Jung Mind

“You have to take this personality test,” my daughter insisted as she went on to catalog all the friends who had taken it. “Terra's an Idealistic Teacher and Chris is a Provider. I want to know what you are.”

“I'm your mother,” I mused.

“No, really, it'll be interesting,” she prompted.

Hell bent on getting me into a categorized box I figured she needed to prove to herself, once and for all, that there was a certifiable reason to have what she envisioned in her youth as a spacey hippie parent who ignored schedules and dragged her off to rehearsals with mom's crazy rock band. The same mom who flew in the face of conventionalism, teaching her daughter to question everything and rebel against what didn't fit her principals. But even more importantly, she needed to affirm to herself that she was entirely different from her mother during any time in her life. For sheer entertainment, and to appease my own curiosity, I Google search the supposedly respected Jungian Briggs-Meyer personality test.

I settle into a comfy couch position with a glass of libation to loosen deep thought and cogitate through hours of questions and essays I figured it would take to determine one's personality type. However, there were only about 75 questions, all of which overlapped and repeated – reworded in different ways to ensure answers were consistent, so in actuality, it seemed there were only really 10 questions that kept looping.

Unexpectedly, none of them had to do with maternal relationships, paternal envy, or even the desire to beat up your siblings – although it did ask if I would rather spend quality time with my family or go or to a party. I wondered if my answer would lower my rating and classify me as exceptionally boring or just weird because I enjoy my family, all of whom love to party.

The survey was a true or false and yes or no simplification and didn't even require a single thoughtful sentence. But how can the entire western world's personality be defined and organized into only four groupings and several subcategories determined by questions that potentially have multiple answers depending on variables of situations, moods, moon cycles or bad days?

“You are almost never late for your appointments: Yes or No?” What if you don't have appointments? Does the daily pilgrimage to Camp 4 Coffee count as an appointment and are you late if you're the last in your neighborhood to roll out of bed so you get there last?

“You feel involved when watching TV soaps: Yes or No?” Is Battlestar Galactica a soap and if so does Cylon sympathy count as involvement?

“Strict observance of the established rules is likely to prevent a good outcome: Yes or No?” Rules? What rules? Although, Crested Butte has its own set of rules – you must wear a costume for the Al Johnson Uphill Downhill, weasel out of work for powder days and furiously play outdoors in the summer – and if you don't follow those rules you won't have a good outcome or a good time.

“You often contemplate about the complexity of life:Yes or No?” Does negotiating the crawl home down totally darkened streets after a slurred conversation and drooling into PBRs at Kochevar's qualify? If so, then my town is full of deep thinkers with complex lives, which means Buttians are all average by default… but only while still in town because anywhere else, they’re off the charts.

I completed the test and emailed the ratings to my daughter.
"I am totally weirded out. This is a revelation,” she sent back.

“What's so weird?” I panicked, thinking someone finally had a verifiable reason to lock me up at last.

“These tests are pretty accurate and used all the time by professionals for analysis and companies for job placement,” she sounded astonished and confused.

“So what's the problem?”

“We're exactly the same type personality… and it's a rare one, quite uncommon, less than 2 percent of the population are in this category and we're the same… you and me....” Her worst fears had manifested... she was more like her mother than she had wanted to believe and was probably questioning: what if my mother was right about everything?

The next day I call my own mom, “Hey mom... you got a few minutes to take a quick test?...”

Wanna play? Take the Jung Typology Test online at humanmetrics.com. and see which box you fit into – and how far the apple fell from the tree.

Southland

The olfactory sense can trigger memories and images buried deep away from mundane daily synapse firing. The smell of a wet sidewalk after a summer rain, a box of new crayons and of course, Play-Doh can instantaneously reawaken childhood past as easily as the smell of stale beer resurfaces the days of brutal college bash hangovers. Back from a 2-week Florida stint visiting family, I caught a sudden whiff on the air that awakened a familiar but seldom visited brain quadrant of teenage years – Allman Brothers and The Outlaws suddenly shook loose in full surround sound from somewhere within the surviving cells of that late 60's era of wild experimentation, peace and love stirred with a smattering of youthful hormonal rage. But what was that aroma plunging me into recall?

