To Have Courage and be Kind

Old movies taught me how to lie.

Before classic cinema, I was dreadfully honest in that naive, doe-eyed, innocent little way we all wish we could be but only Disney princesses and the homeschooled kid who’s never seen a PG-13 movie can actually pull off without being too disgustingly saccharine. As I’m neither a Disney princess (though I’ll never stop hoping for the day I can suddenly sing, dance, and communicate with forest creatures like some glittery member of the X-men) nor a homeschooler, I fell into that category of tooth decay inducing annoyance usually reserved for the main characters of toddler TV shows and great-aunts who like to pinch your cheeks and give you those gross old hard candies from the “beauty parlor.” As a result, the delightful little creatures many would call my peers (I’d call them demon spawn, but I digress)  took advantage of my gullible nature and played me like a fiddle at a bluegrass convention.

“Hey Mary,” one of the scrawny heathens, easily six inches shorter than me said as he came up to me in art class one day in the second grade, his equally impressive posse gathered around him as he spoke, “can you spell ‘I cup’?”

I was, admittedly, not the most humble of children, especially about things I was proud of. My spelling ability was one of these. I never considered for a minute the boy gave me something unpleasant to spell. “Of course I can,” I remarked, probably tossing a little eye roll or hair flip in with my pompous tone, “can’t you?”

“Then what is it?” he demanded, “Because if you don’t spell it out loud I won’t believe you.”

“It’s i-c-u-p,” I said proudly before the horror of hearing what I said passed over me. I-c-u-p?! That means, “I see you pee!”  That boy basically tricked me into saying that I was a pervert in front of everyone! Everyone must think I’m awful! Maybe I am awful! Oh no!

I went around like this inside my head for a bit while outwardly my cheeks turned a particularly violent shade of crimson and looked away while the boys who tormented me had their laugh. In that moment, I felt so very picked on and awfully ashamed at saying something so scandalous (remember, I was a second grader) I wished a dragon would swoop through the window and carry me to freedom. I vowed no one would ever embarrass me like that again.

  Unfortunately, I can’t control the actions of others and I continued to be fooled by the little beasts I went to school with, which wouldn’t have been so terrible if my reactions weren’t so satisfying to the worms. Every time I found out I was fooled I stuttered out some kind of a (usually very cross) reaction, more embarrassed each time it happened. It soon became everyone at school’s favorite game to see what they could get very innocent, very emotional Mary to react to.

And so I struck back.

When I was little, I spent a week every summer with my grandmother and every night we marathoned old movies together. I stared transfixed at the sight of such legends as Debbie Reynolds,  Audrey Hepburn, and Maureen O’Hara while they sang, danced, and took me on the greatest adventures. I watched them take command of a scene, craft an impenetrable mask out of lipstick and a tilted eyebrow, fight with carefully strung together sentences both biting and charming, all while retaining a feminine grace and poise so alluring I knew then: I didn’t just want to watch them, I wanted to be them.

I wanted to be Kathy Seldin taking Don Lockwood down a peg or two. I wanted to be Katherine McLintock getting in the fight in McLintock!. I wanted to be Princess Ann setting out to tour Rome on my own. I wanted to be amazing, and so I became amazing.

I did it the way anyone who wants to get good at anything has to do: I practiced. I practiced being indestructible. From middle school on, I practiced taking that anger, that passion, that naivete and transforming it into quick-witted replies, verbose arguments, cunning facial expressions-- everything I’d seen the ladies of the screen do. And I did have to practice. I was too emotive then. Every emotion I possessed was worn on my face as obvious as a fire truck sitting in your kitchen and my enemies used that to their advantage. They took those emotions off my face, twisted them into something else entirely, and put them back so that I could barely deal with the fall-out. So I did away with that--or rather, I would have, had I not remembered how those actresses made their living, by buying and selling emotions. Every emotion, every little thought, feeling, and question in her character’s head must all be displayed on her face if the actress didn’t want her audience confused. If she couldn’t emote, the audience couldn’t connect, and anyway, the point wasn’t to become a cold, embittered, shell of a woman, it was to protect myself. So I lied.

When they hurt me, they saw nothing of the sort unless I was so bruised and broken the mask fell off of its own accord. Instead, they saw determined eyes and a, “is that all you’ve got” smirk. Instead, they saw a quirked eyebrow and folded arms. Instead, they saw perfect makeup and flawless skin. Instead, they heard a little laugh and some smart quip that left no room for another comment. Instead, they saw what I wanted them to see, someone fierce, someone strong, and yet someone soft and kind, because otherwise as a creature of only fierce strength I would be cruel. And I wasn’t cruel. I couldn’t be. Aside from it being morally wrong, I didn’t have it in me to be callous. People had shown me too much injustice in my life for me to intentionally show any kind of harsh action towards others. At any rate, the actresses I so admired weren’t cruel either. They were kind, they were courageous. If I were to truly be like them, I had to be too. And so, if I ever encountered anyone, even those that had caused me the pain, the reasons I was a liar, anyone who needed my help at all, I vowed to help them in any way I could. I was the shoulder to cry on, the person who snitched on the bullies, and the one who stood up against injustice. I was simultaneously everyone’s advocate and everyone’s opponent, and either in spite of or because of this, depending on how you looked at it, I was lonelier than ever. I was too smart, too quick, to ready to strike, and far, far too unwilling to put away my mask of lies to let anyone in. I needed to change something, and I needed to do it soon. I needed Jesus.  And that’s when I first met Peggy Carter.

Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter came into my life at a time when I wasn’t sure how much of my mask I needed, how much of a liar I had to be. It was the start of high school and I felt I was ready to let some of it go. The old movie stars, I felt, were for the scared little girl in me. To grow up, I had to let go. I no longer wore makeup to school, I made friends, I wasn’t verbally attacked on a daily basis; I was okay without my security blanket, but I was also more lost than ever. I had no idea how to properly deal with people. Enter in Peggy Carter, a fabulously feminine first-rate female agent for the fictional Strategic Scientific Reserve. She kicked butt, didn’t tolerate any disrespect, was extremely competent in her field, had killer hair and makeup, and somehow retained her warmth and emotion. Peggy Carter, like all of those women I admired, was in control of her emotions without being cruel or callous. She had a moral code and she stuck to it. Here was a woman (a woman in modern cinema no less--though she did live in the same time period as those actresses I loved) who reaffirmed what I already knew while still teaching me something new altogether: that it’s alright to hide your secrets from your enemies, but your friends? those you love? Those people are there for you. They don’t care if you’re naive, they don’t care about how gullible or innocent you are, they care about you. I missed that the first time around. See, I was a great student, but I learned the wrong lesson. I thought it was all about hiding from everyone, from protecting yourself whatever the cost. In reality? It was about being careful while taking risks. It was about crying to your sister and standing fierce in front of your enemy. It was trusting in a higher power. It was compassion. It was love.

Love. They say lies are the enemy of love. They say lies poison the ground that love would grow in. For a very long time, I had trouble believing this. I had trouble believing people could live without secrets. I had trouble believing a lot of things. But now...now I have the advantage of hindsight. I can easily forgive those elementary school kids for what they did to me not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because they started inadvertently teaching me the lesson old movies and Peggy Carter finished.

Secrets have their place, and it’s an important one. Batman will never reveal the location of the Batcave to all of Gotham’s villains, and I will never reveal my weak spots to my enemies, but I’m not hiding behind a mask of lies anymore either. I’m...myself. But stronger. Because old movies may have taught me how to lie, but they--and Peggy Carter--helped me find the strength to tell the truth.