Illuminate Dungeons

Do I shine? Can you see the bright yourself in my eyes when I look at you? Or is that just the sun blinding you.

Years ago I tasked myself to create a personal motto. A description of myself. I wrote pages and pages of what felt like profound sentences strung together with really good verbs. (Never use an adjective when a verb is available.) So I wrote, and wrote and basically came up with the gist of a hundred self-deprecating sentences that described me so well like:

I'm Very nice.
Well, actually I'm a little nice.
I'm not that great of a person.
I want to be a better person.
I really should be a better person.
Actually, I really like not being a good person because then I can be petty and talk about the fat girls and say how horrible their hair looks or that they really shouldn't wear that '80's shimmery pink Lycra if they weigh over 60 pounds.

Obviously, that mantra wouldn't work so well as something to say every morning to the mirror, mirror and besides I might have to tell someone my motto some day and then the cat would be drowned in the bag and there I'd be, standing alone all fat and 80's-ish in pink Lycra begging to be part of the crowd.

So, the best way I could describe myself is the opposite of what I really am. Nice, pretty, Kind, skinny, hip in a new century sort of way. bright, sparkly, pure goodness.

Good Godness! So not me in so many ways! So, I came up with less of a motto and more of a daily command to help me get through those mirror, mirror mornings.

Shine in Dark Hallways and Illuminate Dungeons. And I didn't picture those hallways as any that lead to the ultimate goodness; that if I stayed true and kind, and gracious, and generous, I'd finally make it to someone's heaven. But I pictured hallways more of the kind I have in my house. Wide. Big enough for U-Turns. A path that leads to a place I'm more likely to end up like the toilet.

So every time I go down my wide, short hall, I think about shining. I mostly think about how much I don't, but need to shine. I've never passed my shadow in the hall but occasionally on especially pure days like when I've just donated or written a really good article, I think I see a slight sparkle emanate from the ether that I just passed through. (Please just give me that one delusion.)

And those dungeons! Whew, I've been down some nasty dungeons that really needed illuminating. At one point in my life I truly thought I had reached some level of shining. I had ripped out about every thing that I thought defined me and there I was all naked and translucent. But I eventually realized that I just hadn't been out in the sun and it was my white skin that was reflecting back the kitchen lights.

But I've seen other people in some nasty dungeons too and occasionally in the rarest of moments I can remember a time with light came forth and I trip over some little, tiny gem of niceness in myself and surprise me, and I'm sure you, that Nice can come from me. I'm trying.

You know how much energy it takes to make a light bulb glow? Really, not too much. More than it takes for a person to make another person glow. It's simple, really to Shine when it's dark and Illuminate shadowed places. More and more I find I can do it, but it takes practice! Damn, like playing the clarinet. At first is just a screeeeech, but eventually you can make out a tune and that tune turns to light. A tiny sparkle. And then a full blown teeth showin' smile from someone that probably really needed it.

I have my moments, sometimes.