Ignoring the Inner Critic

Sam is oblivious. I'm aspiring.

After dinner last night, Charlie had to pee.

This is not an unusual situation. Sam puts Charlie on his leash and takes him into the front yard to do his business. But it was an unusually lovely night; the humidity had dropped and the sun was still shining, so I went out, too. On the street, we ran into our neighbors, also walking their dog.

Sam was without a shirt. Earlier in the evening I’d noticed a huge stain on my shirt, but I figured, who cares? No one’s going to see me. And then, here we were, facing our neighbors, who are exquisitely lovely, exquisitely kempt people. He’s British, for god’s sake! They looked like they were plucked from an L.L. Bean catalog, walking their stately Golden Retriever, while scruffy little Charlie strained his leash to frantically sniff around her butt.

We stood out there chatting for a while, the refined, fully-dressed, non-stained neighbors and their classy dog and Sam, half-naked, and me, food smeared on my clothes, and our disheveled butt- sniffer of a dog. This was my awareness, and it colored the entire interaction. My mortification at our grossness by contrast loomed large, even as we were yammering on about soccer and kitchen renovations and what the kids are up to.

Sam, on the other hand, felt fine. More than fine. Oblivious, like a toddler, or Charlie.

When we got back inside, I thought about how liberating it would be, to be Sam! To lose the inner critic that gets in the way of just enjoying a beautiful summer evening, walking our dog and running into neighbors. This enviable indifference to appearances is an organic extension of Sam’s lovely, natural state of I don’t give a shit that I wish I shared.

I decided to approach this by association, delighting in Sam’s ease in himself, in any condition. I am saddled with so much self-consciousness, but I can at least appreciate the setting down of the burden of keeping up appearances, and, like shirtless Sam, the absolute owning of it.