I Am What I Am

Each time I stand in front of the nail polish display, it is an exciting moment. I am filled with the brash hope that this is the time I will set my daring true self free by finally choosing the bold signature color I was meant to wear. I peruse and ponder and compare, looking for the one. The truly different one. When I glimpse it, there in the back, I push all the other, lesser shades aside like Indiana Jones reaching for the cup of Christ, and rejoice when I feel its cool heft in my hand. Mine! Different and interesting are finally mine! I whisk it home, barely able to part with it long enough for the scanner to pass its jealous laser eyes over my bottle of liquid awesome, and spirit it away to the upstairs. I lock myself in the bathroom and pull out my baby wipe container of old, boring, conventional nail polish to show them their doom…only to discover that what I was absolutely certain would be my radical departure from bondage is the exact same color as every other bottle of nail polish I have ever owned. Ever. Apparently, my subconscious knows who I am even if I don’t. Which is why those personality tests always say I should forget any career other than teaching. It’s who I am. In Douglas Florian’s A Bird Can Fly, each creature is only authentically them. Easy enough when you don’t have to worry about nail polish.

http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Can-Fly-Douglas-Florian/dp/0688842666

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/HarperChildrens/Kids/AuthorsAndIllustrators/ContributorDetail.aspx?CId=16495