I'm sure you Brits have seen and appreciated Mrs. Bucket in your sit-com of the same name (it airs here in the US on my local PBS station - all you other yanks should check it out for a wicked litle laugh over the pathos of self-aggrandizement).
At her "best", my mother is Mrs. Bucket - desperately trying to conceal the mundane and unattractive parts of life under a transparent veneer of perfection and sophistication - choreographed family/social events ("candle-light suppers using the "Royal Doulton China"), associating herself with wealth and privelege ("My sister Violet, the one with the mercedes and room for a pony")...on and on.
Thinking about this made me catch onto something about me, though, recently. When begged for the millionth time to "go shopping and get some new clothes" and pushed toward buying a "better house", It suddenly occured to me WHY I have always been fashion resistant/impaired/retarded and somewhat disdainful of social climbing and arbitrary up-grading in gerneral.
As I see it now, it is my JOB in my family to be the physical manifestation of the real, honest-to-goodness truth about us. I am like a billboard for the seamy underbelly of life in my family, in all my jeans and sweats and lipstick-less glory, in my messy art-room (expression!) of a house with the screwed up plumbing and cheap construction that I ignore and do nothing about other than slap on a few ineffective band-aids.
While my mother is outwardly prim, proper, well-coiffed and ladylike, with constant attention to house beautiful and plenty of shopping and trips to the hairdresser, her private self is disorganized, full of rage, hateful, spiteful (toward herself, too, quietly and off her own radar) and violent. In other words, the chocolate outside tells nothing about the bitterness and rot inside.
As for me, I've always been resistant to getting dolled up and other similar indulgences (although I do put it on, twice a month - I'm a paid performer so I can't get out of it then). In fact, just going shopping for a new outfit make me nervous. When I put on the make up and do my hair and slip into the slinky little number, I feel like a perfect fraud - and on some level, I actually loathe the exercise.
I've puzzled over that, especially since it does not bother me if my daughter does it, or my friends, or even my mother.
Thinking about this, it just hit me: I've been wearing the truth on behalf of my family. By refusing to dress myself up (at least when I can), it's a sub-conscious rebellion against glossing over the truth of my life.
In my house, my mother's abuses are never spoken of (hush-hush). Some years ago, as an adult, I confronted her about some of her particularly voilent and hurtful acts during my childhood . Her reply? "I can't imagine myself ever doing any such thing. I'm just not that kind of person....but if I did, I'm sorry."
Covering up. Pretending. Feigning ignorance. Lying. These are the hallmarks of my interaction with my mother.
No wonder I'm nuttily sensitive about what I perceive as hiding sh*t under shinola.
Anyone else with a similar experience, especially as involves outward, symbolic expressions of truth?
T
