It's Like You're My Mirror

When Justin Timberlake crooned “It’s like you’re my mirror; my mirror staring back at me,” I’m not quite sure he understood what a figure of speech was because the music video is literally just him dancing in a house of mirrors. He’s cute and has the voice of an angel, but I think we can all agree that the music video was a little too on the nose and also borderline narcissistic. However, that song is not the topic but merely the playful inspiration for the title of this week’s newsletter.

The mirrors that I’m referring to are the characters in some of the books I’ve read in the past year, characters in which (much to my delight) I could see myself in all my mentally imbalanced, perimenopausal glory! These were characters who had experienced pregnancy loss and/or difficulty conceiving; characters who were on antidepressants and spoke with therapists; characters who made impulsively wild decisions they might later come to regret; characters who loved their children so much it ached; characters who instead of being described by an omniscient narrator as having “thick chestnut colored curls cascading down her back” are being self-described as having “so many nipple hairs and most of them are white now.”

That last part is a direct quote from Catherine Newman’s novel Sandwich, which I absolutely devoured like a delicious reuben on gluten free rye bread. Before reading it, I came across so many one star reviews on Goodreads for this book. Disgruntled readers were bashing the narrator saying she was “crude,” “too woke,” “talked about her menopause symptoms too much” and was “overly emotional and annoying.” And I thought, well hot damn that sounds like me! And I picked up this novel and found it to essentially be The Catcher in the Rye but for today’s modern woman. It’s a stream of consciousness style, wild ride of nostalgia and emotional upheaval as the main character Rocky narrates her always long-anticipated annual week on the Cape with her family. I suppose what felt especially mirror-like for me was the fact that the characters in this book rent a house on Cape Cod for one week every summer and have been doing so for decades. The narrator’s grown children still come along for the week and I too still join my parents for their one week in beautiful Falmouth. I love that it’s a rental house too, because it’s a unique experience to rent in the same vacation location for decades and never own a property there.

"And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same. To say, I understand how hard it is to be a parent, a kid." - Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Rocky wasn’t the only character who I encountered this year who seemed to reflect back to me parts of myself. There was also Lucy Barton who is featured in many a Elizabeth Strout novel, but most recently in the masterpiece Tell Me Everything. Even Phoebe from The Wedding People. .. perhaps not as much as the first two, but I distinctly saw in her some truth about myself. To quote Justin Timberlake, “aren’t you something, and original, cause it doesn’t seem merely assembled, and I can’t help but stare cause I see truth somewhere in your eyes.” I don’t actually have a fucking clue what that means, but when I was reading The Wedding People, I just kept feeling like her internal monologue paired with the new relationships Phoebe was forming reminded me of me.

So what’s the point? Well, reading books in which we see even a little bit of ourselves reflected back by the main character is comforting and affirming. For me, a very average in all ways white woman, it’s not a tall order to find a main character that fits the bill. However, the three mentioned above were written in a way that they mirrored the “uglier” and more challenging parts of me; and, when I saw the reflection it made those parts feel okay…if not beautiful and important.

Now imagine being someone who isn’t used to reading books that feature main characters who are their mirrors, not for lack of trying but because the books simply aren’t being published. Not only does the absence of diverse main characters make for an extremely boring literary canon, but it’s also a prime example of white supremacy and why DEI is necessary. BOOM! Bet you didn’t see that coming. Listen, I’m not going to muddle up this perfectly cute little blog post with a run-down of the dozens of DEI initiatives that benefit, um oh I don’t know, literally everyone who isn’t a rich white guy. But just in case you’ve been duped into thinking DEI is super scary…here’s a fun little example using BOOKS as to why it’s really not.

So reading is awesome. It’s great fun and also a nice little way to learn a thing or too. Personally, I love reading books that feature characters (and actual real life people in nonfiction books) who are not like me so that I can learn from them, learn things I could never possibly learn first hand because I am not them. I also enjoy hearing their stories because their stories matter and are just as exciting/inspiring/heartbreaking/thrilling/silly/romantic as stories featuring white girls like me. I also believe that people who don’t look like me should have many books to choose from to read about people who do look like them, because I know how comforted and affirmed I felt when I read books like Sandwich and Tell Me Everything and Wedding People and I believe they deserve to feel comforted and affirmed too.

Can you connect the dots to see how that applies to other areas of life, like the workforce and education and other forms of entertainment? You probably can, because let’s face it, what I write gets read by a very small audience, most of who exist alongside me in a progressive little echo chamber. I don’t really write to change people’s minds. I mean sure, if someone happens to read this who was feeling kinda like: “yeah I’m not crazy about diversity; who needs it; bah humbug to wheel chair ramps. If a person can’t find a way to get their wheelchair up the stairs they don’t belong in the building. And furthermore, I prefer all of the people in charge to be white men because they really are the cat’s meow,” I would secretly hope that my little “analogy” about books would get them to see things from a slightly different point of view.

On the other hand, my gorgeous residents of the echo chamber, I do write this for you. I write this so you don’t feel so crazy. I write this so you know you’re not alone. I write this so you can see how important and necessary people like you are because your empathy and critical thinking and creativity is exactly what the world needs, always.

I wanna be your mirror, and thank you for being mine.

XO,

Ari