recognizing your own reflection...
 

"its different now that I'm poor an aging.. I'll never see this face again...."


you know, as much as everyone else likes it, loves it, ecstatically even, commenting so with a sigh of relief, practically got a standing ovation at the Ethiopian Church this morning... get in where you fit in but who am I?

"tryin recognize the man in the mirror, cuz his reflection makes the pain seem realer.."(makaveli the don)

I am lost. Where to go? I-man 100% Rastafari, but the man in the mirror looks such a contrast to my own internal self-image.. how to readjust.. get in where you fit in but who am I? its funny, I am used to fitting in NO WHERE, but now, I blend in with a crowd full of regular people, but stand out in the places I used to blend... alas alas

time alone oh time will tell..

anyone else have trouble recognizing their own reflection lately?

thats about how I feel...

from



to



it sucks.

Newsflash.

You were white with your dreads, as well.

Haha burnnnn.

yes, but i was not stuff that white people liked, i was stuff that white people avoided, and in Los Angeles walking around on 46th and Compton Ave where I go to church, or near my brethren's spot on Pacific and Gage or Manchester and Budlong, the difference between being a dreadicated white rasta, and a clean cut white guy is the difference between getting in where you fit in, and tucking yo chain... seen?

I went from looking like white guy who married somebody's sister in to looking like the landlord or the probation officer and that has already put me in several awkward positions just this week, lord have mercy I am still me though i don't look it, and can talk the talk enough to overpower what my city perceives of as a racial handicap. I'm cool with myself, its getting everyone else to be cool as they were last week this week that is the problem..

you're going to be fine. don't worry. just don't take backward steps.

Haven't you had your locks for over 7 years? any big change all of a sudden like that will take time to adjust to.

Your friends wont see you any differently, on the inside. You dont feel any differently on the inside? Shaved head doesnt make you a different person or change your spirituality.

Maybe stay away from the mirror for a while :D

Some white people.

From your photos of yourself with the dreads, you actually reminded me of a friend of mine in San Francisco (though he just had long hair, not dreads).

Then again, being rasta in SF must be completely different from being rasta in LA.

Radical ideas are often more profound from non-radical packages.

Honestly, I can relate a bit... Last year I cut my hair short after 200 years of having it long. The first few days (weeks?) it felt strange every time I looked in the mirror. I also felt as if I looked like everybody else. It'll pass.

its not my friends that I am watching out for, its the street in the neighborhood where I chill, where I go to church, where my friends live, where I get dinner etc etc

essentially, with my new look I don't fit in the places I have spent the last several years adjusting too, and that makes it a bit more difficult, I have to approach things with a touch more finesse thats all...

yes, and being white in SF is fundamentally different than being white in LA, LA is practically a segregated city, and clean cut white folks don't walk (i haven't had a car in five years) the streets in the neighborhoods where I personally feel most at home at.

though I totally agree with you in regards to radical ideas in square packages, in fact, I am relishing in it for the time being :)

If fitting in means what your hair looks like... well, that's just stupid.

Time takes its crazy toll
and how does your mirror grow
you better watch yourself when you jump into it
'cause the mirror's gonna steal your soul


no fitting in means:

1) not getting arrested every time the local pig on the beat sees your new look

2) not getting rolled by every mother fucker who thinks he's hard

3) not getting set tripped on by every mother fucker who is from the literally 1000s of street gangs the criss-cross every possible block and alleyway in this fucking town..

it has taken me years to navigate, on foot, all this drama in all these neighborhoods, and I am just having a weird time readjusting, though I haven't had any real problems I couldn't handle just yet, but its only been a week.. but fuck em, my chucks still folded with the phat blue laces :/

"fuck the world if they can't adjust, its just as well Hail Mary.."

I think you should find a new neighborhood... gang members don't sound like good neighbors

don't let this internet shit fool you, I'm come from nothin. these folks are my people since I was a little youth, this kind of shit is all I have ever known.

po folks is the shit, they may have drama, but when you can finally get down an relate to them, they have surprisingly a lot to offer. I've sort have been a Rastafari community outreach motherfucker working with these folks for years.. I couldn't relate to any other kinds of people, I mean, I was just out drinking hennesy (its only the third time in 8 years actually and all since sunday, but its like riding a bike) with my brother in a bad ass cadillac 1979 coup de ville on 22" 180 spokes, Devils in the back..Sunroof top.. Diggin the scene .... where else am I gonna go? Starbucks? The Block at Orange? fuck!

i saw my reflection in the mirror today and said to myself, "damn, i'm so good looking." then i gave my bicep a kiss.

