Mirrors and Reflections

Saturday night...perhaps more like Sunday morning....the party was winding down. It was a strange party, half fun, half complicated as big parties tend to be....there were only a few of us left. There was this awkward moment, silence and not one of those companionable comfortable silences. It was as if without the cover of a large crowd, we all felt that moment of vulnerability when we could no longer hide, metamorphose into what those around us saw. Instead, we were merely the stragglers, forced together simply because we had not left yet.

Around the black patio table, beers in hand, cigarettes lit, we started to talk about racism. Eventually another silence descended but this one felt, different, more comfortable. More people began to leave, until there was only H and I (it was our house after all) and K and D. There was some tension still...someone left without saying goodbye, we knew he was pissed but felt almost helpless to rectify that feeling. We were pretty sure he was leaving with an unfortunate misperception but it wasn't the time to try to hash that out. It was late, and we were tired, tired of the conscious effort it took to be a thing of multiplicity. We hoped as he drove off that there would be time later to work through whatever...

But now there was just the four of us, and we continued the conversation that seemed to drive off the others...Deleuze and becoming. Mirrors and personalities.

You see, I told this small group, I have started to see myself through H's eyes. He has become my mirror.

As I spoke these words, I realized, that this seeing was much more complicated. In any given day I am always this nebulous being. I am never totally formed as multiple mirrors, the reflections given by other human eyes, shift who I see. When I look into four sets of dark eyes, I am always something different. There are pieces of who I am in each gaze, each gaze not really reflecting back the same face. Yes I know I always have this cursed nose, and these blue-green eyes. I always see the lips, thin, not often curved into a smile, the big front teeth that sometimes peek through. But these fragmented pieces of cartilage and skin, become something different with each set of eyes. It is more than just juggling roles between wife, mother, lover, friend. It is the value each mirror puts on certain aspects of my personality and my body. Too some I merely a pair of tits or a rounded ass, the bit of curvy thigh hiked up as I full water balloons. Too other little bodies, those tits are soft, comfort from hurts. I look into one person's eyes, and feel that I cause some kind of pain that can't be discussed. And with others, I see a person who gives joy. The snarky bitch who ravages with words, makes one person laugh, and another person angry.

In the single evening of a party, I have lived many lives. And finally, the last guest leaves, and I spread myself, onto the bed, before the person who perhaps sees me in more complexity than the others. And as he lays down over me, besides me, I pull him to me, feeling my beauty reflected in the depths of black eyes, and I am not lost.