The Expert on Shyness

Posted on February 11, 2004 in Anxiety Encounters

A pigeonhole desk is a marvel. Each slat cut with a series of slots to join others in forming a dovecote where bills, forms, and other documents can be quickly inserted for classification and future redirection. I think of aureate maple boards intersecting each other when I think of pigeonhole desks. And I think of that slot — in the far upper hand corner — where baffled clerks stick people like me.

I loitered after the Wednesday Writers tonight, talking to a friend and eavesdropping in on a speaker who exuberantly declaimed his expertise on the issue of shyness. His book postulated that there were several “shy types” and if you understood which you were, you could find your hole and nest comfortably. After my friend paid for her books and we went out to find our cars, I heard the expert talk about “that spontaneous” person. “You know, the anal-expulsive type.”

I thought “This is the kind of person who made me shy.” So I let my feet find my truck and I let my truck carry me out of there before the authority shoved my head into one of his six inch square boxes and made me mourn like a dove.

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On a related matter, I’ve been feeling grief about leaving the writing group. My best friends have not hectored me for this: it’s normal, they say. You lost a community.

I did not ask what happened on Monday when I went to conduct the Wednesday writers. If they missed me, it would hurt. If they were glad to see me gone, it would hurt. And the silence of not knowing hurts, too.

But worst of all would be to go back and be in that cold cauldron once more.