my occasional musings on life, love, art, perfume ... what else is there?

6.08.2005

In the Dark Room ... or Lost in the Hall of Mirrors


I imagine we all go through periods of deep self-absorption. The scary part is watching it in someone else, and realizing how blind you are when you can't see past yourself.

I call it being in the dark room, that state where you have absolutely no idea of the effect you're having on others.

You're either in too much psychological pain to accurately gauge reaction to your behavior, you've always been totally self-absorbed and somehow rewarded for it, or you're just plain oblivious. Maybe all of it.

I cringe when I think of my twenties and thirties, prime hall of mirror years. A lot of energy spent dwelling on my reflection.

Some of it's connected with mating ... worrying about How Do I Look and If He's Looking. Some of it's about work: Do They See What I'm Accomplishing? Am I Good Enough? Is this Enough Status? Enough Money?

And, embarrassingly (don't ask me how I know), it's possible to have Dark Room Redux in your forties, even fifties ... some would call it mid-life crisis.

At what point does it serve us best to stop craning our necks to catch sight of self-in-mirror, not to navel gaze, but just to do? Just to be? That seems be the door out of both the hall of mirrors and the dark room ...

...just step forward and walk out into the light. Back into connection with others, interaction, caring about what others are feeling and seeing and doing.

Today's fragrance: Serge Lutens Sa Majeste la Rose because I think it just screams Versailles. It's an elegant rose. Some herbal undernote. Beautiful but distant.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Despite the ill fated Treaty of Versailles, which was signed there, the Hall of Mirrors is amazing. When I was there 2 years ago, I simply could not stop from being awed by the sheer splendour of it.

9:06 AM

 
Blogger BarbaraFromCalifornia said...

I was there in 1995 and it is a visually stunning site indeed.

9:12 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

eep. The Hall of Mirrors is scary, but not as fearsome as the thing you just wrote. ::::runs screaming, hands over ears, down the hall of mirrors:::

~clearing

11:24 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How odd! I could not read the post itself, untill I clicked to see what other comments were left...

3:05 PM

 
Blogger mireille said...

V -- our internet service went out this morning between the time I posted the photo and the time I posted the text! Technical problems!

4:24 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to dream of the Hall of Mirrors when I was a girl. Year before last I was there in the late fall, when few people were. I imagined myself back into its long history. Thrilling.

5:08 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OMG! Thank you for this.

5:32 AM

 

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