In terms of body language, I'm LOUD.
As well as a motor-mouth when the mood takes me, I also have an extremely vocal body. My stance shifts, arms windmill, eyebrows waggle, fingers flutter and eyes roll, depending on my mood and what I want to say.
I am the world's worst liar.
So, now you know why I never play poker. I'm skint enough as it is.
For years, I never gave a second thought to body language, though I instinctively knew how most folk were feeling from the way they held themselves. But, it wasn't really until Kidling Grand (No.1 - and only - Son) came along that I considered it. For, as he grew up, I started seeing my own moves and gestures in him.
At 13, he is (like me) long of limb, and enjoys the kind of elasticity that enables him to bite his toenails (I know - gross! Guilty as charged).
Unlike me, he is tanned and athletic and utterly at ease in a casual way with his body.
And yet, when I see him standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground, hips-width apart, and hands on hips like a double-handled jug as he gazes into the middle distance, I get an electric shock of self-recognition.
It's the most natural position for me (apart from lolling on the sofa or slumped over a keyboard). But it's only in the past decade of so that I have realised what message it sends to world...
...that I'm a bossy old moo.
Not for me the flirty sideways glance over the shoulder, or a demure Lady Di-style upwards glance. Oh no.
I'm more long-strided stomping, with the occasional humiliating fall from grace or face-on collision with a lamppost due to the fact that I'm looking up and around me rather than where I'm going.
What you see is what you get. Straight on, like it or lump it, I dare you to disagree with me - that's what my body language is screaming most of the time, even when my mouth is trying to convince you "I'm sorry", or "Yes, you're right", or "Whatever you say, Ma'am".
I'm physical, in a face-pulling, arm-waving, unashamed, totally unladylike way.
Maybe that's why a (good) friend told me the other day that "You don't count as a woman"?
Hey! I'm glad you're back!
ReplyDelete(well ok, i'm glad i decided to come and check you out again...)
I really do enjoy your writing.
re: seeing yourself in your children- Gawd. mine get angry and sarcastic JUST LIKE ME! it's so embarrassing and yet oddly amusing.
depending on what they are expounding on i have to force myself not to laugh sometimes!
(actually it's probably a good idea that we live on different continents.)
i've concluded in my vast span of years, that being a "bossy old moo" as you so charmingly put it, actually gets results. true not always the results you were looking for, but never the less, a response! so "here! here!" to the "bossy moo's" of the world!
[and try and get some sleep!]