Smoke and Mirrors

I was seated on the couch, trying unique ways and fresh angles to write about Women’s Day we celebrated on the 9th August. I thought of writing about the usual stuff; empowerment of women and all, but decided against it. Something that kept nagging my mind is how we live in real contradiction to our ideals. I mean everybody seem to agree that uxorial husbands are an ideal; equal representation for women is ideal; and responsible, if not doting, parents are ideal. Yet we live the opposite of these things, more like doppelgängers of what’s best in us.

Then I came a picture of a beautiful near-naked female body on a foreign magazine. She wore nothing but a bra, and hid her pelvic area, which I took to imply vagina, with a designer hand bag that she was advertising. Her eyes were cut from the picture. I thought they think of everything, because, surely, to use as a commodity a thing like sex (its not sensuality), you’ve to hide your eyes, from your soul. It was titled; Lesson 84: lead him to temptation. Is that what women’s liberation has amounted to, I found myself asking?

I was lost in such thoughts when my daughter, who’s nine, surprised me with a demand for a long mirror for her room—I must reveal, for proper understanding, that the advert was posed as though it was a mirror image. I was not sure what brought that about but could sense trouble in the offing. What’s wrong with the ones you have, I asked, trying to sound casual. I can’t see whole of myself on them, was her answer as she disappeared to her room again. She left me in confused contemplation. I stood to spy what she was up to and found her sitting in bed, combing Ami (her favourite doll). I turned back with my confusion intensified.

I’ve lived with my daughter since she was nine months old. My sisters, whom we visit frequently, make up for the female influence she needs in her life. I suppose, to be fair, not having long mirrors must be a serious drag for growing girls. On the other side I wondered why didn’t I have long mirrors, dressing table mirrors, and such things one finds on modern homes these days. Do I not like looking at myself? I recalled how uncomfortable I feel when I see my reflection on shop windows when walking city pavements—they make me seem humped. The scientific explanation of refractions and all does not help my archaic sense of self, which, I suppose, is still operating on cave man instinct embodied deep in my genetic code.

The only time I really look at myself on the mirror, since you asked, is when I go to the bathroom at parties or nightclubs, to measure how soused am I. That’s just about it, if shaving does not count. I don’t look at myself when I comb, not that I’m less narcissist than your average, less say GQ guy. It’s a practice forced in me by Catholic boarding school indigent upbringing. I suppose there’s also a bit of delusion of grandeur in supposing physical reflection is not as important as inner self-reflection. I much prefer the ‘know thy self’ and the rest of now unfashionable philhellene heebie-jeebies.

Before the mirror incident, I was sure my daughter was growing along my trends—choosing soccer at school, sleeping with miniature Ferraris next to her dolls—you know, things that make daddy-mom proud. Now it looks like I might have overestimated my influence on her. Now I notice her stopping over cosmetic section and feel, in my guts, trouble approaching. Of course there’s a possibility I’m just blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Somebody please say I’m blowing it out of proportion! Meantime I’m looking for a mirror, preferable with a pink frame; long enough to cover the height of a nine year old until she’s at least eighteen.

For those of you wondering why I’m not married at the good side of forty. Here’s the thing. When I was in Std 6, now Grade 8; we read a book where a guy chopped his wife and two children (who were actually his father’s but was suppose to acknowledge as his according to the Xhosa custom of those times) with an axe. When asked why, he kept saying: Buzani kuBawo! [Ask my father!]. I’ve never really recovered from that tragic story. I feel abused. You can tell Oprah that. I’m prepared to produce on-demand-screen saccharine tears to puff my pillow. I’ll even write a memoir of aggrievement if she promises to feature it on her show.