A Good Look In A Full Length Mirror

by Florence Ondré    c.7/5/99

 

there it was staring back at me

full of doubt, discomfort and discouragement

the image of frustration and fearfulness

the judgement of years of not good enough

a frame around a forever changing façade

years flying by in reflection

looking good for nanoseconds

still, never quite good enough

 

breathing in bits of courage

prying eyes from the want to turn away

I glance at the nakedness of the familiar stranger in that glowering glass

someone I’m afraid I’ll know and not like

a blink and every wrinkle, bulge, bone and contour

cling to the lingering lens

all that I did not like or approve of was waiting there

 

tremulous, almost too quiet for dogs ears to hear

the words slip semi-silently from mouth to air

“You are beautiful.

You are worthy.

I love you.”

‘oh, not good enough’ rings in my ears

and I feel foolish and false

day after day, the same act plays out upon this silver-backed stagepiece

cardboard-cutout rote

until the moment arrives when the foolishness fades…a little…

when awkwardness softens, my gauging gaze befriends

when the bulges become curves; bones artistic angles;

wrinkles warmth of wear; hair a halo;

when the voice inside attempts more than

a whisper of the extended hand of friendship,

in soft reply,

‘yes’

‘yes, I might be’ ‘yes, I think I am’

‘yes’ unfolding from within me, in each new day;

each new lesson; each new opportunity to stretch my wings

and notice that they are stretching far beyond my wildest dreams

I’m a butterfly, a bluebird, an eagle,

a metamorphosis of all I was, thought I was, am now,

wished I could be and am becoming

spirit flying free

 

so much more than good enough

this reflection that faces me from within..

within a good look in a full length mirror.

 

 

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Once Upon A Wild Hair

by Florence Ondré

 

This morning I dragged out the 10 times magnifying glass and took a what everyone the sane world says you must do….a good look in a mirror!

Shock of shocks, the discovery was that I’d gone right past becoming my mother and straight to being my grandmother! …and every bushy, crazy looking, wild haired old woman I’d ever seen.

Yes, I was right up there on my own world list of wild haired women where I’d wondered, “how could she go out in public like that?  good god, how could she live with those crazy ass eyebrows?”

There in the light of day, I stood aghast at my window, peering thru my eyeglasses to the magnifying mirror (yes I need both to see anything now) and viewed my own eyebrows gone awry.

Wasn’t it recently I’d tweezed the errant chin hairs which so cruelly and capriciously grow when and where they want?  I took care of those little stubborn hard line, now thankfully white instead of dark colored bristles.  I may not be able to see you but I feel you and out you go.

Then I moved the glass to my eyebrows and saw I had farm work to do.

Hairs had sprouted like gmo wheat fields from my upper eyelid to my brows.  God, how could I go out in the world looking like a mad scientist!

Pluck pluck groom groom…gone gone.  Whew.

And then I spied the brows themselves…. Hey! Wait a sec!  Shouldn’t eyebrow hair be short?  What karma had I been dealt overnite, with some leaning into the maginot line; lengthy enough to hang down over castle turrets; long and strong enough to be braided for princes to climb upon?

What had I done to become Andy Rooney or deserve curls gone wild every which way but loose?

Memories of women I’d known whose facial hair seemed to explode in odd directions on their aging faces floated to consciousness and I reached the terminal at the end of platform ‘why me?’  I had become them.

I wondered if my friends who spend tons of money on face creams, depilatories and spas had arrived at this plateau, unhaired, or had they just had more time and money to hide the inevitable? s

Some whispered the truth.  Don’t tell me we are not all one.

Stow the baggage of judgement and surface ego on this trip called life.  It’s simply a matter of arrival time.  Just for today, I’m a bit dishevelled from that red eye.

And now that I’m momentarily presentable, where am I going?

To a children’s party… and you know these are our greatest critics!