the mirror

Mirrors have always fascinated me.

When a child, Mom and Dad (note the teamwork represented in my memory of facts) installed sliding mirror doors on our closets in all of the bedrooms in the house. I would sit in front of that sliding piece of vanity-inducing goodness for hours, often merely playing solitaire, a long-time favorite choice of personal entertainment. Or I would pretend to be a rock star.

This set-up proved most valuable when there were two teenage daughters in the house; instead of dominating the bathroom, our precious hair-care routine took place in our individual rooms.

My parents were so smart! However, the fact I could see my entire body when getting dressed did not assist me much in putting together ensembles that did not completely clash. After having taught those ages in a completely different culture than my own, I have come to decide that is a developmental stage, so-called color and pattern blindness and the desire to have one's own style not dictated to by anyone else.

That was Me.

I remember the night my maternal grandmother died. We got The Call at 2 a.m. and never went back to sleep. Nobody did. A major heart attack claimed my 62 year old Grandma in the middle of the night. (Yes, I am wearing red this coming Friday. Please join me.) I sat up the rest of the night, listening to the screaming anguish of my mother, my father making seemingly endless phone calls, lamp on, door cracked but not entirely closed (we had a no-closed door policy in my house; cracked was fine, no firm closure permitted), shuffling cards, listening to KTMT. Tears for Fears' song "Shout" must have been Billboard's #1 that week; it played all day long and every time I hear that song to this day I am carried back to that day when I sat in front of my mirror doors, playing Klondike or Four Aces or Clock or 13 pyramid...whatever...and watched myself cry and cry silent tears while Mom screamed the pain of her soul out. I was fourteen.

Mirrors later became an obsession. If there were anything into which I could catch a glance of my reflection, I would search it out to ensure hair was in place, the little make-up I wore was okay, nothing in my teeth; I had my secret checklist that would be fulfilled in car windows, oven doors and glass picture frames.

Undoing this vain practice has proved difficult. Even at an age in which I should now feel comfortable with who I am and how I represent myself to the world, I seek out my reflection constantly, same checklist in mind.

Perhaps I try to find something deeper, that little "spark" or detail that everyone else seems to see in me but that I cannot see in myself. If I look in enough mirrors, will that ever give me the opportunity to see me as others do?

Mirrors represent a constant search for a me that I, evidently, am not yet certain truly exists except through the eyes of others. What do mirrors represent for you?