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Mistaken identities
I witnessed a fascinating case of mistaken identity. I was the one in error, and for current purposes I’m defining mistaken identity like this: when a person thinks something about someone, often a stranger or a new individual in her life, and finds out, either pronto or down the line that she is WRONG.
A woman was sitting next to me. Except for our being seated together, we were anonymous to one another for quite a while. Her haircut reminded me of my mother’s–very short and nicely sculpted–and the woman was petite like Mom. Because of the two elements of appearance, I was feeling tenderness, my own towards this woman and hers towards me.
The 10th anniversary of my mother’s death is approaching–March 3–and for a few days Florence’s gentle dignity, her elegantly simple fashion aesthetic, and her warm and penetrating intelligence floated in and out of my consciousness. Sometimes a daughter longs, without any melancholy or morbid thoughts, for her deceased parents. Sitting there next to the stranger, I felt keenly aware, on and off, of Florence’s mild yet striking beauty of body and spirit and I was so sweetly in love with her. Who knows why her loveliness was visiting me with an easy and recurring delicacy as the stranger and I sat in silence?
Around a week later, she and I talked with each other. She seemed nothing like my mother in either her carriage or the sound or content of her speech, and surely the mutual tenderness that I’d felt arose from longing. Also, my describing the feeling tone of the group of people with whom we’d been sitting startled her. Mom wouldn’t have been surprised at all, and that kind of description came naturally to her, as it does to me. The stranger offered her agreement with my articulation of the atmosphere that had emanated from the group and surrounded all of us, and she said something to the effect of my being able to clearly feel and express that atmosphere and that she hadn’t the tools to do so.
We go around thinking that we’re so intuitive and perceptive, when, really, we can go around for hours, days, years, or even a lifetime, clinging to one mistaken identity or another, intimates included. I laughed at my encounter with the recent and relatively short duration of clinging to a mistaken identity. How wonderful that the stranger, in her own identity, could tell me something true about myself, could help me appreciate my capacities for clarity of feeling and communication. I thank her for that gift.
- February 6, 2010
- Filed under: Body and mind
- Comments 1
These chance occurrences fold the past into our present and future. I think most of them go unnoticed by people.