The Mirror
The woman who wrote, "Men seldom make passes at women who wear glasses," understood the power of the mirror. You can’t bear to look, but neither can you look away. As our reflection in the mirror changes, it fascinates and frustrates. Our writers in this month’s issue confront the faces staring back. Appearances may only be skin deep, but these reflections go clean to the bone.
The Fraud In The Mirror
Word Count 739
Early in her career, my mother wrote copy for a fashion magazine where she learned to imitate how the models regarded themselves in the mirror. The pose. One leg slightly forward and bent, head held up, eyes on high beam, a look that broadcast, "I'm stunning."
Only my five-foot-odd Cockney mother could take full pleasure in posing the same way--one stocky peasant leg thrust forward, her head with its untamed mane held high, her eyes gleaming with unalloyed delight.
Whenever I watched her, getting ready for work, or an evening out, I'd wonder, "Who the hell do you think you are?“
I was also, however, becoming aware that reality can be malleable, shape-shifting. A concept that thrilled and unnerved me.
Nothing To See Here
Word Count 347
I wish I knew what I looked like then—as a surly, withdrawn teenager caged in an iron brace, rising from my leather-girdled pelvis to my chin, tilted upward by a padded bar. Traction pads on either side locked onto the frame, training my S- curved spine to erectness. Without the brace I listed to one side; with it I moved like a robot. At the time the brace was a miracle intervention, since the only other treatment for my severe scoliosis was surgery, to implant a steel rod.
I wore the brace for four years, from ages eleven through fourteen, with an hour off to bathe each day.
Cut It Off
Word Count 1423
“What would you like to do today?” asked the slender man behind me. Italian. I stared into the oversized mirror directly ahead. Slowly, he pushed his fingers through my long, wavy, burnt-orange hair toward my scalp, lifted, then ran them back down toward the ends.
“Cut it above the shoulders, please,” I said flatly. I knew there would be pushback. I pretended to check my texts to avoid confrontation.
My relationship with my hair was complicated. I hated being a redhead as a child. When I was 15, I was grounded for unsuccessfully trying to dye my hair blonde. Staring at the rows of dyes on the drug store shelf, I chose the box with the prettiest model—not understanding that the “temporary” label meant no bleach, and, thus no blonde. “You’ll like your hair when you’re older,” my mother would say in her thick southern accent. Older women were always stopping me. “You can’t get that color in a bottle,” they would say, seeming awestruck. They don’t know what cool looked like, I thought.
Black Mirror
Word Count 1143
When my siblings and I packed up our parents’ house in preparation for selling it to pay for their care, we unhooked no less than fourteen mirrors from the walls. My mother disliked looking in mirrors, just as she disliked having her photograph taken, but she delighted in the light that they catch and throw.
Before they became so terribly sick, I sometimes prowled their home with my camera. One of my favourite photographs is of the oval mirror in my father’s bedroom. Although he and I had a fractious relationship, when I look at this image I feel a tenderness close to love.
Mirror, Mirror
Word count: 1196
Three years old; Raleigh Avenue, Atlantic City
I lived with my parents in a sprawling, floor-through apartment steps from the boardwalk and beach. Glorious sunlight streamed in the south-facing bedroom windows, but the front rooms faced north and were frequently dark and cave-like. My mother, ever the clever decorator, hung as many mirrors as she could to lighten up those rooms. My parents were somewhat indifferent to me. My mother was a career woman and my father was already in his fifties. I was an only child, and since it never occurred to my parents to enroll me in pre-school or arrange playdates, I was left to my own devices for hours at a time. I had a playroom filled with toys, but I preferred slipping into the living room to stare into an enormous gilt-framed mirror propped against a wall. I didn’t accept or understand that the girl staring back was me; I thought she was another girl who just happened to be my twin.
The Light in Your Eyes Has Gone Out
Word Count 914
Behind a long, mahogany bar, colorful liquor bottles reflected off an antique mirror tarnished from over a century of cigarette smoke. The year, 1896, was meticulously carved into the corner of the bar. I traced the date with my finger, wondering how many others had sat on this very same stool mesmerized by the silhouette of amber-colored bottles crowded on shelves waiting to be summoned.
Dozens of photographs lined the walls, a cemetery of buried memories memorializing the past. Celebrities, who once frequented Woodstock’s infamous Bear Bar, kept silent watch from another era, in a room once filled with windows and light. One bad remodeling decision had replaced the windows with a mirror that extended the full length of the bar, transforming the room into a dark chamber of antiquity.
It’s A Shame You’re So Ugly
Word Cout 1299
In the upstairs bathroom at my grandparents’ home, I first discovered the friend in the mirror. The mirror itself was ornate, antique, like everything in my grandparents’ home. I traced my finger meditatively around the gold frame surrounding the mirror’s edge. I would glance up and see her there in the glass, waiting to catch my eye, my friend.
On some level, I knew that she was me. She had the same brown hair, green eyes, freckles. When I spoke to her, she understood me. We laughed and smiled and sometimes no words were needed. I told her jokes and secrets. I loved her.
How’s the Weather Up There?
Word Count 741
It’s easy to spot me in my class pictures from elementary school: I’m in the top row at the top of a pyramid, not just the tallest girl in the class, but the tallest kid. My smile looks a little forced, as if the dimples in my cheeks were being held in place by two invisible poking fingers.
“How’s the weather up there?” boys would ask me on the playground. I’m fairly certain they weren’t expecting an answer. Other kids would simply call me “Daddy Long Legs.”
I See You
Word Count 416
There aren’t many mirrors that will show a palsied girl her limp. The one in the shoe store I could prepare for. The one in an empty storefront always caught me off guard. None of the mirrors at home would reveal it. You need space to capture the awkward moves.
In my teens and early twenties, I made up for this by finding fault elsewhere. Hair in waves that never listened. Nose both too long like my mother’s and too wide like my dad’s. Chin speckled with blackheads. I buried the rarely seen limp in the messy closet my consciousness.
Who Am I?
Word Count 564
Confession, I freak myself out a bit if I stare too long in a mirror. A pluck of a rogue chin hair or a hurried application of make-up, and I’m on my way. If I peer beyond the physiognomy of my 50-something reflection, I begin to feel trippy.
Who or what am I, really? I start asking myself.
Am I simply a collection of cells accumulated from European nationalities?
Is This a Skinny Mirror?
Word Count 600
“Is this a skinny mirror?” It was the number one question I heard throughout my years owning a ladies clothing boutique. The woe of being too curvy or too small breasted filled my days and became a study in the female fight to be enough.
As the daughter of a “garmento”, opening a boutique had always been my dream. Before owning my own shop, I worked with large fashion giants and small privately owned shops across America. I helped the designers style celebrities, dignitaries, and even First Ladies. In that time, I learned that the mirror, alongside an honest opinion, was the combo that sealed the deal.
Hope in a Jar
Word Count 451
My husband and I walk past a luxe cosmetics shop, its gleaming doors propped open, on the way to our hotel room when a man dashes out of the glittery shop.
“Come-Come-Come!” He playacts urgency with sweeping gestures and a phony Michael Caine accent.
I feel adventurous on our splurge weekend at Ala Moana in Honolulu and let him take me by the hand. The entire store smells of gardenia. He seats me on a velvet chair while my husband, arms folded across his chest, hovers at a protective distance.