The Mirror Dancer
A personal essay on grief, bathroom mirrors, and healing through music.
I developed this habit of dancing in the mirror. It’s usually late at night, maybe 3 or 4am, when everyone in the house is asleep and I’m wide awake. It’s a genre less activity. I can dance to anything. Black Country, New Road. Danny Brown. Freddie Gibbs. Funkadelic. It’s all the same.
I thought I was the only one who did this. I lived with seven other people last year, and they’d always ask: “Why do you spend so long singing in the bathroom?” But when I told my Writing for Magazines professor a few months ago about this piece, she told me that she danced in the mirror too. No one talks about it because it’s so intimate. Just you and your reflection.
…
In 2020, I was basically home alone. I had my mom, but we barely spoke. My best friend was my saving grace. We were inseparable. We played Warzone every day, losing ourselves in its virtual world while we were in lockdown. But things changed on June 3rd. I woke up that day and the first thing I did was check Twitter. Typical. But instead of my usual feed, I saw a scrawled Notes-app screenshot from an account I don’t need to specify because this isn’t her story. She accused my best friend of raping her. I believed her. My friends didn’t.
I lost everything that day. That was my best friend, my closest friend, the person I would speak to on the phone everyday for hours on end, the buddy I would go to the movies with, my only friend from home while I was cooped up in my childhood bedroom during the pandemic. I lost everything. It deepened my abandonment issues. I had one other friend that I would text weekly, but we weren’t emotionally intimate. My sister was away and caught up in her own life. My mother was emotionally unavailable. My father is closed-off and distant (physically and emotionally). I had to cope alone.
Most days, I couldn’t get out of bed. I binged TV with nothing else to do. My circadian rhythm would force me out of bed by 8am, but after a bowl of cereal and a singular episode of The Simpsons, I’d conclude that I had no reason to be awake anymore and would sleep again until 2 or 3pm. After that, I’d watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, rewatch Bojack Horseman, maybe rewatch Moonlight or Silver Linings Playbook or La La Land, or just anything to make myself feel something again. Studio Ghibli reminded me of childlike purity. Animation made me feel like a kid again. Media became escapism.
In 2014, my mom took me to see Neighbors in theaters after she got into a fight with my dad. I’ll never forget what she told me that day: “I like going to the movies because it lets you forget about what’s going on in the real world.”
Mirror dancing had that same effect on me.
…
I was an insomniac. I couldn’t sleep so I’d stare at myself in the mirror, trying to find the remnants of a soul untampered. Until that point, music had been a method to connect with myself and experience emotions that I didn’t know I felt. Music allowed me to live vicariously through other peoples’ narratives. I was drawn to stories of excelsior — transforming all the negative energy that the world would spew out and morphing it into something positive and meaningful.
The first song I remember dancing to was “PROM/KING” by Saba. I still remember hearing that song for the first time. I was lying in bed in 2018, heartbroken that my crush rejected me to prom. I shared that experience with Saba as he recounted, “Wrote her a three-page letter, it’s three days later, never hit me back — she broke my heart.”
The song is composed of two verses, told over 7:31 minutes. I know almost every word. As I began my nightly routine of brushing my teeth, wetting my curly hair, and cleansing my face, I played CARE FOR ME in the background. Even the title speaks to me, because it felt as if no one cared for me. I knew almost every lyric to the album, and in the age of singles and Spotify playlists, this was a project that I sat with; I would listen to it again and again, rediscovering pockets of sound that would resonate with me.
When “PROM/KING” came on while I aimlessly stood in the bathroom, I rapped every word. I held my own gaze in the mirror, fighting off tears. The phrase I use is “mirror dancing” but it’s more than that. It’s pointing at myself in the mirror. Looking into my eyes as I face sorrow and push towards self-actualization. It’s bouncing my pointed index-finger to the beat, treating each word as a connection on a drawing board. It’s shoulder shrugs as Saba faces disappointment. It’s 360° spins as Saba feels on top of the world performing at Lollapalooza with Walter and the rest of Pivot Gang. It’s rapping with my head held down, sitting on the counter alongside the sink, as Saba receives the phone call detailing the loss of his best friend.
