Dick Summer Connection

I’m sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I still have a smile on my face from playing a game of peek a boo with a baby a while ago. It’s probably the oldest game known to mankind. Well…one of the oldest. It’s built into our genes. When a baby is born, the doctor slaps it’s butt to get it to cry so it will breathe, then if I were the doctor, I’d make it stop crying by pulling the mask down from my eyes and I’d say peek !

 Peek a boo, I see you. The littlest kids understand when you hide your eyes and then say Peek. And they like it even better when you cover their eyes then take your hand away and say Peek ! Wow ! You made the whole world disappear, and then you brought it back when you said Peek. You have become a God-like individual to the kid. The Lord of Laughs. Not a bad idea. Sounds like as you get a little older, it would put a twinkle in your wrinkle.

 Peek a boo. I see you. That’s one of the key lines in the Avatar movie. Not the peek a boo part…just the “I see you” part. In case you’re one of the fifteen people on the planet who hasn’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you by telling you too much about it. But for me…really…the whole thing revolves around the idea that most people don’t play peek-a-boo-I-see-you any more. Almost nobody really sees you. Or me. Or anybody. Not even your husband or your wife, or your kids…nobody. Most people don’t even see themselves. That doesn’t mean they don’t see the face that’s reflected in the mirror. It means they don’t see the person who’s making the face…the person inside the face. The you in the mirror.

 A quick game of peek-a-boo-I-see-you tore my life apart. It happened on the first day my Lady Wonder Wench walked into my studio at that station in Boston. She was in charge of scheduling the commercials and she had to makes some changes on the program log. She was wearing a plaid skirt with pleats that swirled when she walked, a sweater that seriously disrupted my chemical, electrical and atomic systems, and a smile that she half hid behind her long soft brown hair. She held out her hand and introduced herself…and she looked at me…and zap…it was like the static electric shock you get when you walk on a carpet in your socks. Her eyes turned the whole room electric blue.

 She was the only woman who…right away…had the courage to let me look right into her eyes…all the way into her eyes… without blinking or turning away. And what I saw….there…was pride, and humor, and beauty, and dignity, and intelligence …Peek-a-boo…I saw her…because she had the guts to let me see her.

 It was like her eyes were naked, and she let me see…her… shining…stunning…alive. Then she gave me a quick laugh, tossed her head, and just for an instant before she hid those eyes behind that quick flash of hair…I saw something I had never seen in anybody’s eyes. It lasted about half a blink.  I remember that it felt like one long fingernail flicking for an instant across a small itchy spot on my scalp. It tore me open.

 A lot of questions came out of that “I See You” instant. I put them in a story called called, Who Are You ? It’s in the Lovin Touch personal audio cd. The the power of peek-a-boo-I-see-you is…it made me feel…happy. Just like that…All of a sudden, I knew what I was supposed to be when I grow up. Happy. Just…happy. Sounds simple doesn’t it. And it really is. But most people make it agonizingly complicated. That quick flash in her eyes…that reflection of me looking at her…and seeing her because she let me see her…nobody ever did that in my life until then. It takes courage to do that…peek-a-boo-let-someone-see-you. What do you think. Are you up for giving it a shot ?

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-    What can you do with your tongue that will make the rest of the guys in the locker room edge away from you?

2-    Why should you X-Ray a prospective mate ?

3-    What’s the most famous peek-a-boo game ever played?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

 Peek-a-boo-I-see-you is powerful stuff. You’re going to see a lot of people start denouncing that Avatar because lots of them really don’t have the courage to play the see and be seen game. Especially the be-seen part. I think that’s because a lot of people are afraid of the boogie man. I wonder if a lot of those people are afraid that if they peek into the mirror, they might find the biggest boogie man around…looking back at them.

 So it takes guts to play the peek-a-boo-I-see-you game. It can tear you open. But I think you’ll find it’s worth it. Because as that wound heals, you might find your own answer to what you’re supposed to be when you grow up. I hope you’ll get lucky, like I did. I hope you find that you’re supposed to be happy too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.