Inside me, two entities take turns between them—Iris and E-ris.
E-ris, full of fear and pain, is curled in the corner of my being like a small mouse, she perceives the whole world as a continuous threat.
Tears never stop flowing from her heart, finding their way up to her eyes and drip straight into her mouth, which from it they flow back to her heart in an endless cycle.
Every movement around her feels to her so sharp, too sharp, and accordingly, makes her shrink.
It seems like all she does is to shrink into the corner and protect herself from a world full of sharp movements and nonstop demands.
And then there’s Iris, the Amazon.
She walks in the world with a straight back and her head held high, filled with simple confidence and passion in her heart.
E-ris the mouse has no passion for anything because where there is fear, there is no room for passion.
Nothing is too much for Iris the Amazon, including sharp movements of any kind.
When she feels pain or fear, she listens to them, breathes into them, and looks them straight in the eye. This contrasts with E-ris, who doesn’t look them straight in the eye because she’s convinced that if she does, they will swallow her alive.
And I still haven’t managed to understand neither to identify what exactly makes each of them come to the forefront of my existence, and the other to retreat behind the scenes.
When E-ris the mouse arrives, she doesn’t believe me when I tell her about Iris the Amazon, and when Iris the Amazon arrives, she doesn’t believe me when I tell her about E-ris the mouse.
Luckily, there’s ‘I’ to hold this memory for them both, and accordingly to remind each one, during her time on stage, about the forgotten other who was here just a minute ago…
