by Marilyn Myerson
I’ve been accused of having multiple personalities.
The truth, however, is that I have a wardrobe of selves; I take them out and wear them as the whim takes me. Each one provides me an opportunity to experience and learn more about the human condition.
Mr. Felix the loan shark is by far and away my favourite persona. He is privy to the seamy underside of human existence. He deals with the derelict, the desperate, the downcast. He is familiar with more sob stories than any tv scandal show host. There are so many lessons embedded in Mr. Felix’s everyday transactions, and I am eager to learn. How easily humans strayed from an ethical path, giving into temptation, heeding the siren song of sin.
Mr. Felix makes a good living from his nefarious activities. Enough to allow him to work only in the evenings, thus leaving him daytime free to pursue his leisure activities. His, of course, being mine.
My current preferred daytime avatar is Toby, a pool hustler. I dress inconspicuously and move around to different hoods throughout the city. I show up, looking innocuous, and maybe somewhat lost. Rather than chaw tobacco, I pop bubblegum and dress scruffy. After losing a game or two or three, I unleash my skill and clean out the local wannabes.
There was a lot to learn in this pursuit as well. In particular I am impressed by the varied and most colourful language directed at me.
On weekends, I set myself up in an amusement park: meet Madame Ruth, fortune teller at your service. I prefer to present myself as stereotypical as possible – gypsy clothes, armfuls of clanking bracelets, pervasive incense, huge crystal ball. I figure that an expected setting would encourage folks to open up. I am an audience for dreams and hopes, some beyond my imaginings!
Extrapolating the lessons I learn in the course of each of these pursuits, I look forward to writing a novel documenting my varied experiences and what I have learned about the vagaries of human behavior.
My shrink, on the other hand, wants to increase my meds.
Marilyn Myerson, Ph. D, Philosophy, has learned to take nothing for granted and to embrace the power of whimsy. Marilyn was the first outside hire in what is now the USF Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, starting in 1973, when it was just one year old. She was an administrator at various departmental and deans’ levels before her retirement as Emeritus faculty in 2010. She shepherded the Human Sexual Behavior class through its many incarnations, developed the original women’s health classes, and taught feminist research methods. She is happily involved with OLLI-USF, having taken painting and writing courses. She created and frequently teaches Imaginative Writing classes and facilitates the Imaginative Crew and several other writing groups.
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