Astral PO Box
Every now and then I get this feeling like I’ve abandoned my roots — which is then followed by an uncontrollable urge to write. I mean really communicating some of the sophisticated ideas in my head. But when it’s time to get the words out, the ideas are scattered and ugly and hard to present. Maybe that’s why I stopped writing and started making objects. They speak silently and no one cares that their story always changes.
Two years ago, I left Marfa, TX and 4 of my mirrors behind. I’d be back, I told them. But they’re still there and I’ve yet to return. Two years of travel bans, other plans, trying not to get sick, and trying not to let other people either. Two years of sorting thoughts into different piles: mine, yours, theirs, projection. Were I to make the trip, a different woman would be greeting them.
Mirrors are fascinating like that. Their surface is unchanging but everything that passes through is in constant flux. Move a mirror or your point of perception and another world opens up. Another perspective, another angle by which you can interpret your surroundings. Or maybe just your jawline.
Unlike the selfie-camera, which is oh so flat, the surface of a mirror feels deeper. Alice understood the mirror’s potential as a portal. Vampires by their lack of access. Feng Shui dictates a dreamer could get lost in a mirror at night. This mythology then reinforces that the richness of a waking life is found on the other side. The mirror is the PO Box for the astral plane.
On this side of the reflective surface, the undead and undreaming can mingle freely.