JUDYish

ORANGE. Orange was my least favorite color but there it was in front of me… a standard size piece of orange construction paper. On the left corner was a picture of a little curly haired blond child maybe around 3 years old. Taking up most of the space was to be my name, JUDY. Aside from the obvious age difference – I was MUCH older, presumably the little blond haired girl was ME? I can’t blame the nun in charge of providing the magazine cut outs. In 1957 how many images could she possibly find of brown eyed, brown haired Mexican boys and girls – enough for the entire classroom? Impossible.

So there I sat staring at my ‘placemat’, learning proper eating manners and pretending that I was that little girl. When in fact, I was thoroughly confounded. I didn’t understand that it had to do with the plight of the picture finder and I wondered if maybe I had it wrong? I was five years old and in kindergarten. Life hadn’t given me the label MEXICAN yet, and I only vaguely knew that I was brown. Where in real life had I even seen any blond children (come to think of it, I have a vague memory of two blondies that I found as odd as aliens. They were at a day care that preceded this very nice and new and state of the art kindergarten. The facility lacked some of niceties and the clientele were on the low end of the $ scale. This little boy and girl looked ‘poor’ and kinda dirty and they smelled bad. BUTTER, to me they were some kind of ‘butter’. I remember being up close to them on the playground and curious about the big spots on their faces. That’s how unfamiliar I was with freckles). As it was, I was bummed that I would have to embrace this ‘other’ Judy and accept that, at least for now, she represented ME. Deep down inside, even at 5 yrs old, I felt invisible. Let me make it very clear, I am not trying to make some kind of political statement here. I’m just remembering something that always stuck with me. Funny – the memory never went away…

Several years later JUDY took on a few more identifiable markers besides curly hair and brownness. I added this and that to who I was, the essentials. I could make people laugh, I didn’t find school to be a breeze like some of my friends, I cried way too easily and lived in fear of another of my uncontrollable ugly cries, I loved food, music, dancing and singing along with the radio. I was a people watcher and was curious about all things human. I had serial crushes on boys. I loved the whole ‘teenage’ thing. I wanted to travel but was secretly scared of anything too foreign.

Eventually, ME was a whole lot more than curls and brownness. And on it went. Layer after layer of stuff that came to be JUDY. Seven decades later I wonder how all that can be the little 5 yr old? How much can I add (and sometimes take away) and still be that name on my birth certificate….

It’s not true, Cary Grant never said, Judy,Judy,Judy. It just would have been funny if he had. I’m a Judy. There were not many around in my neighborhood. Not like the Betsys, and Pattys, and Debbies. I felt unique. BTW in first grade the nuns called me Judith. I cringed every time I heard it. Writing it was more pain. I was not, am not and never will be a Judith. My last name was Moore but that changed to Parish. But I am a Judy and that will never change. This body that has done nothing but change and morph for 73 years is named Judy. The totality of the personality that goes with it with all its odds and ends is also Judy. It is always Judy. Fascinating, don’t you think?

Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? The trifecta. Answer that and Judy adds the final dimension to what I call My Life. The mystery, the knowledge that one day there will be no Judy. How? Why? Poof! Gone. What remains? Anything?

A long time ago I had a voice (yes, it sounded like a voice) tell me that even after I die my consciousness would go on. I felt relief. Didn’t even know I’d been worried about that. It seemed very sensible to me at the time. I am so familiar with that part of Judy that yaks and provides a running monologue that I simply could not imagine it ever not being. I think I get it now. I think I know what that’s all about. I’ll just betcha that The Judy in the mirror is some kind of illusion. A good one. Very realistic. And when that fades away I will not. There is something, and it is really NO THING, and it is Judy and it is everything else around me – people, animals, flowers and all the rest – every single ‘thing’ is made out of same stuff that makes a Judy. All the same NO THING. Don’t try and do this math in your head, don’t try and do it on paper, don’t try! Just be playful and let go and say MAYBE?