Funhouse Mirror of Your Fears

During Christmas break of my freshman year of college, 10 of us from SU drove 28 hours to Florida to canoe close to 90 miles of the Everglades. It was a trip of a lifetime (and with gas being only 99 cents a gallon, it was a cheap trip too), an adventure I still learn things from almost ten years later.
We were out on the water for 12 days total and during that time we didn't have a mirror, didn't get to shower, didn't even step onto land (we stayed on platforms).
It was so freeing. Not being able to stare at my image was freeing. I stopped caring. I got ok with not worrying how I looked on the outside but how I looked on the inside and I could be honest.
It's like if you stare at yourself too long in a mirror you don't become more beautiful, your blemishes become bigger. It becomes a funhouse mirror of sorts. You spend too much time looking at yourself you are bound to hate what you see.
Me spending too much time looking at me does no good. That is where I need a witness; need someone who helps see the truth and see the lies; who loves me well enough to call out the blemishes,the bullshit and the beauty. Reminds me to stop looking so long at myself that I forget the world around me and those I love.
I had a long conversation with someone today about shame and I'm realizing more and more that the death of shame is honesty and voluntary exposure...bringing it to light to those who are your accountability, your witness, who love enough to not let you live in it. Shame is mold that grows in dark places. It forces secrets, lies, corners, covers, darkness, deceit more than anything else I personally struggle with. Not to say you shouldn't get yourself out of your own damn mess, but support is vital.
This is sorta jumpy, sorry. It's still stewing.

The 1,000

I found this photo the other day--the 1,000 steps. As one walks along Euclid Ave, between Maryland and Lancaster, a steep stairway arises from the cracked concrete and dashes of college houses. There seems to be no purpose to it; by darkness it is dangerous, a place to be avoided. In the winter it's the most entertaining sledding around. Yet at it's summit was a small park, an overlook onto Syracuse with one of the best views of city, day or night (short of the REALLY sketchy Air Force tower on top of the old ski hill on South Campus). Westminster Park, as it's known, is largely a secret. Most students never know it's there, and the city has all but forgotten its existence as well. I don't know why I'm thinking about that little park and those steps so much right now.
My first trip to that overlook was about a month into my freshman year, with a boy I'd kissed when we were drunk and he wasn't yet sure how to end it. He was a senior and to me seemed to know the world. He showed me places that would later become some of my favorite spots in the city. This was one. I recall standing up there next to him, feeling invincible, free, opulent, graceful and good, looking down onto a new place and claiming it as my own with a grin.
I didn't go back to that park again til my senior year. Time caught up, threw some viscous hooks and jabs and had left me simply weathered. My house was on Lancaster, and there was a way to get to the park without braving the steps. The first time I went up that year was with my roommate. It was late, the stars were out, and our friend who should've been in a house a block away was gone forever and we were still trying to process it.
The next visit was with a boy who was trying very hard to get me to love him, and I knew I couldn't, but still I was glad for the company. That night was spend with wooing and ultimate rejection, and in memory it is melancholy. Standing next to him that night I felt more alone than I ever thought possible.
After that I'd take walks up there to smoke a clove, sit on a little cement fence post and stare out. Be still. I could hear the parties, hear the drunkards, hear the mistakes being made like the breaking of glass. The world still felt like my own, like it was full, but not of what I'd claimed that night years before. Below those steps was the world I lived in and knew well, but in that little space I had my own cloister--my own reprieve in which to simply...I don't know. Remember maybe? Dream? Without it I think I would have cracked in the chaos.
I'm realizing I'm forgetting these things.
Some I'd like to keep.