Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Do you have a mirror problem? I do.

Let me explain.The mirror in our bathroom at home is a very nice mirror. I put my makeup on using that mirror. I gauge how I look on any given day, at any given hour, with that mirror. Before leaving the house, I will give a last look at my fully made up self in that mirror. Often, I will be thinking, “Not so bad, Claudia. You’re pulling it off!”

Then I will go out in public, catch a glimpse of myself in a window or see myself in another mirror, somewhere, and I will look nothing like I looked in my bathroom mirror. I look older, paler, and where the heck is my make-up?

I’d chalk it up to our mirror but the same thing is happening here. I blow dry my hair, do my make-up,  put on my lipstick and leave the hotel. I get to the rehearsal space and catch a glimpse of myself in a random mirror somewhere in the building and I go into shock.

Is it a cruel joke? Is every bathroom mirror a sort of funhouse mirror, but a funhouse mirror that makes you look your best? Perhaps they are engineered that way in order to give us the guts to even entertain the idea of leaving the house?

If only I could always be seen by others as I see myself in that mirror. A slightly softer focus, a golden light….almost like those shots of Doris Day in her later movies and on her television series, where there was clearly a filter of some kind on the camera.

Does this sort of thing happen to you, my friends? Do your mirrors act as true reflections or do they play little tricks on you?

Tell me I’m not the only one.