The mirror assignment

OK – I passed my written final earlier tonight. I suck at spelling but I passed. Yea me, Go me, Ra-Ra-Ra for me.

Moving on.

One of the assignments we had was this – sit/stand/present yourself, nude, to a mirror for one hour. Then, document the experience. In any way, you chose to do so. A poem, a song, a collage, a brilliant stream of consciousness letter, anything at all. A painting, etc. Be prepared to share this documentation with the class after the written test.

Now, what makes standing nude in front of a mirror for an hour any different from any other Friday night you ask? Well, good question! Besides only being for one hour, it is in the presentation via actual conversation, to people in the same room, sans webcam, mic, phone and the benefit of creative lighting or Photoshop. 

Some of my classmates had rather poetic, artistic and downright insightful stuff. Empowered was a word used a few times. Freedom, acceptance, joy, sadness, regret, love and laughter too. I, however, did not have any of these moments, emotions.  Having spent close to four months now evaluating and re-evaluation myself, daily and more often, there was no real chance anything deep was to occur. And, I was right.

I spent a great deal of time saying, aloud, “What the fuck am I doing standing nude in front of this mirror?” I asked this again and again only changing up the curse word and even omitting it once in a while.  “Why am I doing this?” I did stop after only one, “Why am I here?” That seemed a bit much to tackle in the nude.

After a while, I began to change up the intention of the question. Alter my characters motive. Go with a new tactic. I asked, “Why am I doing this?” but in a more abstract, broader way.  I am doing this because it is homework. I have to do it. How did I come to be a student here? Now, we’re on to something!

A quick end to the story is this – I made an inventory of my body’s damage. I listed all the things that led me to seek holistic, alternative treatment in the first place. I printed a line drawing of a male body and put red X’s on my fractures, breaks, dislocations, tears and torns. I numbered them and made a legend, what caused each X.

A Gold Cadillac. A Cool Black Schwinn. An Angry Father. The 01 sidecar. A Sliding Glass Door. Just a few.

I read the list to everyone and passed around the red X’ed sketch. They all applauded politely. 

Somehow I feel I missed the point. Or at least how to make them see it my way. I was judging myself as harshly as they were for their imperfections. I was just judging my actions (and some others actions as well) over my shape. I can alter my shape. I cannot change the past or rid the world of gravity and the laws of physics. Sudden stops will always be dangerous. Impact will almost always hurt. So will crunches and free weights now that I think about it.

I can tell all of you – it was rather empowering, quite enlightening and funny as well that I did not judge the body. That would have been the obvious thing. The easier thing. Instead, I judged the past. Great. Seems I need more work than I thought.

Peace, Ant-Knee

PS – one guy said he though he would look better with less hair. I’m stuck on that now. Going to go back to the mirror for a bit.