Commentary: More answers to The Proust Questionnaire

Two years ago, I had an immodestly good time focusing on myself in this space: I answered a few of the questions from The Proust Questionnaire, a list created by the French writer Marcel Proust. When writers are stuck on trying to figure out the idiosyncrasies of characters, sometimes they're encouraged to ask these questions about the people they're writing about. When I wrote my answers to some of those questions, my reason was escapism – escape from grim politics, violence here and elsewhere and all the firewood piling up in my backyard waiting to be stacked. Now, as I consider some of the questions I didn't answer, my reason for answering them is the same. These questions are more fun to think about than, say, unrecyclable plastic, Ukraine or the $100 it costs to gas up my truck. What is your favorite occupation? I love when I can make a sentence better. I love listening to audiobooks and reading books. And … of course … I love watching classic movies on a big screen in a full room in Auburn on a regular basis. What is your favorite journey? This question isn't clear to me. Is it asking where I'd most like to go, or what WAS my favorite journey? Since Proust is long gone, I get to decide. Hm. I have discovered some smallish boat tours of the Outer Hebrides in Western Scotland. When Don and I visited Scotland, we investigated the Inner Hebrides, and I was charmed. Don, not so much. This was September, so it was raining or about to rain. He wants to avoid Scotland. And I certainly couldn't get him on a little boat, jumping from isle to isle to isle. Maybe I'll do it myself sometime. But I also want to investigate Spain and Greece, and I'd love to pick up rocks on the banks of the Nile ("Oh great," says Don), meander through the Afro-Arabian Rift Valley. I'd like to go back to Italy and France. So now: What was my favorite journey? It's hard to say. Hard because I've had a good time almost everywhere I've gone. I do remember a moment in Paris that I've shared: sitting with a group in Notre Dame Cathedral, aware of the hundreds of people meandering and gazing. I thought of how many centuries it stood, the millions of people whose lives it changed. And then I heard a voice over a microphone and people responding, and I realized Mass was starting. Then I heard the organ, and then the chorus began. And all of this echoed against the massive walls, just as it had for all those centuries, and I wept, overwhelmed. Not quietly, either, and I startled the women on either side of me. What is it that you most dislike? I hate ads. I hate being sold to. I know, I live with the rest of you in this capitalist country. I understand businesses, organizations, companies and creators of products all need to promote themselves somehow. How else are they going to get the word out and make the billions of dollars necessary to beat out the competition? But I grew up reading "Mad Magazine," published by people who also despised ads, who hated hypocrisy and were charmed by honesty and intelligence. And over the 45 years I read the magazine, it brainwashed me to the nth degree. I'm aware of this, I admit it. I'm even proud of it. Which living person do you most despise? What day is it? My answer to this question changes, as you can imagine, depending on what's going on in the world, the country, the state. Right now, it's Vladimir Putin. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Hypocrisy. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I say "cool" too much. And "excellent." I keep telling myself not to say "OK" in a high tone, higher than anything else I say. I do it when I don't mean OK. Also, "What a kick," Don says. "You use that an awful lot." If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? What, ONLY one thing? Well, I'd have a brain that fathoms technology. Instantly. That brain would embrace technology, welcome it, delight in it, even delight in untangling problems and happily, quickly and successfully solving them. "That's going too far," Don says. "I mean." If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? What an interesting question. It reminds me of when I took a couple of geology classes at Sierra and finally grokked the age of rocks. Most billions of years old. And some had begun as a different kind of rock, and pressure and heat and water and time changed them. I had this idea of returning in a billion years to see what had happened to the Rockies, the Sierra, Zion National Park and the Himalayas. Fascinating. Susan Rushton's opinion column appears regularly in the Auburn Journal. Her email is goldcountrydenizens@gmail.com.