Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Looking in the Mirror

When you were a little girl, did you ever weave a chain of daisies? That was fun! Great fun!

Now, it is almost as much pleasure to loop together a chain of thoughts. Thoughts, or ideas, are sometimes much like links in a chain. One leads to another; and they are connected, though rather loosely.

Time is not a factor. Your mind and memory and imagination can leap over the years to the past, come swiftly back to the present, and then skip on to the future -- picking up and rounding out thoughts as they go.

Recently, a news article about a Troy, Alabama horse seeing himself in a mirror a hundred years ago brought to mind bits and pieces of a poem by Robert Burns or some other famous bard. It must have been Burns.

Anyway, reading about the horse and the mirror brought back these few lines:

“O, would some Power the giftie gie’ us To see ourselves as ithers see us.”

The horse and mirror news item was printed in “The Montgomery Advertiser in its daily column titled “From Advertiser Files.” It read:

“On this date: 100 years ago (Sept. 29, 1880)--The Troy Enquirer relates that the gate to Dr. S.D. Wilson’s horse lot was left open. A horse began to explore the premises and walked through the open front door of the house and down the hail to the parlor. There he saw his image in a large mirror.

“The doctor walked in and found the animal standing very still in front of the parlor mirror. Gentle persuasion by the doctor led the horse out of the house (and back) to the lot.”

Are we not a bit like that horse? And the poet? Don’t we often “stand very still in front of the parlor mirror”? Are we not captivated by the image we see? And do we not fancy that the person we see reflected in the mirror is the “us” that all our friends and acquaintances see?

Of course we think this. But we are mistaken. Our reflection in the mirror has all features reversed. So, don’t depend on a mirror to let you see yourself as “ithers” see you! And there’s no need to turn to photographs because pictures can either flatter you or fail to do you justice.

There is no way we can see ourselves as we truly are. Yet, why be concerned! Perhaps we should be thankful!

One of my dearest old friends, Mrs. Carla Metcalf of Enterprise, who is older than Enterprise itself--way up in her nineties--once told me that she had “quit looking into the looking glass years ago!”

What my aged friend meant was that as she had lived her life she had come to realize that how a person looks in the face is not so important after all. The dear Alabama lady was right!

In view of this, let’s try the kind of gentle persuasion the good Troy doctor used on his horse and get ourselves away from the mirror and away from worrying over how we look.

It just might be that our family, friends, and acquaintances who see us day after day place more value on a kind and living heart than on a pretty face. Faces wrinkle. Hearts don’t.

You can add more links to this chain of thoughts we’ve started. Try going on from the heart to the mind, then perhaps to the soul. Weave your thought-link deep; make it profound. Or, smooth if off as a light idea that will bring you joy and put a smile on your face!

Ah, now that “smile” could be woven into another whole link! If, when you look into the mirror and see a smile on your face,...

You finish it!

Published November 1980. Click your browser’s ‘Back’ button to return.