When I was 19 I couldn't stop staring at myself in the mirror. It was like I had discovered another country and wanted to immerse myself in it's culture full time. One night, driving through Brussels in the passenger seat of my mother's Nissan, I was lovingly gazing at my reflection in the window and was embarrassed out of my reverie to see a man in the car next to ours mimicking me.
The Japanese have a concept called wabi sabi, the recognition that beauty is ever changing and incomplete. It's been a long time since I've adored my own reflection. There isn't even a full length mirror in my apartment. My hair is graying and there are more lines on my forehead when I laugh - which is a lot. And little tiny crows feet spreading from the sides of my usually squinting eyes.
But my son tells me everyone at school thinks I'm his older sister. Which puffs me up for the short minute it takes me to realize we live in a community where there are a lot of grandmothers the same age as me.
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