Mirrors

Doorways to other worlds
Reflections of times past
Invitations into your psyche

Which function do these silvered plates achieve for you? I have always had a certain morbid fascination with mirrors. I do not like to look into them. My world and its perceptions become skewed. Is that really me looking back out at me? Or a phantasmagorical creature from another realm appearing to wear my derma, going through the motions to lull me into a false peace? They do not behave the same for me as they do for the rest of you. The actions rarely fit the scene. Did that arm move in the wrong direction? Did that plant quiver? Those eyeslooking back at me..

Case in point......

Years ago I bought a large barber shop mirror from a shop going out of business. It was once of those 6X4 foot monstrosities. I wanted to brighten up my home, let in some much needed light. But the thing was so huge we only got it in as far as the back door - it remained propped up on a kitchen wall, facing the door.

Now this mirror, it would not clean up. No matter what solution I used or how many times I cleaned it, there was a strange haze, a waviness, a fogginess to the view. When we walked by it, it seemed to give a glancing caress. Several times my mirrored arm seemed to reach out to me in passing. Static? Magnetism? Who knows. But it was in a tight spot, a bottleneck of the house, and I had hope that it would loosen up some of the chi. Well, be careful what you ask for......

Now this house, this house was another story altogether. So I'm not sure if it was the mirror, the house employing the mirror, or a coming together of unknown forces that caused the goings on after the acquisition of the mirror. But goings on we had aplenty.

An example - one day I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. The mirror caught my eye, which it always seemed to do. I would glance at it and be caught within its glittering depths, unable to step back into this world, into my world, without a lurching tug. It usually took a sound, a motion to break the trance. This day, I glanced over and there I was. Seemed innocuous enough, except I was not in a position to have been reflected in the mirror. So why was I there? I stared at myself, into my own eyes. And then "I" turned around and walked down the hall, into the back of the house. "I" went into the back bedroom, the one we'd been having problems with since day one. The one with the gateways and the visitations, and the eyes,always the eyes looking out at one.

The "I" that was in the kitchen stared after this spectral entity, not realizing until moments later that this could not be! I shouldn't have even been able to see the doorway to that bedroom from the angle I was standing.

I was entranced
I was compelled to follow
I was sickened

This feeling of dis-ease is what eventually saved me from a fate I will never imagine, nor do I want to. I was forever after on guard against this mirror and its usurper, forever after glancing guilty but speedily to and from it, never letting my glance linger long.

The other occupants of the house did not witness these happenings as intensely and vividly as I did, but a pallor of uneasiness, dread if you will, lay over the hallways. Even the animals were wary of the mirror and its vistas.

And our lives went on........