{"id":1535,"date":"2022-11-11T00:32:36","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T05:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2022-11-11T17:22:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T22:22:13","slug":"masquerade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/masquerade\/","title":{"rendered":"Masquerade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"praying<\/figure>
\n

One of my favorite things is seeing something and am I\u2019m certain I know what it is, but then having it turn out to be something completely different than what I thought. The insect that looks like a leaf is the classic. Or the leaf that looks like almost anything else: a small animal; a dog turd; a hole. Recently I saw a rock that looked like a hiding cat (actually frustrating because I was looking for the cat), a bird that looked like a valve on a pipe (or maybe vice versa), and a leaf that looked like a piece of food thrown on the ground. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Plus all this occurred at the time of year when people dress up. Usually \u201cmasquerade\u201d is associated with Mardi Gras, but isn\u2019t that also what we do for Halloween? Or in those Santa Claus beer crawls? You get to be that zombie fairy vampire* or the Ninja representative of death or a random dude in need of a costume. For weeks online and in random bars, you hear, \u201cWhat are you going to be?\u201d Parents ask their children. Adults ask their friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was juggling parenting, working, and other roles that came with \u201cbeing human\u201d in my 20s, I talked about \u201cplaying.\u201d So, at the teacher\/parent meeting, I\u2019d play parent. At a spouse\u2019s work event, I\u2019d play spouse, etc. It didn\u2019t mean, as members of a counseling group I attended thought, that I wasn\u2019t always a mom and a spouse. It just meant, to me at the time, that I put on that role in a deliberate way for the occasion. My counseling buddies would have not have appreciated the fact that the word \u201cperson\u201d comes from a Latin word that includes \u201cmask\u201d in its definition. Masks are integral who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"adult<\/figure>
\n

But what does this have to do with being present or changing the world, which I think are the two main reasons you\u2019re reading this? That and curiosity. The point I’m emphasizing here is that you can\u2019t truly masquerade as someone else unless you know who you really are. I\u2019m sharing a Halloween picture of me last year with my granddaughter. I wanted to go trick or treating with her and family norms demanded a costume. I did not want to spend a lot on a costume, so, as shown in this picture, I\u2019m a rumpled man (never could get a great name for the costume), who knows she\u2019s a grandparent, cheapskate, parent (my son was along too), and tourist (in a new part, for me, of San Francisco). I was a lot of other things too. A user of public transit by choice and not default. Present to the energy and moods of an eight-year-old. Not interested in candy much personally. Grateful when people appreciated that I too was in costume. Amenable to any plans. Maybe these are surface traits, but my awareness of them allowed the afternoon\/early evening to unfold smoothly and enjoyably.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the best challenges I\u2019ve read recently is to list what you\u2019re good at. Not what needs to be fixed. So what are those traits? Do you use them, in a positive way, as masks integral to you as a person or do you hide those traits or lurk behind them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are you? What do you love about yourself? And what masks do you put on  \u2014  physically, mentally, or emotionally just for fun? Do these masks add or expand that self? Claim and play!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

__________________________________

From the top:

Praying Mantis \u2014 Sid Mosdell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Street Poem that helped inspire this post by Sam Bones\/streetpoetsam of Inspired Type<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"street<\/figure>
\n

Zombie Fairies

They are very friendly, actually
Flitting here and there
From tree to tree and flower to flower
And they are especially attracted
to little girls in pink that play piano

They don’t leave a trail of blood, tho’
The only way you know you’re bitten
Is by the trail of glitter on the side of your neck.
(see image for proper formatting)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Trick or Treaters \u2014 Spirit Moxie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite things is seeing something and am I\u2019m certain I know what it is, but then having it turn out to be something completely different than what I thought. The insect that looks like a leaf is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[28,21,50],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asides","tag-masks","tag-presence","tag-roles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DJHl-oL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1550,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}