The fan roars in my room, perhaps it wishes it were a helicopter, and I almost want to rip it from the ceiling and set it free out my window. Its artifical wind moves the inanimate particles around my room, and I see a picture flap. As I move closer I see something amazing, and utterly impossible for me to digest; the version of myself as I was as a child.
When we are babies, one of the things we are drawn to first (other than our darling mothers) are mirrors. We are fascinated by the matching thing that moves with us, and we struggle to understand what that thing is in front of us.
As children, our faces are compact. Our noses are cute, little markings, a hill with slits. Our lips are narrow ways to filter a smile. And our cheeks have the loveliest texture, one you will spend your adult life pumping with moisturizer to try and excavate.
But as I stare at a picture of myself, I wonder who that girl is. Why is it so hard to accept that she is me? I see her, looking at me, and I think that accepting the Self is that daunting equation that never balances on both sides. But there is one thing, one thing I see that tells me that she is me, I was her; those eyes.
Our eyes are the only constant we are given. They are the same size, refusing to grow, to shrink, to comply with gravity. The sit, huddled in the socket, seperated from the weak parts of the body. And how strange to use them, these blue eyes, to examine ourselves through a picture. So many levels of self-image collide that I am floating between shattered perception and the concrete certainty of being alive.
She is adorable, I think. Does this make me a narcassist? I think it does. But it's true, I was so sweet once.
I think there is safety that there is still a part of me locked away, unshaken by the quakes the years have upturned. That one day, when my back is arched and my skin hangs like forgotten streamers, I will hold my youth beneath my brow, slightly above my nose. That though the world may become more blurry, less poignant, these eyes will still hide beneath the curtain of my blond eyelashes, secure in their steadfastness.
And yet there is a sadness in it. A sadness that I am the one person who sees these eyes the least. That my moments gazing into the mirror, hoping to dip into my head through my tear ducts, are a seperated vision, nothing compared to how others watch me. They see me from the angles, the sneaky sides and forgiving heights. How unfair, how angry it makes me, to not know myself as well as them. But perhaps that is best, for I do not wish to fall into the lake of my own pleasant reflection (as our poor Greek friend).
When we are babies, one of the things we are drawn to first (other than our darling mothers) are mirrors. We are fascinated by the matching thing that moves with us, and we struggle to understand what that thing is in front of us.
As children, our faces are compact. Our noses are cute, little markings, a hill with slits. Our lips are narrow ways to filter a smile. And our cheeks have the loveliest texture, one you will spend your adult life pumping with moisturizer to try and excavate.
But as I stare at a picture of myself, I wonder who that girl is. Why is it so hard to accept that she is me? I see her, looking at me, and I think that accepting the Self is that daunting equation that never balances on both sides. But there is one thing, one thing I see that tells me that she is me, I was her; those eyes.
Our eyes are the only constant we are given. They are the same size, refusing to grow, to shrink, to comply with gravity. The sit, huddled in the socket, seperated from the weak parts of the body. And how strange to use them, these blue eyes, to examine ourselves through a picture. So many levels of self-image collide that I am floating between shattered perception and the concrete certainty of being alive.
She is adorable, I think. Does this make me a narcassist? I think it does. But it's true, I was so sweet once.
I think there is safety that there is still a part of me locked away, unshaken by the quakes the years have upturned. That one day, when my back is arched and my skin hangs like forgotten streamers, I will hold my youth beneath my brow, slightly above my nose. That though the world may become more blurry, less poignant, these eyes will still hide beneath the curtain of my blond eyelashes, secure in their steadfastness.
And yet there is a sadness in it. A sadness that I am the one person who sees these eyes the least. That my moments gazing into the mirror, hoping to dip into my head through my tear ducts, are a seperated vision, nothing compared to how others watch me. They see me from the angles, the sneaky sides and forgiving heights. How unfair, how angry it makes me, to not know myself as well as them. But perhaps that is best, for I do not wish to fall into the lake of my own pleasant reflection (as our poor Greek friend).
So for now, I will stare at pictures, aghast yet satisfied that I am unchanging in the ways that are most important. That no matter how my hair lightens, body expands and thins, I will look out with the stoic poeticness that makes up the best set of all: my eyes.
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