Mirror, Mirror

The Mirror speaks—How could I not love this face?  Changeable as it is, aged as it has become, I still find beauty in the shifts and quirks of the emotions that ripple across its surface. Hers is the face that fills my world and, in those moments when she rages against the erosion of years on her skin, I hold each wrinkle and spot as sacred signs of a life well-lived. I love this face as if it were my own, for in truth, it is. And it is truth that I reflect, but what I offer as a gift and testament to all she is, she receives as an admonition and cries out against the unfairness of a verdict that she cannot appeal. Time plays havoc with us all. Even my smooth and silvered surface, laid down in perfection all those decades ago, has pocked and peeled leaving coppery islands and inky streams. If I could speak to her beyond those words the enchantment allows, I would share my admiration and remind her that the face she sees is the face she has earned.  Inspired by Little Snow White by the Brothers Grimm.

“I’m done.” In the mirror our eyes locked in reflected gazes; mine resolute, hers quizzical and maybe a touch concerned. “I’m just done.”

Decisions are never easy for me. I had flirted with this one for months and though my angst might seem like the fretting of a woman loath to release her hold on something that, in reality, had slipped from her grasp long ago; the truth of the matter is I am lost in that no-person’s land of an aging woman in a youth-centric culture. The familiar signposts and landmarks that guided me through my younger years no longer seem relevant and the map I’ve chosen to follow doesn’t match the cultural landscape.

Perhaps my children should worry. If I decide to go gray in a world that insists I need to look as young as I can for as long as I can, what does my decision say about me? Is this the first plodding step along the slippery slope to the valley of despair. After the golden highlights have faded and the low lights are no more, will I tumble into despondency and cease to bathe? Or could this hard earned decision be a declaration—a shot across the bow of a social standard that denies the beauty of anyone who has passed their middle years? In my heart, to Deny the Dye has become my manifesto.

My hairdresser was not happy. My visits, which used to be characterized by long comfortable chats and shared intimations, became strained. Now we came together as strangers, instead of acquaintances of many years. I suspect the chill behind her forced smile said as much about her own approaching dye or not to dye moment as the impact of my decision on her bottom line. In her eyes glinted the fear of time and the relentless passing of days. In my naiveté I had hoped she would guide me along a gracefully graying path, but her terse denial, “there is no way to go gray gracefully” turned out to be a personal rejection as well as a professional philosophy. Today I am glad to say, she was wrong.

So far the changes have been subtle. My scalp has become a loom weaving silver and platinum threads among the browns of my birthright. And you may think me mad, but I love it. I find myself rejoicing in my new, natural roots. There is something primal about the brindle colors of salt and pepper and cinnamon. My hair is no longer a coif, but a mane. No longer something to be lacquered into submission, but a creature to release into its natural state. With a growing understanding that encompasses more than my tresses, I realize I’ve spent my life chained to someone else’s idea of what I should look like. For me, it’s time to break those chains.

By the end of my marriage, I had learn to approach the mirror with trepidation.  Like the queen in Snow White, I cringed at my reflection and lashed out at the damage done by time and circumstance. I hated my face and its features and I started searching for ways to recapture the person I was before the destructive years took their toll. Somewhere, I believed, there had to be a spell or a potion, a dye or a cream, that would return me to me. But the victories were few and fleeting and my hair still grew gray and my jawline still sagged. Finally, one morning as I listed the faults revealed in my reflection, I literally said, Stop.  And I asked myself this question, if this face belonged to a stranger, what would I think? Would I be repulsed?  Would I see the lines and wrinkles as excuses to turn away? To be angry? To believe this face wasn’t worthy of my compassion? Or would I see a face who has survived and still smiles; who has suffered and still goes on? Would the kind eyes and laugh lines mark this countenance as someone I would offer a grin and a nod of my head?  In asking those questions, I found my face was worthy and fine and even beautiful in its way.  In forgetting myself, I was able to find my-self in the mirror once again.

