Self-Reflexive Self-Reflection

About a year ago my father purchased a number of baseball caps for his loved ones on which the words: 01-20-09 Bush's Last Day" are printed. I wear mine proudly, and often, and I like to think of the rest of the recipients wearing theirs, too, in other pockets of the country, little beacons (or beanies) of hope calling out to like minded patriots, something like George Bush Sr.'s Thousand Points of Light. Ha.

But before I get too pleased with that idea, I will rein myself in; what I'm getting at is that I wear my cap with pride, and here in New York, where I live, I almost always get thumbs-up signals, or big smiles, even the occasional high five. I have never stopped to think if I would wear my cap so blithely if I lived in rural Idaho, or Mississippi, or how it would feel to get a disapproving look, a negative comment. I suspect I would feel extremely uncomfortable, upset, in spite of the fact that yes, I am the woman who once unwittingly wore a Boston Celtics cap to a Yankees game and got cups thrown at my head for my troubles.

Anyway. The point here is that yesterday I was wearing my cap to take Lily to school, as I often do in lieu of brushing my hair, and when the elevator door opened on our floor, a neighbor from the 6th floor was already inside. Now I happen to know, based on an interaction at a previous co-op board meeting, that this neighbor is politically conservative, a rare quality in this neck of the woods, which is partly why the fact stuck. I like this guy, but we don't see each other that often, we don't interact socially, we are not close friends. I can't imagine that his reaction to my cap, its message, would have been much more than a barely perceptible eye roll, an inward: Whatever. Which is pretty much how I would have reacted in reverse had I seen him wearing a Bush/Cheney t-shirt. Well, my inward note to myself may have been a little less gracious. Perhaps his was too.

So what did I do when I saw him standing there in all his conservative glory? Make a joke about the cap to break the awkward silence? Refuse to acknowledge it? Try to engage him in a legitimate political discussion? No. None of the above. I quickly, before he had so much as a chance to read it, whisked the cap off my head and tucked it away in my bag.

Fortunately, my neighbor was, sweetly, talking to Lily, who finds him quite engaging, so neither of them noticed what I had done, which the neighbor would have found odd, and Lily would have certainly commented on (But WHY, Mama, WHY are you taking off your cap?). And when we reached the lobby, the neighbor, in a rush, walked ahead of us, and Lily and I continued on our slow mosey to the subway station at the end of the street. As soon as there was half a block between us , I took my cap out of my bag and put it back on.

When we got down to the platform, the train was there so we ran on, Lily practically airborne as I pulled her along. We sat, caught our breath, and suddenly the neighbor from the elevator appeared; he was on the same train, which must have been waiting at the station for a little while before we got on. He stood directly facing us, making conversation, and the whole time I was thinking: I can't believe I'm wearing this cap. There is no reasonable way to remove this cap for the second time this morning, as he's standing two feet away from me. He hates me. He hates this cap.

At the next stop, when Lily and I got out, and the neighbor continued on uptown, I had a flash of recognition or rather insight about myself. I was the kind of person, I realized, who would remove a cap that didn't mesh with a virtual stranger's political beliefs so as not to offend him in any way. This is, I believe, a problem. My sister, for one, would no more have removed that cap than cut off her arm; it would never so much as occurred to her.

I find it fascinating how we reveal ourselves to ourselves in such dribs and drabs, over such long and excruciating periods of time, and in such fruitless and frustrating ways. Not that this has to be, or is always so. Sometimes the revelations are actually revelations. But I feel abashed. Tomorrow, I will wear my cap again, and if Jerry Falwell himself is in my elevator I will smile politely, but I will keep it on.