Mirrors
A therapist once asked me “How many mirrors do you have in your apartment?”
I walked through my apartment in my head. I didn’t really need to – I already knew the answer. But I like to be sure. “One,” I answered. “Above the bathroom sink.”
He stroked his beard while he thought about this.
People actually do that. I do it.
“You need more mirrors,” he said. “You need to get used to seeing yourself.”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That sounds… unpleasant.”
“You should do it,” he replied.
I stopped seeing that therapist.
That was in 1997.
There are still no mirrors in my house, except for the bathroom. I’m satisfied with a little glimpse of my bottom half reflected in a shopfront glass window. Any more than that is troubling.
I’m going to switch to a Wednesday schedule now. Every week, until I run out of things to say or old things to repurpose.
This will remain the space where I mostly try out new ideas, work through research, and try to collect my thoughts about a legacy of settler colonialism, regular colonialism, the Northern Great Plains, North Africa, and go down rabbit holes.
Leave a comment, let me know what you think, share with your friends and love ones.
I feel the same way about mirrors.