Women and, with increasing frequency, men step up to the looking glass with an eagle eye for the flaws and faults. Our culture tells us we are never good enough. If your nose is slightly crooked or your eyebrows are too furry or, heaven, forbid, you have gray hair, you have to do something and do it right away! But this is not the experience I want for myself, or my handsome sons and my beautiful daughters-in-law.  It is not the experience I want for your beautiful daughters and sons. And, it is certainly not what I want for our grandchildren.

This summer my granddaughter danced on the beach the day she turned four.  She burst into song when it suited her fancy and made silly faces without blushing.  But already at four, the culture is starting to shape her self image.  In preschool the children talk about what things may be liked; which classmates may be played with; who will or will not get invited to parties and play dates. Soon it will be what clothes measure up and who is too tall, short, dark, or fair and I have no clue how to change the conversation. But maybe by letting my hair go gray and my jawline sag, I express my joy in who I am. After all, the story of Snow White is not so much about the princess’s beauty as the queen’s rage. So here is my selfie with my hair going gray and its natural waves and cowlicks untamed.  And I know that not everyone will think I’ve made a wise choice, but that’s okay.  For one thing I’ve learned is that if someone doesn’t like the way I look, it says very little about me, but it speaks volumes about them.

So love your face.  And for those of you who’ve spent distressing moments in front of the the mirror lately, here is some love and some Michael Bublé.

 

Finding Your Voice

Seeing her there, the crystal casket shattering the sunset, he believed he had never seen a vision more beautiful.  Her hair black as ebony, her lips red as blood, her skin white as snow.  But she lay as dead, a curious assortment of short, burly men arranged around her resting place in postures of misery.  “Who is she?” he called to the mourners and in one choked voice, they replied “Snow White.”  In his heart, he knew he must possess this beauty, that his health, his happiness, his very sanity depended on being able to cast his eyes daily upon Snow White.  “Make haste,” he called to his page.  “Run and tell the king’s builders they must construct a plinth, one suitable to hold the most beautiful object the kingdom has ever seen.  And tell them to place it in front of the window by my bed.”  In that way he knew with the first light of day and the last light of evening, his eyes would rest on the face of Snow White.  “Good dwarves,” he said.  “I am a prince.  I have gold.  Let’s make a deal.”  Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale “Snow White”.

“Mine!”  The word is spoken with the bold confidence unique to toddlers.  She sets her chin and with her steady, blue gaze traps me in the unenviable spot of having to tell my beloved granddaughter, “No, that’s not yours. That’s mine.”  Let’s face it.  I would give this child anything that is in my power to give.  And even though she has just claimed my precious iPad, my first inclination is to let her have it.  Wouldn’t she love me all the more if I did?  Isn’t it selfish of me to deny her?  But the small measure of common sense I still possess tells me capitulation would not be good for either of us, so I quietly contradict her.  She smiles.  This was a test and we both passed.  Hurray!

Macie is just learning about the line between what is hers and what belongs to someone else.  She is only vaguely aware that sometimes others’ needs take precedence over her own and that “I want that” wishes are not always granted.  These are difficult lessons.  I tell her parents to stay strong, but I remember how challenging it is to lovingly confront a half-pint narcissist bent on world domination.  Stored among my memories is my son’s birthday declaration, “I’m six years old.  Now I can do anything I want!” When I popped that balloon, I broke my own heart.  Such freedom doesn’t come at any age.

Jon Provost–“Timmy Martin”

In childhood, freely voicing your desires is tricky business.  Timing and intonation can mean the difference between a dream fulfilled and bitter disappointment.  And woe to the kid who has to negotiate the vague and transitory line between need and want.  In the early 60s, parents swooned over Timmy Martin, the dimpled cherub who had so few needs he was raised by the family pet. Timmy never required anything that Lassie could not provide. And though not once did he actually fall down a well, week after week his faithful collie rescued him from dire situations both literal and existential.  If at birth every child was issued a selfless Lassie all their own, I imagine the world would be a much healthier place.

