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.

 

Stuck

Background art for Sleeping Beauty by Eyvind Earle, 1959.

What the nanny saw–What can I tell you about that day?  More than a hundred years have passed and I am an old woman. Memory is no longer my handmaid, but I will draw her into service if first you speak plainly to me. Tell me true, have I grown old in marrow and bone as my mother and grandmother before me?  I was in my prime and sprightly when Princess Aurora discovered the spinning wheel and sent us to our slumbers.  Now a crone scowls at me from the mirror, but I did not live those years.  I did not live. The princess awoke bursting with life as ripe as a summer peach, but those who shared her sleep bend like ancient willows and fade like autumn roses. Are we old before our time or are we living beyond our years?  It is a puzzle that tests my wits, but I can find no answer.

Illustration for Sleeping Beauty by Liz Wong

My sorrows aside now, let me tell you about that day. The princess was a beauty and sweet.  But never more sweet than when webs were spinning behind her green eyes. It seemed she knew, even from a child, that only the merry and fulsome paraded past her window—that the light and laughter hid darkness and tears. In the scullery, they counted on her kindness and the gifts she would tuck among the dinner plates for those with miseries at home. How she guessed the truth of grieving widows and hungry tots, I cannot avow, but maids gossip on staircases and footmen whisper in halls.  Perhaps she had been seeking the spindle all her days.

She awoke that morning quiet and mournful, with eyes that would not meet my own.  “Why so glum, Your Highness?” I asked her. “Whatever your worry, tis not the end of the world.”  But, in truth, it was.  She had long been at her lessons when the tutor, a dozy, old sot, awoke from a nap to find her vanished from her writing desk.  All in a flurry, stable boys and chamberlains, parlor maids and almoners flew through the palace calling out her name. The queen, in her bedroom, wept. I cannot speak to the tales of an old woman waiting at the wheel, for that is not what I saw.  In that last heartbeat before we tumbled into darkness, I threw open the door at the top of the tower and I saw Princess Aurora, her hand upon the spindle, smiling at her finger, pricked and beaded with blood.  Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale “Little Briar Rose”.

I’m stuck!  Without benefit of burning bush or fiery wheel, this lunchtime epiphany smacked me right between the eyes, leaving me open-mouthed and staring at my last bite of salad. Salad–my standard weekday lunch–my default when I can think of nothing else to eat. Amid the chaos, salad has been a mainstay, an easy choice, a bulwark in the face of confusion.  I read somewhere that Einstein always wore sweaters, so he didn’t have to waste his time on choices sartorial.  Salads are my culinary equivalent.  But as I considered the lettuce, dangling from my fork like a limp and oily banner, I realized I had fallen into a rut, perpetually standing at the salad bar while around me the pastas and the panini; the goulashes and the gyros languished untouched.

This is not what I expected.  How could I be stuck?  Map the last eight years of my life and you’ll witness my pinball progression.  Four moves, three jobs, one divorce and a graduate degree, stuck is the last thing I should be.  But there it was staring me in the face and dripping Italian dressing on my spreadsheets. To my surprise, realizing my state came as a relief.  For what is stuck, can be unstuck.  In fact therein lies the stuff of great literature.  Stories, the really good ones–whether fiction or fact–are about people trading in their Velcro for Teflon.  I can do that.  You can do that.  It only takes a shift in perspective.

I’ll allow that shifting a viewpoint isn’t always as easy as picking a burger over a bowl of lettuce.  Sometimes it takes a jolt to the system like Dorothy’s tornado or Jonah’s great fish or sticking your finger on a spindle to make you see that the safe cocoon you’ve wrapped around your life has grown too small.  Sleeping Beauty could have chosen to turn away when she came upon the chance to learn something new, something that was not part of her limited and artificial world.  It is so easy to opt for what feels safe, when the great universe beyond the edge of your knowledge and experience rises up so huge and scary.  And once you chosen the new over the known, it’s natural to take time to process, to sleep on it as the house spins and the sea roars and the vines grow up around the castle walls.  But when we’re rested and ready, when we square our shoulders and step up to the edge, we realize that this is what life is all about, seeking the whats and the what ifs and, most importantly, sharing what we learn along the way.

(The video included here by The Avett Brothers is wonderful, except for the first 50 seconds or so, which is kind of lame.  But if you stick it out, I guarantee, you’ll be glad you did.  Trust me!)

 

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”.

Kissing Frogs

Bzzz…slurp!  Gladia’s eyes snapped up from her plate.  Where a moment before a little fly had hovered, there remained only air.  That thing, that green complected freeloader, had actually flicked his tongue out over her candied yams…OVER HER YAMS…and snatched up the fly.  At the end of the royal table, her father clapped and shouted, “Well, done!”  While all of her sisters giggled behind their hands and shot her smug, triumphant glances.  Harpies!  This couldn’t be happening.  She was a princess.  Beautiful, adored…and, yes, a little spoiled…but had she really done anything so wrong?  It was a promise to a frog…a frog, for heaven’s sake.  Surely her father could find some way to make the slimy thing hit the bricks…literally.  Or maybe she could solve the problem on her own.  What could be more gracious than inviting her little guest on an after dinner walk?   A stroll around the castle.  A visit to the stables.  Lots of lovely flies in the stables, dear froggy.  But do mind the horses.  Mustn’t get under their hooves…their big, heavy hooves.  Gladia smiled and tucked her delicate chin to her chest.  With perfect poise, she would endure this first, and hopefully last, dinner with the pushy amphibian.  Now she could afford to be congenial; she had a plan.  Oh dear, the nasty thing just winked at her.  Who does he think he is a handsome prince?  Inspired by “The Frog Prince”.

