All my lies are always wishes

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Young, once called my parents in for a conference. She sat my parents down (my heroically exhausted, sensitive mother; my night-shift working, confused father) and told them that I was a pathological liar.

Now, let's be fair. Sure, Mrs. Young was as crazy as a loon, had huge and vaguely purple hair, a ring on each finger and a fur coat, and snapped at kids for looking at her the wrong way. But I did tend to embellish to serve my own purposes. I had a knee problem, which occurs in bony girls without much muscle, where the kneecap slips off its track for a while until it pops itself back in. This is hugely painful, and thankfully doesn't happen much anymore, but it happened maybe once every two weeks when I was eight.

Sometimes, my kneecap really had popped out of its socket and I couldn't much walk without a big ole limp. Other times, I wanted it to happen so much that I was utterly convinced it was actually happening. When I didn't want to go to gym class, for example, I imagined my knee pain so vividly it seemed to be very much true. (Gym class in our school occurred in the seventh circle of Hell, resplendent with dodge balls. I didn't know then that the "fradulent" were relegated to the eigth circle.)

Mrs. Young, for some reason, took every single instance of my limping to be a complete lie, and called my parents in about halfway through the school year to tell them of my mental disorder. My parents, thank goodness, gave her what-for and told her about my knee problem. She never quite believed me, though, and looked at me warily the entire rest of the year. The invented instances of my knee pain disappeared after fourth grade, but some residue of that tendancy remains in my bloodstream.

TRUST:
You can trust me with your life. I will hold the rope, give you CPR if you fall and stop breathing, and execute your will to the letter if in fact you die anyway.

HONESTY:
I will tell you how you really look in that dress if you really want to know. I will tell you how I really feel about you, if you really want to know. I will search my soul for the most painfully honest truths. (See also: this megaphone.)

TRUTH:
Truth is beauty. Beauty, truth.

But in situations of pressure, I have been known to craft a completely false sentiment out of thin air, without even realizing that what I am saying is simply not true.

For example, in improv class, our teacher asked me after a scene: "How did that feel?" Without missing a beat, I said, "That was fun." It was not fun at all, actually. Our teacher knew this, and asked again: "Are you sure? Because it didn't look like you were having fun." I said again: It was fun.

Five minutes later after I sat down, I realized it wasn't fun at all.

Something similar happened last night in writing class. Our teacher asked me about the relationship of my main character to me as a person. I said something about how I was using concrete details (hometown, job) that I knew about but really making up her personality. Now, this is a total lie. I am not making up her personality. It is very much based on me, with essences heightened and dulled, of course (I'm hedging! I'm hedging even now!) but really -- very me. However in that moment, I denied it. That's not me, I said. I made her up. And my whole body knew I was lying before my brain did. I blushed bright red, which confused me as it was happening.

Five minutes later I realized I'd totally just made that up.

Everyone tells the standard little white lies -- We were at the party, got so caught up, forgot to call you. These are lies aimed at making life slide down our throats a little easier. These are rooted in politeness, really, more than dishonesty. But it's something else to be asked a direct question and give a false answer... and really, this is about wondering why that happens. I'm not sending people to war, I'm not covering up a political sex scandal. These are tiny, tiny things. But it's just so weird when you realize what you've done.

Why does it happen? I think it's about control and self-preservation. I so wanted that scene to be fun, and for me to be a person who has fun scenes. I so wanted to believe I'd just invented the flaws of my main character -- they weren't me at all. Maybe I'll make her into a liar who had knee problems in the fourth grade. And, if asked in class, I'll probably have no idea where I got that from.

2/1/2005 07:57:20 AM

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