Meditation on a Hibiscus Tree -- by Alex Ranieri
Meditation on a Hibiscus Tree
Confined as my body was to this unrelenting chair, yet had I let my mind slip its wearying leash, to bound across oceans I had never yet traversed and most likely now never would--when I felt my mind at once leashed again by the disconcerting sensation that the hibiscus branches in front of me were knocking on the window of my consciousness. I have been enamored lately of Proust’s thoughts on experience—his description of the desire to “take the lid off” the vision of light on a stone wall, for instance—but I had not imagined that I might have a lid, or a window, the which might be pried open by the objects around me. Yet still the feeling persisted, as though Cathy’s ghostly fingers were scratching at the glass—“Let me in! Let me in!” This object outside myself seemed to say—as though it were envious of my means to declare myself to the world, and meant to hollow me out, and use those means to its own advantage.
And do we not read, in ancient texts, of many an unfortunate mortal or magician trapped in trees or flowers? Merlin himself, it’s said, was trapped in an oak by his lover and pupil Nimue. And why should not one of these be trapped in my hibiscus tree, in a demure Midwestern living room, at every second ready to snatch up the means of escape?
It occurs to me that the vampire’s inability to detect himself in a mirror is a very proper metaphor for the narcissist’s inability to detect himself in other people. This, too, arose from the hibiscus tree—for it occurred to me how much we rely on others to remember our own faces. How often does one sit in front of a mirror, making faces at it? Indeed we take our muscular cues; our frowns, smiles, and furtive glances; from the person with whom we are conversing, because we can hardly regulate our own faces by sight. So the undead soul which cannot detect itself in a glass recalls to us the withered soul who cannot recognize from the regular movements of the shared mask, the turmoil of existence underneath.
