The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  Does Bobby want to be a prone, dominated woman? I kind of think that’s what she already is, or what she seems to be, to me anyway.

  And her real self isn’t a mere wisp; she is very in your face. It seems she has got the two back to front.

  And Kiva’s real figure seems to be her ideal, while her dead splayed out figure seems to indicate her current emotional state of hopelessness and exposed pain.

  Amelia has two worlds of pain, a skeletal cage and a dark, fat, cartoon alien monster. Later, during lunch, she asks Ondine if she can add another ideal self: a large, full-breasted and bow-legged woman who sits with her arms out and her head turned up to the sky, a more hopeful figure.

  My ideal is my real ideal, that which I really wish, with all my heart, I could physically be: stick-thin and fragile. Bone-white fragments of the body parts I like. Such parts adorned with elegance, existing in a world of whimsy and roses. The monstrous foot my creative footprint. The broad-brimmed hat casting the shadow of a curve over my cheekbone. I want to be a Salvador Dali sculpture – otherwordly with my beauty.

  I like it that my real self, my colourful, sturdy, happy, healthy self has offered to carry my ideal self’s fragile bones. I think this indicates that all of me could come together, that there is hope.

  I am pleased that my two selves are talking with honesty. If only my real self didn’t have to be so stout.

  I find most of the other women’s real me/ideal me dialogues odd and as soon as they stop reading, I forget what they have said, except for Bobby because she asks me to read the role of the dominant ego figure. It is quite disturbing, Bobby’s need to be dominated. It is also very complicated and all her parts are invisible, hidden in a mist.

  Bobby has told me she is very ego, id, and super-ego based.

  She has also said she is very into Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and Hegel. I feel hopelessly ignorant and I decide to start reading books like those as well as calorie counters.

  Ondine wanders over, while Bobby is telling me about the philosophers. She says we should both read a book called Art-based Research by Shaun McNiff; it is all about expressive art therapy and can explain the fundamental phenomenological roots.

  Bobby looks miffed that Ondine has gate-crashed our conversation. I am relieved and grab the opportunity to escape to the washroom.

  I do think though, while I am washing my hands, that I really need to get deeper as a person.

  Bobby is definitely crushing on me. Just before lunch, Ondine had asked us all how it was going and Bobby had said, quite pointedly, while looking in my direction, that she had hoped we’d all get to know each other a bit better and not just be isolated and working on our individual pieces.

  I never said I wanted to be anybody’s friend. I never said I could, either.

  I am just here to be cured.

  Will the day ever end?

  THEN, INTO THE HOMESTRETCH, WE sit in a circle and look at our collages. My head is beginning to pound; I am exhausted. I am worried I have triggered Amelia by calling her “fat.” I wonder what other horrible faux pas I have made during the day. I am sure there have been many.

  Bobby goes first; her collage features a goddess of some kind surrounded by dozens of cut-out mouths with tight, closed lips.

  She purses her own lips tightly, and explains we should all be smiling like the goddess but we can’t because we are silenced by the media.

  Then we look at the magazines she has used and examine the expressionless left-behind eyes that had once been disguised by false smiles. With gaping holes instead of mouths, the truth behind the expression in the eyes is revealed.

  Roxanne has a lot of slender long legs pasted all over her board, with HATE written repeatedly in thick purple chalk and big cutout black letters.

  Amelia is furious with men for wanting thin women; her collage is red and black and angry.

  Kiva’s chart is a mixed message of Buddhist hope and western lies; she has tiny fat Buddhas held by thin women standing in forests of green.

  They all love my collage; I have a naked Kate Hudson, sitting with a large jeweled crown atop her head, a Born to Rule the World banner above her in big, girly, swirly letters. All sorts of power slogans are stuck beneath her in different colours and typefaces: perfect, ageless, tight, the meaning of life, I feel good, the answer, one free appointment, beautiful legs, anti-ageing, get noticed, banish wrinkles, look ten years younger.

