Look in the Mirror

How many times a day do you see your reflection? No matter how often you look, though, you never see yourself as fully as others see you. How shocked we often are when we first see ourselves on video or hear our taped voices! Can that really be me? Who is that wonderful or wretched creature, anyway?

Yet we do look in the mirror. And we see: eyes (do my brows need trimming?); nose (is it clean and "hair free"?); skin (look at those dark shadows under my eyes!); hair (oh, why won't it do anything today?); mouth (no toothpaste spillage; no spinach on my teeth); ears (are they clean?)and on and on we check off "parts".

I invite you each day when you've finished all that primping to take a moment and smile into the eyes of that person in the mirror. Maybe say something nice, like "I like you" or "Have a good day". It's almost embarrassing the first time you look deep into your own eyes. But it can be very healing, tender, loving, hopeful, too. No what ifs, no comparisons, no anguish about aging; just love for your self in all its complexity and beauty. And some days you may want to give your self a little poke or jolt or lecture. That's love, too.

Here's a wonderful Derek Wolcott poem which my friend, Trudy, reminded me of on her blog the other day.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another; who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


May you love, laugh, listen, look, truly see, breathe and stay warm!