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We
are all a number of different persons beneath the skin. We tend to grow
accustomed to playing what we like to assume is a single role. Yet the truth
is that most of us end up playing multiple roles. For example, a role at
home may be quite different from a role at work, or play, or on one of
several of life’s stages.
“Trying to find myself, I get lost in a maze,” writes a woman from Long
Beach. “Just to get by, I don’t let most people know who I really am—what I
really feel, what I actually think about a number of things—because that
would make me too vulnerable. Basically I want to be liked, get along fairly
easily, avoid controversy and difficulties, keep anger and unpleasant
situations out of my life. Playing different roles in different situations
is, I find, the best way. But it sometimes makes me feel such a stranger in
life.”
The reality of personal identity looms front and center for anyone living in
fast-moving urban life. It can seem to get lost in the shuffle on occasions
when we’re stuck on a crowded freeway, or waiting in a long checkout line at
a market, or dining in a restaurant where the noise level is higher than in
Grand Central Station. I’ve found that individual expression is not nurtured
in a shiftless crowd; momentum and energy are zapped by massive inertia;
freshness somehow wilts in uncaring isolation.
Recently I was challenged to take a fresh look at my own personal identity
when artist Don Bachardy invited me to sit for a portrait. What would he see
(I wondered) when he examined me closely, paintbrush in hand? Would I
recognize myself in how he made me appear? More threatening was another
concern: could I accept the “self” he painted, like this self—even deal with
it?
I drove to Bachardy’s house feeling a bit like the Cowardly Lion making its
way along the yellow brick road in Oz. Bachardy, gruff in a gentle way, got
right to work without pausing for social amenities. He requested that I sit
in a chair facing him and also a view of the ocean over his shoulder. My
thoughts wandered to and fro as he worked with intense concentration,
pursuing his skilled line drawing.
Then he asked if I wished to look at the portrait. I did, liked its clarity,
and could see “myself” in it. (I felt it would make a very fine cover for a
book jacket). He suggested we launch into a second. This time he got me to
sit on a couch and prop myself up against pillows. Hours dwindled away as my
novel experience continued.
For what would be a third and final portrait, Bachardy asked me to lie down
on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Above me, working energetically,
he moved his brush from one color to another. It had been fun but now I was
fatigued. We were moving into our sixth hour. What in the world (I asked
myself) would this final picture look like?
I admired its strength, directness, stunning colors. I found it flattering.
(It made me feel good to look like that). However, to my disappointment and
surprise, I felt the second portrait didn’t look like “me.” That is to say,
did not resemble my idea of what I look like—or want to look like.
You see, I wouldn’t want it to hang on a gallery wall where a number of
people could identify it as “me.”
Yet I had to face the fact maybe this picture showed a part of me I chose to
reject. Perhaps I didn’t want to deal with this person (a part of myself) at
all. As a further complication, was it possible I hadn’t a clue how this
could be an integral part of “me”.
“Who am I?” remains a central question in all our lives. It is enormously
helpful that Jesus knows and loves us without pretense, without masks,
without roles. Jesus does not find us strangers in life. As Jesus’ love is
unconditional, he rejects no part of us. It seems to me this is amazing
grace.
Editor’s note: The portraits of Malcolm Boyd by Don Bachardy may be viewed
on this web site from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30. Bachardy is also remembered
as life partner of the late writer Christopher Isherwood.
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You and Me, November 2002 |
