Mirror, mirror on the bathroom floor

When I arrived in Scotland for Christmas I was delighted to find I could watch my favourite American crime series (CSI, NCIS, Heroes, etc.) on Sky practically all the time. At home I watch them dubbed in French, but with the original sound track the dialogues are subtler and the voices much more exciting. Pretty soon I realised there was no gain, for most of the channels gave approximately 6 minutes actual viewing between adverts. I hate adverts. Chopping the programmes up into such little bits makes them unwatchable. Half the time the adverts come on without prior notice and the result is total confusion.

One week after I got back I was listening to the news on the wireless when I heard “Nicolas Sarkozy is going to ban advertising from State television. The share price of TF1 rose 12% immediately after the announcement.” I was overjoyed. I thought I must have heard it wrong. It felt like “une aubaine” (a godsend). Of course, thought I, everybody is so delighted that we’ll have some watchable channels. I couldn’t understand why none of the other news sources announced this as “good news”. My first mistake was to think that TF1 was a State channel. It isn’t. Apparently it belongs to one of Sarkozy’s pals and the move was seen as robbing the public sector to line the pockets of the private sector.

In the continuing saga of the horrible painting, the one I did in summer 2006 and was convinced I was going to paint over, we are talking temporary rehabilitation. It has been sitting on the bathroom floor leaning against the wall, holding the odd wet towel occasionally. I acquired a piano and the only bit of wall it could go on had a mirror on it that was partially hidden by the piano. I toyed with the idea of changing the height of the mirror. The other day I took the mirror off the wall to investigate this possibility further and hey presto, found that the painting seemed to fit the space. The mirror is not quite big enough to hold towels off the floor.

Picture in the mirror

“Whenever I thought I knew where I was or where I was going, I changed course, automatically, without being explicit with myself about what I was doing. Like some kind of amoeba that consistently, determinedly avoided coming into contact with …

With what? Knowledge of itself?

Knowledge of its actual whereabouts or destination?

Why?”

Excerpt from Diary of an Analysand

I was given a small mirror in the form of a book at the airport the other day in the perfume shop. It was a free gift. I put it in the drawer next to my desk. Feeling chirpy this morning, I took it out and admired the look and feel of it. I flicked it open and caught sight of the lower part of my face and was utterly horrified – the bottom of my face is all fat and flabby I have a double chin like a spare tyre, and as if that wasn’t disgraceful enough I have the beginning of whiskers coming through! I felt as if I was looking at a rodent. An oversized, bemused rodent. Like some character from the Wind in the Willows or another children’s’ story.

OK, so part of me is an ugly animal. That’s life. Accepting the horrific aspects of ourselves. Any part of anyone can be made to look repulsive or attractive depending on the angle of the view, the distance, the predisposition of the looker, the intention and the art of the producer of the image.

What is the relationship between photograph and mirror? I find myself repulsive in photographs, when I first see them. Then I look at the same photographs years later and find my image somehow pleasing.

As a young woman I remember wrangling with self-image and finally arriving at acceptance; I breathed a sigh of relief saying to myself “your face is OK”. The next day I looked in the mirror and saw the first signs of ageing.

Many years ago I had a recurring nightmare. I dreamt I woke up in a panic and tried to switch on the light. It wouldn’t work. I panicked more, then effectively woke up. I had to sleep with the light on, and found this intensely annoying. So intensely annoying that I stared long and hard at myself in the mirror and told myself to stop it. It worked.

My Music

The directory name My music took on a whole new meaning today when I downloaded an mp3 file of myself singing my own words. The first line will be familiar to subscribers - "Just the other day, I was thinking".

This is the first recorded version, and it is very rough, but in keeping with a philosophy of 'warts and all' I had to stick it on here.

Thank you, Lone Kent, for making it all possible! and my fellow rock workshoppers at Music'Halle for the music that provided the inspiration for the lyrics.