“Honesty, truth-telling fairness, was
Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in
them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humor enough
in her to laugh at herself.”
Occasionally, someone seeing me from a distance when I’m alone might
be surprised by the fact that I seem to be laughing. It’s not an uncommon
occurrence. I often find myself almost folded over in laughter when I’m alone,
and it’s usually directed at myself. I often cannot believe some of the silly,
self-promoting, and completely incomprehensible things I say and so in a day’s
time, and it doesn’t deserve anything but a good laugh. Looking back on a
day, it’s as if I’m sitting in the audience at a comedy show, and my strange shenanigans
that day make up the show. I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m a complete
catastrophe as a human being, but I do seem silly to myself when I’m pridefully
prancing around like some shrewd mastermind. I know a little about the laws of
good writing and how to choose chicken thighs for grilling and when to write a
note in the margins of novels, but there are hundreds of thousands of things I
know nothing about. No one is less
of an “authority” than I am. I suppose I’m sort of an expert at using commas
correctly, but I’m a downright dimwit when it comes to correctly carving a
turkey or turning a lawn into a lavish garden or giving the right gifts to my
grandchildren. This is the reason
for my occasional amusement at myself when I’m alone. I just have to laugh at
this well-creased senior citizen who gives off such a sense of self-assurance
and astuteness, but who is truly dancing one simple (albeit spirited) step at a
time.
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