Masks and Mirrors

Ashley and I were talking through a lunch conversation that took its own directions, as such things between us often do, and she brought up
an imageof me that has made her very uncomfortable.

The image comes from the "rock 'n roll days" of my life in Alphabet City, lower eastside NYC. At one point, in a fit of drunken rage at some
wild party near the end of that time period, I smashed a huge mirror that had tormented me for years. It was salvage from one of my mother's
second husband's jobs; he was a contractor as well as a sculptor/writer/musician/drunk. It shattered, I was using a crowbar, and my feet were
rather badly cut up.

I always hated having to come home down that dark hall and walk by that mirror. I don't like any of them. I don't recall ever being fond of
them at all. I rather felt it had it coming from making me uneasy for so long, staying in my space like that all cold and space bending there.

Wldrose sees them, mirrors, in a very different light, as nearly holy. They are tools of seeing for her. Her interest is not a vanity issue, simply
a manifestation of the way she sees her world; that is real, and not worth hiding from or for. I am at a loss to emotionally understand that as
she is at a loss to understand my affection for masks.

So, mirrors creep me out and what gets to her is masks. She feels them to be constructs and not of reality. While I find truth through them like
a lens to bring clarity or to bridge distance. Wldrose for her part sees them as a way that people cover up rather than open up.

I love them. I am fascinated by them and peoples uses of them. I have a small collection. They give freedom with their cover. They have
something of a life of their own sometimes but that is another direction to think on latter on.

I can simply react when I am masked. I can be the little animal that I am.

Over lunch, I used the words "nasty little animal" when I was talking about myself removed from the politeness of society that I keep to, but
that's not true.

Its an impulsive little animal that laughs and cries at odd times, that sings even if it is off key - even by itself while walking along, that grabs
and hugs suddenly, that slaps if someone touches it and it does not want the touch, that losses shoes, and points fingers - The Fool. This
creature doesn't stop to think who might be watching when it picks things, rocks/beads/shiny paper/old bolts off the ground to play with latter.
Who can touch the flowers or talk with the moon, and feel sane. This one loves without concern and can hate without self-fouling.

This is the child that I was not allowed to remain. It was of greatest importance to be the grownup, have the grownup mask, fast and early
for me. "mother to her mother, dark eyed daughter, Jewess child, running wild when they couldn't catch her - gone"

I can be this one sometime but it is important to be aware that I am being such.
Within the sweet grasp of the mask, there is only to be.