Certainly, Snow White could have benefited from a cunning canine companion–a Toto or a Nana who would have sensed when things at the castle were about to turn ugly.  A dog, wise to the ways of royal intrigue, could have saved the poor princess with a simple act of judicious forgetfulness–a misplaced bone on the stairs outside the Queen’s boudoir and, quick as an inattentive step, “ding, dong the…(you know the rest)”.  As the new queen, Snow could have charted her own future.  Or was the prince’s kiss really the culmination of her dreams?  Of course, when she awoke with a lover and a life already settled, it would have been selfish for her to express a conflicting desire. If it’s one thing fairy tale princesses know, it’s not to make a fuss.

We have all done time in Snow White’s glass box, keeping silent about our dreams and needs, because voicing them would have been inconvenient.  We have also ridden through metaphoric forests as the prince, loudly laying claim to the objects of our affection while overlooking the humanity within.  It’s not easy.  We’re all toddlers when it comes to knowing when to speak up and when to give ground.  With each new relationship, we have to start from scratch.  Maybe finding our voice is easier when we remember that all of us, beauty and beast, carry in our hearts the same basic desires–to love and be loved and to feel respected and safe. That is my wish for Snow White and her prince–that their happily ever after is big enough for more than one voice and more than one dream.  Certainly, that is my wish for Macie and for you.

As if Mumford and Sons wasn’t enough, here is some excellent bonus material–a wonderful poem by Delia Sherman, “Snow White to the Prince”.

Witches

Saturday morning.  Five o’clock.  Outside thunder rolls through the valley where I live and lightening flickers beyond the draped windows.  A morning meant for staying in bed and letting the weather have its way with the world, but how can I sleep when the storm has filled my thoughts with witches–hags of the Halloween variety; evil queens of the Disney sort; and the witches of Oz, both good and bad.  The climatic light show this morning seems especially suited to the royally wicked stepmother of Snow White.  In Disney’s 1937 animated movie, crashing thunder and flashing lightening power her violent transformation from sorceress to hag.  Later, the raging storm returns to stage-craft her dramatic demise at the end.  The weather was not this woman’s friend.

Time was her enemy as well.  Though unnamed and invisible, time plays no less a part in this story than the huntsman or the prince.  It is time the queen wants to control when she plots to eliminate the competition. How ironic that to accomplish the death of Snow White, she transforms herself into the one thing she is desperately trying to avoid becoming–an old woman.  Reaching into her own past and out of Snow White’s future, the queen takes on the form of a crone and offers the poisoned apple to the princess.  You can almost hear her thinking as the girl bites into the sweet but deadly fruit, I once looked like you.  Live long enough and one day you will look like me.

Can it really be her status of unequaled beauty the stepmother is trying to protect or is it the power that comes with beauty?  Witches are only sometimes about looks, but they are always about power.  A witch may be gorgeous like Glinda.  Or she may have green skin and warts, but what they all have in common is power–over the elements; over their minions; and, most frightening of all, over us.  MGM’s Wicked Witch of the West was unlovely and unloved, but she reveled in the fear she saw on the face of her victims.  No magic mirrors hung on the walls of her castle, but soldiers and winged monkeys waited on her every command.  On the death of her sister, the Witch of the West was all about consolidating power and annexing Munchkinland. 

Macbeth and Banquo encounter three witches.

So what draws us to these practitioners of all things magical?  Why have they haunted literature and the arts since ancient times? Witches and wizards still abound in our movies, television and books.  When we feel helpless, the power of witchcraft appeals to us most.  Being able to solve our problems with the flick of a wand or the twitch of a nose is an enviable skill, until we remember that witches quite often come to a bad end.  The evil queen and the Wicked Witch of the West were both unseated by apparently powerless girls.  But girls with time on their side.  Snow White and Dorothy survive the loss of their familiar lives by facing their futures one moment at a time, one step at a time, until they wake up to new beginnings.  At the end of their respective stories, the princess and the girl from Kansas look on their familiar landscapes with new perspectives.  They are now survivors and survival confers a special kind of power.  Once you have faced a night in the forest, whatever the day brings is never quite so scary again.