Ode to C2-99031

When I sit at the keyboard in the UB and almost fall apart, I quickly get up and straighten my back. With long strides, I march across the footbridge to Theil, up two flights of stairs and along the entire balustrade. In straight lines through the octagonal structure of the building. At the far end on the right is room C2-99031, a toilet where no one ever goes.

In one corner is a man-sized window overlooking the park. I look for a moment at the artwork that looks like an upside-down reflective droplet. It reflects 360 degrees, your own reflection shrinks and you can see the whole world. I need the hidden toilet to let my own tear drop and shift my focus to the street scene down there. All artworks in Park Noord have been fenced off since the renovation. I think I also need to protect parts of myself from the turbulence around it.

Once I took a friend there. I was wearing my favourite red dress and suddenly the zip had snapped. We ran headlong into the bathroom to save the situation. With all due tact and strength, she tried to get the zip closed again. I looked over my shoulder at the scene in the mirror: half bent over, leaning against a sink, my bare back, the 21st-century version of tightening a corset. The dress did not survive.

C2-99031 can breathe new life into me. Or maybe it has the serenity I need to do so myself. Turning from the window to mirror number 1, I see that the tear has only affected my mascara, not my look. I take two steps backwards, make another quarter turn and find myself face to face with mirror 2 on the other side of the ten toilets. The black and white tiles are now my catwalk. Each step becomes more powerful, heel, hip, hair, check. I am stronger than any theoretical framework.