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\nFor one semester in college, Mitchell and I did not speak to one another. There was a Cold War going on between us, and we now refer to it as “the Bad Time”. We were BEST friends, and yet we did not speak for 4 months.<\/p>\n
We were doing a show, and once, before rehearsal, he and I found ourselves alone in the men’s dressing room, which was a long concrete room, with showers, lockers, and a line of makeup mirrors down the middle. Nobody else was around. Everyone left us alone at this point – the tension so huge you could smell it in the air, like ozone. We were FURIOUS with each other. But really what was going on was that we were so sad, we were so sad that we were in a fight, and that we couldn’t apparently be friends. I cried myself to sleep every night. I MISSED him. But I couldn’t give in. I just couldn’t.<\/p>\n
And so he and I sat there in the now-emptied gray dressing room, tensely, quietly, not knowing what to say. Mitchell, to break the mood, turned on the boom box. We were all very into Michael Jackson’s album “Bad<\/i>” at the time. It was all we listened to. You got that? IT WAS ALL WE LISTENED TO. I am unable to listen to that album now without immediately being transported back in time, specifically to that very time in my life, that one semester in college, when Bad<\/i> was on constant rotation and I was in an awful silent fight with my best friend.<\/p>\n
So Mitchell put on Bad<\/i> and “Man in the Mirror” came on.<\/p>\n
And without discussing it, without a word between us, without a noticeable thawing in the air or anything, Mitchell and I started dancing to that song, separately – not together – We remained stridently separate – but we kept dancing, dancing until we were completely lost in it. It was one of those times when you become completely unself-conscious. You completely lose awareness of yourself as a body taking up space. It is like you become your spirit. That was what that 3 minutes was like for us, in the dressing room. We danced separately from one another, he on one side of the line of makeup mirrors, me on the other side. The music was transcendent, that chorus bursting forth at the end, the glimmering line of mirrors, his reflection dancing, mine …<\/p>\n
When the song ended, we turned the tape deck off, realizing that we both had kind of “been” somewhere. We were no longer really in the same emotional place.<\/p>\n
The frozen silence between us had broken. There would be no more “bad time”. Somehow, through those weird separate dances, Mitchell and I forgave each other. Without saying a word. We found joy again. Joy in being together. Through the course of the song, all bitterness disappeared into thin air. Dissolved into the mirrors, never really to return. We would still need to have conversations about our argument, we would need to apologize and let go, and talk about it … but the real forgiveness began with no words, barely any eye contact even, dancing around to “Man in the Mirror” in the men’s dressing room. Lost in it.<\/p>\n
I cherish that memory with my friend, dancing like mirror-image whirling dervishes, looking at our reflections, forgiving each other.<\/p>\n
Unbelievable live performance of “Man in the Mirror” below the jump from the 1988 Grammys. He “goes” somewhere by the end, he’s off-course, he’s improvising, it’s an extraordinary moment.<\/p>\n
\nEvery time I hear that song, every time, I think of that dressing room, the echoey grey walls, blue lockers, the endless reflections, and Mitchell.<\/p>\n
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