Black Pupil as Mirror the Other-Eye

I haven't seen Leonie since June of 1989 but her laughing eyes still smile at me. Friends like Leonie are rare. She never judged me when I blundered with my cultural ineptitudes, or hurt her ears in the early years their with my strong English accent when I spoke French or even worse Kikongo. She never made me feel uncomfortable because I had had advantages that come with being born in Canada. If Leonie had been born there, she would have been an MD, a PhD, an author. She is brilliant and charismatic as well as beautiful --- and she probably wouldn't have been crippled with polio. We went together to the Catholic clinic as she suffered through the process of having her bones recast so she could finally wear her first pair of shoes. She spent hours with me joking about everything and nothing.

When we came back to Canada after seven years, I found I couldn't write to her. It was impossible to convey how different our everyday lives had become. Since Leonie came into my life my topology of self changed.

While attempting to understand Bakhtin's concept of answerability as an ethical relationship of mutual respect between self and the Other , I played with Adobe Photoshop inserting my own reflection mirroring in the black pupils of Leonie's eyes. She smiles at me but Leonie can always answer back.