I heard a TED talk recently, regarding shame. How shame, being or getting shamed, is a positive. I don't remember why it's a positive, so that's a negative. Shame on me for not remembering.
But sharing our shameful moments apparently leads to something or other -- probably self-knowledge, compassion, one of the usual suspects identified as our reward for enduring the really icky.
This weekend at The Huntington, I enjoyed the best time, visiting the galleries like a tourist, taking lots of pictures.
In the Green and Green furniture room, I composed a photo. Just about to press the shutter, a voice from across the room boomed, "MA'AM, TAKE YOUR PERSONAL ITEMS OFF THE ART!"
I looked around, we all looked around, to see who this idiot, this bumpkin, who placed items on the art might be.
And now we come to the moment of mortification.
Ok, here's the thing. The table didn't look like an elegant G&G table; it looked like just about every piece of furniture I own. A bit on the battered side, but functional. And no, I didn't put a Diet Coke and a pot of baked beans on the surface, just the Huntington's 3-panel brochure.
But still.
I melted into a pool of shame; realizing too late, that which I had taken for a table was not a table. That which looked like a table was art.
The guard added, her voice dripping with disgust, "AND NO PHOTOS ALLOWED."
About the photos, yes they are allowed, but I didn't argue with her. My sense of aesthetics had been questioned, and my answer had been all and most publicly wrong.
Which just goes to prove, you really can't take me anywhere. Worse still, I can't take me anywhere.
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