Do you ever look in the mirror and get a fright? Just a little fright.
Just a small startle really. A widening of the eyes. Then you look again at the person in the mirror and think, Oh Yes!
There you are. It is you after all.
Because in your mind you thought you looked different. I don’t mind how I look now – that is not what I mean. But I wish my brain would catch up! My memory of myself seems to have frozen in my mid thirties. Now I am over fifty and every time I look in the mirror I get that little fright. Is that you Cecilia, I think. I have had so many roles and so many names and so many residences. Yet my Self is still in a house in Napier, New Zealand, a solo Mum with a whole pile of teenage children, all the time worrying about money, pounding my way through through a two job life, fierce, and laughing and living life at break neck speed. This period has implanted so strongly on my Self, I was so brilliantly alive then, that this is woman I still expect to see in the mirror.
Now I am a sleepy farmer with endless visitors and summer muscles aching, growing food so I do not have to worry about paying for it and my children are all grown – it always surprises me. Maybe I am surprised that I reached this stage in my life. Maybe it is that.
Imagine if we never saw ourselves in a mirror. Imagine that!
Here is Sammy with Theo the peachick – a photo for Kat’s Mum.
Last night I went out to check him and once again the red chickens were unusually placed. Not perching on their perches. Alerted I softly sifted through their slumbering bodies and found Theo nestled UNDER the tail feathers of one of the plumper wee hens. He poked his head out and told me to move along and not upset the balance. So I did. This chick is still making me shake my head.
I am not sure if they surround them at night to protect him or to watch him in case he turns into some kind of threat. They are not too nice in the daytime. It is an interesting puzzle.
Good morning. Aunty Del is back home as you can see from the images of her meeting with Bobby T (who was deeply underwhelmed), Del back into the herd without a ripple.
I have decided to bring Bobby T2 (the Hereford steer) back to the home fields for the next few months. The pasture is so rich here, a bit too rich for the heifers (Naomi and Aunty Anna) and he can bond with Bobby T.
It would be nice if I had one big farm so I could walk my animals across, but we have two tiny farms with a mile of bean field and an enormous ditch with no bridge in between, and the roads are not fenced so no walking stock that way either, so they have to be shifted using the stock trailer and as my truck will not pull the stock trailer I have to wait for John to help me.
Today has dawned calm and sunny. We had more rain in the night too which was nice. As soon as this weather pattern settles I will cut more hay.
I hope you have a lovely day. I hope to.
Much love
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
87 responses to “Is that you?”
I feel about 27 or 28 and every once in a while the mirror is a bit of a shock, putting me squarely into my late fifties. I think there is a point in your fifties when you move from being young to looking…less young. My father used to remark that sometimes in the morning he’d look in the mirror and wonder who that old guy was, then realize it was him. I always admired older faces that looked as though they were attached to a body that had an interesting life. It may be that’s the best way to think of it, while getting on with the interesting life!
Love this post and read every single comment. Much to contemplate. Also love the image of the mama and calf chest high in green grass. Lovely. xx
I’ve loved it too… was meant to be doing something else. Oh well 😉
I am so with you on these thoughts. I, too, am shocked sometimes by the view in the mirror (mid-50s now). I’ve never been one for mirrors- I don’t dislike them so much, but just don’t spend a lot of time looking at myself (i.e., grooming – ha!). But, like you, when I stop and look, really look, I see myself again (with a healthy dash of my late mother – I really see the resemblance now that I’m of an age where my most vivid memories of her (at the same age) match what I see). I do think we start to come into our own in our 30s, which is why so many of us are surprised when we see something other than that 30-something human, who’s finally “getting” it. I still feel behind, and wish I’d woken up sooner as so many do (I’m a ponderer, contemplative by nature) – I finally got my longed for farm at age 50 (solo farming) and 5 years later there’s still so much to do. I’ve run into some health problems and am reevaluating everything. I am nowhere near ready to give up the dream (indeed, the dreams keep getting bigger!), but I need to find some help, at least temporarily, and am learning lessons around that (being able to ask for help is SO, so difficult for me). There’s a long way to go yet, and enjoying every minute of it!
