It was quiet, very quiet in the tiny theater last night. A nondescript man stood on stage, sweating and breathing, gaping at the audience as if he were unsure where to begin. For the next hour or so, we watched him shed layer after layer of clothing he wore. We couldn’t look away.
As each shirt, sock, dress, and pant came off, his thoughts were typed on the background screen. Sexy, thoughtful, impatient, creative, lazy…the text complained about how others judged him. He became more and more agitated with each description. Some labels he embraced, some he tried to tear away.
I became disillusioned after a while. It was the same story again and again. Sometimes, the actor was one thing, sometimes he was another. Just like us all.
As my thoughts began to wander, I remembered being confronted by a real-life situation like this one. My little sister, probably 17 at that time, called me drunk one night. “I like a guy!!” she blurted. “Cool, is he nice?” I asked, wondering where this was going. “But I’m supposed to be lesbian” she dramatically finished and then hung up to rejoin her friends.
Supposed to be? Who told her that? Can lesbians not like men? When did she decide she was only lesbian anyways? My little sister was experiencing her first lesson in the futility of labels.
I went through a similar experience too. Having been molested by a girl when I was young, I decided not to be lesbian. No matter what I felt, I would not give in. Twice, I was in love with a girl, and both times I insisted on the label “friends”, (sadly, even when one asked for more). It took a while until I realized I don’t need to give love a name. It can be what it is and that’s all.
Even lightly, before we speak of sexuality, what can I label myself as? Kind? Angry? Funny? Nice? Doesn’t each have its own time and place; don’t they mix and blend together into the Yehudis I know?
I don’t want to take a stake in judging others. Maybe they find safety in marrying their own labels. As I watched the actor depict his frustration, I questioned my own views. Do I need to be someone? Am I something specific? The music kept intensifying, he was getting angrier and I wanted to whisper “do we have to label?”.
As the performance wrapped up, he started tugging at his last layer. With all his might, he tried and tried to tear the final words off. The more agitated he became, the more we noticed the words; his labels. It ended and I was left wondering: why he couldn’t he be all and/or sometimes none? Occasionally sexy, at times thoughtful, often impatient, maybe creative, and rarely lazy? Why label?
Keep your identity small (and flexible!)
I like how you tie in your experience of the performance with your life. You touch upon what certain kinds of spiritual inquiry seek to unravel. On one level, minds simply label as a function of habit. After some reflection, I imagine that the labeling function imposes a kind of mentally constructed continuity in order to create psychological time.