Vanity
The Shul Without a Clock..
The Room Without a Mirror...
My room does not have a mirror. Its strange. I have always had a mirror. My room at home has huge mirror, almost the size of the whole wall. I even bought a mirror for my new apartment. But last Thursday, it fell off the wall. That's right, my $4 mirror from Target which I so lovingly picked for my room..it matched my linen and everything..shattered! It got sent out with the banana peels and egg shells.
My life has been a whirlwind since moving. new state. new mode of transport ( no car for me here). I have to make my own lunch and dinner. If I don't buy groceries there is no food. no clean clothes if i don't do laundry. The earthquake, the hurricane..the weirdos on the subway..its cultural overload. It mostly has been OK. I'm taking it day my day. BH, so far so good. but then that darn mirror had to go and fall.
There is some debate among my dearest and nearest whether I am girly or not. But despite all arguments either way, I need my full length mirror. Frankly, the bathroom mirror is too high. I can barely see my head, let alone my outfit, and how the shoes look with the outfit. Hows a girl supposed to live like that? How I am to date? :P
Its funny cuz I oft wonder how much of the day we spend looking at ourselves. When you walk by a car, a dark shop window, when you go to the bathroom. How many times a day do we make sure that our hair is just so, the make up is not running..the shirt collar is right? How many minutes of the day are spent analyzing the details of our appearance?
So for now..I am mirror-less. I will soon get a new one. But for now I am reveling in my ability to walk in and out of my room without wondering what I look like. Its freeing really. So I am disconnecting from my vanity. For now anyways.
what about you? do you find yourself looking at your appearance too many times a day? what would you do if you had a room without a mirror? would it bother you? Am I making too big of a deal?
The Room Without a Mirror...
My room does not have a mirror. Its strange. I have always had a mirror. My room at home has huge mirror, almost the size of the whole wall. I even bought a mirror for my new apartment. But last Thursday, it fell off the wall. That's right, my $4 mirror from Target which I so lovingly picked for my room..it matched my linen and everything..shattered! It got sent out with the banana peels and egg shells.
My life has been a whirlwind since moving. new state. new mode of transport ( no car for me here). I have to make my own lunch and dinner. If I don't buy groceries there is no food. no clean clothes if i don't do laundry. The earthquake, the hurricane..the weirdos on the subway..its cultural overload. It mostly has been OK. I'm taking it day my day. BH, so far so good. but then that darn mirror had to go and fall.
There is some debate among my dearest and nearest whether I am girly or not. But despite all arguments either way, I need my full length mirror. Frankly, the bathroom mirror is too high. I can barely see my head, let alone my outfit, and how the shoes look with the outfit. Hows a girl supposed to live like that? How I am to date? :P
Its funny cuz I oft wonder how much of the day we spend looking at ourselves. When you walk by a car, a dark shop window, when you go to the bathroom. How many times a day do we make sure that our hair is just so, the make up is not running..the shirt collar is right? How many minutes of the day are spent analyzing the details of our appearance?
So for now..I am mirror-less. I will soon get a new one. But for now I am reveling in my ability to walk in and out of my room without wondering what I look like. Its freeing really. So I am disconnecting from my vanity. For now anyways.
what about you? do you find yourself looking at your appearance too many times a day? what would you do if you had a room without a mirror? would it bother you? Am I making too big of a deal?
I can totally relate.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read historical fiction, it strikes me how once people didn't know what they looked like, unless in reflecting water. Original mirrors were expensive and blurry.
Now every day, every moment, we have an opportunity to double check our appearance.
But I've noticed that I have been over-checking. Just because I see myself does not mean I have to look. Stop obsessing over the possibility of running eyeliner! Let it go, I tell myself.
But I would definitely feel the loss of a full length mirror! So much of the outfit depends on it!
Its funny, because even after i wrote this..on the way to school..im embarrassed to say how many times i checked myself out in the subway.
ReplyDeleteAs a guy its a bit different, but i went through yeshiva not being allowed to have a mirror. None of the rooms or bathrooms had and if guys had their own they were confiscated. It was just something we all got used to. (What was funny was that one of the guy's moms was the dorm mother for the girls high school, and we found out that they were getting all their mirrors replaced b/c 'they were warped and made them look fat'. We were like ha, as long as u have some semblance of a mirror dont complain :)
ReplyDeletewhat was the reason for the no mirror rule?
ReplyDeletei never heard of such a thing.
as for the aim bayit getting rid of the fat mirros..we never had such things in sem.
The reason is loosely based off of what rashi says by the whole affair with Yosef and Potifar's wife, that it happened to him because he was 'misalsel bisaaro'. The concept of being misalsel bisaaro is also mentioned in Tanya, where it says that it gives power to klipah.
ReplyDeleteHaving mirrors could cause guys to comb their hair, which wasnt wanted (although in truth it prob wouldnt happen b/c 'we' do not do the 'chup' sorta thing, but i guess its just a precaution).
Besides for that, in general, there are some halachic opinions who hold that a man cant use a mirror b/c of lo silbash.
7 years of misfortune if you break a mirror, shame... :)
ReplyDeleteI think that mirrors are important, a. because we are so used to them that by now, not having them disrupt our functioning and B. because it is important for a girl at least to be able to make herself pretty and see her herself as such. How else if not through a mirror? guys too may need mirrors to look decent!
On this topic, check this out: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/could-you-live-without-looking-at-yourself-one-woman-swears-off-mirrors-for-a-year-2528935/
ReplyDeletethank altie for the link...so intersting!
ReplyDeletereally brave woman! i think im going to follow her blog.