This was my nightly routine. I would enter the bathroom at 1am, 2am, 3am, only forcing myself to bed at 4:30am. Music became a tool to break myself down and try to put back the pieces every night.
…
Nipsey Hussle became a second father to me . His activism and spirituality made me force myself to become a better person, each and every day. I found resilience on DJ Mustard’s posthumous sample from Nipsey’s Breakfast Club interview on “Perfect Ten” where he explains: “I’m not gon’ lie and portray this ultimate poise, like I been had it figured out. Nah, I just didn’t quit. That’s the only distinguishing quality.” I found acceptance on “I Do This” as Sinister Pook outlined “Every man is defined by his reaction to any given situation. Who would you want to define you? Someone else or yourself?” Nipsey gave me a mantra, words to live by, a reason to keep going. Where I lacked lessons from my father, I found counsel from Nipsey past the grave; proof that I could become a better man than the one I saw in the mirror.
These were nightly escapades. I’d throw on music and become lost in a trance; enveloped in worlds that weren’t mine. Although I was alone, I felt part of something greater, a mass consciousness that was looking out for me. I was consumed by stories that were just similar enough to mine, stories that I would later claim saved my life.
Hereditary
“My daddy taught me how to leave somebody.”
Nothing beats the first track on Cilvia Demo. As I tell you I felt trapped, Maya Angelou would have claimed, “I know why the caged bird sings.” Mind you, I had never read the poem, but Isaiah Rashad notes, “This one’s for the caged bird, caged bird, caged bird.” That was me. I would beg for salvation, screaming to the heavens, trapped for twenty hours a day in the lonely confines of my room. These mirror sessions were my birdsongs. Although I couldn’t fly away, these were my stories of freedom and broken chains. Hope that things will change.
Oh, how I wanted a fatherly figure. My father left when I was eight, spending half of his time in Minnesota, but slowly spending more and more time there as business got worse and worse. I’ve always been more feminine than my parents wished I would be. I have this “purse walk,” where it looks like I’m meant to be holding a designer bag in one hand and a clutch in the other (I actually just bought a designer bag and my mom hates me for it). The guys in middle school and high school would call me homophobic slurs. I think sports are boring. I think most men are aggressive and power-hungry and emotionally-unintelligent. Men abused me. Men would throw me to the ground. Men would pin me down and wrestle me when I’d plead for them to stop. Men would throw things at me in class while the teacher wasn’t looking. Men were the ones that always did me wrong.
And the man I needed to teach me how to stand up for myself wasn’t there when I needed him most. So yeah, “My daddy taught me how to leave somebody.”
Fetch the Bolt Cutters
“Fetch the bolt cutters, I’ve been in here too long.”
I think of myself as “The Hermit” (i.e. the Tarot Card). I’m reclusive and I shelter myself. I know pain and hurt, so I try to remove myself from any potentially-threatening situation. I lock myself away from the world.
Blackballed from industry despite releasing the most evocative vocal-jazz album of all time, The Idler Wheel…, Fiona Apple released Fetch the Bolt Cutters amidst the height of the pandemic. Months before the album’s announcement, I had discovered her previous work. “Every Single Night” and “Hot Knife” kept me company before I lost my friend, sparkling my lonely nights with timpani rolls and vocals that are layered like mille-feuille.
I know every square inch of my childhood bedroom, all of its nooks and crannies, its baby blue paint burnt into my memory. So desperately did I want to escape. So desperately did I want to ask someone to “fetch the bolt cutters” and forgive my imprisonment and release me into the world again. How much did I beg and cry and weep and scratch my hollow door? How much did I cry to my dog because Cleo was the only one that would force me out of bed in the morning when my mother left to Egypt to help my grandmother with Alzheimer’s, leaving me to rot alone with my thoughts? How much did Cleo have to bark at me so that I would fill her bowl with dog food even though all my meals would be binges at the end of the night? How much did I want solace? How much did my suicidal ideations permeate my visions of the future? How much of a future did I think I had? How often did I dance with the lights off because I couldn’t bare to see my own reflection?
