During a brief opportunity to chat with a friend at work the other day as we were arriving and departing our work-shifts, we were discussing the first of Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie series: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and his Captain Jack Sparrow character. I observed to my friend of Keira Knightley, sword in action, on the set—and my interest in taking fencing lessons at some nebulous point in my future.
To my amazement, my friend stated that she didn’t see me doing that at all!—which echoed my bafflement of another time, in the past, when a friend I had known for years, in observing me, commented ‘That’s so sweet of you.’ ? Kind, perhaps--but I wasn't feeling at all sweet; my actions had come from integrity, but there wasn't much compassion at that moment. Amazed, then, and now, I ‘stopped dead’ in my inner tracks: Really? You don’t see me doing fencing at all? I was astonished—and disappointed to have her say that, inordinately so! And, I still think she’s a good friend.
Both times, mutually supportive and encouraging of our shared creative energies, our parallel spiritual views—my buccaneer qualities were invisible to them. In the recent event? On-the-spot analysis chocks it up to the environment in which we had come to know each other: she’s never had the opportunity to see the Jack Sparrow side of me. And, the first circumstance—now years ago? Ehhh—she’d seen my Jack Sparrow in action, but it didn’t really fit into her view of me, so it got dismissed--ignored. We’re still friends.
The swashbuckler part of me is an integral part of my being, a constant thread in the fabric of my nature, from a very young girl, onward: I still love to wrestle, climb trees, and, within moderation, to “fight:” I love a good tussle, whether it be rolling on the ground or a session of mental fencing. This dip of sadness at this invisibility of my pirate self? The Pirate in me wants to be seen and heard. Perhaps that is a part of what the ‘piracy’ is about: this wild-hare part of me is often unrecognized, and it’s staking it’s claim in the world, operating outside bounds to meet its needs—and a little sassy about it.
Her “I can’t see you doing that at all,” set me ‘back on my haunches.’ In its absence, I had clarity that I wanted this definition of me included in her perception of me: The definition of the word, Definition, is: meaning, characterization, designation. Does designation equal destination? Am I the ‘Captain of my ship? The “ship” of my life is my definition of myself—and the interpretation of the people, relationships and events is my life rudder, by which I navigate my world. I’ve been being entertained for the last couple of days by my all-over-the-map reaction to this. I felt like a very core part of me, apparently, had fallen of the map!
It fired off a ‘cannon shot’ in my consciousness about definitions and interpretations. I felt like I was ‘in-the-brig’ of an externally imposed non-definition, not by how she saw me, but by what she didn’t see. It bordered on funny to observe myself in this; but not quite. While many of my self-definitions have been nothing, if not fickle, this pirate thing has been a continuous thread in my psyche.
My age 4, I used to carry around a geography book, like a doll. It showed our globe, seas, distant lands and ports—of which I YEARNED. I’ve been getting a nudge to write a book about the spice trade and the movement of soul—how trade routes not only brought exotic tastes and textures to our palettes, but the immigration, integration and imagination of new cultures and spiritual insights, as well.
To date, my book is only a giant file of nautical terms, a stack of spice & herb books, a collection of food history notes, some map tracings—and an assortment of Putumayo cultural music CD’s. I hadn’t been providing much wind for “Jack’s” sails until I started this blog December 1st. The delay on the book is a set of sagging sails, slack from the lack of soul-wind, of recent months: It wants written. My pirate needs an adventure. More important than my friends recognizing my saucy swashbuckler is that I do.
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