifts spring-tight and begging for release, but we tiptoe obediently to avoid appearing foolish.   A grace-filled life is abundant, not careful.   We all have symphonies in us, waiting to be heard.  How can we muffle the music because we might look silly?  Disrobe, unmask, and go take a dip in the Smurf pool.