Prior - Shy: a memoir

SHY

Sian Prior is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in the arts and popular culture, a media consultant, and a teacher at universities and writers centres. She has a second career as a musician and recording artist. Shy is her first book.
sianprior.com

textpublishing.com.au

The Text Publishing Company
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22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia

Copyright Sian Prior 2014

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Excerpt from Parting with a View from Poems New and Collected by Wisawa Szymborska. English translation 1998 by Harcourt, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

First published by The Text Publishing Company 2014

Cover design by W. H. Chong
Page design and typesetting by Imogen Stubbs

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry (pbk)
Author: Prior, Sian, author.
Title: Shy : a memoir / by Sian Prior.
ISBN: 9781922182272 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925095258 (ebook)
Subjects: Prior, Sian. Social phobia. Bashfulness.
Emotions. Women authorsBiography.

Dewey Number: 155.232

I dont require changes from the surf, now diligent, now sluggish, obeying not me
Wisawa Szymborska Parting With A View, Poems New and Collected

CONTENTS

Twice in the past thirty years I have extracted a mirror from my bedroom. The second time, not so long ago but in a different life, I returned with a screwdriver in my pocket to the house I had shared with Tom. After making sure that he wasnt home I slipped inside and knelt in front of the wardrobe beside our bed, the screwdriver threatening to escape from my shaking hands. A few twists for each screw; I loosened the metal brackets and gently lifted the glass from the front of the wardrobe door. The blue reflection of the bedspread disappeared, replaced by my own headless torso as I carried the mirror out onto the verandah, across the overgrown lawn, through the gate and onto the footpath, head down to avoid the gaze of any curious neighbours. I laid the mirror on a blanket in the back of my car and drove home to my sisters house.

I have been learning a lot about fear lately. It comes in many guises and one of the strangest is catoptrophobia: the fear of mirrors. Or, more accurately, the fear of the reflections within mirrors. Some catoptrophobics are afraid of their own image in the mirror. Some are afraid of words that are reflected by mirrors. Others fear that a mirror might steal their soul.

I wonder if theres a different term to describe a fear of the reflections to be found in mirrors that no longer reflect you.

Thats not where it began.

It began a couple of years earlier. At a birthday party. It began with me standing outside of me, watching as I stood silently on the fringe of a group of strangers. A familiar sensation was seeping through my body. It was as if someone had spiked my drink so that instead of sparkling mineral water I was now sipping a kind of effervescent cement. My limbs were growing rigid and my smile was the tight rictus you see on the faces of young ballet dancers.

The birthday girl was busy talking to other people and I couldnt see anyone else I recognised. My partner Tom was there, somewhere, in that art gallery full of strangers. Toms football team had triumphed and he had celebrated with a couple of whiskies between leaving the ground and meeting me at the party. Now I couldnt find him in the crowd.

Sweat was trickling down the insides of my arms under a green jumper that felt too tight and no doubt looked too bright. My stomach was churning and my fingers gripped the glass so hard they were beginning to ache. And now I was watching myself sidling towards the door.

The car needs to be moved. A one hour park wont be enough. There must be a better one somewhere close by. Or far away. At home, perhaps.

My movements had become as fluid as a cat after a bird. Putting down my glass of fizzy concrete, I moved three steps closer to the door, passing a wall mirror on the way. A calm, confident blonde woman in a perfectly fitting green jumper glanced back at me as I passed by.

A few seconds later I was outside and free and moving so fast it must have looked suspicious but I could see the car and I was pressing the blue button on the key ring and the headlights were flashing and my fingers had hold of the door handle and I was inside the car and alone and safe.

After a few deep breaths I started the engine and drove around the block, trying to decide what to do. An empty parking spot with no time limit soon appeared, so there went my one excuse for not returning to the party. Still, I couldnt go back.

I pulled over, found the phone and sent Tom a text, apologising for my disappearance and telling him Id see him later. I couldnt remember when I had last felt this lonely.

I turned off the phone and restarted the car and drove slowly home. If it hadnt been so pathetic I would have laughed out loud. What was a polite middle-aged woman doing leaving a party without even saying goodbye to her partner, let alone the host?

Regressing, thats what. Behaving like she used to before she became Professional Sian. Like she did in the bad old days, when she was Shy Sian.

Shy. Its such a shy word; a timid little word that begs to remain unnoticed. Only three letters long and it begins with an exhortation to silence: shhh.

Reserved is something different. Tall men with jutting jaws. Prime ministers can be reserved, but never shy. And quiet implies choice; you could be loud but you prefer not to, instead perhaps watching purposefully, critically, from the sidelines. Strong, silent types are quiet. People like Tom.

Restrained carries itself with dignity, with an implication of control. Even introvert has a whiff of clinical authority about it. Myers and Briggs have awarded these people an impressive three-syllable label. And most introverts probably dont mind the label. They have proven themselves useful in the workplace; they make a positive contribution to group dynamics; they dont usually embarrass themselves in public.

But with the word shy theres no authority, no control. Its a blushing, hunching word; a nervous, knock-kneed, wallflower word. A word for children, not grown-ups, because surely grownups grow out of shyness. Dont they?

If I hadnt been so shy, I could have conducted a little research project at that birthday party. Pretended for a moment that I was a psychologist like my mother. Asked everyone else how they were feeling, probably found out that I was not the only guest with a burning desire to melt through the floorboards. If I had been pretending to be a psychologist in order to conduct my research project with the partygoers, I probably wouldnt have used the word shyness. Apparently the correct term for this thing is social anxiety, a term that has been leached of the redeeming sweetness of ye olde worlde shyness. Jane Austens heroines could be shy but still lovable: young ladies of fine character, excellent marriage material.