  Underneath Kate is an ad for cosmetic surgery: the promise is simple.

  Then the reward: a globe of the earth, a crescent moon low in a starlit night, and a man and woman in evening dress drinking champagne.

  I have pasted a large, cheery-looking elderly cartoon gnome in the centre of the collage. He is grinning. He originally held a cookie in his outstretched hand but I have stuck a pile of books on Buddhism, Existentialism, and Taoism on his palm instead, with a tin of Slim-Fast on top. The philosophy of today is Dietism, Thinism, Restrictivism.

  Intended to be jolly, the gnome looks decidedly malignant.

  Then I have the third section; the reality we live with. A big dog looks over at a tiny dog and wishes she were smaller.

  A tulip looks at an orchid and wonders why she can’t starve herself into a different, better shape.

  A model’s huge, perfect face with a sign that reads: We come in a tub, we’re spreadable, we taste great.

  Stuck on top of the model’s forehead is a picture of a tiny woman, the small version every woman knows she should be.

  I look at the summation of my existence: I am a round yellow pansy of a flower, trying as hard as I can to be a slender, creamy pink rose.

  When that truth hits home, my head explodes. Thankfully the day has ended and I can leave.

  I rush away from the group as fast as I can. I get home, my head pounding, and take a bath so hot it leaves me lobster red.

  Then I climb under the covers, with my headache once again for company, and I think that I have to go back the next day, that if I can just see it through, I’ll be cured and won’t that be worth suffering all the pain in the world?

  The second day of hell

  THE NEXT DAY I DRAG myself back to the course, calling on every ounce of willpower I have. Mathew seems to think the group is some sort of women’s stitch-and-bitch session, like a Tupperware party of the late 1940s, although, to be fair about his seemingly superficial assumptions, I haven’t told him much at all.

  “I am glad to see you are having fun,” he had commented on the Saturday night, “doing something nice for yourself.” At the time, I was face-down with pain under the duvet.

  “And I am glad to see you are so insightful,” I wanted to say but I just groaned.

  “Would you like some tea?” he asked.

  Countless were the times I wanted to throw boiling hot tea at him; what was he, some sort of British throwback from a world where tea was the panacea for all ills, the single word that communicated all kinds of messages of hope and support? It was as if he felt all he had to do was utter the word “tea?” and all was good because he’d made a sterling effort to reach out.

  Oh, dear, I am getting bitter. Well, the kind of pain that sinks its claws into the spine of one’s brain would make anybody vicious. Feral, to say the least.

  “Tea would be lovely,” I said, my voice muffled. At least he was trying and maybe a hot beverage would burn the pain away.

  Now it is Sunday, another bloody Sunday. I lie under the covers and sigh. Mathew is asleep next to me, dead to the world. He fell into bed in the early hours of the morning. I wonder, not for the first time, if he has taken to online gambling. I have meant to do some investigating on our home computer but I’ve been distracted by my own issues. I certainly don’t want to add another problem to my already full plate of woes but it does seem to me that Mathew might be unraveling.

  But that’s an area I simply cannot bear to face, so I push those thoughts aside, get up, and pack an apple and a few bottles of Crystal Lite water
. I know they frown upon those sort of things, at non-diet places, like you aren’t supposed to have anything that has the word “diet” attached to it but I have to have some joy in the day, and if my valium is a shot of orange-coloured aspartame, I am not too concerned.

  I arrive to find I am not alone in my weariness and lack of enthusiasm.

  We sit in the circle and each us describes how we feel.

  “I am tired today,” I say. “I want to be enthused and do my best, but I am very tired.” My head is still tender from the onslaught of pain from the previous night.

  “I am also exhausted,” Amelia agrees.

  “I didn’t want to come at all, but the voice in my head said get up you fat lazy slob and I listened to it,” Roxanne says.

  “I’m tired too,” Kiva says. She already has that edgy aggressiveness to her and is tapping her fingers on the hard floor, her knees drawn up to her chest.

