Thin Places

collision, concepts, self, reflections, (mis)recognition, you feel, you notice, that the veil is thinning

I once asked my best friend why I loved them so much. “You love me because I am you,” they told me. I think about this often. I wonder how it could be possible to love someone so much. I feel it deeply. They are my mirror.

The thing about a mirror is that it is a reflection. In the case of my best friend being my mirror, I love them specifically because they are not me, but paradoxically, I also love them for all the ways they are me. What does this tell one about the self? It might be a tale as old as time: it is much easier to love other people than yourself. I love you because I identify with you, I love you because you make me feel less alone, I love you because I see you, I love you because you see me, I love you because I am you, I love you because I am not you, I love you because you are you and not me.

*The next two paragraphs of this essay involve a description of a phrase called “genetic sexual attraction,” which includes mention of incest that some may find triggering or upsetting. Please skip them if that is the case.

Genetic sexual attraction is described as a phenomenon of intense attraction between biological family members that can occur after close relatives are reunited after a long period of separation. Generally (in adoption situations) this affects families separated from birth or very early in the life of the adopted child. It is important to note that the term may be misleading because the phenomenon often does not lead to actual sexual contact, but the title was used to make a distinction between incest (which is generally an abusive relationship involving power and control) and an unconscious psychological response to separation from people with the same genetic makeup. Genetic sexual attraction, on the other hand, occurs between two consenting adults who may know nothing of their familial ties prior to meeting and, in some cases, have no idea they are even related when they meet.

This phenomenon is believed to be caused by several factors, mainly the fact that there is a basic human attraction towards those who have similar physical attributes to us. This attribute is overridden within families due to the Westermarck effect, which turns off the sexual attraction part of a person’s brain to relatives when they are raised together as a family and label their affections differently. When separation occurs early within families, this effect does not occur. This therefore leaves individuals open to the attractions of birth family members who are family in name and biology only without the shared experiences and social conditioning that would normally develop. This is one of the major causes of genetic sexual attraction. A second major factor is the close bonding that generally occurs within families, particularly between a mother and her child, which can lead to a need for this to occur when they are reunited. This can be a strong feeling of attraction and a need to be close to the other person. The closeness that comes from snuggling, kissing, and comforting an infant is one of the most important biological needs of humans. The lack of this closeness can turn into sexual attraction when reunited as a way of providing this basic need denied to them in the past.

I love you because I am you. I love you because you are me, I love you because you are not me.

The mirror feels like an unreliable narrator. You can look in the mirror and recognize your self. But it is possible, too, to look in the mirror and misrecognize yourself. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see a reflection that does not feel like my “self.” I see a reflection that does not resonate with the image of myself in my mind’s eye. When I see myself and I do not feel like I am seeing myself, is it still “me” that I see? I wonder, is a distortion meant to be identified with? Is it a reminder that you are not always the self you’ve created in your image, or is it just dysmorphia? I see myself in my mind’s eye and I wonder, is this self-image clearer, just as clear, or less clear than my reflection? The mirror is one of the only ways we can actually look at ourselves—I guess this brings up some questions about differentiating between looking and seeing. It’s difficult to describe in writing. I’m thinking about reflections, (mis)recognition, and the thinning of the veil.

A friend of mine who is a therapist once talked to me about a schizophrenic client of hers. “He doesn’t know where he ends and others begin,” she explained. “He doesn’t know where I end and he begins.” When the veil is so thin that mirroring is maddening. When the veil is so thin you do not know where you end and another person begins. It is no wonder that his psychotic experience involves lapses of recognition. Duplicity is overwhelming. I could crumble without the knowledge that I am indeed separate from those I refer to as my mirrors. The sense of self is all (I) we have.

Recently, that same friend and I were on a camping trip, and something happened while we were sitting around the campfire which made her say, “For a moment there, the veil was so thin.” She said it with conviction. There was a tremble in her voice. A swell in her chest I could hear in her speech. For the rest of the trip, I couldn’t help but refer to moments in which the veil was feeling thin.

Last night, when the veil was feeling thin, I went outside at a party I was at and sat next to someone I didn’t know. Feeling restless and insecure, I pulled out a cigarette and asked them for a lighter. They were a kind butch. They handed me a lighter. We didn’t talk. I smoked quietly and slowly, disgusted by the cigarette I held between my fingers. I looked around. The friend I had arrived with was inside watching a performance. My night had stopped and started a few times over. When I got home from work that night, before leaving for the party, I tidied up my house and watered my plants. I relaxed. My friend's ETA got pushed further and further back and I began losing momentum. The caffeine was wearing off slowly but surely. I contemplated leaving without them and meeting them at the venue. But eventually they picked me up. My energy returned to me once more. But when we got to the venue, I was reminded how late-night a city New York is, and I felt restless once more as we waited for the music to start thumping. I had been to this particular venue a few times in the past, once for a movie screening, the other at 4:30 in the morning, when all the sleepiest ravers had finally gone to bed. I had never seen it so packed as I had last night. There were queer people of every echelon and the feeling that I needed to get my hearing checked nagged at me. I leaned in, asking, “What? What? What did you say?” over and over again.

The kind butch next to me dropped something on the ground. I looked down and saw a grinder, a sign from God. The veil was getting thinner. Earlier that night, I had haphazardly and spontaneously asked two friends sharing a joint outside if I could have a puff of their weed and they told me no, they weren’t sharing, but I could buy some weed from one of the vendors in the backyard. I walked away sheepishly, hating myself. Why must I feel so humiliated so often? After the butch dropped their grinder and picked it back up, I turned to them and asked, “Are you about to smoke weed?” “Are we allowed to smoke weed?” They repeated back to me. “No,” I laughed, “We’re definitely allowed to smoke weed here. I said ‘Are you about to smoke weed?’ I brought weed with me, but I have no vessel. I can give you a little nugget to put in your grinder if you’ll let me hit your joint.” “Oh!” they said. “Of course.”

