Indeed, concurrent with its physical location, the novel gives the emotional and cognitive sense of taking place in a sort of psychological superposition, from which much can be perceived and revisited precisely because no one knows whether the shared life will continue.
It would be an interesting experiment, you know. Foreign actors who just learn their lines phonetically. One commonality among all three is the capability of image to communicate across established boundaries, whether linguistic, unconscious, or relational. Noticing images and allowing them to resonate in self-reflective moments—or realizations of more objective and existential understandings—is a kind of intuitive practice for Lil in which she glimpses and sometimes reconnects with feelings pushed away to attend to practical necessities.
A single orange dot became three. An orange thread now showed the stitches from which it was made. Then those lights somehow separated from the surfaces they lit, showing walls, roads, houses, an entire solid world—one wiped out in an instant by the sudden upsweep of the starboard wing. Then the same routine over, but hopping on one leg. Such synapses across psychic fragmentations are reflected in the remains of a statue Lil contemplates:.
Whatever had once connected the two—the body holding and the body held—was completely gone. The image can represent the relationship between ego consciousness, which thinks it is substantial, and the forgotten parts of itself—its shadow—from which it sometimes dissociates. On a relational level, the image also indicates the way that dissociation from bodies and feelings also disconnects us from one another—and that these undefined spaces also offer possibilities for reconnection.
That may feel like opportunity or danger, which you can accept or resist. Resistance means bringing your fears with you, which is another way of saying trying to keep living your old life. To go through the door willingly, on the other hand, is to embrace change. What that change is will be evoked by the other cards. Maybe it means a new relationship, or seeing a current relationship differently. It could be a new lifestyle choice, a new mental perspective, a new sexual attitude.
