What you learn by doing this
Have you ever watched yourself walk by?
It's a fascinating experience. Worth a try!
My father was a truck driver, a serious non-fiction reader, and a mostly silent man. He once said that when all is said and done, more is said than done. That quip was his creed. Don’t say. Do.
He never wasted words and was quick to detect what he called codswallop — an old-fashioned term for nonsense. In his opinion, politicians talked codswallop. Philosophers wrote codswallop. And my teenage poems (in his pragmatic opinion) were also a lot of codswallop.
On rare occasions he’d talk at the dinner table. He’d put down his knife and fork, clear his throat, look in turn at my two sisters and me, and say something memorable like this:
“It’s a good idea every now and then to step outside of yourself and watch yourself walk by.”
Then he’d pick up his knife and fork and continue to cut into the braised beef on his plate.
I was the talker in the family. When I was about five years old my mother said to me that if there was a limit to the number of words each of us were permitted to say, I’d soon use up mine. This slowed me for a few minutes, but soon I was rattling on again. I poured out thoughts and questions as effortlessly as water pouring over rocks at Lesmurdie Falls, midwinter.
Looking back at my seven decades of verbal output, nothing I’ve said has ever been as wise and helpful as my father’s suggestion to step out of myself from time to time and watch myself walk by. On the rare occasions when I’ve followed this advice, I’ve always learned something valuable.
The first time I did it, I was probably about thirteen. Our family was walking down a laneway in Perth, Western Australia, on our way to attend a church service, which was a weekly event. Recalling the idea Dad had propounded at the dinner table, I rose (not literally, or even psychically, but just mentally) above my head, moved backwards, and watched us from behind.
Dad was walking steadily, wearing his black suit and carrying a hard, grey Samsonite briefcase containing our Bibles, notebooks and pens. Mum, in a pink suit, pale brown stockings and black patent leather stilettos, picked her way carefully beside him along the uneven and pock-marked surface. We three girls walked beside her, from youngest to oldest. I was in the middle. We wore identical clothing, although my older sister was already fifteen. Homemade green pleated skirts with white blouses, our hair stiff with Curly Pet emulsion to ensure we were neat enough for God.
I zeroed in on myself as I walked sedately between my sisters. Watching myself go by.
I perceived that I was very conscious of wearing my best clothes and that I hoped I looked nice. I was aware of the seriousness of going to church. I knew my older sister was feeling resentful about her clothes matching mine. I watched myself glance sideways at her, wishing she didn’t feel that way and hoping that everything would always be as it was now. That none of us would change. That we’d always be a happy family walking together toward God, and never be apart.
But even as I watched myself — knew myself — saw myself thinking — another part of me knew it wouldn’t last. As I watched my young self I gained perspective. I saw that time would inexorably change everything.
In other words, I grew up a little.
I did this exercise again when I was nineteen.
I was a student in a church college in Hertfordshire, England. It was springtime and I was walking from Memorial Hall, which housed the college library, to the dining room. Trees were sending out new leaves. They were being careful, not rushing the business of growing, like advance spies in a strange country, finding their way. Tiny birds fluttered in the layer of dried leaves left behind by winter winds. The strengthening sun warmed my bare arms as its rays fell through patchy clouds.
Suddenly, without warning, I started running, slipping in a few little leaps as I went along, and swinging my handbag, just for the joy of it. As I did so, without planning to, I switched into observer mode and mentally watched myself from a distance do these unlikely things. I instantly perceived that for once in my life I wasn’t thinking anything. I was just being. A bit of physical form expressing delight. Unburdened. Innocent. A living part of spring’s unfolding. Free.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only person who saw me carrying on in this strange manner. My unbridled, wild act was reported and a few days later I was reprimanded by the Dean of Women for being childish, unladylike, unworthy. A close eye would be kept on me in future. It wasn’t my role to be a living part of spring’s unfolding. Sedateness was the key to womanly success around here.
But having watched myself go by, having seen myself from a different perspective, I chose to trust the truth I’d perceived in myself. I’d seen an aspect of myself I’d never forget.
In other words, I realised that, at my essence, I am pure joy.
When I was forty-one it happened again.
My husband, Rob, and I had five children, and we were looking for an affordable (cheap) country property on the south coast of Western Australia where they could spread their wings, thump the piano, blow their trumpet or bang their drums, and shout and squeal and run about without upsetting neighbours.
We bought the first and only place we saw. It was a half-built, two-storey wood-turner’s cedar-clad workshop on 20 acres of mostly uncleared land. Only half the walls were up, none of them sealed. Holes gaped wide where windows should’ve been. There was no stove, sink, or fridge, and only a couple of solar panels provided power which was generated through the place by extension cords linked to four car batteries.
My parents were a bit worried about our choice and had come down to have a look before we signed on the dotted line.
I sat halfway up the wooden staircase and watched through the door as Rob and my father paced out a possible position for a shed. Mum was standing in what would become our kitchen, about where a sink and a set of cupboards should have existed, had it been a legitimate house.
She frowned, looked up at me in wonder and asked,
“Is this really where you want to live?”
That’s when I did what my father had advised years before. I watched myself.
What I saw was contentment. From this perspective, outside myself, I looked like I felt at home. I was rooted in this room, this patch of land, this corner of a big country.
“Yes, Mum. This is where I want to be.”
Watching myself, I sensed my instinctual knowing.
It’s nearly three decades later and I’m still here. The walls are finished and the windows in. There are three sheds, a fridge, a sink, a stove, and power points instead of extension cords.
Five children have flown the nest and an odd little wild garden flourishes on a terraced slope.
And I still, every now and then, step out of myself and watch myself walk by. That was wise advice from my father. It taught me to accept change ahead of time; accept joy as an innate state no one can take from me; and to accept and trust my instincts.
I recently attended a 50th high school reunion and came across one of my teenage poems published in a copy of the 1971 annual school magazine which was on display.
It was about a sunrise and was called “Deeper Crimson’.” It included phrases like, The sprinkling dew of night hangs suspended; and, We are moved by a vision of essence. I read and reread the tortuously tangled lines, but failed to make sense of them.
My father was right, as he was about many things. It was codswallop!
All the best as you occasionally watch yourself walk by!
With love, Marlane
First published here.
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