Plato and a platypus walk into a bar.  When the bartender gave the philosopher a quizzical look, Plato shrugged and said, “What can I say?  She looked better in the cave.” Source: Plato and a Platypus: How to Understand Philosophy through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

OR…”Before you find your handsome prince (or princess), you have to kiss a lot of frogs.”  Popular Wisdom.

Across the course of my life, I have kissed a lot of frogs.  Bull frogs, peepers, toads and hoppers, I’ve kissed them all, always believing that the next gooey smooch might be the one that ends in happily ever after.  What can I say?  I’m nothing if not determined.  But before you assume my long history of amphibian osculation is limited to romantic entanglements, I should explain that I have courted frogs in every area of my life from jobs to education to domiciles.  For each new situation, I don my rose-colored glasses and blind myself to the inconvenience of warty, green reality. Plato would tell me that I was making choices based on shadows rather than truth and he would be right (The Allegory of the Cave).  But where is an ancient Greek philosopher when you need one?  In a world of reality TV and 24/7 advertising, I suspect the old Athenian would throw up his hands and concede the shadows had won.

If you’re like me, you work hard to make the right choices.  But the hours I spend considering the pros and cons, asking advice, and collecting information typically result in me feeling completely overwhelmed and then surrendering to my best guess.  So many of my decisions were not meant to be permanent, but patches to get me over the gaps where my plans had frayed.  Looking back, my life stretches away like an existential crazy quilt of incompatible hues and fabrics, hurriedly basted together against the day when I would come back and put everything right.  Now, I just hope all the stitches hold.   

For the princess and Plato, their decisions were only as good as their best information.  The princess had no clue that the viridian-faced interloper in her life was a handsome prince ready to make all of her dreams come true.  In the joke, it takes the hard light of day for Plato to see the beauty he chatted up in the shadowy cave isn’t all he hoped she would be.  Despite all of the popular advice about how easy it is to turn your world around, to reorganize, to reboot and live a new life free of complications and mistakes, we still can only know what we know, pieces of the big picture will always be hidden.  Though I like to think I’ve kissed my last frog, I can’t be sanguine about my chances.  Every day is full of choices–most of them little ones, thank goodness–but for the big ones, the ones that cause my palms to sweat and my muscles to tense, I’m going to load up on the lip gloss.  After all, to find the hidden prince, we have to take a leap and kiss the frog.   

 

All The Better

Underneath the canopy of leaves, yesterday’s rain plunged to the forest floor–each drop a hesitant jumper seeking annihilation in the moldering undergrowth.  Ruby’s scarlet hood flared against the gray and umber of the ancient oaks.  Her breath burst visible in the chilly air.  Ahead in the clearing waited her grandmother’s house, a thin line of smoke rising from the chimney.  Today, no sunlight stole through the  branches to warm the cottage’s thatched roof.  Today, no birdsong filled her ears with the sounds of joy on the wing.  Today something different rode the mist, not a scent or a feel, but a voice, perhaps, one that whispered to Ruby of nameless worries and half-remembered dreams.  She stepped from the path and up to the door, softly tapping on the age-darkened wood.  From within came a rustle and a clatter.   Then a voice rough with the morning and disuse called out, “Who’s there?”  Ruby lifted the latch and leaned into the room, “Nana Rose, are you okay?  You sound…different?”  (Inspired by the fairytale “Little Red Riding Hood.”)

My father was a destination guy rather than someone who kicked back and enjoyed the journey.  When he traveled, his complete focus was on getting from point A to point B in the least amount of time with the fewest distractions.  Eight hours in the back seat as he silently piloted the family sedan out of the rolling hills of central Missouri on our way to the flat cornfields of southern Iowa seemed torture to two little girls given to boredom and motion sickness.  On the visits to my brothers’ families, I don’t remember ever stopping to read a commemorative plaque or to take pictures of a scenic overview.  Even the tantalizing promises of Hannibal’s  significant past never merited a detour.  Since his job kept him traveling for 49 weeks out of the year, the last place Dad wanted to be when his vacation rolled around was away from the farm and his own bed and his chair at the head of the table.  Everything else was just getting there and getting home.

Dad approached life in the same focused way.  He had been born into a world full of wolves.  Early on World War I, the Spanish flu and the Great Depression had etched his expectations, leaving him no comfort for living in the moment or letting the future take care of itself.  He may have politely listened to the Sunday morning admonitions about the lilies of the field, but in his heart he knew safety and security were not among the gifts of grace.  Even lilies tremble when the wolves begin to howl.  For my parents and their contemporaries, keeping the wolf from the door meant never straying from the path, never stopping to smell the roses.   But as Red Riding Hood learns, monsters can turn up along the most well-trodden paths.  It is the enemy within that so often is our downfall.

The biggest challenge in my life is dealing with the wolf in the mirror.  And there are days when my inner Red Riding Hood has to use all of her hard-won wisdom to keep from being devoured.  When the wolf whispers its disappointment in my apartment, Red remembers that I live in a nice neighborhood and have plenty of room.  When the wolf whines about the state of my bank account, Red revels in knowing all of the bills are paid and my paycheck is steady.  And when the wolf gasps at the latest age spot or gray hair, Red drags me out the door to walk until I remember that, though my packaging may no longer be factory perfect, all of my moving parts still work. 

In the early days of a new year, I always find myself considering how I will make this year different than those that have gone before.  I avoid hard and fast resolutions, but choose instead to embrace fuzzier aspirations such as “laughing more” and “worrying less”.  In particular, I like to imagine that somehow Red and I will tame the wolf or at least relocate it to a spot deeper in the forest where its howls will keep me mindful but not anxious.  As frightening as it can be, I need the wolf’s focused and slightly glowering presence as much as I need Red’s joie de vivre–for the wolf will get me to my destination, but the girl in the red hood will remind me to appreciate the distractions along the way.