I Wasn’t Born This Way
Three turning points on the road to me.
#1. The first one happened when I was three.
I was in what we used to call nursery school, at my synagogue. Back when I was still called Susie. I guess we played games…? Can’t say I remember much about that. What I do remember is learning a few Hebrew words. Todah [toe-DAWH] for “thank you,” Yom [yoam] for “today,” Shalom [shah-LOAM] for…Shalom. (Think Aloha. Ish.)
And we learned Sus [soos], which means “horse.” Something about that word — that single syllable — that sounded so much like my name and meant “horse,” caused a firestorm of convergence in my mind.
All at once, I got that sus was a word. And Susie was a word. I got that words were symbols for things — not the things themselves! I got Language — in a 3-year-old kinda way.
The Takeaway: The world as I experience it, is not a place of things. It’s a place of symbols that describe things. A place of Language.
Years later, I learned I was a Sagittarius, the symbol for which is the centaur — half human/half horse. Another convergence. Another firestorm. (But that’s another story.)
#2. For the next one, I was in first grade.
Somebody came to the classroom and asked for volunteers for something. Student Council, maybe. (Whatever that was.) And nobody raised their hand. I thought it sounded really cool. I mean, you could get out of class and hang with the big kids. You could be special.
Yes, the fact that nobody else raised their hand made me suspicious… If it’s so cool, why am I the only one volunteering? But I wanted to get out of class and hang with the big kids, and I very much wanted to be special. So, after a while, I raised my hand.
And next thing I knew, I was on Student Council. Getting out of class. And I was special.
It wasn’t quite the firestorm of Language, but I discovered something about navigating the world and its possibilities.
The Takeaway: You can do special things and enjoy special privileges just by saying yes to them. Just by raising your hand.
Eventually, I learned that raising your hand all the time can leave you overbooked and exhausted. (But that’s another story.)
#3. My final, blinding, formative insight came in the third grade.
I’m not sure how this happened, but I was beginning to understand that a) I was “smart,” and (b) other kids weren’t so crazy about kids who were smart. Especially girls who were smart.
Most girls wouldn’t speak up even when they knew the answers! They didn’t want the attention. It wasn’t worth it. But I’d shoot my hand up, eager to answer — eager to be first to answer, beating the boys half the time. And kids mostly liked me anyway.
One day it hit me: the other smart girls weren’t funny. That was the diff. They didn’t use their intelligence in pursuit of laughs — cheap or otherwise — the way I did. I was fast, clever with words, and had good … timing. I was funny.
This insight had such a profound impact on me, that eventually, funny became my profession: Performer. Comedienne. Director of satire and sketch.
The Takeaway: People don’t mind that you’re smart if you’re funny!
Of course, being funny has its own issues. (But that’s another story.)