Most people envision beaches and Disney when they think of Florida and never consider that it was, and still is, part of the deep southern culture with all its pros and cons. Fortunately, it was the positive aspects that the mind was revisiting through the sense of smell – the laid back climate and lush flora – the antebellum architecture blended with the building boom glory days of the 1930s, live oaks draped in gently swaying Spanish moss, the overpowering sweetness of night blooming jasmine, and acres of orange groves in bloom – a scent that could drift for miles to find your nose – and conversely in a winter cold spell, the burning stench of smudge pots warming the freezing air throughout the rows of unripened fruit.

Involuntarily succumbing to the heat induced afternoon nap in the shade of a porch where, drooling sweetly in your coma, you hope the palmetto bugs – Godzilla roaches the size of a chihuahua – won't carry your trance-like body off to feed their bizillion offspring. When you awaken there's ice cold lemonade and...what was that savory smell wafting through the air?

My teen years were spent whiling away the afternoons and weekends in the smoke filled room of my best friend, James Peter Britton known to all as J.B., but called in a thick drawn out accent by his momma as ”Jimmeee...” J.B.'s family lived in a ramshackle wooden house built right after the Civil War, leaning defiantly as though Robert E. Lee himself was still holding up the place.

The Brittons were financially poor but J.B.'s mom always had enough food to go around for his half dozen or so friends that showed up after school every day... as well as the 25 felines lounging around the empty cat food cans littering the back porch. It's that southern hospitality of feeding and sharing and politeness. On the couch greeting all the long-haired hippies who came and went was grandma, who in her 90-some years could recount the stories of the Civil War still fresh in the minds of those who lived to tell them to her as a child.

The inner sanctum of J.B.'s room was engulfed in black light psychedelic posters of bands and politics of the Vietnam war; self-mastered artwork, and paraphernalia which produced the smoke that billowed out every time someone opened the door. Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane performed just for us from a scratchy turntable when guitars weren't being played, poetry wasn't being read or discourse about the evils of “the Man and the Establishment” wasn't going down. It didn't take long at J.B.'s tea party to produce a ravenous appetite ... and what was that culinary bouquet coming from the kitchen where J.B.'s mom seemed to be in perpetual bathrobe, spatula in hand, over a frying pan on the stove?

Like Alice falling into the rabbit hole, we all tumbled out of the den of creativity to find his mom calling to us in her southern lilt slow and sweet like warm honey in the sun, “Ya'll hungry? I got some grits and eggs and gravy... ” Oh...that delectable smell of southern cookin' when you had the baddest case of the munchies in the history of mankind – served up with generous homemade goodness and so much love.

That smell... of truly fried deep south, down home cuisine meant to pamper the soul and the belly like a love song. There it was sending me back to the universe of J.B.'s mother's kitchen of 40 years ago – only I'm standing in front of the Forest Queen in Crested Butte – with the aroma from the new Josephine's kitchen transporting me to a simpler time. Was I hallucinating the menu? Collard greens, grits, biscuits and gravy. Meatloaf and fried chicken and catfish. Fried green tomatoes and... can it be? Fried okra? Yes!

With tears welling in memory of all those long gone southland friends and good times, I order one of every side dish on the menu and turn the ipod headphones up to a deafening roar as The Outlaws' 4-guitar army of southern rock wails Green Grass & High Tide Forever – the lyrics written by J.B. The nose knows, and remembers... never underestimate the power of good food, friends, music and love...

“Time and time again I've thanked them for a peace of mind
that helped me find myself amongst the music and the rhyme that enchants you there...
Green grass and high tides forever; Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you as kings and queens bow and play for you"
Lyrics: James Peter Britton… music: The Outlaws.

Wigged Out

Never missing the opportunity to rummage around thrift stores and unique costume shops in the Land of The Retired, I venture out into the thickening air of the Florida afternoon. Fortune has its way of seeking out the willing and I stumble unexpectedly into the mega store of wigs. Like a moth to the flame I went into zombie shopping mode. An enormous warehouse-size shop layered in rows and rows of shelves lined with coiffed manikin heads; infinite cases from floor to ceiling held every color hair, braids, curls, half wigs, tresses, costume pieces, extensions and jeweled accoutrements. Dazzled by selection overload, I narrow the first flight of quick-change artistry to about 15 realistic-looking wigs while eying at least 20 of the breathtaking fantasy ones.

