"To show one's face is part of having the courage to show who one is. And coming to terms with your own face takes a lifetime. Just think how, when you were twelve or sixteen, you wished you looked different. And that's true for everyone; even the most perfect, beautiful boy or girl is dissatisfied. So why is that? It can't just be that I don't look like the model on the magazine cover. It's something else. You haven't yet accepted your fate, who you are. As you get older, that relationship between your face and who you are matures. They blend together. Your true self shows more."
--James Hillman, from an interview in The Sun magazine, August 2000
This month on the mirror ball, you are invited to look into a mirror and share your reflection(s).
Ken:
When I was six or seven, I had a huge friggin' nose (HFN). I'd look in a mirror, and it seemed to me that my HFN took up half the real estate on my face. My brothers endlessly ridiculed me for my HFN. My mother chastised my siblings and said that my HFN was a sign of distinction. Friends mostly ignored it, sometimes teased me and even occasionally said they liked it, though of course I never believed any positive aspects of their reactions. For fifteen years, I was continually self-conscious about the beak, fantasizing almost daily about a nose job. But then sometime in college, I was telling a new friend how unhappy I was about my HFN, and her response was, "What huge friggin' nose?" Of course, I thought she was just being polite. But she insisted, and actually got a mirror and a ruler, and in the bathroom, using an angled double mirror so I could see my profile, we measured my nose. And I realized something that somehow I had managed to be blind to: For the previous fifteen years, my face and its non-nose features had grown around my nose, which had stayed the same. The nose that on a six year old took up an inordinate amount of face space, on an adult was a pretty normal size nose. Amazingly, even though I had presumably looked in a mirror thousands of times during the previous decade, my preconception of myself as HFN-impaired overrode an visual evidence to the contrary. The identity I'd had foisted upon me had been strong enough to override the factual reality that presented itself to me every day. In talking to people about this, I don't think my experience was particularly unique. When we're younger, our self-perceptions of how we look can be reflections of others' perceptions. But with aging, I think it grows easier to shed the view through others' eyes, and have a more realistic perception and acceptance of how we truly appear.
John:
I wrote this poem in college, when I was about 31 or 32:
Bust
There's a photo of a reproduction
Of a copy by the Romans
Of the 400 B.C. Greek's
Bust of you in
The New Yorker.
Did you really run and jump,
Hurl flat things
And spear things,
Or were you the plaything
Of some rich citizen?
You have become "bronze
Patinated bonded stone,"
Eyes hollowed out,
Face a shape only or
Collage of shapes, straight
Nose, lips to make Oscar Wilde
Pen an ode, sable
Curls like piped icing.
Long dead boy we want
The shape of you still.
Not breath from panting
Mouth or smell
Of unwashed body.
Not words to gods
Or thoughts or tears,
Only cool stone surface
For eager fingers.
My own lip, scarred,
Shaped, reshaped by
Surgeon's hands, my nose
Of borrowed cartilage,
My gaping palate closed
In infancy, my jagged teeth
Brought straight in bands,
Are still too unlike yours.
I would be cool
To touch, and eyeless,
Breathless, thoughtless, perfect.
To the extent that I really felt this way when I wrote the poem --maybe I was just "putting on" the angst-y poet persona --I feel much less so today. Today I look at my face and am happy with what I see: the faint cleft palate scar, the laugh lines around my eyes, the gray whiskers and temples. It's good enough. It's just fine.
Lori F:
I didn't like my face very much when I was little. A girl at my bus stop told me I had Mick Jagger lips. Another 'friend' said my chin and nose were "pointy, like a witch."
In high school I cursed my face because I had awful, painful acne. I would put on gobs of makeup to try and hide it.
In college I gained a lot of weight, and my face was round, like the moon.
Today I am in my forties and I no longer dislike what I see in the mirror. I love my Mick Jagger lips and my pointy chin and nose. I really even love the laugh lines around my mouth and the squinty lines around my eyes.
I think your face should tell a story. My story says I like to smile a lot.
