As a teen, like a lot of us, the mirror was often a place of self criticism. I avoided it, and when I had to look at myself, most times were a passing glance to get a ponytail without bumps before a sports match or to get the right amount of makeup on before acting in a school play. Most of all, it was definitely not a place to think about where I came from and how many ancestors worth of DNA were put into how I look.
Whenever anyone said I looked just like my mom or dad, I would cringe. "I am my own person!' I wanted to scream. I see my yearbook photos now and think about just how much I looked like my grandmother's teen portraits, even though I am wearing flannel shirts and jean skirts in mine and she dawned buttoned up cardigans and long skirts.
Last month, my dad and his wife were visiting me up in the Big Apple. On East 23rd Street and Park Avenue, he and I posed for a photo with our matching coffee cups that his wife shot with my iphone. A random lady walked by and said loudly to herself, "Damn. That girl looks just like her daddy." It was one of the nicest things a stranger has ever said to me.
What if, instead of picking ourselves apart, we wondered.... How many people in my family also had my nose? What relative grew up with natural red hair too? What great-great-great-great grandparents were as tall/short as I am? Then, maybe just maybe, the things we hate in the mirror could transform into the things we learn to love about ourselves.
I am currently getting that iphone photo of my dad and I framed to sit next to the picture of him holding me as a baby in the hospital. It will stand amongst photos of generations of people who are MY people--they are part of everything that comprises me. When I feel adrift with my family (including my dad) living thousands of miles away, I will got to the picture and think, "I am my daddy's girl, just like he was my grandmother's boy and she was my great-grandmother's girl. Always."
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