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Sydney
Sun Herald
14-06-1998
by
Paul McDermott
It was
undeniable that something had changed in those few years. It was
more than bad lighting and a poor subject - my entire demeanour
had altered: my eyes were downcast, the heavy metal spectacles I
wore appeared to cut into my nose, my mouth had curled into a
sneer, my hair had darkened to a lank mop. I had become "the
thing". As my family pointed and laughed I remembered what
it was like to be 13 (because that seemed to happen a lot when I
was 13). And I knew something they didn't: the way I look in that
photograph is the way I see myself today. That version of me -
the thin-lipped mypoic monster, the human toad, the creature from
the back of the room - is the one I cannot erase. It's installed
in my visual memory and no amount of "you-beaut-feel-good
positivity" can dislodge it.
We can spend a lifetime trying to escape those awkward adolescent
moments but they lurk in the subconscious unitl conditions are
ripe for them to return. For me it lifts itself out of my psyche
like a teenage Mr Hyde running quietly amok in my life. I'll be
at a dinner party and there, sitting in my seat, is that gangly,
acne-ridden, mouse-haired invertebrate. I wonder why the other
guest have said nothing. I wonder how long I can get away with it
before someone throws me out. I feel like great pretender waiting
nervously to be uncovered. My outward appearance has not changed
but inwardly I am 13 again and I find myself picking the scab off
an emotional scar. I find I am too frightened to speak, nervous
and embrassed, and any confidence I have has evaporated. I tell
myself: it doesnt matter what's outside, it's what insde that
counts. And what's inside is a throwback, a mutation, a stunned
nondescript. Then as mysteriously as it appeard, "the
thing" has gone. The only saving grace is I'm not alone.
There are sone of us out there who have magnified one second of
weakness for the duration of our lives: the girl who tucked her
skirt into her undies, the boy who wet his pants just before the
bell went, the slowest, the shorties. It could relate to a piece
of jewellery, a pair of shoes, a shameful incident and it waits
to be reborn. Do people in positons of power confront these
demons or are they forced to live with them as well? Does Clinton
picture himself as a clumsy, sexually illiterate youth when he
speaks to Congress? Does Tony Blair recall miming to Beatles
songs with hairbrush in his bedroom? Do their alter-egos ever
rise up in the moments of crisis and "go the spoil"? Is
there any way of overcoming this stumbling block? I tried for a
while to replace the negative image with a positive one but
nothing worked. I looked for things I could be proud of, I
searched for any triumph or success, perhaps if I had won
something, achieved something. It was a useless exercise -
nothing I compared it to had the same power. I had to concede the
weakness was victorious. I can see the boundaries of my life, my
limitations, the structures that enclose and surround me as
clearly as the border of that photograph. As my mother slipped
that photo into a frame and placed it on her sideboard, I
couldn't help but feel he had won again. Even as I write he has
been here. Crouching at my shoulder, whispering in my ear,
grateful that I have given him shape.
Thanks to Ursula for this Article
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