Excerpt: The Truth and the Lie

While I’m traveling to the Genspect Conference in Lisbon, Portugal this week, please enjoy this originally paywalled excerpt from my memoir, 18 Months, available on Amazon in paperback, ebook (currently 99 cents!) and soon audiobook.

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“How do I look?” you ask, waltzing through the den. You rotate on one heel to show me a tight, ruffly skirt paired with an Easter-egg pink blouse and an immense, butterfly-emblazoned necklace.

“You look great,” I say, looking up from the box of books I’m unpacking.

Your shoulders drop. “Tell me the truth.”

Apparently my face betrays insufficient enthusiasm. I’m not sure what to do about that; the outfit doesn’t appeal to me.

“What do you actually think?”

I’m growing tired of mincing my words. And telling you what you want to hear isn’t working, anyway. And I don’t like the way lies feel in my mouth.

So I give honesty another shot.

“I wouldn’t wear it,” I say. “But who cares? Wear what you want.”

You drop to the armchair amid the parts of an unassembled bookcase. I can tell you feel like a failure.

“Why wouldn’t you wear it?”

I take a deep breath. I’m not sure why my clothing preferences need to inform yours.

“It’s a bit precious. I’m not a fan of pink. That necklace is awfully large, and it’s a bit brassy. Why are you dressed up, anyway?”

“So it’s not to your taste,” you say, exasperated. “But that’s beside the point. Should I wear it?”

I’m confused. I don’t know what it means to evaluate your outfit without invoking my taste. Are you asking if others will be impressed? In a world where people expect you to dress like a man? They probably won’t.

Are you asking if it’s flattering? It isn’t, though it’s no worse than your other choices. You choose outfits that compress and redistribute your body, now, instead of those that compliment it.

In truth, I don’t like this look on anyone. Those ladies at work who squeeze their butts into pencil skirts and their feet into stripper shoes—they look helpless and inept to me, always managing creeping hems and falling straps, the very opposite of cool and collected. I associate that look with a need to get ahead in a world controlled by yuppie men. Certainly I’ve played their game, wearing its uniform as a scuba diver wears a wetsuit. But I wouldn’t wear a wetsuit if I wasn’t near the water.

I shrug. I accept your presentation—isn’t that enough? Must I be called to the carpet for my innermost thoughts?

“Why can’t I get this right?” you ask, moving toward the mirror in the foyer. You look at yourself from the side, from the back, desperate to understand where you’ve fallen short.

But you are not made of ruffles and pink; a rejection of them is not a rejection of you. And I have earned my opinion. I learned at a young age that dressing sexy was my job. That in pants, I was too shapeless; without makeup, too blotchy and plain. I stopped shelling pistachios to preserve my manicure. I stopped climbing trees to wear heels. I learned to express my opinion less and smile more. Then, a little too late in adolescence, I realized that shit was holding me back. I needed to navigate the world with my hands and feet unfettered. I needed to experience and to grow. I started unlearning my socialization. And I am still unlearning it.

So these fabrics and pigments don’t hold the magic for me that they hold for you. They bore me, at best. At worst, they mean submission to the male gaze and life unlived. I don’t owe a reverence for femininity to conservative geezers who wish I’d “put in a little effort.” And I don’t owe it to you.

But a more immediate problem plagues me.

You saw through my polite fib. But my honest opinion crushed you. I’m out of options. How can I respond when both truth and lie are wrong? What words can I choose that will save us from this death spiral?

As I watch you slump in the chair, your lower jaw shoved forward, I realize something important.

You don’t want me to tell you what I really think.

But you don’t want a lie, either.

You want a truth, but one that isn’t mine.

You believe your clothing, shored up by self-identification, transforms you. You want me to see this transformation. And you want me to be into it. Neither the truth nor a well-meaning compliment will suffice. What you want is for my perception itself to change.

You want a different me.