We got stoned. I guessed their sign. Earth sign? I asked. No, they said, but you can try again. Their encouragement felt like a clue, which I tried to follow and failed once more. Libra? I might have asked, but I don’t remember now. Maybe I said Aquarius. Either way I was wrong. Cancer? Still no. They were a Gemini. “Ah,” I said. “One I tend to forget about.” And you? they asked. “Well I like to think it’s written all over my face,” I sighed. “I mean, look at me!” “….Scorpio?” They asked, and although I understood why they would have made that guess, I felt relievingly misunderstood. I guess I wasn’t coming on as strong as I’d assumed. No, I said. But just as intense. “It’s a big sign,” I told them. “Big sign? What do you mean?” Like, big, I said. “You know what I mean? One of those signs that’s like…really…”

“Oh! Oh. Aries?”

“Close enough,” I said, smiling. What’s the point of guessing if you’ve already been wrong so many times?

“I guess I just feel like an intense person sometimes,” I confessed.

“Oh!” they responded, surprised. “Well, you don’t seem like one to me…like, you’re not, you know.”

“I’m a little scared of people with intense personalities,” I explained.

“Huh. Say more about that.”

“Well,” I said, “I just feel like I’ve had a lot of brushes with narcissists, and I think narcissists tend to do that. Like, they come off really charming and friendly and alluring, and sometimes that scares me. I’m like, ‘Is this a red flag?’ So I don’t know. I try not to be that way because I don’t want anyone feeling that way about me.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a lot of experiences with narcissists.”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I guess I have.”

“I’m sorry,” they said, looking at me sympathetically.

“Oh! Don’t be,” I said, laughing, and at that moment a panic set in from which I could not return. Did they think I was a narcissist?

“It’s alright,” I said. “Really. I think it’s better to try to notice it and be like, oh, right, well. That’s a way that some people are. That’s interesting.”

They folded their lips inward and crinkled their eyebrows to signal their understanding.

“I’m going to go inside now,” I said. “It was nice to meet you. Thank you for sharing your weed with me. Seriously.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” they said, and smiled as I got up and walked away. As I wove my way through the crowd, I felt profoundly stoned and profoundly socially inept. If I could scrub my brain enough to make myself normal, I would take it out of my skull and do it every night before bed. If I could pray away the paranoia that seizes my mind, body, and soul every time I smoke weed, I would go to church every Sunday like a good girl. If I got offered 100$ to stop smoking weed because it’s probably not helping me, I would say yes or no, depending on where I was in my paycheck cycle.

The veil kept getting thinner. I walked inside. I found my friend. I waited in line at the bar. I made sure to ask the bartender how are you before I ordered my drink. I leaned in and said What? What? What? a thousand times. I got a Modelo on draft. I finally figured out where the earplug station was. The veil was getting thinner. I walked down the stairs towards the bathroom, the same stairs that lead you to the front door, the door that you can come in through but never leave out of, and the veil was so thin. As I rounded the corner, I saw someone I could not have expected to see, because you never see someone you want to see when you want to see them. You only see them when you’ve finally forgotten how badly you wanted to see them when you wanted to see them so badly. In they walked, and as they slid themselves into the bathroom line straight from the entrance that you can come in through but never leave out of, I stood behind them and averted my gaze, feeling the veil grow so thin it was as strong and delicate as a spider’s web. Feeling more socially inept than I knew was possible, feeling profoundly and irrationally paranoid and stoned, feeling profoundly spiritual and extremely myself, I remained silent.

The hallway was lined with mirrors, an ambient pink glow gleaning across our faces from a neon sign hung on the back wall spelling out one word, “NOW.” I focused on my friend’s face. I tried to listen. I tried to not be like, What? What? What? and as the line progressed and got shorter and shorter the faces in the mirrors changed. Reflections. Mirrors. The self/the not self/all around me/all around us. I could see the back of their head in front of me; I could see the back of their head in a reflection that ping-ponged from the mirror on our side to the mirror on the opposite side and back again. I listened to my friend speak. I did not make eye contact. I was feeling overwhelmed. I was feeling inept. I was feeling scared, I was feeling vulnerable, I was feeling like I like to feel—a little bit shy, but I never really mean it. I went into the bathroom. They went into a stall. I went into a stall. Our feet were next to each other. Anonymous, except I knew, you knew, I knew you knew, did you know I knew it was you? I walked out of the bathroom. They walked out of the bathroom. With my face fixed forward, I walked down the hallway. The warmth of a glare, the warmth of the glow.

My friend and I headed to the dance floor. We made our way to the front. Just how I like it, I said, grinning. We started to dance. We ran into friends. We danced with our friends. I took my jacket from where it was hung on my forearm and tied it around my waist. I felt the warmth of a glare, whether imagined or not. As heads bobbled, I saw theirs intermittently, and I wouldn’t know whether my imagination was on my side or not, because I couldn’t bring myself to look. The veil was so thin. I kept on dancing. We ran into friends again. We smiled at them. We danced together; we danced separately. Someone I had just met did a dance move that looked like she was rolling a pair of dice.

I looked over. We smiled at each other. I could look away but I didn’t. I kept my gaze fixed right there. And I saw a mirror. The veil was so thin. They made a waving motion with their hands, like ocean waves, and I laughed. I returned to dancing. I felt relieved. I felt happy. I felt seen. I felt free.

“I’m going outside,” I said as I turned to them. “It was nice to see you.”

We embraced. It felt spiritual. I saw the mirror. I felt the reflection. I saw the reflection and I was the reflection. And I finally understood.