Secrets

BF is still here, and we're having a lovely time.  Part of the loveliness of this time comes from the fact that with her I am able to be amazingly silly.  It's rather curious, actually, because I would say I can be pretty silly all the time - you should see me do my sandworm impression (hand or full body), or communicate by spelling and reciting all punctuation, or extend a play on words all the way out as far as it can go - but only with her am I really, fully silly.  I think part of this has to do with the fact that we hang out in each other's rooms here.  Real silliness perhaps requires a level of relaxation that can only be achieved in private space, and since I don't hang out in anyone else's room I can't be really silly.  Or maybe not, because in the past, at least, I've been pretty silly with her in public.  So I think what it is, is that with her I'm more relaxed than I am with anyone else. This means not only that I can be very silly with her (so far this visit I've:  read out newspaper articles in the accents of the world leaders quoted, made up a list of ridiculous questions to ask museum exhibition attendants ["After his trip to the Galapagos, did Darwin only have beagles as pets?"], led her around Cambridge making up facts about all that we passed...and so much more), but also that while she's here I am more silly even when she's not around.  She brings kind of freedom-to-do-anything with her into all aspects of my life.  Is it the length of the friendship, or would I be relaxed with her even if we'd only know each other six months?  I can't say anymore.

So it's funny to know, too, that I have secrets from her.  We got into a discussion about secrets tonight at dinner, and as part of this discussion I learned that she has almost no secrets, and she learned that I have many.  Which I do (I should say at this stage that it's not just BF.  I have secrets that are secrets from everyone. I simply think that many things [MANY things] are wiser unsaid, and thus they become secrets).  Of course, an interesting question that comes up here is what precisely a secret is.  If you share something with one other person, but no one else, is it a secret?  (I say yes.  I agree with U2 that a secret is something you tell one other person, even if that other person is just someone else inside you.)  If you share something with many people, but not with one particular person, is it still a secret? (a harder because more refined case)  As it happens, I told BF two secrets today, neither of which I've told anyone else.  One of these I probably would tell other people, but only one-on-one, only in the right situation, and only with the understanding that it would not be shared - and only very carefully selected other people. This, then, is "private information," rather than a secret, I suppose.  One of the secrets I told her I haven't told anyone else, and wouldn't, so that's a secret. But I'm not sure she knew either of these was a secret:  do both participants have to know a secret is secret in order for it to be a secret? Moreover, do both people have to know that a secret is being told at all?  For example, I may have told you many secrets in the course of this blog, Gentle Reader, but disguised them as stories, or hidden them in the recountings of my experiences.  If you don't know things are being revealed, are they being revealed?

I think I'll go back to being silly.  It's less pressure on the brain.

Now, here is a secret that is a secret only because I'm afraid that if I utter it it will cease to be true. But I will tempt my fate by telling it:  I'm so happy.  

Hush.