  Ondine nods. “It’s perfectly understandable,” she says, and again her thick French accent makes it hard for me to follow her meaning. I had hoped that by the second day my ear would be more attuned to the nuances of her phraseology but no. She says some other things I don’t even try to understand. The others laugh; I have missed the joke.

  Bobby arrives, late, furious, wound up. “I am sorry to be late, public transport.” She tries to laugh but her teeth are clenched. “I am having a perfect weekend except for the public transport. Oh, and one issue with the woman I am staying with.” She shakes her head. “Some people, you think they’re one thing and then they’re so not. Anyway, I am fine today, a bit tired though, from yesterday.”

  Bobby seems distracted, ready to blow or break into a thousand pieces at any given second. We all look at her warily.

  Ondine says something reassuring to her.

  “Huh?” Bobby says. “Sorry, I didn’t get that?”

  Ondine repeats it and Bobby nods, although she clearly doesn’t have a clue what Ondine has said.

  “The plan for today is a more relaxed one,” Ondine enunciates carefully. “I have lots of special projects that I know you will like – I will not tell you about them in advance but rather one at a time as we get to them. We must not ruin the element of surprise. Also, I do not want you going off in your heads, preparing for future tasks instead of focusing on the current ones. So, now that we have done our checkin and we all agree that today needs to be more mellow, we will begin by walking.”

  Thank God, I think, no more dancing with scarves. I can do this walking thing just fine. Here, next to all the windows, I can walk in the sunshine, happy and peaceful.

  “Now, every three steps, change direction.”

  Hmmm, here we go. Obviously this peace can’t last.

  “Now, walk towards something and touch it.”

  We pass each other, high-fiving, touching the walls, the windows, the big colourful cushions, the musical instruments, the paints and art supplies, the kettle and cups in the small kitchen area.

  I am a bit disconcerted by Kiva’s hyper-energy, oy, is she ever manic. She leaps across the floor at high speed, touching things in a frenzy, hitting the drums loudly, laughing and clapping.

  “Now,” Ondine intones, “start to make noises with your voice.”

  No way. The only thing that will come out is a tiny squeak. I try, I really do, but nothing comes out, my voice is frozen.

  The others, unabashed, start groaning, Om-ing, singing, moaning, barking and even howling quietly. I feel lost in a forest among strange animals, far from home.

  “Now, start to say the words of the things you see.”

  “Kettle, wall, chair, light, floor, cushion, window, sunshine, lovely, laughter, beauty…” and on it goes.

  I try. Every now and then I squeak out “wall” and look suspiciously at the wall in case it answers. “Kettle”? Oh, I am not good at this.

  Bobby is aggressive; her words sound like demands. She startles me and I end up imitating her nervously and she looks at me disapprovingly because I am supposed to say a new word, not just repeat hers.

  “And now you can get a musical instrument if you like,” Ondine says

  I grab a musical triangle and start chiming. So this, I can do. I walk around, making happy clicking silver sounds and I find it easier to say the words.

  “Now we will all stand in a circle and pass words back and forth and after you say the word, make a musical noise.”

  So we do about fifteen minutes of that and that is okay too. I have changed my musical instrument to a small purple child’s guitar and am twanging peacefully.

  “Now,” Ondine announces, just as I am hitting my strumming stride, “take those words and go and make a poem of them.”

  This I can do too.

  purple kettles

  come

  the sunshine days of summer,

  i used to hide inside

  afraid, so hungry

  so alone

  lonely from my window

  i’d watch

  happy summer people

  living leafy lime green lives

  while i, a stunted acorn

  watched lonely,

  from my window

  i walked

  with nothing for a friend

  except

  a sometimes heaviness,

  a void,

  a heavy void,

  who knew a void

  could be

  so heavy?

  avoid the void

  fill the hole

  why am i so hungry?

  purple kettles spoke

  of too much loss and longing

  the music, the wind

  rattling tin cans

  in a junk yard

  not me, i didn’t flip

  the switch

  not my hand,

  it wasn’t me

  but the

  tin cans chimed

  and from

  my belly shone a light

  a white sun

  blue sky inside

  the sun shines out

  lovely from my window,

  i am the world

  inside

  avoid the void

  my nothing-heavy friend

  and

  look lovely

  from your window

  We gather, to read our poems.

