Hunting, by Gillian

The first game I remember playing in my life was 'Hunt the Thimble'. My mother introduced me to it when I was, I suppose, about three. The thimble had originally belonged to my great-grandmother, and was made of silver worn almost paper-thin by generations of use. To me it seemed the most wonderous, brilliantly-shining object I had ever seen.

I loved it, and was consequently brought to tears when Mum told me she had hidden it and I had to find it. The glorious object was gone; the responsibility of having to find it too great. No doubt puzzled at my reaction, she set about joining me in the supposed search, and in no time we found it. We did it a second time, together, after which I had grasped the concept. I willingly covered my eyes for the third time of hiding, and said something like, No! Me! when my mother made to join me in the search. I was into it now. The game was on.

We played that game endlessly, until I was in fact much too old for it - 25 or 26. No, no, just joking, more like 5 or 6, but still an age by which I probably should have outgrown it. Looking back, I rather think I had but my mother had not.

After a couple of days of my being the lone seeker, she suggested I hide it for her to find. Ooh, fun! Thereafter we alternated hider and seeker, she being every bit as thrilled as I to hunt for and eventually find the gleaming beauty.

She loved either role, exhibiting as much excitement when I neared the hiding place as if I was approaching the end of the rainbow with its proverbial pot of gold. We both played our own games within the game. Sometimes, the hiding place was too easy. Almost immediately I started the hunt, I caught the gleam of highly-polished silver from behind Mom's tea cup. I feigned blindness and faked a continued search for some time, so as not to curtail my mother's pleasure. Once or twice, my search went on too long, the hiding place too clever, and I became irritated. Then Mum would say she had forgotten where she put it and would join me in the search, and it was fun again.

I grew tired of 'Hunt the Thimble'. We, just the two of us, had played it too often for too long. But Mum so enjoyed it. How could I disappoint her? It was a small price to pay. I continued to play; to fake the challenge of the hunt and the thrill of discovery.

And so, with this innocent toddler game, began two things. It was the start of the strangely reversed role I had, for the rest of my life, with my mother. I took care of her needs, rather than the reverse. Even as a child I read to her, I let her win at card games, I made her tea, I tucked her up in bed. I was the parent; she the child.

Another pattern began with 'Hunt the Thimble'.  As I outgrew the game ahead of my mother, I began my acting career. I pretended emotions I did not feel, desires I did not have, and continued to do that extremely well for the next 40-odd years of my life. That innocent bit of 'pretend' in a childhood game grew into an ability to fake a completely artificial heterosexual identity for decades. Such mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow. The reversed roles shared by my mother and me were never to be corrected. They were too deeply entrenched. But at least I eventually managed to retire from acting to live, finally, happily, as the person I was born to be.

© September 2016 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.

Competition by Gillian

It’s just not a part of my reality: my psyche. As far as I can tell, in retrospect, neither of my parents had a competitive bone in their body. So I come by competitiveness, or the lack of it, honestly. The only kind of competition they introduced me to, if it’s worthy of the term, was of the why don’t you see if you can do a little better next time variety; competition with myself. So it’s hardly surprising that I consider that to be the only contest worth the winning; making myself just a little better every time.

I remember, back in the John Elway days, the first time we, by which I mean the Denver Broncos, lost the Superbowl. On the local news following the game they gave out phone numbers of local therapists standing by to help Bronco fans deal with their emotions. I was simply amazed. It’s a game, for God’s sake, not World War Three.

Years ago, perhaps in the late ‘50’s, I read an article in I know not what newspaper or magazine, written by a Brit, claiming that Britain was a “good enough” country. We had lost our drive for perfection and were happy to settle for “good enough.” I’m not sure of this, but I think my attitude, which undeniably has a certain shade of “good enough,” in it, as did that of my parents, and the country at large, might have stemmed from World War Two. And perhaps a carry-over from World War One.

In a country subject to harsh rationing during, and for years after, World War Two, meals were frequently “good enough,” and that often required a ton of positive thinking. When Churchill reviewed the rations he judged them adequate, until he was told they were for a week, not a day as he had supposed. With one egg and one ounce of cheese a week, it is actually very positive to be able to proclaim a meal, “good  enough.”

During and after the First War, women took up jobs which were traditionally “man’s work.” In Britain roughly two million woman replaced the men who had left to fight, so many of whom were destined never to return. Many women took over this work by choice, but many, especially in country areas, had no choice. You had a farm to keep up and there were no men left to do the work, so women must do it. Given the situation, and knowing how hard all farming families worked even before the men left, I can well imagine exhausted and demoralized women struggling with overwork, much of it unfamiliar to them, tossing down the carpentry tools or stabling the plow horse and saying it would just have to be good enough. It’s hard to strive for perfection when you are inexperienced, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

I can imagine the same thing of many members of the upper class who lost most of their servants either directly or indirectly to the war. My Lord having to clip his own hedges for the first time in his life and Milady forced to mend her torn curtains, might well have finished their attempts saying, in effect, that it would “jolly well have to be good enough.”

I very much doubt that Britain is a “good enough” country these days. I’m sure there is as much perfection per capita as anywhere else. And prior the two world wars, the British were responsible for many inventions; everything from Isaac Newton’s telescope to the steam engine, spoked wheels to cement, chocolate bars, and jet engines. Inventions may occasionally be due to some accident or mistake, but they are rarely precipitated by a shrugged “it’s good enough.”

I often hear, though, even now, that the Brits frequently lack that killer instinct that fires you to be really competitive; to win at all cost. Britain still tends to cling to the idea that it’s how you play the game that matters, not whether you win or lose. That is very much the attitude my parents gave to me. I have never lost it. On the whole, although there’s certainly an argument to be made that humanity would have accomplished a great deal less, I think the world would be a better place without competition. I am, after all, an unapologetic peacenik, and what is war but the most extreme form of competition?

© February 2014

About the Author 

 I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.