Escape Artist

Evidence that somewhere there exists a version of me who has finally gotten it right.

I’m standing on my terrace, leaning as far over the balcony as I can manage for a person who’s terrified of heights. It has always been my quest to not only be recognized for my accomplishments, but also to stand out for my unique brand of fear.

This is familiar and alarming. Damning, even.

Apparently there’s a name for my fear of heights. It’s called L’Appel du Vide, or the call of the void in English. I get an overwhelming sense that my body is not connected to the ground and that, without my consent, I may get lifted away from the physics of gravity and float up and out and over the railing.

I’m currently positioned on the balcony, spying on the townhouse across the avenue from where I live in Dupont Circle.

(I’m a terrible spy. I will loudly announce that I’m surprising you just beforehand.)

Lately, the curtains on the townhouse have been open, but I see no action inside. No vacuuming. No sexy time. It’s a narrow three-story house with ancient-looking turrets.

I’m running through the most logical options of how to gain entry. If you’re reading this, I hope it’s not your house because I would never, ever do what I’m about to tell you I’m going to do. And if I did do it, I would definitely bring you a house gift. Probably flowers. But they wouldn’t be flowers that would please you; they would be flowers that would please me. So peonies, hydrangeas, ranunculus, and maybe some filler like alchemilla. You can keep the vase.

Wearing jeans and a pale lavender sweater because, as we all know, lavender is a universally unthreatening color, and not wearing a coat (part of the plan), I stand with my arms crossed, pretending to shiver as I knock on your front door. I don’t look the least bit crazy, but I didn’t ask anybody. I have a plan worked out. I’ve practiced arranging my face in the mirror to appear quietly self-assured, or at least not unhoused, and will let whoever opens the door know that I left my coat there the night before.

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The house is likely from the mid-1920s, with a slate roof and Moorish-style windows. The limestone has collected verdigris, and soot gathers on the columns of the balcony. There’s a turret. I never see anyone at the windows. At my windows. It’s an invitation for my imagination.

I’m redecorating the rooms like a set from an old vacant mansion in Rhode Island, with heavy velvet eggplant-colored drapes and old wood that smells like Pledge and an ancient forest. I live there and move through the rooms with ease. There are Deborah Turbeville pictures on the walls. There is classical music playing, and it wafts from the plaster and composes itself through the walls. There’s no Wi-Fi, but there’s a room with a drafting table (there’s nothing cooler than a drafting table), watercolor paper, and sharp pencils. My cat lies in the south-facing window on a table laden with books. I live alone with the cat. She is black and white and complements the sofa, so she can stay.

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Here I am, yearning for something that I don’t inhabit, and the longing is fierce. I want in. I see the perfect impression of a complete and poised woman mirrored in this space. That’s me times two, but subtract one. (OK, there I am.)

It always went like this.

I’m living in a loft in NYC or Paris. Each time I picture the scene unfolding, I’m wearing cream silk trousers, an immaculate man’s white tailored shirt, and a slender wristwatch. My hair is in a loose ponytail. It’s clean, and I have buffed nails manicured to a practical length. In this warped, inverted fantasy, this is how I appear. I likely went to an all-girls boarding school, played the piano well, and my parents were divorced. Nobody spoke during meals except to politely ask, “Please pass the salt and pepper.”

I walk across the wooden floor and my shoes strike a rhythmic click-click. I am carrying a porcelain cup of English breakfast tea and walk to a small marble café table, where I sit very still. I’m carrying nothing else. In the appearance and reappearance of this projected memory, I notice a small unease, a bristling in my body. Or maybe it’s the cat rubbing up against me.

Where on God’s green earth did I invent this character? There is no resemblance to the woman who lives in this body, my petite little body with large feet and strong dancer calves. I’m the barefoot girl wearing sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, and I’m mostly walking in circles, tapping my forehead to remember where I left my coffee, my lip balm, and my phone. I sit most comfortably on the floor or on a pillow, not upright in a chair. I always have a wrinkled paper bag carrying crumbs from a half-eaten muffin.

I’m complicit in my own ruinous cliché, disapproving of myself and desperately wanting to shed old skin and useless pieces of an ancient and comical story. Maybe that’s why the fantasy keeps returning. Not because I want her life, but because I keep mistaking her for evidence. Evidence that somewhere there exists a version of me who has finally gotten it right.

Creating anything new, and what I mean is the action, not just an image, but truly embracing it, I need to be a little bit terrified. I need to sit with both my tigers and friends. Self-doubt and self-belief are the two bookends that we spring from. When I find out that I’m not going to become the person I thought I was meant to be, I start to go through the five stages of grief.

When I stop wailing long enough to listen, there is a voice that I begin to recognize. It’s the voice of spirit. Tenderly, patiently, the language of my not-English and not-human guides beckons me to pause and halt the endless tug. More questions than answers. More right than righteous. The reminder that we are always able to calm the uninvited critic and extend an invitation to our better angels.

I’d like to wrap this in a tidy bow and offer some sort of gospel prophecy, but here we are, messy and imperfectly perfect, with our tigers and friends having tea for three.