Writing

It’s a cliché, of course, to “take a good look in the mirror.” Not just to check for zits or renegade eyebrow hairs or that bit of spinach left in the teeth after lunch, but to self-examine and grow in self-awareness, see what others see when they see you. But maybe it’s a cliché because it’s pretty helpful as an empathic exercise.

This hit home for me one warm autumn day as I pedaled my road bike through the streets of Pittsburgh. Emerging from an alley that I frequently used to avoid busier streets, I came upon an active intersection. As the stoplight turned red, I saddled up alongside an indoor auto dealership with several huge windows protecting Mercedes-Benz floor models. I straddled my bike frame, bracing my feet on the pavement. I peered into the window, admired a silver sedan. Then I found myself focusing on the foreground, on my reflection, on me.

In all my glory: a very lanky man wearing a polyester, lime green, button-down shirt a couple of sizes too small for himself, even for such a skinny frame – the rolled sleeves hiking their way up his forearms. His boney wrists and fingers bent to compress the bicycle’s handbrakes. His jeans, too, were tight, way too tight … not hipster-tight so much as unrelaxed-straight-legged-schoolboy-jeans tight, and they were rolled mid-calf to keep pants legs out of greasy bike gears. I could see, just ten feet away, details of this man’s bearded jawline and narrow neck, buttressed by a prominent clavicle. Wisps of long, straight hair hung in front of his glasses, behind which his dark, tired eyes peered. The skin around those eyes had begun to sag, probably a result of both aging and sleepless parenting. In fact, he looked more worn out than I would have thought a man in his late 30s should look. The bulky blue bike helmet sitting high atop his head made him overly top-heavy, bobble-head level disproportionate, goofy.

In this moment, I was not impressed with my own inelegance. This wasn’t how I imagined myself, how I saw myself.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, as I looked at this man, I had this thought: What does my family feel when they see this man in the morning? What’s it like to look into those tired-parent eyes? Or to interpret his body language, cues revealing that behind those eyes is a harried mind just wanting to relax, have some space, not be bothered? How does it feel to be held by those skinny arms, nuzzled by that prickly beard, or even be intimate with his lanky body? To be walking down the street, arm-in-arm, with this man who has little fashion sense?

I saw little here that resembled the strapping images of manhood that, down deep, I’d wanted to see in myself. But I get bored in the weight room and simply have a thin frame, one that actually serves me well in many ways and that, despite this Car Dealership Reflection, I’ve generally come to accept and appreciate. I rarely put on weight because my metabolism is such that I burn fuel like a Hummer H4 (without the ability to scale 18-inch walls just by rolling forward). I have, for the most part, come to accept these qualities in myself.

I can look at those skinny arms in lime green polyester as not up to snuff, knowing full well that they can only bench press 150 pounds (okay, fine, more like 105…), or I can look at those arms without judgment or else more positively, acknowledging that, sure, they’re not as beefy as I might like, but they sure have done a lot of good work for me. These complex machines made of muscles, bones, sinew, cartilage, blood vessels, and nerves – and so much other living material – have, without fail, been operating for decades now. They’ve required no replacement parts. When wounded, they’ve healed. They’ve coordinated effectively with other body parts. They’ve drawn, painted, cooked, brushed, lifted, and caught. They’ve hugged and patted, caressed and received caresses, asking little more of me than that I wash them occasionally, be mindful of how much sun they get, and provide adequate water and calories and nutrients to the system they’re integrated into – my body. They’ve done so much for me, while asking for so little in return. Rather than scrutinize those arms, I can embrace them.

The same could be said for the rest of my body, as well as my inner self – my intellect, my emotions, those habits that have brought me experiences and memories. Sure, that inner self, the person at the core of my being, has brought me an awful lot of angst, mistakes made, and failings. But that self has also brought me the joys of loving others and giving and receiving affection, of pursuing and achieving dreams. And laughing. Feeling awe. Perceiving the sublime.

I’d never entertained these window self-reflections before, at least not in this way. And because this was way too much like a Woody Allen sketch— all this sexualized, self-conscious, hyper bantering about one’s own virility — I’ve wondered if I’d be wise to not entertain such thoughts much. But this Car Dealership Reflection felt poignant, a chance to see what others see when they see me, a good practice in empathy and maybe even compassion.

What if every time I thought to judge myself or someone else, to scrutinize their characteristics or character or views, I instead spent a moment recalling this Car Dealership Reflection and the ways in which I might not always stack up to my own self-perceptions or expectations for myself?

Most every day in modern society – and this is in fact a modern phenomenon – we’re seeing our own mirror images, conducting some version of this Car Dealership Reflection. We catch ourselves in mirrors, in passing or else we’re spending hours perfecting that coiffure and makeup and eyebrow pluck, or else nailing that beard line so it’s straight and strong (some of us are more gifted in full facial hair than others). We look at ourselves on social media, spend an awful lot of time trying to perfect those images; the selfie is, by definition, very much about gazing at our ourselves, as if looking in a mirror. This self-gazing can lead to a kind of pep talk: “You look good. You look ready. You got this.” Or else we’re scrutinizing ourselves, reproaching ourselves for how we look, how we act, what we do or think.

We all do it. Versions of these Car Dealership Reflections are actually pretty normal. But too often they result in harsh self-judgement and, eventually, they extend to judgment of others.

French philosopher and activist Simone Weil famously wrote: “I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.”

I bet if Simone saddled up alongside a car dealership window in her 1940s France, she’d not waste that moment scrutinizing negative aspects of her body and being. She would, instead, have used it to extend compassion – to herself and to everyone.