Richard:
I am not sure I understand and/or agree with Mr. Hillman's comments.
I do not see how accepting one's fate defines who one is and how that leads to appreciating what one might look like.
One's fate can always change.
Change your mind and you can change your fate.
Change your mind and you will change the way you see.
Change your mind and you might change the world.
Everything changes.
Perhaps knowing that, we might see the reflection in the mirror as just another stage of me.
Another version.
Another day.
Another worry.
Another joy.
Today's horror might be tomorrow's wonder.
And tomorrow's wonder will surely not last.
Perhaps this notion of change is what brings us closer to a peaceful relationship with our appearance.
Or perhaps it is our experience with time.
Over time we might begin to see that our appearance is not who we are at all.
We might begin to relinquish the very meness that stares back at us.
We might finally understand there is nothing to fear.
We might just let go and smile.
If you are fortunate enough to have a mirror to look into, be happy.
Look into your eyes.
Smile.
Melt.
Merge.
Steve:
For most of my life I'd look at photos of myself and dislike what I saw, only to look at the same photos a decade or two later and think, "hey, I looked nice. What was I so discontent with?" Maybe that happened enough times that eventually I was able to cut straight to the acceptance without having to wait ten years.
I'm also old enough now to know that the deep, off-center furrow between my brows will always be there and my nose will always be a little bent from having been broken twenty-five years ago. I guess I am becoming more fond of my particular combination of features even if they are not all the ones I would have chosen. Also, I am grateful to have lived for many years with a man who has told me time and time again that he likes what he sees.
Kristine:
i don't spend a lot of time looking at my face in the mirror (probably less then i should) but i remember,some years ago, the first time i caught my reflection in a shop window and thought it was my mother. yikes!!!!
i am 56 and my mother has been dead for over 10 years. now when i look in a mirror and see the resemblance it makes me smile and feel honored to carry her within me.
Tom:
Ken:
When I was six or seven, I had a huge friggin' nose (HFN). I'd look in a mirror, and it seemed to me that my HFN took up half the real estate on my face. My brothers endlessly ridiculed me for my HFN. My mother chastised my siblings and said that my HFN was a sign of distinction. Friends mostly ignored it, sometimes teased me and even occasionally said they liked it, though of course I never believed any positive aspects of their reactions. For fifteen years, I was continually self-conscious about the beak, fantasizing almost daily about a nose job. But then sometime in college, I was telling a new friend how unhappy I was about my HFN, and her response was, "What huge friggin' nose?" Of course, I thought she was just being polite. But she insisted, and actually got a mirror and a ruler, and in the bathroom, using an angled double mirror so I could see my profile, we measured my nose. And I realized something that somehow I had managed to be blind to: For the previous fifteen years, my face and its non-nose features had grown around my nose, which had stayed the same. The nose that on a six year old took up an inordinate amount of face space, on an adult was a pretty normal size nose. Amazingly, even though I had presumably looked in a mirror thousands of times during the previous decade, my preconception of myself as HFN-impaired overrode an visual evidence to the contrary. The identity I'd had foisted upon me had been strong enough to override the factual reality that presented itself to me every day. In talking to people about this, I don't think my experience was particularly unique. When we're younger, our self-perceptions of how we look can be reflections of others' perceptions. But with aging, I think it grows easier to shed the view through others' eyes, and have a more realistic perception and acceptance of how we truly appear.
John:
I wrote this poem in college, when I was about 31 or 32:
Bust
There's a photo of a reproduction
Of a copy by the Romans
Of the 400 B.C. Greek's
Bust of you in
The New Yorker.
Did you really run and jump,
Hurl flat things
And spear things,
Or were you the plaything
Of some rich citizen?
You have become "bronze
Patinated bonded stone,"
Eyes hollowed out,
Face a shape only or
Collage of shapes, straight
Nose, lips to make Oscar Wilde
Pen an ode, sable
Curls like piped icing.
Long dead boy we want
The shape of you still.
Not breath from panting
Mouth or smell
Of unwashed body.
Not words to gods
Or thoughts or tears,
Only cool stone surface
For eager fingers.
