The Ned Wood Archive

I’ll be your mirror

Reflect what you are

in case you don’t know

The Velvet Underground

I’d go and see Annie and she’d be upset about something.  It’d take me ages to try and find out what it was.  I’d be saying stuff like ‘have you lost something?’ or ‘did someone mess you about?’ and she’d say ‘no, I just don’t feel good today’.

I couldn’t understand what it was bugging her.  Times like that I wished I could hold up a mirror to her and say, “Look, this is what you are.  You’re beautiful.  You are warm, loving, and friendly.  You bring so much joy to the people you hang around with, you spread light, and you make people happy.  You make me feel so wonderful.  You make me feel wanted.  You make me feel loved.

“Annie.  Look at this mirror.  Look at all the good there is in you.  I Love You.”

It’d be like that guy in the book.  The one who stands in the rye and stops all the kids from jumping over the edge.  Except, I’d be the Mirror in the Rye, so all the kids would be able to look at themselves, see how good they really are, and not want to jump over the edge in the first place.

I really wish I could have made Annie see the good in herself.  I wish I could have made her feel happier about herself, the way she made me feel happier about myself.

The other thing I wish I could have done is taken Annie’s pain and carried it myself.  Have you ever felt that way?  You see someone you love suffering and you wish you could take on their suffering instead.  Like that Patti Smith song.  Jesus died for somebody’s sins.  But it ended up that I didn’t take away any of Annie’s pain.  I tried, but the way it went, I guess she took away far more of my troubles.  It was like she took all the bad she could find until she couldn’t take any more.  Everyone who knew her saw this happy bright person.  She brightened the lives of everyone who heard her laughter.  She spread so much joy.  But she took on all that black stuff.  She took all the problems of the world and kept them inside.  We couldn’t stop her.  Annie died for somebodies’ sins. Not just mine.