On Reflection: Mirrors and Bodies

Published on ArtThrob, 14 August 2020

“Perhaps I am not alone in feeling the uncertainty of the times mirrored in my body. Never before have I felt so detached from my physical form, so inattentive to its soft boundaries. The sensation is not unpleasant – much as on a warm, still afternoon, when the air feels continuous with one’s skin, and the distinction between atmosphere and self becomes momentarily unclear. These formless days, having settled in my pores, have dimmed the lines that once so clearly defined the body that is mine. That I retreat to the mind – in this time of ambiguous loss and shared apprehension, when the collective body has revealed itself so fallible – is unsurprising. But might not the body, our bodies, be the site to which we should return precisely at moments like these? On those days when we feel most unfamiliar with our minds’ material housing? Such thoughts propose themselves to me, if only abstractedly, as I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror, stepping from the shower. Here I am, I think, regarding my body as a stranger might – seeingly rather than feelingly.”

Read the full essay here.