À FORCE DE FAIRE SEMBLANT, JE SUIS DEVENUE MON JEU.

[PRE-REUNION]

Looking into a mirror is like looking at a tabula rasa - a blank, clean slate. It starts with me.

I look like no one in particular

[That‘s your brother? Incredulous.]

and everyone.

[Do you have a sister?]

or

[Jann Arden.Stevie Nixx.Toni Colette.Karen Young.Sigourney Weaver.Tilda Swinton.Judy Garland.Susan Sarandon…]

I LOOK LIKE MYSELF.

Is it vanity to want to look like someone else? Like Narcissus falling in love with his own image in the familiar refrain of the nymph Echo? Or is it more a need to be grounded — to come from a generation of people? I do have my own past and yet I do not want to replace the heritage that I have 'adopted' from my adoptive parents. I want to merge them together.

[POST-REUNION]

Seeing my reflection now can be unsettling as those features that used to be mine alone — buck-teeth, the shape of my cheekbones, my nose — recall another mother, a sister, a brother. The reflection in the mirror shows me a dimple, shared.

In my conceit, or more naïveté, I imagined my birthmother as an older version of me. We are very different people. Looking at old photographs, I can see that we did share similar features at the same age. Twenty nine years have since passed. I am sure it is hard for her as well. She does not meet the baby she last saw or thought about. She is greeted by an adult, fully grown without her.

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