By: Cia Huston Dreves
Many people look forward to spring as the time when it appears that all things are made new. Grasses green up. Trees leaf out. Flowers bloom. And it seems that our world is painted with a new palette. In addition to the world around us, we begin a transformation as well. We trade sweaters for lighter tops and heavy shoes for sandals. We open windows and look forward to a utility bill devoid of charges for either heat or air conditioning. We might even change our nail color or hair color or shades of makeup to reflect the newness of the season.
But in that newness, that change of seasons, we find that time marches on. It does not back up to begin itself again. The years do tick away. Sometimes we hardly notice. Sometimes it hits us like a ton of bricks. Often it isn’t the actual passage of time that we notice but the adjustments and alteration to the events in our lives. We notice the children are taller. Another birthday comes and goes. There are graduations, empty nests, weddings and funerals. And at some point, each of has remarked that we have no idea where the time has gone. What a strange remark considering that we have been present for the passage of every single day, every single minute.
Please forgive the unavoidable pun, but I began to reflect on the passage of time while looking in the mirror about a year ago. A mirror is a curious thing. We believe it to be an unbiased disclosure of ourselves to ourselves. That is not entirely true.
For one thing, in our own mirrors, we discern the passage of time. We have looked in the mirror to see the gap in our smile from the first tooth we lost. We have looked for the appearance of the dreaded teenage zit, and boys have studied their reflections long and hard for first signs of facial hair. We tend to look with dread for signs of aging. But the journey from the image of the first missing tooth to that of the first wrinkle is a part of our personal relationship with our mirror. And it truly is personal because we come to our mirror with expectations based on our history there. It seems to be that it is the loss of familiarity with our own face that catches us by surprise as we age.
Although some people in our daily lives have moved through the gradual “slowness of time” changes with us, others have only known us as we appear now. Surely the two groups would consider our appearance differently. So, another part of the untruth of the image in the mirror is that we believe it to be what other people see.
The mirror reflects accurately or inaccurately our own biased, adjusted, excused, exaggerated or diminished concept of what we look like to ourselves with absolutely no ability to convey to us what others see when they see us. The “me” in the mirror is two-dimensional and without animation. Each of us have had photographs taken that are genuinely flattering and some that are so ghastly we would likely pay to have them burned. The lack of animation in a photograph, like the image in the mirror, is incapable of reflecting more than a fraction of our personality. The way we move our mouths when we talk and whether or not we squint or frown when we speak or react to conversations or activities around us are part of the image others see. Although a photograph might capture the way our face appears to others when we are genuinely bored, disinterested or stressed, surely our mirror will not. We do not come to our mirror to look for those things.
Many years ago, while editing final footage for a documentary, my intention was to go through personal interview footage, frame by frame, to find the single image of each participant that best projected their complex personalities. Having interviewed and spent time with each of them, I knew exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to capture the heart of each of them. Even with endless hours of footage, it was not an easy task. Personality, hopes and hardships, successes and failures are all written in our faces but only appear in micro-moments. Sometimes a single frame of videotape will capture it all but surely not our morning moment in front of the mirror.
My seminal moment in front of the mirror has kept me pondering the issues of spring and the “all things made new” potential of the season since this time last year. Considering myself blessed with advancing years, I am loathe to complain about wrinkles and such. But my mirror, like yours, highlights today’s flaws just as it brings to mind and compares lovelier images of the past that remain in my mirror memory. Still, it is a relatively inconsequential, two-dimensional reflection of a complex and worthy person, rich in experience and alive with anticipation. So, I am coming to accept the aging “me in the mirror” to appreciate the memories there, and I’m working to improve the whole personality that actually defines me. I hope that others will see past the wrinkles to the kindness, gratitude and joy of springtime that are more accurate reflections of who and what I am.
Cia Huston Dreves enjoyed a 37 year career in Advertising as artist and writer before retiring. She has also written, directed and produced documentaries, published the How-To book “Find Cash in Your Kitchen” and maintains the blog, “Still Finding Cash” at blogspot.com.