Love is Like a Mirror

Yesterday, on my way home from a business meeting and taking a yoga class, I was listening to "Fresh Air" with Terri Gross.  "Fresh Air" is easily one of my favorite shows on NPR; there is just something about Gross' ability to ask the right questions that makes every show both impressionable and memorable.

In yesterday's program, Gross interviewed Martin Bayne who was forced to enter an assisted living facility due to his debilitating early-onset Parkinson's disease.  Unlike most of his assisted living counterparts who are in their 80's and 90's, Bayne - in his early 50's - "calls himself an observer-advocate and writes about long-term care reform for the elderly" in his blog, as well as nationally-renowned newspapers such as The Washington Post.  The interview covered a vast array of topics including:

• false advertising;
• social perceptions of the elderly;
• recording people's final days; and
• how death is handled in assisted living facilities.  

But - for me, at least - the most powerful moment in the interview was an obscure one: it was a moment that reflected not on death, and not on the elderly, but on love.  I am paraphrasing substantially here because I cannot find a transcript of the interview online, but when Gross asked Bayne why he cares so much about his community, he answered in roughly the following way:

Because love is like a mirror.  If I can love the brokenness in others.  If I can accept the disintegration of my peers and of my friends, then I can learn to accept the same faults within myself.  I can only love my friends and family as much as I love myself.  No more. And if I have no love for myself, then that will inevitably be reflected in my relationship with everyone else.

I almost cried. 

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It's amazing how the truth can find us in the most unexpected of times, when we are most unprepared for its arrival.  And yet, Bayne's words hit me like a ton of bricks and said:

"WAKE UP!"

"Are you listening?"

"Don't you get it?!"

And in that moment, I did.

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With love you cannot bargain there,

the choice is not yours.

Love is a mirror, 

it reflects only your essence,

if you have the courage to look in its face.

-Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi

Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved

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Normal Rockwell paintings are some of my favorites, and this one (entitled "Girl in Mirror") is one of my all time favorites.  This painting has always spoken to me; maybe it's because "something about the way this young girl looks at herself in the mirror rings so familiar...you can tell she's judging herself," and it's beautiful in a sad, intimate sort of way.

As an interesting tidbit, if you look at the original photograph that Rockwell painted from, there is no magazine.  He added the magazine onto the girl's lap in his painting...and I have to wonder why?

What was his inspiration?

What was he trying to say...if anything?

I have a hard time thinking that he would add the magazine "just because" - without any real meaning or message behind it - but then again, who am I to judge?  Regardless, at the end of yesterday (and into this morning), Bayne's words still echo in my mind:

I can only love my friends and family as much as I love myself.  

No more. 

With that said, I think I have some work to do...

Question of the Day:

What are your thoughts about today's post?  Do YOU think love is like a mirror...or do you think this is just some silly simile?  

Whatever you think, I would love to hear all about it in the "Comment" section below!

Blessings,
Ally and Bo