(No, this isn't a post about football. Though if you must know, the Bengals are lousy and I think that Cincinnatians are seriously out of touch with reality. Moving on.)
Yesterday I saw a car on the road in front of me with those flags on the sides of the car. You know, the funny ones that stick out the tops of the windows and blow in the wind. (It's a car fashion that I don't understand.) The flags showed the Pittsburgh Steelers' name and logo. And I thought, "Wow. He's brave."
Cincinnatians hate the Steelers. I think it's a Cincinnati Rule: To live here you must irrationally worship the Bengals and unquestioningly despise the Steelers. The history on this is fascinating, and dates back over 700 years. Which means that the younger set doesn't really get it. Still, even I know that you don't drive around Cicinnati with Steelers flags hanging on your car.
Sure enough, at the next stop light, some college-age kids were crossing the street and took the opportunity to tell the driver of the Steelers Car exactly what they thought of his Steeler Pride.
I kinda chuckled about it all and then thought about the profession that I'm aspiring towards (ASL interpreter, in case you forgot). Interpreting requires not only competence but several other things that I am not especially great at, among them:
Tact, Professionalism, and Impartiality
1 - Tact. That's something like a joke, right? Tact is CLEARLY something I lack. However, I'm getting better at it, and I'm noticing that as I get older, people tend to think that I DO have tact. That's a neat trick, right? Turns out it's something that I'm gaining, almost despite myself, as I age.
2 - Professionalism. Let's just take how I dress. ... Yep. What else is there to say?
Okay, okay, a little more. I normally dress in jeans and a T-shirt / sweat shirt combo. Not exactly professional, but changed easily enough. The hardest part of this, though, is that the standard interpreter get-up is a dark, solid-colored top, no writing or patterns. So: black, dark navy, maroon, olive green. Guess which colors I actually own? None of those. Guess which colors I LIKE to wear? None of those.
3 - Impartiality. I'm actively working on this one. It's easier for me in sign language to keep my opinions to myself. For instance, I listened quietly and respectfully yesterday as someone told me that the dinosaurs were killed off by Noah's flood. I was impressed with my response, but more than that I was amazed at how easy it was to just accept what he was saying instead of feeling the need to tell him that such theories are bogus.
These changes have really made me re-think who I am, what I believe, and crucially, what I then say and do about who I am and what I believe. In other words, what are my flags? And I've realized some pretty amazing things about myself that I never knew before:
1 - Tact isn't that hard. It requires saying less quantitatively, but more qualitatively. Be genuine. Care about people. The end.
2 - There's probably more than one reason I was supposed to wait a decade before finding this profession. I wouldn't have been able to stand the dress code when I was 20. Now, at 30, it seems like a teeny tiny obstacle. Do I want to do this? Yes? Then boring black shirts it is.
3 - Being as impartial as possible is liberating, and I like it a lot. Not in a "I'm trying to hide who I am" kind of way. ... Well, here. Back to the Steelers flag.
The man with the Steelers flag was shouting a message to everyone he passed on the street. "I AM A STEELERS FAN!" But you don't have to have a flag to send a message. The car itself sends a message. Our clothes send a message. Our house. Our facial expressions certainly do. Our attitude. We're a big, complicated ball of intertwined messages. The most important messages we send, though, are the ones that have nothing to do with anything physical. They're about what's inside of us.
With this interpreting gig, I've started wondering about what flags I have, which I can get rid of, and which I should hold on to. All I'll be left with, when I can't state my personal opinion, I can't dress how I want, and I need to be professional even if I want to scream, are those internal flags. Those 3 things all go against what Hippie Tamra previously preached, you know? "Be who you are, no matter what." But take those things away and I'm left with ... what?
Some flags were easy to lay aside. Soccer - fun, but not crucial. Being lazy - also fun, but not always practical. Some were harder, like I talked about. I want to be TAMRA. Tamra dresses in bright clothes. Tamra shows how she feels, even if she's feeling lousy. No need to put on a show for anyone. But I won't be able to do that as an interpreter. I have to be a chameleon of sorts. How can I still be Tamra without all those things I've been relying on? And who is Tamra, anyway, without those flags?
Really, when it came down to it, the only flag that I had left was Christ. Being Christian. Being Mormon. Those things mean a lot to me. My family. My outlook on life. It's all under that one Christ banner. Not that I'm not flying other flags, and I'm not perfect at the Christ flag, either. But it was the only flag that didn't fail at some point. The only flag that, in the end, really SHOULD be flying. Tamra doesn't need her own flags. Tamra would lay them all down for the honor of carrying His flag.
So go ahead. Try it. It's a great purging experience. Strip it all away, layer by layer, putting aside the flags that you no longer need. You don't have to reject those things (I still play soccer and I still love science), but find It. At the very end, there's something there, that last Flag. That's your anchor. And then you can build your life around that Flag.
It's a good perspective.
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