Halftime
“Half a Perky, half a Xanny, make it halftime.”
Some days I would wake up on the right side of the bed. I’d listen to Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock through the fantasy of “Watermelon Man” and “Cantaloupe Island.” My best days were soundtracked by The Barter 6. I loved So Much Fun and Slime Season 3 was the last mixtape I enjoyed before the pandemic began, but I was never super into Young Thug. I didn’t understand the music. I missed the cultural context.
The first time I heard “Halftime,” it all finally made sense. I would stand up on the toilet and the edge of the bathtub, mimicking his dance moves from the music video, out-rapping myself in the mirror as if I was Thugger. I worked on my breath control so I could imitate his legendary 11-second “Skrrrrt.” I pretended like I was holding a double-cup, movingly languidly as if I too had taken half a Xan and half a Perc while gargling my purple mouthwash.
Kyoto
“I want to see the world, then I flew over the ocean.”
When I realized that my best friend could no longer be in my life, I listened to a lot of Phoebe Bridgers. She was on the precipice of fame when I found her, still releasing the singles preceding her second album, Punisher. “Garden Song” was one of the few pieces that warmed my cold heart. It breathes like kindling in a fire, and Phoebe’s soft whispers felt like the ghost she depicts on the cover of Stranger in the Alps — the ghost of an old friend from her childhood.
Both albums (Punisher and Stranger in the Alps) carried my spirit. Like CARE FOR ME, they both held my hand through grief as I played them over and over and over again, rediscovering themes of unrequited love and loss. No one told me that losing a friend was like a bad break-up. My first taste of heartbreak. And oh did my heart ache. I longed for comfort that would never come, so I found it in songs like “Demi Moore” and “Motion Sickness - Demo Version” (always the acoustic, demo version). Her stripped-back instrumentals and her shy vocals made my comforter feel like a weighted blanked, absorbing my tears and emptiness, leaving room for another heart.
“Kyoto” freed me. The trumpet line soars like a bird in migration. The title reminds me of undiscovered territory, since I had always wanted to travel to Japan and see the neon lights (Note: I had not seen “Lost in Translation” at this point). I couldn’t travel because of COVID. I couldn’t leave the house because depression immobilized me. But “Kyoto” gave me lyrics to scream at the top of my lungs, and for some fleeting seconds, I’d feel alive again.
The Return
When I moved back to college in the Fall, the scenery changed. I moved to a house full of strangers. The mirror dancing stopped. I got into an abusive relationship, so I didn’t have time to myself anymore. Plus, my bathroom was tiny.
When my girlfriend cheated on me and I finally broke up with her, I moved into a new house, one with a large bathroom and seven other housemates. They will attest to my grief. My unhealthy coping mechanisms. My time in the bathroom. The singing at 10am. The whispered raps at 2am.
Class of 2013
“If you need to be mean, be mean to me. I can take it and put it inside of me.”
Ah yes, Mitski. I never told my mother about the breakup, but as I looked in the mirror, holding the edge of the counter in agony, I poetically longed for comfort from my mother.
“Mom, I’m tired. Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”
Mitski guided me through my first heartache. She’s guided me through my worst bouts of depression. She understands what “Lonesome Love” meant. She understands what it’s like to have dreams. She inspired me to take a trip to Europe to see the world.
When I sing this song, sometimes I let cold water run through my frizzy, curly hair. It feels like a rebirth. It gives my hair new life. I’ve never been as emotionally intimate with my mother as I needed to be; the only consistent person in my life, we’ve quarreled and quarreled and quarreled. She doesn’t believe in therapy. I’m sure she believes my depression is just a phase. But I wish she was there for me, especially when I need her most. She has her own difficulties, so much so that I can’t rely on her because I have to be her therapist, not the other way around.
