i had a very insightful and poignant conversation with the master sergeant last night. in the moment of its happening, i knew i would soon write of it. and here i am, doing so…
we were speaking of how amazing we seem to one another. he so often tells me how special, amazing, different, unique i am that i almost feel embarrassed for it. mostly because i do not feel as if i am any of those things. mostly because i so often feel as if all the snarled, ugly things have been somehow overlooked.
mostly because i squirm for how that overlooking feels like i must be acting somehow dishonestly that it is not more obvious to him. which is, of course, untrue…. but it lent to more conversation.
i said to him that when he holds up that mirror and shows me the tender, gentle, kind, loving, caring, thoughtful, beautiful person that he sees, i cringe from it. i deny it. i wonder if he is blind. because i live here, in this body and with this mind, and i know all the many ways those things are overshadowed, tainted, and poisoned by so many other things, ugly things, things that are polar opposites of what he shows me.
and i ask myself when this occurs, ‘why does any kindness so immediately result in denial and rejection of that image of me?’
what is it of me that needs to remind myself, remind others of just how ugly and conflicted and unable and pitiful and ill i am?
the answer to him, in that moment of the talking was to admit there are things that i still hold to, ancient hurts and old resentments and my own clinging to them is both the root of and the nourishment of all suffering, all cringing, all pain.
when he holds that mirror up and for a moment, i see what he sees, here in my mind, i immediately hold up my own mirror, me of myself, in which the image is not beauty, kindness, love, and care… but ugliness, cruelty, hatred, and disdain.
why is it i can so easily counter his image, and why is it that the one i see is preferred?
can i rid myself of the ‘bad’ by reminding myself of its existence?
can i ever embrace the ‘good’ by constantly remembering ‘the bad’?
is it not all the same? all just… suchness?
my two, ugly bricks. hah. i remember in this moment the monk’s tale of the wall he built. of how the two, ugly bricks he set were so horrible to his eyes that he went out of his way to steer people from ever seeing the wall at all, not wanting them to see and know how ugly, imperfect, and permanent those two, ugly bricks were.
how he couldn’t bear to look at that wall, because all he could ever see were those two, ugly bricks.
how the beauty of the other nine hundred and ninety eight perfectly balanced and placed bricks were invisible to him.
i think as well of the many, many times that i, for being one who has such ugly bricks in the wall, have chosen to heft a mirror and set it in the face of another… showing them not the beauty i see in them, but the ugliness.
so gleeful to point to their ugly bricks and say, ‘a HA! look! look at how ugly these are!’ and ‘aren’t you ashamed of their horridness?’ and ‘why do you not tear down that wall and correct those two hideous bricks?’
i sit here and weep for it, in this moment. because i see how my own denial of these, my ugly bricks, sends me into such eager cruelty to others. after all, if i force them to see their ugly bricks, shove the mirror in their face, scream and point and keep them distracted… they cannot see mine, can they?
such foolishness. ignorance. folly. it is, here, in this moment, obvious that the very act of producing that mirror filled with ugliness and setting it in front of another is the very same as walking them to my wall and pointing directly to those two, ugliest of bricks… demanding that they see them, notice them, and detest them as i do.
and why would they not? are they not hideous? are they not the worst possible in every way?
tears and laughter. oh the abject idiocy of it all. how do i escape it, and how do i learn to stop doing it to others?
is this the way? surely it must be so… for in this moment, all mirrors are shattered. the question is… how eager am i to repair them?
and the fear is that i may be all too willing to do so.
shall i be kinder to myself, here, now, looking at this?
can i hope to be kinder to others unless i am?
i know these answers. i have known them all along. sitting here, looking at them, i feel ashamed, sheepish, embarrassed, and at the same time, oddly, comforted, relieved, and somehow blessed.
i set this here as a reminder, a silly, short rhyme at the ending, perhaps enough to seed the change i aspire to affect…
mirror, mirror, on the wall
whose worst image do i call
what real horror do i see
to show to another
what also lives in me