On Friday night, I spent the evening in our basement playing with my three kiddos while my husband celebrated a friend’s 40th. My two-year-old is in 24 hour “Beauty Shop” mode lately so I spent a fair amount of time perched atop a 12-inch-high plastic stool having my hair done or eyelashes curled or plastic lipstick applied. There are very specific rules to this game and one of them is that I must be looking in the plastic mirror so that SHE can see my reflection in there. Not so fun for the five-year-old who wants me to be simultaneously playing Wii or the almost-eight-year-old who wants me to be reading the latest American Girl chapter, but whatever. In our house, the littlest one usually wins. So there I sat for my lengthy makeover.
There was an upside, though. This mirror is no ordinary mirror. It actually talks to you. And it’s voice is quite different from the mirror you may be looking in. Every time you pick up a brush or lipstick it actually coos at you, “Well, hello there! You look beautiful!” or “Such a pretty face!”
It does NOT critique, poke, prod, or berate. No ridiculing, mocking, or taunting. No reminders of you of the way you used to look or the way you could look if you pulled this, tucked that, or faded thus and such. It’s like a mirror from an alternate universe.
So what would happen if you entered that universe for a while? The one two-year-old girls apparently inhabit all the time? One where you always look beautiful and the mirror tells you so? Try it on for size. See what happens when you trade out the voices you’re hearing for the lilting voice of an encouraging fairy godmother.
I’ll give you a hint. It’s magic.