in here

today i confronted my sadness.

lately i've been struck by the fact that the sense of sight has entered my dream world. in the past few months i have noticed that in a few of my dreams i have been cognizant of my sight, or lack thereof. i've never really noted vision as part of my dreams previously. in one dream i was trying to look out a giant picture window at a mountain vista to see someone far off and to figure out how to close the screen door that was letting in rain. i did not have my glasses in the dream and i expressed frustration at how blurry everything was and how much trouble i was having figuring out the door mechanism. just last night i was, in a dream, telling a friend about the dreams i had had to counteract her retelling of bad dreams she had had. all of this, yes still within a dream, led her to pull out a book on dreaming to look up a passage on how two people having the same dream with different emotional connotations could be analyzed. after finding the passage she handed me the book to read it and also handed me reading glasses to put on. however, as in life, in the dream i was nearsighted and the glasses only made the words blurry. lastly one time i dreamt about waking up in my friend's apartment and in the dream i was waking up feeling disoriented and unsure of where i was and in the dream i rolled over and slowly in my head figured out where i was and decided, my eyes in the dream were still closed, to open my eyes. i was shocked, in the dream, to discover that the wall i knew would be there (and is in reality there) was suddenly transparent and i was looking instead through the wall into the closet (which is also in reality there) directly at a mirror (also there) and seeing myself as i would appear laying on my side. i promptly woke up.

this could be really interesting to explore more i imagine. in the meantime, i started my reading with aristotle.

That the sensory organs are acutely sensitive to even a slight qualitative difference [in their objects] is shown by what happens in the case of mirrors; a subject to which, even taking it independently, one might devote close consideration and inquiry. At the same time it becomes plain from them that as the eye [in seeing] is affected [by the object seen], so also it produces a certain effect upon it. If a woman chances during her menstrual period to look into a highly polished mirror, the surface of it will grow cloudy with a blood-coloured haze. It is very hard to remove this stain from a new mirror, but easier to remove from an older mirror. As we have said before, the cause of this lies in the fact that in the act of sight there occurs not only a passion in the sense organ acted on by the polished surface, but the organ, as an agent, also produces an action, as is proper to a brilliant object. For sight is the property of an organ possessing brilliance and colour. The eyes, therefore, have their proper action as have other parts of the body. Because it is natural to the eye to be filled with blood-vessels, a woman's eyes, during the period of menstrual flux and inflammation, will undergo a change, although her husband will not note this since his seed is of the same nature as that of his wife. The surrounding atmosphere, through which operates the action of sight, and which surrounds the mirror also, will undergo a change of the same sort that occurred shortly before in the woman's eyes, and hence the surface of the mirror is likewise affected. And as in the case of a garment, the cleaner it is the more quickly it is soiled, so the same holds true in the case of the mirror. For anything that is clean will show quite clearly a stain that it chances to receive, and the cleanest object shows up even the slightest stain. A bronze mirror, because of its shininess, is especially sensitive to any sort of contact (the movement of the surrounding air acts upon it like a rubbing or pressing or wiping); on that account, therefore, what is clean will show up clearly the slightest touch on its surface. It is hard to cleanse smudges off new mirrors because the stain penetrates deeply and is suffused to all parts; it penetrates deeply because the mirror is not a dense medium, and is suffused widely because of the smoothness of the object. On the other hand, in the case of old mirrors, stains do not remain because they do not penetrate deeply, but only smudge the surface.

dreams. shrug. dreams.

in addition to dreaming about discussing dreaming and having poor vision, i also started my day with someone telling me i do not suffer from a lack of sense of self. mispelling actually suggested more "cents of self" and i wanted to say i live richly. it is not so.

my life is good, better than many, and i feel blessed. and yet i can look at someone like myself, albeit younger and happier and see them say that life is beautiful and not feel truth resonating in me. how sad i have become.

at night i see streetlamps shining through trees and i think that simple things can be so unbearably beautiful. i don't have anyone to tell this to, at least anyone who will nod and hold me...dear for saying such a thing. at least anyone i've let within arm's reach. everyone i have let in has left.

i could open my arms to everyone and no one and write. i keep waiting to write until i am happy enough with the possibilty that no one is reading. i have a fear of bitterness.

i have a stronger fear of sadness. when i was seventeen my mother wanted to die, she has not been very happy ever since. i spent seven years not understanding what depression was, i thought it was sadness. i have spent five years knowing the difference between sadness and depression. i want to say it is like this:

and

but that seems too simple. it is hard to contemplate, and to look at. i do not want to be sad. i am, in fact, deathly afraid of it. afraid of it for myself and for its spoiling of all i hold dear. love has been the surefire way to turn my back on the gaping maw. when love goes awry i'm left alone with the mirror of rejection. i stare the maw in the face and wonder if i am staring down my own gullet and if this dark, silent scream caught far far back in my throat was somewhere behind my words of affection, my smiles and this reflection? no wonder they run.

why can't we know what people see when they look at us? some of us can. funny thing is i think those are the people that end up the most protected in life by others --the weak, the judged and the insecure, easily molded. while others have had such forces of persuasion at our disposal, bred possibly through the random happenstances of neglect, that no one bothered to create a version of us to hold up, show us, spoon feed with a bit of sugar added to ease the swallowing. instead we're out here, alone, struggling to make it up as we go along, waiting for the one person who sees the same thing. but perhaps, it seems, no one really likes looking into mirrors. it startles us into waking.