Three clients. A big man-a career in sports. A gentle and delicate woman-a mother and a professional. A driven CEO. Different backgrounds, different origins, different ages, different socioeconomic statuses. Three different people, and yet all exhibit the same trait.
“She is not honest with me!”, protests the husband who habitually lies. “I miss him because I could always talk to him”, says the woman about the man who was seldom there for her. “One of my main traits is integrity, and I always keep my commitment”, states the husband who strayed again and again.
And we are all like them.
“She is such a gossiper…”, says the girl to her friend. “Don’t lie!” barks the mother admonishing her son ten minutes after instructing him to tell a friend that she is not home. “I want to be a therapist because I am a kind and caring person”, said the candidate, whilst convincing her elderly mother-in-law to sell her house, so that she would be given the proceeds.
The blindness. The splitting. The unintegrated self.
“Did you see how much he drank?” I asked, shoving one slice of bread after another into my mouth. “Everyone in my school loves me”, said the teacher who is enormously lonely.
Remember those fun-house mirrors that deform your reflection? We look at our reflections and exclaim: “I look so weird!”, “It so doesn’t look like me”. “I look like a Picasso painting”, we say. Is it our reflected psyche that stares at us from the mirror? No, we are not as fat as the twisty mirror makes us appear, nor are we as skinny. But maybe this “inaccurate” reflection of who we are is a glaring symbol of what we are afraid to see?
And yet it is there for the world to see, even when we don’t want to. Especially when we don’t want to.
Eventually, they will see all of our parts. But we will not…we will not.
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one person singular ... 
Rachel, I’m enjoying reading your blogs, and as I fumble along, working hard to develop and build my own website, I endeavor to follow your lead…good work… Mim
Mim,
If I can do it, anyone can. Just ask my son…
I’m glad to see and read this. It seems very direct, so like you, and more deeply I sense a kind of acceptance, even kindness in the writing. A cherished adage I’ve come to live by is, “We are all much more simply human than otherwise.” Another little bit I came across a few weeks ago by the writer Nick Tosches,”And, of course, that is what all of this is – all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs – that song, endlessly reincarnated – born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket ’88’, that Buick 6 – same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness.” This is from, “Where the dead voices gather” and I love it. I’m very surprised and pleased to see you putting this blog together. I’ll be visiting it regularly. Love, Cameron
Cameron,
You were and still are so good at finding the perfect prose or poem to reflect a state of being. Good to hear from you!
Re: your paragraph about the mirrors and the reflected psyche. I’m reminded of my lyrics from my song “On Reflection,” about not liking what one considers to be an unflattering photo that is what it is objectively, but being able to control what one sees in the mirror, which reflects only what one wants to see. “Put away that snapshot, remember to fret not, on what it is you think that you see. The Truth’s in the mirror, if you let your eyes deliver, the beauty we all know you to be.”
It is so difficult to see oneself with any accuracy, but it can be done. It requires work — building up the courage, and then striving through therapy and intensive reading to build up one’s self-awareness in order to be able to put vanity and what you call blindness aside, even for a moment, just long enough to catch a glimpse of oneself through another’s eyes. I was able to accomplish that on occasion because the only way I could earn a particular woman’s love was by confronting my pain of self-inflicted personal loss as well as the pain I had caused others, and taking responsibility for my mistakes born almost entirely out of self-absorbtion. Once you get that first honest glimpse, you never forget it entirely.
More often than not, pain will bring on the need to change, even if you do it kicking and screaming.
I would like to hear the song, Nick.
Visit http://www.sonicbids.com/NickPeters and click on the audio file: “On Reflection.”
I like your blog. Very true.
Thanks Larin.
Just finished listening to Nick’s song “On Reflection”. Loved your words and loved the song.
Here it is again:Visit http://www.sonicbids.com/NickPeters and click on the audio file: “On Reflection.”
Your blog reminded me of something my mother wrote in my 6th grade graduation book. She wrote a famous quote, “To thine own self be true.” At the time, I had no idea what it meant or why she wrote it, but through the years I have remembered it and have always tried to live by its wisdom. I try not to believe what I see in the fun house mirrors or what I see of myself through other’s eyes – both the good and the bad. I try to always search my soul and be honest with myself whether it is stepping on the scale in the morning and not wiggling my toes to make it read just a wee bit less to really understanding my intent in what I say and do. That one quote that I didn’t understand at the time has served me well and I think, made me a nicer and more compassionate person. So, maybe too late, I say, “Thanks, Mom”.
And thank you, Rachel, for giving me a nice memory or my mother.