Cicero had favourites, it’s true. Cicero could be moody. Cicero could even sulk.
Cicero wasn’t immune from the usual pettinesses. She wasn’t superhuman. She could be short. She could play favourites. She could monologue. She could be changeable, even moody.
Cicero wasn’t always able to maintain front of house. That wasn’t Cicero’s thing: front of house. And it was even a kind of privilege for us to see Cicero’s bad moods. It meant Cicero could let her guard down in front of us.
It meant a kind of confiding in us. It meant Cicero was willing to be who she was in front of us. It meant that she could just be, with us. That we were people she felt comfortable with. Could let her guard down in the company of.
So to see her short-tempered, to see bared teeth, visibly frustrated, was a privilege. A sign of special closeness.
To see all the sides of Cicero. To see her from all the angles. That was our privilege. To see all the way into the inner workings of Cicero. To see Cicero’s fallibilities. Her weakness. Her fallenness: why not call it that?
Work in Progress 