My own lip, scarred,
Shaped, reshaped by
Surgeon's hands, my nose
Of borrowed cartilage,
My gaping palate closed
In infancy, my jagged teeth
Brought straight in bands,
Are still too unlike yours.
I would be cool
To touch, and eyeless,
Breathless, thoughtless, perfect.
To the extent that I really felt this way when I wrote the poem --maybe I was just "putting on" the angst-y poet persona --I feel much less so today. Today I look at my face and am happy with what I see: the faint cleft palate scar, the laugh lines around my eyes, the gray whiskers and temples. It's good enough. It's just fine.
Lori F:
I didn't like my face very much when I was little. A girl at my bus stop told me I had Mick Jagger lips. Another 'friend' said my chin and nose were "pointy, like a witch."
In high school I cursed my face because I had awful, painful acne. I would put on gobs of makeup to try and hide it.
In college I gained a lot of weight, and my face was round, like the moon.
Today I am in my forties and I no longer dislike what I see in the mirror. I love my Mick Jagger lips and my pointy chin and nose. I really even love the laugh lines around my mouth and the squinty lines around my eyes.
I think your face should tell a story. My story says I like to smile a lot.
Richard:
I am not sure I understand and/or agree with Mr. Hillman's comments.
I do not see how accepting one's fate defines who one is and how that leads to appreciating what one might look like.
One's fate can always change.
Change your mind and you can change your fate.
Change your mind and you will change the way you see.
Change your mind and you might change the world.
Everything changes.
Perhaps knowing that, we might see the reflection in the mirror as just another stage of me.
Another version.
Another day.
Another worry.
Another joy.
Today's horror might be tomorrow's wonder.
And tomorrow's wonder will surely not last.
Perhaps this notion of change is what brings us closer to a peaceful relationship with our appearance.
Or perhaps it is our experience with time.
Over time we might begin to see that our appearance is not who we are at all.
We might begin to relinquish the very meness that stares back at us.
We might finally understand there is nothing to fear.
We might just let go and smile.
If you are fortunate enough to have a mirror to look into, be happy.
Look into your eyes.
Smile.
Melt.
Merge.
Steve:
For most of my life I'd look at photos of myself and dislike what I saw, only to look at the same photos a decade or two later and think, "hey, I looked nice. What was I so discontent with?" Maybe that happened enough times that eventually I was able to cut straight to the acceptance without having to wait ten years.
I'm also old enough now to know that the deep, off-center furrow between my brows will always be there and my nose will always be a little bent from having been broken twenty-five years ago. I guess I am becoming more fond of my particular combination of features even if they are not all the ones I would have chosen. Also, I am grateful to have lived for many years with a man who has told me time and time again that he likes what he sees.
Kristine:
i don't spend a lot of time looking at my face in the mirror (probably less then i should) but i remember,some years ago, the first time i caught my reflection in a shop window and thought it was my mother. yikes!!!!
i am 56 and my mother has been dead for over 10 years. now when i look in a mirror and see the resemblance it makes me smile and feel honored to carry her within me.
Tom:
I believe that James Hillman has made a bit of a false assumption. Sure, when I was younger, I wish I looked different. But, the underlying assumption seems to be that this is true for only the young. As we get older, it may be an overstatement to say we “accept our fate”. If that were true, cosmetic surgeons would be broke!
Today, I woke up with a big ol’ zit on my face. Right there, next to my big ol’ nose! Am I happy about it? No. Do I “accept” this? Not really. I mean, I guess I do in the sense that there’s not much I can do about it, but it will probably be on my mind all day. And, I’ll be putting cream or something on it in the hopes that the damn thing goes away. Hillman says that, as we grow older, the “relationship between your face and who you are matures”. But, today, I feel just as bothered by this stupid zit, at age 48 as I would have been at age 16. The only difference is that, at 16, it would have just been another zit to add to the already growing population of zits on my face.
Vanity is not just a crutch for the young and the only thing about my face that seems to have matured are the wrinkles. ;0)
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