The Korean owner brought over 3 that she determined I'd want to see, all of which made me look like a smiling Stepford wife serving orange juice to Anita Bryant – too clean cut for my theatrical, over-the-top style. When she realized I didn't want any of her chosen wigs she spread 5 fingers in front of my face and snapped, "Only try on 5 wigs!"

"What do you mean only try on 5 wigs?" I said numbly into the mirror as I removed the long, dripping black waves of Mariah Carey that fell across my confused expression.

"No more... only 5!" came the snarling, hairbrush-waving proprietor as she shook her finger at the tragically hip, red and blonde party that was now exploding out in all directions from my skull. I contemplated this latest image transformation, ignoring the fiery eyes of the Wigmaster, and decided it looked too much like a yard sale on my head.

"But why didn't you tell me that beforehand?” I firmly questioned as I put wig number 5 aside. I had only just begun. “I didn't like the first 3 that YOU brought over. I need to look around and see what I want to try on." I calmly tried reasoning with her as she grabbed the other 10 wigs in a huff and left to assist another customer seeking instant transformation.

A try-on limit in a store with thousands of tempting tresses, ballistic clip-ons and pony tails – I opt instead for sushi and sake next door to consider a strategy in gaining the woman's confidence enough to let me sample all the wigs I wanted. At the restaurant the sushi and beverage choices were just as overwhelming as the wigs but the waiter didn't limit my choices to just 5 – so I order schools of fish and a paddy of rice sake.

The next day I return to hair heaven with my camera, notebook and mother in tow... “Can I take photos of the wigs and store?”

“NO! No take pictures of wigs because then you go and get style!” her finger wagged fitfully, shaking at everything.

“Get style... you mean steal the design? And then do what... make my own wigs?” I mused.

“No, you go to hair dresser and get style on your hair. You only use wig and not buy,” she scowled. So... that was it. The reasoning behind the 5-wig limit. People come in to try on the different styles before visiting their favorite salon, wasting time, trashing the merchandise and annoying the Wigmaster. Her limit and demands suddenly appear rational and fair.

“No... I want to write a story. I don't want photos of me in wigs, I want photos of YOU and all the pretty things in your store for a magazine story,” I excitedly explain. “And I want to buy some wigs.”

She suspiciously scopes out my awkwardly smiling mom and my camera, to which I have intentionally attached every device possible, making it look larger than life professional.

“Ohhhh!” She laughingly concedes as the smile spreads across her fine-featured face, “Ok, but no picture of me!” She was far more amenable now. If I happened to glance sideways at any wig she'd bring it over in 5 different colors – especially after I set several on the checkout counter.

Mom tactfully questions, “You want a green fairy wig, a platinum fall, a clip of... what is that? Charo's locks? And you absolutely need a half black, half white Cruella de Ville AND that Mariah Carey one too? What could you possibly use all of them for in that small mountain town?” Trying to explain why I had to have an extra closet specially built just to accommodate my costumes was hard enough but describing all the distinctively Crested Butte celebrations that needed high theatrics – from The Red Lady Ball to Vinotok to the Black and White Ball – must have sounded lunatic. Later, I give my mother a dvd of the movie King of Hearts and tell her to consider it a reenacted historical documentary of Crested Butte from the late 60s to present.

“What was I thinking?” I demand of myself in the mirror. Sequestered in the Florida room to explore my new look, I toss the dark locks of Mariah Carey from my face realizing that in the harsh light of reality I look more like Joey Ramone. Which wig could I possibly wear on the plane for the return trip that wouldn't trigger Homeland Security and raise the airport's Federal Alert above Code Orange?

“It'll never fly...” I reason. I pack all the fluffed hairpieces into my checked luggage so the inspectors won't mistakenly think that I'm concealing some illicit identity, or part of some weird cult, or worse... trying to smuggle Tribbles.