Roundabout

Remember the old practice: If you’re nervous about making a speech, picture the audience in their underwear? Well, I hate public speaking, but the underwear picture is just too gross. Instead, I prefer to picture listeners as little children.

Imagine an audience full of men and women. See the well-dressed lady in the third row? Now imagine her as a little girl, primly dressed in crisp pink with white gloves, sitting straight and telling the boy next to her to stop kicking her Mary Janes, he’s getting them dirty. See the balding man in the sweater? Imagine him as a skinny boy with too-short pants and an uncombed mop of hair, more interested in the half-eaten candy he’s just discovered in his pocket than in you. The sweet older woman by the exit was easily a wiggly tomboy, forced into a special-occasion dress and trying to crawl under her chair. The handsome, smiling intellectual in back is a daydreaming kindergartener with his mouth hanging open.

Strange, but not that far-fetched. Even scary audience members were children once, not too far in the past. Sometimes I look at my teenagers and wonder what happened to the little ones they used to be, but they’re in there still. The same is true for “grownups.” We may have learned to sit still and mostly keep our attention on a speaker. We’ve learned to control ourselves in public. We use tissues. But … it’s always a thrill to catch that inner kid peeping out.

One way to see it is to ask an adult what his or her favorite color is. It’s funny what that question does. Some people get really serious and start talking about paint colors for their house, or clothing colors, which suddenly reminds me of my second-grader drawing a picture of herself in front of our house. Some people have completely forgotten that there’s such a thing as a favorite color, maybe since nobody asks anymore. They usually have one, though. The adult’s eyes light up, he or she looks off into space, then answers in a grown-up voice with a kid smile.

“Blue.” “Yellow.” “Pink!”

Purple lovers don’t have to think about it; they know who they are and they answer pretty quickly. Those who say, “black,” usually follow it up with a defiant look.

What does this tell us about adults? Well, we’re still big kids. Many of us still think about what we want to be when we grow up, too. Remember when you wanted to be an astronaut? A ballerina? A superhero?

Several years ago, a day or two before Halloween, Cassidy said dreamily, “Mom, I want to be a princess.”

“But I thought you wanted to be a witch?” I said, slightly flustered. We’d already gotten her costume. But for some reason Cassidy became offended.

“Mom!” she said, shocked. Then, after a moment’s thought, she told me more calmly, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about Halloween.”

To a kid, even royal aspirations are possible. Personally, I have a whole list of things I want to be when I grow up. Some of them might even happen, but I enjoy holding onto all of them.

Those little children are still in there in all of us, somewhere.

Also, the next time you’re in an audience and the speaker appears to be suppressing either a giggle or a look of pain, just remember: she may be picturing you in your underwear.

Denise Roundy, for the record, imagines her readers as children while they are reading her column.

Comment on this story.

COMMENTING RULES: We encourage an open exchange of ideas in our online community, but we ask you to follow our guidelines for respecting community standards. In a nutshell, don't say anything you wouldn't want your mother to read.