Play It Again

“Where did you get this?”

“Where did I get what?”

“This oval mirror, with the wood frame. Some kind of bird carved on the top. Looks like a black bird, raven, one of those strange birds. And here on the bottom some kind of plant. A vine of some kind, but the leaves appear to have faces.”

“It belonged to my Grandmother. It was in the basement of her old house. The silver backing is starting to go so the reflection is a bit cloudy, but it’s the sentiment that I enjoy.”

“You remember this mirror being in your Grandmother’s house?”

“No, I don’t remember ever seeing it until I was helping my mother clean out the place. She said I could have whatever I wanted. They were selling the house. It wasn’t much and it would cost too much to keep, so…”

“Of all things, why the mirror? There must have been dozens of things that were worth more, or were even in better shape or usable. But you chose the mirror. Did you take anything else?”

I hadn’t thought much about the mirror or that I had not seen it before we began to clean out the basement. There was something about the mirror. It was in a corner behind some old mildewed boxes full of old hats and winter coats. For some reason I was drawn to that corner. Now that I think back on it, it was like there was something I needed to do, to know. But to this day I can’t figure out what it might be.

“I asked my mother if she knew anything about the mirror; where it came from, how it got here. Did she remember it from her childhood? She did grow up in the house. Her father was killed in the war before she was born. “He never got to see me,” she’d said. Can’t see how the mirror would have anything to do with that though.”

I don’t know why but I never asked much about my Grandfather. It was just her mother and her. Then she met my father she said, and until I pulled the mirror out…she’d never seen it before, she said, “now that I think of it, I have no idea where it came from, or why she had it wrapped up and stored in the basement.”

My mother is like that. She tends to forget. Now more than she used to. She says it’s her memory trying to forget. I understand that, I have memories I need to forget as well. Something about memories though, they seem to hide somewhere, and then something, a noise, a cloud, a laugh, and they jump out. There they are again looking you in the eye, whether you want then to or not.

Funny she can’t remember the mirror though. It’s not like something you see just everywhere. It is rather unique in its own way. The wood frame has lost all its sheen, now its dull patina reflects only a past and its memories. The glass too; I tried to clean it but so much of the silver is gone it still looks dirty. I hung it above the sink because there is no window in the kitchen over the sink and it kind of acts like a window. It reflects light from the window by the table, the vines growing on the trellis, the butterflies.

“You ever notice that when you look at it, the reflection that comes back is not what is there, exactly. It seems somehow different, like it is seeing something else; like seeing the shadow of a shadow. I know that doesn’t make sense and sounds crazy, but come here and look.”

“I can’t see what you’re talking about. I see the window over the table and the vines. When I turn around, I see the same thing that is in the mirror. I can see why you put it there. It does seem like a window in its own right. Better hurry, we got to get going.”

#

“I have to leave. I promised your father I’d be sure and be home. Book club night, his one reason to escape what he calls the “mundane existence of a fading man.” He worries that he’s going to end up like me. 

Can’t remember where I am at times. Thank God for these cell phones and Google maps. It’s like having an electronic babysitter. I know that sounds stupid, but it keeps me on the straight and narrow, and out of trouble.” She is looking at me, I can feel it. It’s like she’s here.

My mother believes that growing old and losing your memory is our bodies way of helping us get ready for the next experience. I assume she means dying, but then she might be thinking of runnin off with someone. Nothing about her surprises me anymore.

I didn’t know my Grandmother all that well. She was a difficult woman to know. She was self-absorbed, distant at times. My mother has begun to remind me of her. She talks to herself like Grandmother did.

Grandmother seemed to know things she shouldn’t know. She’d tell me stories I remember, about places that were so real you’d think she would have had to have been there at some time. But there was no way she could have been, what with my mother, my Grandfather being killed, and her having to work to keep them…

I remember something she said about the mirror. She told me once that it was, “blessed with magic.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she said if you looked into it hard enough, it would take you places. Then she’d tell me a story about Africa, or the one I remember best, about Mexico. Some little village where everyone was poor, but happy. 

I remember asking her how you could be poor and happy. She said, “when poverty is all you know you look for things that take your mind off the hunger and pain, and look for things that make you appreciate just being alive.” It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I see it now.

I’ve looked into the mirror before, but nothing. But then I decided that I’d try again, for her sake, and see if the mirror wouldn’t take me someplace I needed to go. And the strangest thing happened. The harder and longer I looked, the more dimensional the mirror became. It was like looking through a spy glass at eternity. The mirrors glass disappeared, and I could see into the space where it had been.

I could see someone in there. There was a bench, and a garden, a rose garden. It was my Grandmother sitting on the bench throwing breadcrumbs to the birds. Squirrels were dancing about in the tree, and the whole area was alive with butterflies; millions of them. I put my head in for a better look.  I must have slipped. I watched myself fall onto the grass that surround the garden. My Grandmother appeared startled, until she saw it was me. Then she smiled, as if she had been expecting me. She patted the bench seat and beckoned me to come, “sit by me,” she said.

“Good to see you dear. It has been a long time, for you that is. I see you most days, you are always just here you see. 

I’m sure this is all confusing, but there is an explanation if you’d care to hear. It is a bit startling at first I know, but you’d be surprised how quickly you not only become accustomed to it, but realize how without it, your life would mean nothing. The anxiety of believing you’ve lost it all, and then that moment you realize you haven’t.

You close your eyes for what you believe is the last time and then, you open them to a whole new world you’d forgotten had existed. I can see in your eyes I’ve only confused you more.”

“What is this place?”

“Dear, this is who I was. Where I live now. A collection of memories stored in this mirror. I know it sounds crazy. I felt the same way when I realized what was happening. One day I was sitting at the table in the kitchen and noticed a bird reflected in the mirror. I turned to see the bird and it was not there. I turned back to the mirror, and there it was.

It was then I realized I had not really looked closely enough at the mirror; took it for granted as we do most things. The more I looked though, the more I began to understand. There was a whole other world in there that was familiar, as though I’d seen it before. Like Déjà vu, but not quite the same. I wasn’t experiencing something for the second time, like I’d been there before, but observing it for the first time. The mirror held all my life. It collected all the memories I had dismissed as unimportant or not worth remembering. It collected the parts of me that I chose not to see, or didn’t or couldn’t see. Does any of this make sense to you?”

I had never thought of what a mirror was supposed to do other than reflect the image before it. I had never thought of those reflections as being collected, saved. Our lives, my Grandmother’s life, everything being saved for a later time. Life being reversed by it, played back. A reflection of who she was. A collection of memories that was her life, is her life. The simple reversal of time; the present, past, future?

And there, way off, my Grandfather. Like his picture.

“You going to stare at yourself all morning? We promised to be at the church by eleven. Beth, your friend is getting married in case you forgot. The wedding you realize will go on, whether we are there or not. Then all that will be left are regrets.”

“Coming!”