My mother died twenty years ago, yet she is in the mirror every morning to greet me. All my life when I met people they greeted with ‘Oh! Your hands are cold’. If they already knew the family then it was ‘You are so like your mother’! Inside I am still thirty with boundless energy and auburn tresses, unlike the outward image of grey hair and wrinkles… hell I am alive and happy in my skin, although the hills are hard, I can get up, dress up and come and go as I please.
I am smiling at the idea of Theo the pea-chick attending slumber parties with the grown-ups! The cows look like you have given them a coating of moisturiser, if so, I am next in the queue! Enjoy the movie.
You have the same kind of mirror I do! Love the post today and can so relate.
I think of myself somewhere near 30. That’s when I was a few years into my first house and small acreage. I was single and often surprised myself at what I could do and/or figure out when things went awry. I think it was then too that I really lost most of my concern over what other people thought of me or expected of me. I find now, at 63 I identify with my step kids who are mostly less than 15 yrs younger than I rather than with my peers. I have to always remind myself that I’m the ‘grown up’! I must say, most mornings I’m glad I wear contact lenses so that initial mirror image is somewhat fuzzy. I still have to ask myself ‘what the h–l happened here’ when I catch a surprise glimpse of myself in a mirror. I do have to admit though that sometimes my 30 year old mindset says I can do that and my 63 year old body says oh no you can’t!
I forget sometimes that I’m no longer a terrified 19 year old grappling with some of the hardest times I experienced in my whole life… Back then I was living in rural Australia, had to fight my OCD and therefore controlling parents to go to university, only to lose some family to a number of suicides and early deaths, having just found out I was pregnant, goodness the list of difficult circumstances goes on. Now I look in the mirror I see a tired-looking, overweight, greying 34 year old mum of teenagers. And yet I’m happier with my life now than I ever was. I try to think of my premature aging as battle scars – I’ve done it tough in my life and it shows. And that’s okay.
Oh I understand that image – guess what! – it passes – when the teenagers turn into nice young people YOU start looking younger! Promise! I was a young mum too.. isn’t it great! c
Thank you! That’s encouraging. 🙂
Oh hahahah I look in my mirror and I say “MOM?” My siblings say I look just like our Mom and I act like her also- she passed away far too soon at the young age of 65- I am now almost 74- and I feel like I am her clone….lucky me- she was a great sweet woman and I hope I am at least a bit like her.
whoops did not get a chance to put in my blogsite …lovelove your blog!
wonderful that you had such a sweet mum – mine died young too – 49 – and though she was not sweet by any means she was a force to be reckoned with!.. c
I still think I’m 25 and had a reality check this week when I had to collect my drivers license 🙂 nearly gave it back saying the photo wasn’t correct. Another one coming up next week with a big birthday, I keep doing the math and the answer remains the same 😦 Still I am independent and active so it can’t all be bad. Laura
I have this experience every day, and it is exactly as you describe. I have a lot of trouble accepting that extra skin on the front of my neck, the thinning hair (this drives me crazy), the stubborn shape of things. And then, I recalibrate and realize that for my age, I look pretty good after all. And I feel fine, so there. I turn away from mirrors much more quickly than I used to, that’s for sure. And I love it that for animals, mirrors play no role at all.
I know exactly what you mean by the mirror thing. I am seventy-one but I sure don’t feel that old and I am always doing stuff that most 71 year olds would or could not do (painting rooms in my house, replacing floors etc.)
I have two grown sons and both are very successful and I’m proud of them. But I’ll be truthful and say there are times I miss the little boys.
Beautiful post .. I too get glimpses and get a mini fright. Where did all those years go to! I can just imagine you in Napier .. 😀
It is words like yours that often start dialogue in our home. This walking by the mirror – turning and seeing yourself – and wondering where it all went, and am I that person. Both Lar and myself still think we are that other long gone person. Our hair is gray. The face a map of lines and wrinkles but we still that young adventurous person inside.