Persona

In Spanish, a person. In English, the personality we adopt when we write. I write to be read.

I once wrote about my aunt in a thinly disguised story. I wrote about the 4 lives she led - a 50 year old woman playing at being 20 and a business woman and a menopausal being and an aunt/family woman. Having her read it was exciting.
I sat at the edge of my seat watching for a chink in her armor, a twitch in her crow's feet, a curling of her thinly pursed lips.

In high school I struggled with the idea of explaining my persona to my classmates. I wrote of dark things and morbid thoughts. An agoraphobic sociopath that called home a NY city public restroom. A mental patient. A eulogy writer. It's not me, it's him!

I have never given him a name. It seems appropriate that I'm excited about naming my persona (alter ego).

There are famous historical accounts of these people (persona's). Think of Batman, Wonder Woman and the Escapist. Some have chosen another route and called it a pen-name. Bah! It's an expression of self. A waking dream we enjoy only when brought to life by a pair of watchful eyes.

A single frame reveals a truth or is it Munroe's stick figures?. Dreams are a brief comatose period where we hallucinate vividly and then suffer amnesia about the whole thing.

I don't write about what I know. My persona embellishes. My writing voice is reflective of my mind not the way I speak.

And I'm still jealous of a fat old man who refused the presidency, flew a kite in the middle of a storm and became a founding father of nation and science. A little bit of toast and a drop or two of malt liquor splashed on the ground to your good health Silent Dogwood.