The experience I wanted to write about is about being called for jury duty.
In the afternoon I sat in the box being interrogated. On the morning of the second day the court officer came into the hallway and called out my name. The judge had singled me out for further questioning on my own solo in the courtroom. One of the prosecuting attorneys–a guy–turned to look at me. I flubbed my response and wasn’t chosen for the jury.
As it is I have black hair and pale skin and dark brown eyes so I have a striking look. Then I show up to jury duty wearing red lipstick. I felt like an oddity when the judge put me on the hot seat.
The experience of having a judge single me out forever altered my notion of appearance. It’s true that appearance is an illusion.
I’ve always been what I call a creative oddball. It’s likely that I’ll go to my grave as a creative oddball. I look different. I act different and think differently and see things differently.
Today, in Googling the definition of micro-aggression I stumbled across 21 truly unbelievable comments. The lack of civility and sensitivity in society is what’s truly unbelievable.
If you ask me, everyone living on earth is beautiful. Thus I want to focus on beauty in the blog and limit the amount of time I devote to the stupidity in the world. Though I might be drawn like a moth to a flame to exposing what’s not right.
I’ll be 52 in late April. I’ll talk in more detail about recovery at mid life in the coming blog entries.
Always: I’ve started off talks I give by saying that this is my story–it’s the only one I have to give. Yes–I can only be a spokesperson for my own life experience and my own recovery. An attorney I employ used the word unusual to describe my story.
That’s it folks: I’m all too familiar with the unusual.
Left of the Dial 