The Art of Creating Yourself

If you already considered yourself an extraordinarily well-read woman, what would you read this afternoon?

Personally, I’d like to know which museums have the best erotic art collections. Then I’d like to know whose widow found the collection in his study and what, exactly, she said to the museum when she called. Give me that woman’s letters and I’m occupied until dinner.

This tells you something about the woman I intend to become. I have my sights set on being the slightly scandalous, wildly curious, extraordinarily well-read aunt who knows where the bodies are buried, how to order excellent champagne, and when the person seated next to her at dinner has a much better story than the one they’ve just told. I’m particularly fond of that last quality. Imagine how much more interesting dinner gets when somebody leans over and says, “Oh, I think you can tell me the rest.”

I call this identity engineering. You get quite specific about the woman you’d enjoy being, and then you let what you know about her influence a decision you’re actually making. In my case, the adjective “well-read” could send me straight to a list of a hundred books I ought to finish before I die. Add “slightly scandalous aunt,” and suddenly I know which shelf I want. I also know I’m allowed to start with the chapter about the widow.

I suspect some of you knew exactly which book you wanted the minute I asked. Then you remembered the serious one on your nightstand. You’ve had the same boarding pass tucked into page thirty-seven for so long you can’t remember which trip it was. Meanwhile, you could talk for forty minutes about the six ex-wives of a man who’s been dead for nearly five hundred years. I’d take that as a clue. Who taught you that the book you have to make yourself finish says more about your intellect than the one you’d stay up past midnight reading?

The book is the easy decision. The more interesting one is whether I’ll give her the afternoon.

Suppose somebody asks what I’m doing Saturday and I say, “Oh, nothing. I’m just going to read.” Listen to the way I’ve described the next two hours. By the time the other person remembers an errand I could run, I’ve practically offered. I can even feel virtuous about surrendering those hours, which is a very tidy arrangement for everyone who needs an errand run.

Women get a great deal of practice at this. We learn whose plans require the household to work around them and whose plans can be interrupted because, after all, she’s just sitting there with a book. A woman can spend years waiting for the people she loves to recognize that her Saturday afternoon belongs to her. Meanwhile, they have every reason to believe she’s free. She keeps telling them she is.

So perhaps the most consequential thing my well-read aunt does this Saturday is answer a perfectly friendly question accurately. “I’m reading this afternoon. I can go with you tomorrow.” Then she finds her place again. By dinner she has a story about a widow, an indecent painting, and a museum director who really should have asked a follow-up question. I would very much like to sit next to her.

Who would you like to become, and what would she happily spend an hour doing today?