  Amelia goes first. She is beet-red, and she reads her poem in a hurry.

  It makes me cry; it is so beautiful, the chrysalis of a butterfly.

  Roxanne can hardly read her own poem, she is crying so hard.

  don’t worry my lovely, there is no cruelty here,

  you have suffered enough

  She can hardly say the words.

  Yes, I think, we sufferers of distorted body image, us ill, eatingdisordered folk; how harsh the cruelty, how immense the pain. It’s like we are trapped inside cages filled with sharp glass – the jagged edges are pointed towards us, and we can’t move to break free.

  Bobby’s poem is all about blurred figures, distant voices, shadows.

  Kiva wrote two poems. The first, a long rant, is more like three pages of one sentence, the sum of her confusion, her attempted optimism, her weariness. The second poem asks an unborn child if it would still come to this earth if it knew it would have to starve itself, hate itself and its body, seek out others who did the same, bear the brunt of eternal criticism, try always to please and fail, be always apologetic, and always wrong.

  And if parents could know, in advance of the pain the child would have to suffer, would they not love it so much that they’d say instead, don’t come, it will be too hard. Stay where you are; stay safe, stay happy, stay pure.

  We are all moved by each other’s poems. Saddened, my fear urges me to run away from the issues, the desire to leave this kind of truthful moment is second-nature to me. I am cheered though, by the unexpectedly optimistic ending of my poem:

  lovely from my window/ i am the world/ inside/ avoid the void/

  my nothing-heavy friend/ and/ l
ook lovely/ from your window.

  There may be hope, so I hold my ground and my fear ebbs, slightly.

  “So now we are going to break for lunch,” Ondine announces.

  “I’ll come with you,” Bobby immediately says to me, although I have yet to say where I am going.

  “I’m going to put my sculptures in the garden of the park across the street,” I tell her. “You’re welcome to come.”

  “You’re going to do what?” Kiva asks.

  “Well, I don’t want to take my sculptures home,” I try to explain, “because they would bring too much pain with them. I don’t want their messages to be near me anymore. My heart has heard them and that’s enough. I want to move on now. But I don’t want to put them in the trash or squash the plasticine back into the box because that would be like smashing me into nothingness. So, I thought I’d take them and put them in the park and set them free, let them sit in the sunshine, and be dissolved by the rain; well, the clay one anyway. And if a gardener throws them out then that’s okay too, or if someone picks them up, that’s also fine.”

  Ondine has been listening. “You are turning art into more art,” she says. “Take a picture and then you create even more art; it’s all expressive art.”

  “I’d like to do that too,” Kiva says. “I lay in bed all of last night, wondering what to do with my statues. I really wanted to treat them like Buddhist sand sculptures, you know, once it was here and now it’s gone but the world has been changed by its visit. But I am too attached. I thought no, I don’t want to do that, I want to keep them. But then that’s wrong. I am going to put mine in the park too.”

  We gather our sculptures and walk over to the small city park.

  I place my real, splayed-out, colourful plasticine doll under a tree, and she looks happy. She fits in with the surroundings perfectly. Kiva and I take photographs of her.

  I place my ideal self on a mulched flowerbed of dark churned-up earth. The stark relief of the white clay roses, the elegantly hatted head, the outstretched arm, and the heart-shaped torso are striking.

  “What are you going to call it?” Bobby asks me.

  I am going to say, Going Under, but then I realize that is wrong, because the figure is coming out of the earth. “Coming Up,” I say. “And the plasticine figure is the Ice Cream Girl.”