I look like my maternal grandmother. So much so that, when we found a pastel portrait rolled up in the attic after my grandfather died, my mother said, “Look! Your grandfather drew a portrait of you.” But it wasn’t me. My artist grandfather had sketched his bride.
I’m named for her as well.
She died at 57. She didn’t feel well. She took a nap. She never woke up. A heart attack, they said. I was 7.
It’s now my turn to turn 57. It gives me pause. I’m in good health, but still, it makes me think, “What if this is all she wrote?”
Today Abby Norman posted 30 Questions I’ve Asked Myself Every Year For The Last 7 Years, her responses to the Proust Questionnaire. I cried reading it because, not only did she mention me as one of her favorite writers (so undeserved, but I am grateful), but because her introspection is so unguarded and profound (and cheeky and whimsical).
Her list made me realize I’ve come quite a distance without ever asking myself these questions. So, I’m taking the opportunity afforded by this bon anniversaire to give the Proust Questionnaire a shot.
Maybe I’ll learn something doing it. Maybe you’ll find out more about me than you ever wanted to know. Maybe you’ve already got me figured out. Maybe you’ll want to do it, too.
This is not either of the questionnaires Marcel Proust filled out in 1885–86 or 1891–92. This is the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire (2011). However, for fun, I have inserted Proust’s answers where known.
1.What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Me: A sensation of communion, be it with person, animal, nature or the divine.
Proust: I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it.
2.What is your greatest fear?
Me: Extreme, prolonged pain
3.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Me: Avoidance
Proust: Not knowing, not being able to “want”
4.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Me: Dishonesty
5.Which living person do you most admire?
Me: Right now I’m in awe of Barack Obama
6.What is your greatest extravagance?
Me: Massage
7.What is your current state of mind?
Me: Right now living in WTF?
8.What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Me: Chastity
9.On what occasion do you lie?
Me: To protect people
10.What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Me: The short thickness of my legs
11.Which living person do you most despise?
Me: At this moment, gotta go with Steve Bannon
12.What is the quality you most like in a man?
Me: Responsibility
Proust: Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship
13.What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Me: Intellectual Honesty
Proust: Feminine charms
14.Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Me: Clearly, Actually, See
15.What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Me: The Divine
16.When and where were you happiest?
Me: College or on Any Adventure
17.Which talent would you most like to have?
Me: Singing Ability
18.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Me: I would have more self-confidence
19.What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Me: Making the world a tiny bit more beautiful, at least for a time
20.If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Me: Myself, but 2.0, so maybe like me but also a wizard who can sing
Proust: Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be
21.Where would you most like to live?
Me: Exactly where I do: in a cozy house on a pond in the woods; Then again, a Tuscan villa would be nice, too.
Proust: A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated
22. What is your most treasured possession?
Me: My dogs. They aren’t possessions really, except by law, but I’m sticking with my answer.
23.What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Me: Imprisonment with people who don’t give a shit about anything but themselves
Proust: Not to have known my mother or my grandmother
24.What is your favorite occupation?
Me: Imagining
Proust: Loving
25.What is your most marked characteristic?
Me: My smile
26.What do you most value in your friends?
Me: Wit, Compassion and Loyalty
Proust: To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness
27.Who are your favorite writers?
Me: Mary Renault, Arundhati Roy, Abby M. Norman, John Gardner, Robert Graves, Mika Waltari, Sholem Asch
Proust: Currently, Anatole France and Pierre Loti; Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
28.Who is your hero of fiction?
Me: Gandalf
Proust: Hamlet, Bérénice
29.Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Me: Carl Jung
30.Who are your heroes in real life?
Me: Anyone who is willing to sacrifice their interests to a greater good
31.What are your favorite names?
Me: Forrest, Lucretia
32.What is it that you most dislike?
Me: Dishonesty
33.What is your greatest regret?
Me: Not saying no
34.How would you like to die?
Me: Drifting off painlessly under the sky
35.What is your motto?
Me: When you starve with Barclays, Barclays starve last
