Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Stain, the Mirror and the Log

After years – if not decades – of complaining about mirrors and people who waste their life in front of them, I today, suddenly, empirically, understood what mirrors are for. They are not only there to serve vanity and pamper some women’s bloated and narcistic egos. No. They have a rather practical purpose: to help avoiding embarrassment...

When tooth-brushing with little Sophie (5), I noticed a stain on her blouse. A brown stain. Choc-milk stain. I suggested to change the blouse. What impression does it make when she goes to Kindergarten with a stained blouse? My child, the dirty, unwashed one, the one in stained clothes... no! It is not so bad, she said, and marked a size by putting the tips of  her thumb and index finger together. “This is the size that is bad. Or bigger.”. A size a bit larger than a quarter or a 50 Eurocent coin. Okay, I thought. She is a girl. She knows better.

I brought her to Kindergarten, long good bye ceremony. I said hello to other parents, who looked at me in a somewhat indefinable way. Well. I went to my office. I passed by that silvery light reflecting pane on the wall and... I saw it. IT. THE STAIN! Not a little stain. Not a bit of choc on a little girl’s blouse. It was a huge stain, stretching almost from shoulder to shoulder. White stuff covering much of the chest area of my expensive dark shirt. Now I recalled what I forgot on that stressful morning after a long, sleepless, humid, tropical night. I had forgotten that baby Stella had emptied the content of her stomach onto me last night. I had forgotten that my favourite shirt was covered with half digested milk all over. All that would not have happened, if I simply had dressed up in front of the mirror in our sleeping room – the huge mirror ranging from floor to ceiling. The mirror I always hated, because it always reminds me of – me. It always shows me mercilessly who I am – at least on the outside. So they do serve a purpose, those mirrors! And the whole thing reminds me of the biblical proverb about the log in the eye. While being concerned about Sophie’s little stain, I was one huge walking stain myself...

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