Deconstruction is something we do all the time. I think it is an innate part of human nature. We deconstruct the things we read, the things we see, and the people we meet. Nothing really seems to be as it really is. Most people generally only see the surface of things.
In literature, there is the surface meaning, and then there can be a hidden or unconscious meaning, deep within the story, as when Derrida talks about binary opposites and such.
When I was an adolescent, I endured long, painful bouts of chronic depression. I would stand at my bedroom bureau and brush my hair. The reflection stare back at me and ask aloud, “When people look at me, is this outer self or shell all that they can or will see?”
The mirror reflects: every line, curve, wrinkle, and blemish. The mirror though, is but a half truth, a superficial reality. It reflects only the outer self.
Years later, I would attend university part time in my mid forties and not graduate until my fifties. There in American Literature class, I was introduced to the poet Sylvia Plath's works. I was intrigued with her poem "Mirror." It is hauntingly beautiful, dark and deep.
It is a sorrowful poem written by a soulful and sorrowful woman. The poem teleported me back to my youth and back to the countless times, past and present, where I stood before such a mirror and questioned my existence, my sense of purpose, and often my sanity.
Is Plath's poem solely about a woman afraid of growing old and death? Is this the central theme of it? Or is it so much more than this? A poem, like a piece of art is open to many interpretations. One may only speculate from one's own perspective and personal experience.
MIRROR
I am silver and exact. I have no
preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful,
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time, I meditate on the
opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked
at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it
flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over
and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends
over me,
Searching my reaches for what she
really is.
Then she turns to those liars,
the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an
agitation of
hands.
I am important to her. She comes and
goes.
Each morning it is her face that
replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl,
and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a
terrible fish
I would come to study both the Catholic and Protestant versions of the bible (as well as other world religions) and strengthen my spirituality. I was more concerned with what lay beyond the surface and that reflection in the mirror. Not only within myself, but in others who crossed my path. I came across a profound passage of scripture by St. Paul.
He writes in "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12.
I have experienced the soul sucking grief, the inexplicable
exhaustion, the unbearable loss of identity. To give one’s mind, heart, soul,
and body to a love that did not appreciate or reciprocate in kind. I know the
invisibility, to be talked over, down to or at. To be taken for granted and unappreciated. I know the sense of loneliness
and isolation and bitter disappointment in mistaking infatuation for love.
Often, we cannot
express emotions we cannot process let alone identify. For many years, especially in my youth, I
feared expressing my feelings openly out of fear. A fear those feelings and
their magnitude would overwhelm me, or worse, the other person. There was the
paralyzing fear they may not be reciprocated. I feared the rejection, and so, I
hid them for decades and for a multitude of reasons.
In time though, what I learned and often tell people today
is that “walls did not protect as much as they isolate.” One of my favourite
writers, Anais Nin wrote: "And then the day came, when the risk to remain
tight in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom." I am
a “late bloomer” and it took me decades to blossom.
So afraid was I to love and to allow myself to be loved in return. It took me years to take the risk. To love though it may shatter my hopes, dreams, and expectations.
Yesterday, I was driving with an astute, old soul in my passenger seat. We passed a school flying the pride flag. "I wish our school flew that flag, but I know they won't" she said dryly. "No?" was my response. "It's Catholic" she reminded me. "What are students who think or know they are gay to do then? Who do they talk to about it, if they have to hide who they are?" I asked. The countless gay friends I know and love came to mind.
Her eyes on the road and her voice low "We don't talk about it.We keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves"
My heart shattered. I felt this deep in my soul.The military had a similar attitude "Don't ask, don't tell" I thought. Struggling with bipolar for the last thirty three years I knew a lot about stigma, ignorance, intolerance, and hate. No one talks to or wants me to talk about that topic either.
We cannot afford NOT to talk about it.
Suicide rates are escalating at an alarming rate and for a slew of reasons.
My eyes welled with tears, I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
We continued our talk. We covered homophobia, racism, hate, and love. She told me she didn't understand how parents could claim to love their children but throw them out of their home and never speak to them again because they are gay. She didn't understand it. Neither did I. I personally knew about being disowned by a parent. I could only imagine the level of fear children live with in today's society as a whole with all that is going on in the world. But thinking of kids struggling with their identity, their sexuality, their future and the thought of being disowned by their parents is an unimaginable fear and burden for any child to carry. Many people preach "unconditional" love but practice unadulterated bigotry and hate, the moment you disagree with them and in the name of a loving God no less.
I had the same reaction in elementary school watching a nun physically assault my brother. We were in grade one or two. I was six or seven and he was seven or eight. I couldn't wrap my head around Jesus (whom she was supposed to represent) striking a child. It literally turns my stomach!! Dont get me started on residential schools or systemic racism.
I love Jesus all right. I always have and I always will. It is a certain breed of Christian I cannot abide. In my mind they are no different than other extremists. Fundamentalist of any faith are extremely dangerous. One cannot condemn one nation for denying women the right to education for example and then strip them of the right to control their own bodies in your own. You cannot preach freedom and apply it to some human beings but not all.
You cannot force love!
My heart is an open door!
All whom I love ought to know this about me by now.
If a child feels invisible, unseen, or unheard, if they feel they cannot confide in you or trust you they will shut down and withdraw even further into themselves. You will become strangers living in the same house. They will leave home in search of someone or something that will value them more than they thought you do or ever will. I left home at eighteen. I failed to really get to know my children. I learned the hard way,
how quickly time flies and there are no do overs. For this reason, and few others know, Mother's Day is particularly painful for me. I own my mistakes and know my faults better than anyone.
If you cannot make the time to really get to know your children. If you are too busy to spend time with and really listen to them. If they don't feel you value them, their thoughts, feelings, and opinions; trust me, you will lose them in one way or another.
Several generations of experience are speaking here.
I also told my young friend of one of my experiences with a racist when I was a couple years older than she was. How he was furious with my refusal to babysit for him due to his acute racism. He then went to my mother to complain about me and my being rude and irresponsible.
She laid into him even more than I did. I was so proud to be my mothers' daughter several times like this.
Not all Catholics and Christians are bigots and are so closed minded. I talk to and listen to a lot of people suffering daily world wide these past ten years from all walks of life. In my 65 years, nothing surprises me except this, how can anyone believe they have an "open heart" and genuinely know love, "unconditional love" attach conditions and bear a closed mind? This is truly beyond my comprehension. The level of dehumanization staggers the imagination, sears my soul and leaves the marrow of my bones dry.
My friend is twelve!
~Lynn Marie Ramjass May 18, 2022
