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If we shadows have offended…

When I was a child -okay, and maybe still- I wondered about things nobody else seemed to find puzzling. Reflections fascinated me for a few years; I mean I obviously knew that they were not real, or anything, but let’s face it, knowing and understanding occupy different Magisteria. Reflections are so real; shadows, on the other hand, seem empty by comparison: no detail, just outlines. Frankly I needed more than that.

So when I learned about the ‘shadow-self’, I was intrigued, and to be truthful, a little worried as well. As I understand it (well, I don’t really), in Jungian terms, ‘shadows’ are those aspects of yourself that you don’t want to introduce at dinner parties because you don’t want to have anything to do with them. The problem, of course, is that they leak out as soon as you find yourself in the spotlight, or even attempt to talk to somebody across the table from you.

Sometimes you can actually feel it sitting behind you as you fend off the heat of questions directed at you; sometimes others can see it too if they shift a little in their seats; it is difficult to hide a shadow.

But what is a shadow anyway, and why would I want to hide mine? It is obviously a part of me, but is it only a defective reflection -if there is such a thing- a sort of mirror image without the details, without the colours? Just a hole in the light? Perhaps a me erased, or even a blank page me. I like that one: a chance to start again as somebody, or something, different. I wonder what a shadow would think of that idea, though; it’s probably pretty attached to me by now.

Following an awkward lull in the conversation between the embarrassment of not volunteering to clear the dinner plates before dessert, and spilling my wine -fortunately white- on the tablecloth, I decided to cover my discomfort with a question to my tablemate, an elderly man named Joseph (not Joe -I tried that while I was trying to get him to pass the salad). He had definitely out-dressed me in his wrinkle free charcoal suit, blinding white shirt and plain red tie: definitely a professorial type. Perhaps we shared our years, but I have never owned a suit, and every shirt in my closet has a frayed collar; the only tie I still own has sheep embossed on it for some reason. So I wore a black linen dressy sweatshirt -okay, it would probably pass for linen- under a probably imitation Harris Tweed sports jacket with leather elbows.

At any rate, careful to pronounce his name the way he’d requested, I asked him what he thought of shadows.

He wrinkled an already wrinkled brow and kind of tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure why I’d even spoken to him. Then, he decided that he would take a stab at the question. “I don’t have many problems with them since I had my cataracts removed, G… Why do you ask? Are you having problems?” he added in a clarificatory supplemental question.

I smiled disarmingly and shook my head. “I’m not so much interested in the why, or the where of shadows, as in their composition, I suppose…” I had to resort to an ellipsis to indicate my inability to clarify something for which I hoped he had an answer.

He thought about it for a moment, no doubt composing a suitable response. “I can’t really comment on Jungian shadows,” he finally ventured, “But are you asking about the ‘shadow self’ we are sometimes embarrassed to drag along behind us?”

I shook my head again, but this time perhaps a bit too vigorously. “I mean shadows are not really reflections, are they? They’re more the absence of reflections.” I smiled at my italics. But even they didn’t help to clarify my puzzlement. “If anything, they are simply a blank me: a child’s drawing of a generic figure, not meant for identification like a mirror, but one that mimics and distorts my actions like a circus clown…”

I could tell by his expression that he found the idea interesting, and even when the pie came, he hesitated to scoop any whipped cream onto it. I didn’t mean to spoil his dessert, but sometimes an idea can be a treat, too.

“You know, G,” he said, as he toyed with the pie on his plate, “It  reminds me of the philosopher John Locke in his Essay concerning Human Understanding… You remember that from your Introduction to Philosophy course in university, I’m sure…” He had bite of his pie and looked at his fork for a moment with satisfaction. “At any rate, in that treatise Locke said that the mind is as a white paper, void of all characters, without ideas: a tabula rasa -a blank slate.”

I smiled at that; Joseph was probably a retired philosophy professor or something so I decided to be careful with my conjectures. “In this case, though, I suppose the shadow is more of an opaque slate,” I ed, and sampled my whipped cream covered pie. “But I wonder if it actually contains something hidden within it…?” Joseph looked up from his plate. “I mean it mimics my movements, so it contains something of me: it’s more of an imperfect copy, a sealed outline of something… Maybe it’s like the ‘black box’ in an airplane…”

Joseph managed to chuckle with a mouthful of pie but he decided to swallow it before trying to answer. “Sort of like Schrodinger’s famous cat, you mean: undecipherable until you get to open the box?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe…” Then my pie called to me, and before I could manage the piece I’d put in my mouth, a lady suddenly appeared behind Joseph whispered something in his ear and he nodded, then immediately moved his chair back from the table. “A fascinating discussion, G. We must continue it again over a coffee… or a glass of wine,” he added with a smile, glancing at the drying tablecloth in front of me. “At any rate, my wife just informed me that our granddaughter has gone into labour, so the shadows will have to wait for another time, I fear.”

Maybe it had something to do with the chandelier hanging over the dinner table, but I could swear his shadow winked at me as he turned to leave…

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