I looked to the first people I knew to define me.
She says, “You
and David were my most strong-willed children.”
She also
says, “David was always ambitious, but John is more intelligent.”
So THIS is
what Intelligence looks like?
Will,
Intelligence.
“Gifted”
meant I (we) needed more homework? “Gifted” meant I suffered from paralyzing
social anxiety by the time I was seven, to the point of making me vomit every
morning before school in anticipation. I didn’t want to be gifted, I wanted to be happy.
Ignorance is
Bliss.
Stupidity could be ecstasy.
The best I can do sometimes is feign ignorance.
An Amira
Onion: Where are you, Mircat?
Or, How much
of myself is actually other people?
Ballet and
drawing belong to my sister, Larissa. Larissa was make-up too.
Anxiety and
panic come from my mother.
A need to
compose myself, from my father.
Being
self-conscious comes from every young
woman in my life.
Self-loathing
and resistance-to-existence, my brother John.
The tendency
to see the world as a stage and every moment as a chance for a new, dazzling
performance, from Matthew, the Core-mate.
Then there’s
this tiny flame somewhere in my heart: the Constant, my personal Truth.
There are words I can accept as descriptive of my being. Who or what is this Amira-thing?
What, in my family of seven children, was always mine?
What did I do of my own accord?
