My Alter Ego

This is how I think I am...

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a movie star. I was in a few amateur theatre productions, and I wanted to major in theatre when I left for college. I had many adventures in the theatre department, played some good roles, and always imagined I was going to make it either in the movies or onstage. My first husband joined me in this fantasy, as we planned to capitalize on my talent and both be famous one day. His dream was to be an opera impresario--I didn't know what that was, but it sounded good to me.

My name would have to go. I tossed around a number of stage names--one of them I liked was Robin Graham. Graham was my mother's maiden name and is my brother's first name. Mary Lois Timbes was cumbersome and didn't have the right ring to it.

Lately I've thought what-if. What if I had taken the name of Robin Graham, not married early, not had a baby at the age of 22, not taken the turns I did in life. What would have become of Robin Graham, the movie star?

For one thing, she would have lived in California. She would have worked with actors in her age group--Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Sam Waterston, Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandan. She would have learned acting with strict teachers, shed some of her inhibitions, stopped biting her fingernails, taken voice training, and learned to sing. She would have been coached on how to sit for photographs so she would not always looked strained and awkward in snapshots. She would have had a first-rate shrink or two.  She never would have gotten the least bit fat. She would have exercised regularly and eaten minimally. She would weigh about 30 pounds less than I do at this point.  By now she probably would have had work done on her face and maybe her body. She would know how to enter a room in an unforgettable way.

But. She never would have had that extraordinary daughter that Mary Lois Timbes got. She wouldn't have lived in Geneva for six years as wife of the head of public affairs and advertising of DuPont Europe.  She wouldn't have started two theatre companies and written three books. She wouldn't have two strapping, good-looking grandsons with potential to do everything. Whatever Robin Graham's fun-filled life would have been, it wouldn't have been as rewarding as the one Mary Lois Timbes Woods Vann Adshead has had.

I've decided to keep Robin Graham alive in my imagination, however. I like thinking about her. Then one day recently on Facebook somebody posted the picture above, with my face photoshopped on a publicity still from Into the Woods. The slim young waist with its cheerful head made me instantly happy. It's what Robin Graham would look like. It's what I think I look like.