mother running the projector

I love my mother dearly. Sometimes though, i feel like i'll eternally be living out the last verse of "Teach Your Children". Surprisingly, i didn't discover this facet of our relationship until well into adulthood. There is a deeply intricate combination of factors which accounts for that, of course...any parent/grown child relationship is complex. And don't misunderstand, she's no dummy. She's a literate and cultured spirit, who played an immeasurable part in my own appreciations of those aspects of life. She's well and goodly forward-thinking in some ways. She was the nurturer of my youth, and that part of her passed into me. If you were to meet her, you might come away charmed.
But the aforementioned qualities sometimes only make it more frustrating when i need to take her by the hand over the pockets of her spiritual growth which are stuck somewhere between 1890 and 1950.
Through her, i directly understand the concept of projection more than i have with any other human. I don't think this necessarily means that she projects more than other people, but just that i'm keyed into her mental processes, and that perhaps i bring out that part of her.
For it is onto me that she often projects her hangups.
In her mind, i am an exhibitionist, yet fundamentally i am rather the opposite. An exhibitionist craves attention, which i do not (a quality which makes me atypical, as an actor). I have always been happy just being me, not needing anyone's approval. I'm quite comfortable in the spotlight, but in personal interactions, i usually like to give the spotlight to others. I listen more than i talk.
To be sure, there is a part of me that can be mistaken for exhibitionism...living as we do in a psycho-sexually repressed society, it's the individuals who rebel against that who come closest to psychological health. If someone runs up to a stranger and goes "THIS IS MY GODDAMNED REPRODUCTIVE ORGAN!!!", can you spot the healthy one? (hint: it ain't the one averting their eyes). So as a catalyst of human progress, my penis is out there more than most (figuratively and literally).
This makes my mother think i'm hung up on nudity (or profanity or sex, or any other taboo subject), when in truth, the hangup is hers. She reveals this whenever she gets upset over my attempts to be and live naturally. I don't want people to take notice of my penis, i cry for a world in which i or anyone can walk around au natural, and no one even takes notice.
She thinks i do things for shock value. Often, i'm just working on my spiritual growth, trying to rid myself of fear or shame...sometimes, i'm doing such a good job, that i have no clue what she's even talking about when she cries, "SHOCK VALUE!". And sometimes, in my role as teacher, i do of course use shock value. But whenever i do, i am usually crying inside, that anyone could even be shocked by the things i do or write.
Does it hurt to be fundamentally misunderstood by someone you love? Sure.
Mom's a writer herself, and it would be interesting to read a piece of hers called "My Exhibitionist Son". As many times as i've tried to clear up her misconceptions of me, she always seems to return to the same ones. Perhaps if she's a better writer than i (or her hangups are more in synch with yours), you might even see things her way.
Ah well, we do what we can.
And i do love her.