Surprise 'em! Got any secrets to share?
Melody | Thursday, 29 March, 2007 at 10:17 AM 
Dena Harris posted something in her blog yesterday that this morning I've deemed Theft Worthy. So for your reading pleasure, I'm going to spin off her topic and present it for my own readers.
She shared:
My life is an open book. A leads group I belong to asked everyone to write down one thing about ourselves that people don't know about us. Then at a future meeting, we'll try to match the events/details with the correct people. I can't think of anything to submit. People know I've written books, know I ran a half-marathon, know I used to be a librarian. What else is there? (Read the complete entry here.)
She continued on to declare her life perhaps dull when compared to that of others. She's looking for suggestions. Her post got me thinking. The last thing people would declare when talking about Dena is that she's dull. (Well, unless "people" were a group of downtown 17 year old Chicago goth kids. Then yea, probably...) Her post, though, reminded me of several things. First, "dull" and "exciting" are always open to interpretation: our own, that of others...it's all about context and what we perceive to be interesting. I'm thinking, too, that sometimes our own stories become so familiar to us that we don't really remember many of the "juicy" parts, or even subtly clever tidbits that make up the landscape of our personal histories.
In so declaring, I'm sitting here wondering if there's anything in my own life of any great interest to anyone (myself or otherwise,) and also thinking of my own readers...give us something! Is there anything you've done that people might not know about you? (Well, anything that you'd be willing to share.) Never mind other readers of this blog may or may not know you. If you have a blog yourself, you can reference it in the post, or you can join my non-blogging readers and post something anonymous. If it's really embarrassing, use a different name for these purposes! (Of course, remember it's still pretty much a family site over here at melodywatson.com.) And if you have suggestions for Dena - seeing as how she's actually called upon in a public forum to answer this question on occasion - pass 'em along to her!
Now, to see if there's anything worth mentioning that you haven't already become privy to in my nearly 700 blog posts. Oh, you can be sure. Let's see...
- Never coming remotely close to being considered a Deadhead, I nonetheless saw The Gratful Dead twice, somewhere around the turn from the 80's to the 90's. Both shows were in Atlanta. (Too bad I wasn't making clay pendant necklaces back then; I'm thinkin' I could have sold a honkin' pile of 'em, what do you think?)
- I have 3 metal pins in my right hip. Sadly, I can't report that they're there because of anything interesting I did. In fact the "accident" that led to the pins was quite dull.
- At 18, I had a blonde streak put in my hair. (Much to my then-hairdresser's chagrin.)
- At 24, I moved to NY for a month to work as a nanny. Turned out the family didn't actually need anyone living there (the Mom's career was shopping and playing tennis, and they already had a 2-3 days a week housekeeper/babysitter coming over,) and I came home to resume Life In The South. But it was an interesting month!
That's probably enough to jog your memory...
Your Turn!
Reader Comments (5)
I am like Dena in a lot of ways. I think that people know the things that stand out about me. I pretty much am an open book. One thing people may not know is that I have trouble trying to get in the 3 meals a day and I usually just get 1 in. Not very exciting, but that is something that many would not know.
Okay, here goes..
I had a near death experience as a teenager (there was a Mule to blame, but I hold no grudge) I came away from it much more intuitive than prior to the accident. I believe that with my whole heart! I can sum a person up much faster now and sometimes I get blips of information/insight about them in dream like flashes... That was not so prior to the accident, who knows?
Here's my secret: only a few people know, and they all think I was suffering from some kind of jungle disease.
I saw the ghost of a Khmer Rouge soldier one night in Cambodia. Swear to God. She was standing next to the wall on the other side of the room from my bed with a bayonet. It was the physical "presence" of someone being in the room that awoke me. Once I saw her, I wasn't afraid per se because I knew who she was and why she was there. Neither one of us moved, and I fell back to sleep with a kind of strange confidence that she wouldn't hurt me, and she didn't.
Stevii, at the busiest times in my career, I've struggled with that too. Good luck with fitting in more meals...ever try Kashi GoLean bars? They help tide me over when I'm hungry, and can go right in your bag!
Jen, how interesting! You hear people talk about the life lessons and processes that got them to the place of paying attention to their intuition. Perhaps a near-death experience just fast-forwards some of those processes?
Sean, that's also interesting. I'm intrigued by how you felt and responded. And wonder how you might have responded differently had you been unaware of the history of the place.
You know, I was so caught up in everything that is Cambodia -- the poverty, the history, the resiliency of the Khmer people -- that running into a ghost in such a troubled place didn't bother me. I say "ghost," but I don't really know what exactly it was beyond the fact that it was present next to me.
Buddhism teaches that samsara, the cyclic existence that we're all caught in, has six realms, including the one we inhabit. Below us are animals and the hell realm, plus a realm referred to as the place of "hungry ghosts." Maybe I was visited by a hungry ghost, or perhaps I was intruding on her space by sleeping in a hut built over her grave.
What I do know is that in three weeks, I never once felt unsafe there.