Last night I spoke with my editor about a passage I have in my manuscript which seemed to have been giving him trouble. My protagonist was staring at herself in the mirror, not recognizing her own face. Nothing had changed; it was the face she had always had, and yet it seemed alien to her. She couldn’t see herself in her reflection: her history had been erased from the lines, her emotions smoothed out, her thoughts dead in her eyes. She didn’t recognize the contours of muscle and bone, or the way light fell on her skin.
My editor asked me how realistic that was. Whether it was truthful. Because that is my “hook,” you see - that my writing is always honest, at least emotionally.
And in a tiny voice, I told him yes. What he doesn’t know is that this is how I see myself everyday. I never recognize myself in my face. I don’t remember what it looks like until I see it again. When I look at my pictures, sometimes I find myself zooming in on the clothes just to make sure I’m looking at the right person. To me, my face always looks different. There’s something about it that always slips away from me.
My sisters tease me about my vanity sometimes, because they find me staring at the mirror, studying what can be seen there. I don’t know how to explain that I’m trying to commit my own face to memory.
