We all hate mirrors. We prefer to see ourselves reflected, not as we are, but as we wish to be.
In her nineties, my mother insisted she did not need glasses, except to read. Even as she struggled without them. I could never understand when it was evident glasses would help her to see the world more clearly.
Sometimes when I wake, before I’ve had a chance to put on my glasses and look in the mirror, the person reflected there has none of the harsh contours of reality. She looks okay to me in the blur, and I think once more of my mother.
When you see things through a blur they never look quite so unforgiving. Is this why my mother preferred to travel without the clarity of clear vision? She did not want to see too clearly.
Not that I enjoy it much, but I prefer to see things as clearly as I can, to get some grasp on what might be going on and not be hoodwinked into thinking things are better than they are.
Even then my subjectivity will prevail, as it does for us all. Our inability to see things through the eyes of others except as an approximation and only then if we employ truckloads of empathy.
For instance, see how readily we make saints of the dead. Eulogise those who can no longer contradict our world view, but then vilify anyone who does not speak as we would wish to hear.
That said, most of us have an in-built bullshit detector. We use it all the time. Even if we ignore it. We can detect inauthenticity when it tickles our toes and more so when it hits us full in the face.
Give me authenticity any day. One of the reasons why we dislike politicians, skilled in the art of telling us what they imagine we want to hear. Politicians and real estate salespersons. How can we trust them?
Today was my father’s birthday.
Had he been alive he would have been one hundred and twenty-seven years old. He left this world over fifty years ago. I still see him in my dreams, the man of my childhood memory, still tall, often drunk, and abusive, and never happy.
I cannot imagine my father happy, though there are photographs where he holds a small smile on his face as though something has tickled his fancy. I cannot get inside his mind even if I try my hardest. His mind is a closed vault.
My mother’s mind on the other hand was more permeable. She let us know about herself and was more easily made happy, or at least she tried to enjoy her life. She wanted to enjoy her life. For my father, it was a struggle.
Yesterday, the surgeon took the k wire from my once broken finger, apparently now healed. And he covered the hand with yet another bandage which I must keep clean and in place till I see him again in two weeks’ time.
I had imagined once the wire came out, I would be able to reclaim my hand, and all my fingers. Not so, not yet. But at least my smallest finger is pain free and my journey into its re-use well on its way.
Both surgeon and anaesthetist were kind. Both sought my permission to apply their knives and ether. Both sought my permission to attack my body in a bid to treat it. The usual procedures were also in place. If not four nurses asked me my full name, and then a series of questions about the state of health.
I forewarned the one armed with a blood pressure monitor, my blood pressure, at least the systolic measure would rocket. They call it white coat syndrome, she said.
‘Good to know we’re not wearing white coats,’ the nurse in her navy-blue scrubs added.
‘It’s not the coat,’ I said. ‘It’s the cuff and knowledge of what’s to come that sets me on edge.’
I dislike being measured. For anything I cannot see or control.
I did not tell the nurse this.
My GP who knows me well, is sanguine when any reading is high.
‘I keep an eye on your diastolic,’ she tells me. Mine is constantly in the seventy to eighty range. Well and truly normal.
I do not understand enough about the actual working of my heart to determine why the diastolic matters so much and think at this moment I shall check it out on Google.
The systolic, my GP tells me, is prone to fluctuations that have to do with anxiety.
Okay, I say. I know I’m prone to delicate fits of anxiety that might not show on my face or in my demeanour but my body measures them, in the thinning of my blood and the racing of my heart.
My father died of a series of heart attacks, most likely associated with the emphysema that made it hard for him to pump air into his lungs. Three packs of cigarettes a day. He was a chain smoker, which must have contributed. Whereas my mother who lived into her mid-nineties, died of heart failure. Her heart slowed to a full stop.
So memorable for each parent and sometimes I imagine a sign I too will die of failure of the heart. My poor overworked heart.
It’s strange, but not so strange, the way we imagine we will cop the ailments of our parents. They pass some of their genes into us.
I watch my older sister struggling with osteoporosis and arthritis, my younger sister, too, and wonder why I’m not so afflicted, at least not yet.
Am I the lucky one?
The tallest female in my family of origin.
When a child I imagined I was more like my father. I disliked the thought. As though I too might suffer his addictions or worse still suffer his personality. Be cruel like him. Overbearing.
Get to know your shadow side, the Jungians say. Be mindful of your worst characteristics, those that lie secret, in silence, hidden from view, much as others might well detect them.
All abuse is projection, Sandor Ferenczi argues.
Makes sense to me. Abuse towards others reflects something of an internal struggle within yourself that comes out in the form of trying to get rid of your unwanted feelings into the other.
I know people who are more likely to be nasty when they feel guilty or bad about something. They cannot hold onto the bad feelings and must dole them out. Leave others to carry the load.
I suspect the same process might happen when we’re brimming with pleasure and joy. We want to share it.
The thing about us humans, we want others to know us. You know Winnicott’s classic line, ‘It’s a joy to hide, but a disaster never to be found.’
A joy to hide, in silence to keep people guessing, but also a tragedy.
Such a relief I find when something concealed is revealed, even if it’s unpleasant.
Bring out your dirty washing. Let us see it. The worst is when we hide our feelings inside and they spill out unbidden, often in the form of abuse, whether directed towards ourselves or towards others. Better by far to be open.
You cannot leave yourself at the door, no matter how much you try. Your inner self is always present on the outer. You might try to hide her, but others can always see.
