| Chapter 1: | East Wind Blows |
symmetry, and yet I am troubled by the darkness of the snakes and the heart. Maybe Jade sees my life in the mirror. Can she read me without words? Does her rendering show understanding of her unarticulated, unconscious body knowledge of my lopsided heart, snakes slithering guilt through my blood?
At the door, Jade tells me her new favourite word is “symmetry.” She asks if I like the picture she drew in the bathroom. She asks if I like the way she can do her “S” backwards so the picture looks like it can fold into itself, hiding in complication. At school, she made butterfly prints by painting on paper and folding the paper in half. Oh, so they are not snakes, only “S's” with eyes. I don't know how to think. If I folded my heart in half, the two sides would not fit; one is the real, the other is the dream—evil snakes anyway you turn the page. I'm losing it. My mind is unraveling, yarn tangled in a mess of writhing worms, continuously crawling away as I try to organize the reknitting that is taking place beyond my control by the very wool that covers my eyes.
I remember this feeling even when I was a child; this fear of passivity, uncontrol and perhaps surrender. As a child, I had a reoccurring dream of being in a bare, dark room with a polished cement floor. I stood near the wall and watched the drain in the center. I was small, alone, standing very still as I watched my life spirit swirl, white feathers in the air, toward the drain while at the same time afraid of what was coming up through the drain. I never thought about leaving the room even though I could see the open door. What will I subject myself to in order to learn, know, understand? Do I satiate mind at the expense of body? Hegel, in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), asks us to consider: