Let Your Freak Flag Fly

Apologizing for eccentricities is so… uninspiring.

As a family, we engage in normal pool games like Marco Polo, Basketball, Lap Racing and Splashiest Cannonball. But, we are bigger fans of Interpretive Improvisational Diving and Pool Handstands.

A “Caller” which is pretty much always me, calls out the requested pose challenge and Leo or Finn (whoever is in the pool) does a handstand acting out the request with their extremities.

This involves a rare and underrated skill known as feet, toe and leg acting. Occasionally props may be necessary.

Headstand “acting” can be replaced by diving “acting” using the same basic principles BUT with the added advantage of whole body performance.

Listed below are our Top Five, so far, this summer.

Crickets Racing Bugattis

Exotic Fox Bellydancers

Buddha Being Stung by Bee

Squirrel Stealing Another Squirrels Nuts

Hippo with a Toothache

We also play this game in reverse.

This started with Leo’s request to “rate my hand-stand”.

The hand-stand was of questionable caliber, so in an effort not to disappoint I decided to change the criteria.

“Well”, I’d say, “I give it a 10 for Leaning Tower of Pisa.”

He’d do another topply-shaky one and Id’ say “A definite 10 for Giraffe walking in Quicksand.”

We also play efficiency/ productivity like who can eat their broccoli fastest, clean their room fastest and get ready for school fastest.

And we have recently engaged the “who can do their times tables fastest” game so complete mathematical whiplash doesn’t happen in a coupe weeks when school starts.

But, our all-time favorite game, which we have taken to photographically documenting, is make the most dramatic face you can of the emotion named in rapid succession. Finn is an all-star champion at this, as am I.

 

Freaky is fantastically magical.

I have a dear friend who does angel blessings on her daughters before bed. I have a sister who takes her children to country western concerts in Memphis.

And a young male colleague who dresses in full transvestite gear to attend Comicon.

THIS is what makes me excited to be a human.

None of them do it to be different or unexpected or interesting.

They just all ARE these things.

I think everyone has a solid dose of idiosyncratic peculiarity.

The question is how much of it do we let get bleached, ironed and starched out of us? How much of it do we let the culture, our parents, our institutions tell us is too much, too little, too weird, too unfocused, unconventional, unstandardized?

How much societal appropriateness is really necessary? Or appropriate?

Here’s what I notice about myself.

The level of freakiness I accept in myself is directly proportionate with the level of happiness I feel. Directly!

The challenge is navigating the emotional complexities that get in the way. Sadness, self-doubt, fear of rejection, disapproval, disgust.

Modern-day weariness, oppressive overwhelm and that unsettling feeling of being met with the blank stares of those who haven’t yet hoisted their freak flag.

Truth is, there’s never a bad time and it’s never too late.