Mirrors

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work my housemate K came up in her PJs and asked me to look at her face, swollen from something or other. I was frying pancakes, the kettle was about to boil for tea. I'd just gotten up myself. I hadn't had my caffeine. I don't like looking at anybody's swellings, rashes, scabs, you know, at the best of times. Anyway, let's just say I wasn't very supportive. Five seconds of not saying the right thing and I felt like a schmuck the rest of the morning.

I'd arranged a blind date after work, but his email that I read before leaving for work irritated me. His passion is arguing politics. I like arguing politics about as much as I like looking at anyone's swellings, rashes, scabs, and the like. I imagined how the conversation would go, and sent an email saying I wouldn't be able to make it after all and maybe we could reschedule. Then on the way home I got a call on my cell from this Friday night's blind date, which I'd been looking forward to. He wanted to know why I never got married, did I not want to? did I not want children? was this how I wanted my life to turn out? Honestly, he asked me these questions over my cell as I drove home in traffic on the turnpike. I poured myself a nice big glass of wine when I got home.

K thinks it's her teeth, thinks she needs a root canal. I was able to be kinder, which made me at least feel better.

Eating lunch at my desk yesterday I found an interesting article in the NY Times by Daniel Goleman, the Emotional Intelligence guy, on some "social neuroscience" research findings:

The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person.

I wonder if some people are more sensitive to these things than others.

Well, off to work...

Comments

[MB]

(((Leslee))) Sorry to hear about the rough day.

Interesting article, thanks.

[rr]

Hah! As one who is about to plunge into the world of dating (perhaps) I find this, um, depressing. But instructive. Sigh. Yes, a large glass of wine is called for.

[Teju]

I like your cranky tone of voice.

Borges suggests that mirrors and copulation are both troubling because...wait for it...they both multiply human beings.

Wonder what he makes of those who copulate in front of mirrors.

[Dave]

I can't top that last comment, so I won't even try. But I did just pick up a used copy of Tess Gallagher's *Instructions to the Double*, which I can't recommend highly enough (knowing roughly what your tastes in poetry are). There's an epigraph from Rilke:
"Even though images in the pool
seem so blurry:
grasp the main thing.

Only in the double kingdom, there
alone, do voices become
undying and tender."

[mary]

Oh my, Leslee. Wishing you a better day today! Good article, thanks for the link.

[joanna]

Have you ever read The Loner's Manifesto? It's one of the best books I've read about being introverted and how one's body needs to have alone time to get centered.

[Sara]

I used to work in the neurology department at MGH as an administrative type. Among other things, I ran the Friday morning clinic for two of the services. I used to get contact migraines from the patients.

I experience that kind of contagion all the time. I think your hunch may be right. Also, many people have expressed the thought that women, living lives subservient to or at least dependent upon the good graces of men for so long both at home and in business, have developed this kind of thing to the point of being an instinct, the so-called "women's intuition," which is really thought to be a sophisticated system of picking up clues about other people so quickly as to seem virtually presciently in order to survive and thrive.

Regardless, after so many years working in offices that I no longer tolerate the telephone well even on good days, an answering machine screens all my calls at home, and almost nobody has my cell phone number.

Boundaries are good.

[leslee]

MB: Thanks. I've had worse. :-)

RR: Be consoled: most women I know who are coming out of long-term relationships have no trouble finding new ones.

Teju: Um... not sure how to respond to that!

Dave: Nice Rilke quote. And thanks for the recommendation - I'll check it out.

Mary: Thanks. Things are not all bad. Just think maybe I need a long break from the dating thing. Problem is I'm intermittently interested, but alas that's not aligned with actual dates.

Joanna: Thanks, I'll check it out. I think really I'm not at all a loner 50% of the time or so, which makes it hard to balance out. These books tend to always want you to fall 100% in one camp or the other, making at least half of me not relate to it at all! It's a bit of a problem. But I'll see what it says - maybe half of me will feel validated!

Hi Sara: Yah, very hard to be so sensitive. Sometimes you develop defense mechanisms that make it possible to tune out - like if you live in NYC and learn to tune out noise and others' energy. But in other situations it's just better to relocate yourself where it's safer to be. (Yes, boundaries are absolutely good. Esp. when you can raise or lower them at will.)