Mitski gave me stories of love and its shortcomings. She gave me lyrics to cry to in the car. And just like me, she could take the abuse.
Red Dust
“I broke bread with killers and rapists.”
billy woods is one of the few artists that I relate to, down to my core. Someone once told me that some of the most evocative art comes from artists describing an emotion that you didn’t even know you felt. billy woods gave me that. I could have written about “Spider Hole,” I could have written about “Crawlspace,” I could have written about “Checkpoints,” but I’ve chosen “Red Dust” because of that singular line.
That line made me feel less alone in the world. Every refrain in Hiding Places gets shouted at in the mirror, hands at my head with exasperated body language.
This line, on the other hand, it breaks me down: “I want to show you what I learned from the worst people I’ve ever known.” I wince. I look down. I starve for real connection.
My ex-girlfriend didn’t care for the stories. She treated that loss as if it was a bad choice of character on my end. The person that changed my life was seen as a mistake from the beginning, not a humbling character arc in my own narrative. “Red Dust” taught me that there were others like me. billy woods has a past. He recognizes that people come into your life for a reason. He understands me.
12 Stout Street
“12 Stout Street, I hated that house.”
As I drove my mom to the airport on Christmas Eve in 2021, we stopped for dim sum in San Francisco and my car got broken into. They stole my mother’s luggage, including her laptop and all my sister’s clothes, days before the biggest business deal of my mother’s life. I saw her revert back to a toddler - bawling, bawling, asking for the robbers to return her things. I had to be calm for the both of us: “I had to learn early what ‘bein a man about.”
My relationship with my mother still hasn’t recovered. She had to go back to Egypt to help my grandmother with Alzheimer’s and my uncle with addiction. When she was gone, her trauma got the best of us. Trust was broken, our bond was tainted, and she can’t take back what she told my sister and I. I haven’t been able to feel loved since.
Right before she left, I got into an argument with my father. I showed him the “Shooters” video by EBK Young Joc and the “Flu Flam A Opp” video by Drakeo the Ruler. He wanted to see the music that I was so infatuated with. In a turn for the worst, he told me about how these rappers look like gang members. To keep it short, he said: “That’s my opinion,” and we didn’t speak for months. My mom took his side.
Every single day I would go into the bathroom and rap along to this song. I could relate to Rx Papi. We were both without a home. I became emotionally closed-off. I felt uncomfortable showing emotion in front of my roommate. I’d either cry in the car or the bathroom. I would sit with my back against the bathtub, loosely rapping along, holding my hands to my head, wishing the pain would go away.
“How the fuck I come out your pussy and you choose your husband like you knew that n***a before me?”
Mommy Dearest (A Eulogy)
“She don’t even love me like she did when I was younger.”
This song cuts me the deepest. This is a pain no one should know. A mother that wishes she got an abortion makes you feel like your life is worthless.
This song is the hardest to write about because my darkest moments were in that bathroom. Lights off. When I looked in the mirror, I could see myself slowly dying.
This wasn’t mirror dancing. This was me coming to terms with the fact that I didn’t even recognize my own reflection. Leaflets of solitude, hidden behind red eyes. Boldy James calls himself “heartless” in the song, and that’s what became of me. I couldn’t let anybody in. I was scared to be loved. I couldn’t take a helping hand.
Boldy James and Biggie (since Boldy interpolated “Suicidal Thoughts) were the only people who felt my pain. I assumed that because my sister wouldn’t talk to me about it, no one could. I was alone and hardened because of it.
Nothing took the pain away until I talked to a friend. Let this be the lesson: singing and dancing and rapping in the mirror are no replacement for human connection. I could not pick myself back up. Only a friend could do that.
“I know my mother wish she got a fucking abortion.”
Solace
“I spent days faded and anemic. You could see it in my face, I ain’t been eatin’, I’m just wastin’ away.”
