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I'd only tried looking into my own eyes once before. I'd been asked to do it as part of an exercise during a university course. The professor had suggested trying it as a means of getting in touch with a deeper knowledge of ones self. I could be quite shy at times, and would often catch myself averting my gaze when talking to other people. When I'd held my own gaze for the first time though I'd been unafraid, fascinated by what I saw. It was easy to do at the time because I was safe and content and simply exploring an idea. But my circumstances were different now. I was broken inside. I could feel it. I wasn't sure I wanted to see it too. For some reason I still felt compelled, pulled to anchor inside myself again, to find the safe harbour I knew existed there. My knuckles whitened as I clutched the sink, as though bracing myself for some terrifying journey into the unknown. My breath slowed, my eyes opened wider, and I dove in.
It was the spectrum of colour in the iris I noticed first. So much detail, so much intricacy in the design, like the kaleidoscopes I'd played with as a kid; patterns within patterns, colours within colours... The more I looked at these little spheres the more complex they became. Little green worlds behind my lashes, shifting and changing like weather across a landscape. I was stunned. I watched my pupils dilate and contract instantaneously as they adjusted to the levels of light and darkness around me. I wondered if there wasn't some mechanism that could adjust the levels of light and dark within me. I began to stare directly into the center of each pupil, slowly shifting my gaze back and forth in the mirror from one eye to the other. And then I lingered, captivated by what was being reflected back; I seemed to go on forever. The sum of all the moments that had led to this one were collected here, within my eyes. Every glorious or god- awful second, every immeasurable instant, every flickering silhouette, every sensation ever captured in the span of time that could be measured as my life was here, within me, embodied and embedded forever, shining back at me from a simple, standard, square piece of glass. And then it slowly dawned on me that there was no 'mechanism'. I was the mechanism. Me. My entire being and everything I was composed of; body, mind, heart, soul, breath, life...
I blinked, let go of the sink and looked up. I wasn't sure how much time had passed. I still couldn't see any sunlight. I knew I had a long winter ahead of me. This time, though, as I gazed upwards, I noticed some of the snow had begun to melt, creating tiny rivulets of water where before there had been only ice. I stood, watching the miniature rivers make their way, meandering tirelessly in every direction until they were finally free. It wasn't some kind of an epiphany but rather a deeper understanding of nature, and the nature of my sorrow - Just because I couldn't see the light didn't mean its warmth didn't still exist.
I turned back to the mirror and to my surprise there was a hint of a smile on my face. And I could see a vague spark in my eyes again, an ember still burning deep within them, not entirely snuffed out. I may not have recognized my own reflection but deep behind those eyes it seemed there was someone or something that did, and that someone or something was still very much alive despite the bitter cold of the season and the apparent absence of light.
Eve G, CANADA