Okay... perhaps it was inevitable that when I started whining about my humanform imperfections (the list is long and wide) on my private forum, it stands to reason Orlando would let me have it... quite literally "right between the eyes."

Last night, Wendy and I went to dinner and a movie down in Palm Springs.  The Constant Gardener, if anyone cares.  Can't recommend it.  Slow and too political for actual entertainment, but WTF do I know?  Ebert says it's best film of the year.  I think Ebert is getting senile.

But no matter...

During the course of the movie, I was aware of Orlando's presence - not unusual.  I often feel him looking out through my eyes and vice versa, during movies.  He's a voyeur and a sneak.  Never has to pay for movies that way.  *LOL*  But afterward, at the restaurant where we went for dinner, I had more or less forgotten his presence altogether as I stood in the restroom, washing my hands at the sink.  My mind was playing over scenes in the movie, mulling over recent conversations here at The Crack, and generally busying itself with trivialities.

So it came as a surprise when I glanced up to see a woman standing behind me as if waiting for the sink.  At least that was my first impression, and it confused me a bit, since I was the only one there, and there were plenty of empty basins.  She was slightly taller than myself, with a definite athletic, healthy build; and had her hair pulled up in a manner not unlike how I wrestle my own on top of my head in the hot summer months.  Her features were perhaps more angular than my own, her skin tone pale but even and smooth.

It occurred to me that we could be sisters... right up until the moment when the "woman" seemed to merge with my own reflection and I realized I had been looking at myself all along.  But even upon realizing that, the image of the woman superceded my own, and I was able to gaze at her for a full minute or more - frankly perplexed and pleasantly amused by this being in the mirror who was me, and yet not at all how I see myself.

"It's how I see you," Orlando said with a little laugh.  "Sometimes you get so distracted with the imperfections that you fail to see the perfection underneath."

Having been raised in a Southern home with Southern manners,  wherein it was considered impolite to brag on oneself, I actually saw the face in the mirror flush slightly when I realized he actually sees me as "beautiful".  (And, yes, I still have trouble writing it even today, almost a full 24 hours later).

What matters, of course, is the lesson I learned from this little excursion into the nagual.  I had recently said in another post in this thread that I have occasionally felt I don't "deserve" Orlando - and what was included in that statement was the realization that I have grown older and what was once perky is now saggy and what was once smooth is now wrinkled, and what was once concave is now convex.  Funny, of course... yet not.

So, for what it's worth, I've always believed in the inner beauty.  Now, having seen it, I know it is real.  And somehow, that is very refreshing and reassuring. 

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