Mirror

Pink Think: “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” – Ernest Holmes

This past Saturday, I attended the first part of a songwriting workshop, my first ever. I am, by profession, a journalist, and an aspiring novelist, so this was a slight departure from my training. I was nervous, but mostly excited.

I hoped to learn something new that would help boost my creativity. My favorite part was object-writing, which boils down to basically, you free-write for ten minutes on a word. I’ve heard of it before, but have never done it.

I loved it! It has helped me get the “eye of the poet” and move my current novel forward with sensory-rich prose at the get-go. Not to mention since then, I have written three poems that I plan to turn into song, one of which I will play for the group this Saturday.

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Here’s what I came up with during object-writing at the workshop. Word-Prompt: Mirror

I was 15. And in my bedroom, I had a mirror, which was really a medicine cabinet. It was always dusty and full of stray powders that spilled from the cheap makeup I bought at a store on Katipunan Road.

Mom never taught me how to put on makeup. She made it sound evil, and especially eyebrow-plucking. She was in college and a beauty parlor ruined it for her. So she’d always just try to remedy it by just plucking a little at a time and it didn’t look good.

I wish she had though, maybe in our conversations about eyeliner, she’d have shared with me secrets about boys when I was 15 and didn’t know why I felt what I did, and that I wasn’t really going to die of heartbreak even though I felt I would.

So now my 14 year old daughter looks at herself in the mirror, I tell her about mascara and lip gloss. I lean against the doorframe of the bathroom and just watch her. I remember how it was like to have pimples on my forehead and wishing my bangs could hide them. She tells me about her friend and how they’re still friends but don’t have so much in common anymore.