Drama

I've been exceptionally self-conscious all day as I've written things, said things.  All I've been able to think of was a comment yesterday said in passing by a friend in conversation.  A phrase I'd written was called "dramatic."  Maybe it was.  I didn't intend it to be.  It was just an ordinary garden-variety comment for me.  Maybe I'm so steeped in the drama that I don't even see it anymore.

God knows I can go there quickly enough if I want to.  I can elevate anything, even getting a fork out of the kitchen drawer, to an epic quest when the whimsy takes me. Words are amusing and pretty.  They tumble together nicely, make a lovely sound as they click together.  They are the tools of my particular trade, and I can wield them to different ends as I choose.  Sometimes taking the mundane and making the mighty is a lot of fun, too.

The response just caught me off-guard.  Oh, I know I do tend toward hyperbole in my speech and in this particular type of blog writing as well.  I turn fancy phrases and play with images, trot it all out on parade.  I am aware that sometimes I turn out gaudies that more properly belong in something like Carnival, that it frequently lacks an elegance and grace that I might wish it had.  I just never had the sensation of myself as a "drama queen."

Of my kind, the English Literature folk, as in every profession, there are several "types." Nobody is a perfect fulfillment of those archetypes, of course, but we do tend to fall into big categories.  One of those stays over-the-top or in another world, eccentric for the sake of it, dramatic for the joy of the shock of it.  This comment made me worry.  Have I crossed that line?  If I did, when did it happen?  Is it possible to become that and not know?

I guess I know how to play that role, sure.  I could put myself into hysterics and "the vapors" if it were called for.  I grew up in the Deep South.  I have seen it done by certified experts.  I just don't really think of myself as someone who actively seeks drama in my daily life.  In some of my current environments, it comes and drags me out of the foxholes I've dug for myself, pulls me into the fray....

But maybe that's the kind of language we're talking about here that's over-the-top.  I don't know.  It's confusing.

However.

The longer I sit here with it, the more I am convinced that I don't think I'm going to worry about this a whole  lot more, actually.  I am who I am.  I write the way I write (and this can be expanded to "talk the way I talk" as well).  I have hands that fly like a flock of startled sparrows when I teach; I'm gesture-happy.  This is just me.  I know that is not a pleasant thing for everyone.  Well, lo siento.  Gomenasai, ne?  If I'm not mistaken, there is a door right over there....