I thought I could smoke my pain away. My diet consisted of weed, cigarettes and energy drinks. Caffeine to counteract the THC, nicotine as a quick jolt. I would sit in class faded. I was empty on the inside, from the break-up to the lack of family to feeling like I had no friends to spill my heart to. I didn’t know how to cope.
I would cry in the bathroom. Looking at my hands, asking myself, “When will it all be over?” Why is it that only my grandmother cared for me? Why was she the only one checking up on me? Why did she love me unconditionally when I always thought she was old and cynical?
I needed love. Fuck, I needed a hug. My body was shedding itself to mere skin and bones. I could see my ribs. I would lift up my shirt to see the remains of a body that was truly wasting away.
“Solace” marks my lowest points. Depression ages you. It gives you a taste of death if you let it. It makes you question whether or not you want to be in this for the long-haul. Thankfully, I opened up to someone outside of my reflection, because the man I saw could barely stand; face in the sink, praying the cold water would revive him.
“I’m the youngest old man that you know, if ya soul intact let me know.”
Suicidal Thoughts
“I know my momma wish she got a fucking abortion.”
I know every word to this song by heart. Not because I wanted to kill myself per se, but because at least Biggie could talk about it. I held it all in. For months, not a day went by without suicidal ideation. My mother told my sister and I: “I wish I hadn’t gotten married so young.” “I shouldn’t have had kids.”
I didn’t think I was a good person. I would look in the mirror and see the shell of a human being. A mistake. A half hazard decision fueled by youthful impulsiveness. If my mom wishes she didn’t have me, why should I keep going? All the jokes, all the abuse, all the disappointment.
I was diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety in 2021, but I knew it was coming since I was 18. Maybe since I was 17 when I called the Suicide Hotline and they put me on hold, so I hung up. Maybe since I was 15 when I would lie alone in the darkness trying to figure out why I was so sad. Maybe since I was 12 when the other kids started picking on me. Maybe since I was 8 when I would spend my summers alone in my room, watching movies on VHS so that I could immerse myself in different worlds.
“I swear to God it feels like death is fucking calling me, but nah, you wouldn’t understand”
Knees
“My knees hurt because I’m growing, and that’s a tough pill to swallow.”
By the Time I Get to Phoenix came out on my 21st birthday. A momentous occasion, I sobbed as the clock struck midnight. I never thought I would see 21. I never thought I would be shown love by my friends. I thought I was done growing.
Peace of mind seemed unattainable. I thought the abuse would get worse; I thought pain is all I would know. With his last posthumous verse, Stepa J. Groggs gave me a glimmer of hope. I spent countless hours in the bathroom searching for a sign, looking at my reflection with a sharp eye, hoping that I would see something new. But that never happened. All I ever got was weak knees and complaints from my housemates.
I didn’t realize that my weak knees were a sign of growth. My long hair a sign of age. My tired eyes proof of experience.
All those nights I spent in the bathroom, dancing to relieve the pain, they were just symptoms of a growing psyche and a more pronounced worldview. Had I not spent those nights dancing in the mirror, I wouldn’t have become the man I am today. I wouldn’t have hope that there would be better days. I wouldn’t have seen the world.
I’m thankful for my experience. I’m thankful for the losses in my life because they’ve led to new beginnings. May this essay be a reminder that growth is nonlinear and hope moves like a precarious pigeon on a meandering path towards satisfaction. Self-love knows no boundaries, and may mirror dancing push you towards older age and your best self.
“Fuck it, at least my dreads grew.”
When It’s All Said & Done
In Lil Ugly Mane’s song, “On Doing An Evil Deed Blues,” Travis Miller explains: “I used to like to rhyme when it was other people’s lyrics. Spitting Raekwon bars to the mirror just to hear if it sounded the same.” After about two years of mirror dancing, I found out that my reclusive antihero was just like me. Rapping to himself in the mirror.
Originally published by the Blog-In-Progress on 8/8/2022