The Vanishing Man in the Mirror

So, yes, I am a man. But that doesn't mean what it seems to mean. I am also yin, concealed in yang; dark veiled in light, nightfall remembered at dawn. So are all we humens (huwomens?) as everyday humans.

In Tai Chi we are urged to watch ourselves in the gym wall mirrors. Let the flowing images of your existence this very moment become apparent to your casual gaze. But never stare at yourself - the man in the mirror. In Tai Chi a stare will stall you out, freeze you in mid-flight, lead to a crash in consciousness, perhaps cause you to vanish.

Now we're back suddenly to the problem of dynamic fiction and its writer. If the creative novel, short story, or flash fiction is dynamic - that is to say, "alive" - then I or you the author have vanished and we readers are held captive in the minds and motions of the characters, striving to either thrive or survive the world they find themselves stranded in or blessed with. These character flow through their own predestined lives unaware of their looming fates and without reflective mirrors to advise them.

What if we can't find any of these reflective mirrors I'm calling for to cautions us in our own lives? No still morning lakes rimmed in mist to see ourselves in from the docks or boats? No rain-sheened roadways reflecting us up from our feet skyward? No pricy gyms walled in reflective glass to admire us? Then, half close your eyes and try to remember (but not necessarily understand) yourself in motion right now - at play in the body and mind.

Are you moving as the wind moves, the tides flow, the white crane flys?

No? Then that's not Tai Chi you're doing. Not yet...

Let go.

Vanish into the mirror even as you watch yourself go...

The self-transcending (and self-trancing) Tai Chi form that can be described in words is not the Tai Chi form we practice for energy, strength, health, and longevity.

The Tai Chi form we perform and that sweeps us away into energy, strength, health, and longevity is not the form at all, but our approach to the form and our experience of its flows.

Wrists, toes, palms, tongue, and belly lead as organs synchronize. Heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, bowels, and glans rouse themselves into attention and commit all over again to cooperation in the dance.

We move so slowly that we can finally learn deeply and well. Our bodies remember while our minds, at first wildly thrashing for control, finally surrender to the beauty of the motions evolving out of our effortless efforts.

In all of these word sequences I am merely trying to show you the internal realities of the Tai Chi dance, not tell you about the logical connectives of muscle, joint, tendon, bone, and faciea.

As a writer of fictions I surrender to a need to create a newer world into which I invite you, showing its wonders to you without wanting to tell you of them. I want you to be there with me - in the dance. As in Tai Chi when a whole class of students synchronize with the teacher, birds flying in tight formation, seamlessly synchronized, unaware of anything beyond each other.

Come, fly away with us.

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