Reflections on a Photo of Myself

Is being loved the route to being real?

We’re on the cusp of peak color week here in northern New York. The Adirondacks are awash in reds, golds, and a kind of green specific to autumn that’s hard to describe. After a week of clear blue skies, we’re headed into a week of rain, which means slate gray days and pinkish-orange sunrises. Some of our dearest friends just left after a week here with their toddler and we spent a day driving and stopping and snapping photos and walking and eating and laughing and saying words like dog and blue and mas agua on repeat.

We pulled off the road in one spot and found a dappled gold space with the river tumbling behind it and took a few photos of our little families, him and her and him, and then a few of me and him. She glowed in theirs, the light hitting them right, their bronze skin beautiful against the backdrop. I looked at the ones of Nate and me later and quickly turned off my phone. That doesn’t look like me, I thought, not like the me I feel like inside.

Our house only had one small mirror until last year when I bought a full length mirror to hang on the wall of our bedroom. There is only one place in our bedroom where the eaves don’t drop low into the walls, only one space where a full length mirror can hang, and it is not a spot where one lingers to view themselves or models clothing or fits. It is a place one walks past, casting a quick glance if necessary before moving into the more important events of the day.

But as I thought about that photo I wondered if seeing myself as I am today is one of the most important events of my day?