The body
From the very beginning of Eye Level, Jennie Xie was seducing my imagination with the idea of embodiment. The embodiment of the self, the bodies that we make up collectively, the bodies of nature and time that we inhabit. The grey area between the mind and the body. What is a body anyway?
“The root of this self denial is long
All those years I was spared of seeing myself though myself”- Epistle
It feels as if Jennie Xie was trying to answer these questions, and did so by highlighting the almost mundane oddities that we experience on a day to day basis. By observing the actions of the body with detachment from the self, it truly makes one reflect on the active participation that we may or may not have in our body's experience.
“Every now and then
A thought rips into being-
Most relations with the self are facsimile”- Deja Vu
It often seems like the themes that I read about are reflected in, or predetermined by my actions. Maybe it its just that reading about said themes forces me to notice them in the world around me. This semester has, for me, very much been about acceptance of my existence in my skin. I have found myself dissacoiting often, and not giving myself the time to learn about and take care of my shell, exoskeleton, of navigating the spaces in, outside of, and in between my corporal form.
Simply existing in society requires constant exposure to the perception of others. Our level of success in this world is completely determined by how others perceive us, and so often, we try to become those perceptions of ourselves.
“Yet I know we can hold more in us than we do because the body is without core”- Solitude Study
This book reminded me of the moist film gathered on my upper lip on a humid day at home. It reminded be of the coolness of coconut water, rushing down my gull.
It reminded me of late night rides on overcrowded buses. The repetition of being human. Of moving. Inside and outside of the body.
Talking to strangers. Falling in love with places, smells, foods.
“I let everyone who entered my life enter through me”- Origin Story
I think it is so important to take a step back and view the body as an idea, rather than a physical manifestation. We are as we see ourselves. We know our bodies, not because we see it in a mirror, but because we know the events that it has had to survive through. To listen to he body is to listen to self. To understand that duality exists in everything, even ourselves, is to understand the differences between the self and the body.
“Self consciousness anticipates an excess of seeing. its incessancy.” Visual Orders