Savor this mindfuck man, for you are not what your hair is and you are not what your skin is (you know this but it is always a shocking refresher when it is suddenly exposed again), and when people clap for you it is not because they think you are now better, but that they think complementary thoughts about your appearance, and that they KNOW it takes some balls to make a radical change, especially when one is as stubbornly self-identified as a rasta man can be. (I've known lots of rasta!)

You ahve experienced a true existential moment, when the tiny smallness of our being crashes with the infinite vastness of our being.

The same experience is felt by those entering monastic lives, when their hair is shorn and they are strpped of all that marks them in their self-created identity. what you are feeling when you look in the mirror is the shock of the rebirth, of the transience of identity. It is a beautiful thing.

You are now Yin to your past Yang. You have crossed the rubicon. you have reached the back of the blue bus. ;)

do a reverse Michael Jackson and you'll be fine

edit: Take a photograph of yourself and post it here please, I want to see the new you :p

Apart from when I'm shaving, I only tend to look at my reflection when I'm in the toilets of the Fab cafe, in Leeds, as it has that trippy, blue-lighting which some supermarket toilets have, that makes me look twice-as-handsome as I am. Seriously I look great in that mirror, maybe its that the angle of the lighting somehow emphasises my better qualities and downplays my big nose, but I should just stay in those toilets all evening and try to lure women in from the door. Unfortunately the mirror in our local pub makes me look like a heroin-addict.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rob Instigator again. you know, I feel the same way, I just don't recognize that attractive mother fucker at all, though the all the ladies in my neighborhood sure have taken a notice.. ;) (but they got to get up for church earlier than I-man to chill in the inner heights)

i've seen my face change over the past few years, it got a lot sharper... made me feel weird about seeing myself sometimes too. i did go from long hair to short, but in stages, cutting off parts until it was as short as it is now. you'll get used to it.

thats the shit.

 

[aznalo, (sorry) I just couldn't resist, but if you click it you'll find a rewarding Dr Dooom tune)

Time takes its crazy toll
and how does your mirror grow
you better watch yourself when you jump into it
'cause the mirror's gonna steal your soul

Must spread it again before giving it to Rob Instigator again.

I have a problem looking in the mirror because I've slowly become someone that I wasnt five years ago, without really intending for it, and stuck now that it's happened. I'm not hurting anyone, I've just faded away.

Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter.
Glass hand dissolving to ice petal flowers revolving.
Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of good-bye.
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

I have had a beard, a full beard, which started growing the moment I graduated high schol back in 1991.

I wear it proudly, for it looks bad-ass.

One day, after much thought (weeks of thought) and knowing I had a full 8 days before I had to go to work again I decided to shave the mo-fucka.

I trimmed it down, and then proceeded to shave it in stages. I agve myself a goatee with long sideburns first, and I thought "hmm, not looking to bad rob. quite the sexy."
Then I took off the sideburns and saw my pale cheeks and jaw for the first time in over a decade. (I did this about 4 years ago) I thought "hmm, not so bad!"

Then I took off the goatee and left myself with just a moustache, and what amoustache!!! a glorious thing. I looked like a motherfucking pirate! I did not recognize the guy in the mirror.

Then I did it, I took it all off and shaved the whole fucker. I washed and looked in the mirror and what was staring at me? not the expected face of a 30 year old man, but the wrinkle-free, chubby face of my 16-17 year old self! I had not aged!!!! It scared the shit out of me. I looked fucking terrible!

my ex-wife (wife at the time) was shocked! my mom was flabbergasted and said I looked like a pale fart. My best friends, whom I have known since age 8 would not look me in the face!!!! it fucked them up to see my young looking babyface after years and years and years of the manly beard.

I grew that shit back as soon as it would grow (which was around 10-14 days to get back to the shortest level I like to keep it at)

I have never posted pics of it, nor shown anyone else. wow!

aw come on Rob post the motherfucking pix RIGHT NOW.
You've said too much.

NO. I cannot stand the imagined laughter ridiculing me on the internetmetawebs

sorry to tell you-- the photos were leaked to the press

eeeep!

where the Juggalo roam

Doesn't a beard itch??

3 attractive popular blond girls told me it was a loss for them when I came out. Big self-esteem boost. I now look myself in the miror differently

only when it is growing in, or if you forget to wash your beard for a couple of days. Gots to keep it clean.

men who complain about "itching" are not real men anyways and best avoided. They will steal your lotions to use for their soft-ass masturbation, instead of rough rockin a jack barehanded...

that has nothing to do with anything.

ha ha

it is always hard to gauge what people see in the face that one sees in the mirror.

I don't necessarily have a full beard, but I have about as close to one as a freshly turned 18 year old can come to. I shave it every once in a blue moon, just to let it grow back in fuller. Unshaven, I feel naked, hideous, and exposed. It's exactly like you said Rob. It feels as if my baby face has broken through again after all these years.