When we were growing up, we had a TV rule: only one hour of TV per day, but sometimes we got to watch videos. We didn't buy videos back then, so we could only watch the ones that had been recorded off the TV. These included a bunch of live action fairy tale films, the Cannon movie tales. My mother's favorite was The Frog Prince, so that was one we watched a little more often. My sister an I memorized songs and dialogue for fun, and quoted them back to each other. Like anything you spend a lot of time on as a child, phrases from that and other films from my childhood come frequently to my mind. One such quote is from the frog. Stationing the young princess in front of a mirror, he tells her to look at her reflection. "If you look long enough, you'll see how other people see you." So she stands reluctantly before the mirror, and slowly raises her head to study her reflection with the eyes of a stranger. I used to practice this, and I do still, sometimes, try to study myself in the mirror with the eyes of a stranger, straining to see myself impartially: to see the good, a balanced view, and not just the familiar and contemptible.
I wish there were a mirror for the soul or for the heart. Some place I could look to see an impartial reflection of who I really am. I know my own view, but the snatches of me that I see through the eyes of others intrigue me, as if there is much more to me than I ever realized and, just like my eyes can change the entire character of my face if I choose to notice them, there is some part of my inner self that can change the whole picture of who I am, if I only could concentrate on an impartial picture. In the last few months I have received much more input than is usual in the normal run of existence. As I travel through this time of transition, people I have journeyed with are passing out of my every day sphere, as they pass, they leave me words, words of love and of encouragement. I am striving to hear those words, to save them, to record them in my soul as an altar, as a memorial, as a reminder, as a mirror. Perhaps the input of these people is not as impartial as a true mirror would be, but the more sides of myself I see, the more balanced will be the eventual picture.
As I go through the next eight weeks or so, struggling further with change and transition, I will finish my final project, accomplish the long list of "before I can leave," purchase that plane ticket, and start a new life in another place, but I will always treasure the words of encouragement and love from the people I will leave behind. It is these people who have helped me to be who I am, and it is those words that spur me on to be more, to strive, to live, to pursue the path laid before me with joy.
