The way she looks at herself in the mirror.
How children can teach us how to love ourselves again.
She looked in the mirror, which she had many times before, but this time it was a different look. It was more than a look. She noticed herself. Like how you can look at the rain outside or you can notice how the rain on the window slowly and delicately dances across the glass. The way you can look at a person or you can notice the unique features in their face that make them, them. The way you can look at a room and see the room or you can notice the different colors and shapes and sizes and textures that make up the room.
Once she noticed herself, she paused. A pause that felt much longer than it likely was. Her eyes staring deep into herself in the reflection of the mirror. She looked up at us then back at herself and what followed was something that I can only seem to sum up with one word - Goodness. She smiled the most pure smile someone could as she noticed herself. She looked again back at us as we smiled along with her and at her. She then looked back at herself and smiled even bigger.
She’s six months now and almost every time we pass by a mirror in our house or in public we pause long enough so she can notice herself and smile. My wife started saying some version of, “Who is that? Is that your friend?! Say hi Self. I love you Self!” I don’t know what prompted her to say those exact words but every time she says them I experience something deep within me. I experience many things at the same time. Things that years ago I would have been disconnected from. They would have still been happening within me but I wouldn’t have known because I was so far away from them. I’m grateful that I can notice them now.
What I experience is the awe and beauty of witnessing my daughter love herself. At least that’s what I think is happening as she smiles at her reflection. I experience a sadness for not knowing the last time I looked at myself in the mirror and just smiled. I experience grief, present and future, for the time that I know all to sadly will come when she looks at herself in the mirror and doesn’t smile but feels and thinks all kinds of untrue things about herself.
I notice the tears as I write this knocking on the door wondering if it’s okay for them to come out because there’s this sense of deep knowing that moment will come for her. A reality of life that I’ve become familiar with and at the same time don’t wish was true. That reality being the knowing that something tragic and broken will happen. I wrestle with the desire to avoid that sure thing happening.
Wrestle is an interesting word to use there, isn’t it? It assumes that thing I’m wrestling with is something I need to control and assert dominance over in order for it to not be anymore. What would happen if we focus more on practicing acceptance? What if acting like it won’t happen or trying to ignore it when it does happen actually adds tragedy to the tragedy?
Whatever the opposite is of noticing yourself in the mirror and smiling, I tend to have more of those moments. I suppose that’s part of growing up. Becoming unfamiliar and even disapproving of yourself and then finding your way back to the Goodness of those pure moments. The ones where you used to notice yourself in the mirror and smile at your existence.
I write about this, if anything, to allow these moments in the mirror with her to sink in deeper. With the hope that when she gets older and the mirror gets clouded and starts reflecting the brokenness of life, I can be there to hold her hand and invite her back into these pure moments.
The moments where she noticed herself and simply, smiled.
The Invitation
May this story invite you to think back to those pure moments before your mirror got cloudy. Notice what it’s like as you try and remember your younger self.
May you to look into the mirror today and say your version of “Who is that? Is that your friend?! Say hi Self. I love you Self!” and notice what that experience is like.
Hmm, this one resonated with me as I think of my own daughter, now 29, with a PhD biochemist, working for a biotech incubator of sorts. She’s among the smartest and strongest people I know ... but I also know that she looks in the mirror and thinks she’s not good enough. When the heck did that happen? I sometimes wish that I could step back in time and find that first gaze that was not appreciative, that first critical self-assessment, and somehow turn it aside ... but I can’t. I can only love her now.
Beautiful post, how wonderful your daughter has such a heart-centred father.
I think my daughter was about 9 months (she’s almost 3 now) when she started kissing the mirror and lingering there, I remember thinking ‘self love at its finest!’
Your writing made me reflect on how long it’s been since I’ve lingered lovingly at the mirror (certainly a lot to do with being a mother) a practice I used to do when I was single for a long time, I would get very close to the mirror, whereby my focus was blurred, and I could feel what discomfort was arising in my body and stay until I’d ‘held’ myself through it. It was a powerful way to see without ‘looking’ (fixating on the physical), yet still deeply honouring the physical.