gigioneggiando

Gigioneggiando is Gigi caught in the act of gigioneggiare: playing to an audience, with a little theatrical excess.

In Italian, gigioneggiando is a present gerund. Its -ando ending works a little like -ing in English. To me, it feels like a name that’s still taking shape, just as I am.

I know myself from within; others know me through encounters, impressions and memories. Those versions never quite coincide. There is something of Pirandello here: one person, many masks, a life scattered across other people’s recollections.

Bergman’s Persona makes the question harder. Elisabet stops speaking, while Alma tells her more and more about herself. Yet silence, too, is something another person has to interpret. The film leaves me wondering whether I can ever see someone clearly without making them part of my own story.

The name carries that question with it: how much of who I am lives in the eyes of others?