Out of the Box, Into the Person
I was at a film screening recently, and part of the Q and A panel afterwards. Each of us was asked by the moderator to introduce ourselves. There was the Student Artist, the Activist, the Jewelry Designer, the Rabbi, the Director. When it came to me, I said “I’m just a person.” I had actually been thinking about what to say as everyone else offered a label. I mulled over going with “Writer,” but it somehow didn’t feel right. Or more truthfully, I was worried that it would make people think I was A WRITER, you know, the kind of person who gets book deals and such. I’m just a writer, someone whose primary way of communicating is via words that I sometimes codify in some written form — a blog post, a musing on Medium, or in a submission to an online publication about disability.
I was also worried about saying “I’m just a person” as a way to make myself seem less significant, to take myself out of the spotlight, even just for a moment. Was I practicing a kind of false modesty, and in doing so perhaps having people pay more attention, rather than less? I don’t believe that’s what I was doing, because I struggle with labels in general. I always have, and suspect I always will.
Since I stopped working (though which mother of children — especially children with special needs — ever really stops working?!?!?), I have dreaded the “what do you do?” question at social gatherings. So I’ve toyed with “I’m a trophy wife.” When my husband actually says that, I immediately come back with, “More like the booby prize.” I just cannot get into the box, though every questionnaire, every survey, and far too many social gatherings expect or even demand it. Which brings me back to just a person.
Why does that seem so odd, so out of place as a self-description? Isn’t that really what each of us is, stripped of our resume superlatives, of our place inside any given descriptive box? Isn’t this in fact the entire meaning of monotheism, that each of us is a person, created in the image of God? That’s some radical equality right there. But of course we humans can’t resist fiddling with — and dare I say fucking up — Creation, so we have to create titles, and hierarchies, and tribes, and statuses, and so on and so on.
I suppose the natural assumption is that it would be terribly messy if we all went around just describing ourselves as people, but we haven’t ever really tried, so do we even know? We would each have to be Just A Person. We couldn’t be Just Person, because that has a radically different meaning. And we can’t use acronyms, because JAP has been contorted into an ugly way to describe Jewish women and girls. So, it has to be a fully formed Just A Person.
If we then wanted to differentiate ourselves, one from another, we could say things like “I’m just a person who best communicates how she experiences the world through writing.” My autistic son, if he could, might say, “I’m just a person who goes through the world seeing, feeling, and experiencing things in ways you might not understand. But none of that makes me less of a person than you.” My eldest might say, “I’m just a person who aspires to be a force for justice in this world, but who has yet to find the right fit to enable me to do that. So for the time being, I’m a person who practices a kind of law.” My youngest might say, “I’m just a person who cannot contain what I think, feel, and know at any given moment. And while that gets me into trouble sometimes/often(?), it’s just who I seem to be.”
All of these descriptions might push the time boundaries of a Q and A panel, or the social norms of a bar meet and greet, but it might also help us see one another in more nuanced ways. After all, the possible endings to a sentence that begins with “I’m just a person” are nearly infinite. Whereas “I’m a writer” feels more like a dead end. And no person I know wants to be stuck in a dead end.
