Into the Mirror

Last night, I escaped a mosquito of a day in order to catch a dance performance with Jess. The performance was based on the Czech surrealist film Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966) that K and I watched together cozied up on her couch at some point in the last few years. The performance was able to catch the mania of the film: The all-teeth-showing excitement for bright ideas and improv and pretend.  Two women in somewhat translucent, somewhat identical nightgowns in electric magenta and aquatic turquoise. Rubber knives, broken lamps, and a royal blue chainsaw that I couldn’t tell was real or a toy served as temporary props. I enjoyed the vibrant colors of the set, the packed-but-small-number of the audience members, and the use of giant masks (orange; blue) on two dream-like characters (slugs?) that would float onto the stage from time to time.

 

The stage had a white, reflective covering on it. I spent a decent portion of the performance trying to watch it purely from the floor reflection back up the dancers’ legs. I liked the experience of it so much more than I would have had it been on a run-of-the-mill stage. The white, reflective flooring so much better than painted black or fake wood. 

 

(pause) 

 

Reflection, as a theme, has been strong this week- the stage floor of the performance being another, singular ripple of it. Three days ago, a flirtatious text inquired if I had a preference of reflective surfaces in sex: Mirrors or reflections on the glass of windows and such. In truth, I have never given it much thought. Perhaps because I can’t see much without my glasses on or contacts in. Perhaps because that has never particularly interested me. Is this a type of preference that everyone had at the ready? I asked one friend, yesterday. He said no. 

 

In the Megan Milks book I am reading, Mega Milk, they describe a particular apartment they live(d) in as having seven full-length mirrors lined up on a wall, with two additional full-length mirrors on another wall.  I imagined it doing that thing where the mirrors reflect within each other at certain angles and lead into infinity. I tried to imagine if that infinity would feel disturbing in a living space, or meditative. Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.

In thinking of that familiar mirror-to-mirror infinity that we have all seen at some point in our lives (funhouses; dressing rooms), I thought about how it feels to behold (both in one’s body and in one’s mind). At times, it is simply a temporary wonder. At other times, the reflections can cause a person to lose perspective on what they are seeing and even on whom they are seeing: Is it, indeed, a separate person who is doing those movements - or is it simply the person themself that is doing the things in the mirror that they desperately want to stop? How hypnotic it can be if we are not connected to our own actions. How easy it can be to convince ourselves that the arm and connected hand holding the proverbial knife is not our own.

That aspect of a mirrored infinity, too, has been part of the reflection theme that has been echoing this week. Through performance, literature, curious and welcome text messages, and through odd, confused communiques shot out of the blue, the question emerges: 

 

When does the arm in the mirror belong to you, and when are you convinced that it belongs to someone else? 

 

Be careful as you move, Dear One, and gentle as you assess: 

 

Any maiming, no matter your illusions, will always and only 

 

fall upon you. 

 

 

Be well; be loved; be gentle with all that rocks within,

 

K.

 

Notes:

 

-Full disclosure: I did not enjoy the film Daisies. I found it annoying and asked K if we could stop watching it about a quarter of the way through. She seemed to have been waiting for the green light on that one and clicked the film off immediately.

-While looking into the infinity mirror effect after writing this piece, I came across the fact that the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt wrote his composition Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirror in the Mirror") as a musical reflection on the infinity mirror effect. I had no idea. It makes all the sense in the world to me now, and it is a piece I have listened to (and been torn apart by) hundreds of times. To save you searching, I will link a beautiful version of it  here.

 

(Image: A still from the film Daisies that has a mirror in it.This scene, if I recall correctly, is a snippet from a dinner party or restaurant that the two women crash and take over. It may be the one scene I did truly enjoy.)