9 The Captive Mirror

With the pandemic came Zoom — zoom meetings, classes on zoom, tele-health appointments. It wasn’t the same as meeting in person, but seeing the faces of people I knew and loved became a lifeline.

What I hated was having to look at myself.

In the unflattering mirror of the computer screen, this image of mine betrayed: me. It was not who I wanted to be, not who I imagined I was on the inside. I felt trapped in an image not of my own making.

Had I always looked so worn down? It seemed the strain of the pandemic had left it’s mark in deep bags under my eyes, my greying fly away hair, my ever-widening girth.

Is that how I appear to others?

In the captive mirror of zoom, I was project to be fixed, the before to be made over, not ready for prime time, frozen and exposed.

It only took me a glance, a glimpse of the reality other people saw for me to spiral down into deep self-loathing

To avoid having to look at myself in zoom, I found a blank sketch pad and while the meeting was going on, I began doodle.

While talking on the phone, while in zoom meetings, anytime I sat down, I doodled.

The physicality of using hands, touching pen to paper, moving across the page kept me from getting lost in the virtual world.

Doodling gave me something besides myself to focus. When I wasn’t looking at myself, I listened more carefully to others.

Doodling helped me to feel connected to my physical reality.

And then, this funny thing happened: I had spent my life being a serious, obsessive adult always running to catch up, always feeling as if I had arrived late for everything I wanted.

Even as a child I was a serious one. It had been such a long time since I played, I thought I had forgotten how.

It turned out, my hand remembered.