Who am I really? (Part 2 of 40)

This second installment of my Lenten reflection continues with the external. Tonight, I explore the idea of projection.

As I stated yesterday, most folks, upon meeting me for the first time, find me to be a non-threatening entity. I've been told that I have a congenial face that reminds people of relatives that they love and miss. Students here in Oman tell me that I remind them of their older sisters. When telling me this, the comment generally involves them using hand gestures (the motion usually accomplishes an outline air drawing of a wide hour glass) to imply that I'm just as overly plump as the sister they miss. When I smile genuinely at my students, they immediately smile back, which makes me smile even more, which makes them smile even more, which makes for good classroom rapport and dynamics.

My older sister gripes that when I pose for pictures, I often give a fake smile. According to her, my genuine smile is the photo you see included here. The expression causes the fat in the upper parts of my cheeks to push up against my bottom eye lids, which then makes my eyes shrink to a horizontal shape, and the person looking at me doesn't know if I'm about to laugh or continue to beam through my eyes slits the feelings of happiness inside of me. In contrast, my fake smile is when I don't smile with my eyes, but only my mouth.

To get back to the focus of today's reflection, I would say that what I project through a congenial face is a sense of familiarity. Through my smile, I project the genuineness that I feel inside. If I feel fake, I project fakeness. If I feel genuine, I project genuineness.

There are, however, some things that I do project to others that cause confusion for people. Case in point, I was at a language conference two years ago. I was at a session, taking notes and listening intently. My attire for the day was a 3/4-length blouse and a skirt that went mid-calf. I can't remember which shoes I was wearing that day, but that's secondary. In this session, I was sitting next to an American colleague of mine who made no qualms about, during the Q & A time, giving her opinion and citing a personal teaching example from her life. Across the room, although I didn't know it at the time, was H, who later became a professional friend of mine. Last month on the phone, H (a non-American) and I were talking about conferences, and he said to me, "You know, when I first met you, I thought you were Polish."

Me: Are you serious? Why would you think I were Polish?

H: I don't know. In my mind, I had an image of an eastern European country. When someone introduced you to me as an American, I couldn't believe it.

Me: Really? Was I using a Slavic-sounding accent that day?

H: No, it's just that you looked so attentive taking notes. And you were very quiet. You didn't draw attention to yourself, so I didn't think you were an American.

Other cases of mistaken national identity that I have, apparently, projected in the past include, but are not limited to: Lebanese, Afhgani ("from the North," and also, a case where I looked like a relative of the person who made the observation), German, Swedish, Australian, Egyptian, and Canadian (I guess I slipped in some Scandinavian-sounding vowels -- remnants of the UP, perhaps).

If you are puzzled as to why anyone would confuse me for a Middle Easterner, the answer is somewhat simple. When I was living and working in Saudi, I often wore an open-faced hijab and abaya in public and on the faculty bus that took employees to and from university and our housing. According to one former faculty member, the fact that I calmly sat on the bus every day and didn't complain or talk overly loud like my Western counterparts, I projected a feeling of ease that could only come with having had experience living in the ME for a very long time. The Lebanese assumption stems from most taxi drivers, or in one case a ruins assistant, fitting together that the fair-skinned woman giving them instructions in Modern Standard Arabic dressed in a black abaya and a colorful hijab is "not from 'round these parts," so therefore, must be "Lebnani."

What is common about all of these first impressions observations is that what I ultimately project to the world is a humble heart that can stay calm in the midst of chaos. Oh, but if my thoughts could be read by passers by, this would not be the agreed upon projection! Part 3 will explore the juxtapositions of my internal monologue vs. my projected image.