For some reason, I see the old guy down the road as someone Norman Rockwell would have painted, sitting there with his dog, talking to him.
You’re probably not old enough to remember finding a new issue of The Saturday Evening Post in your mailbox every week with a Rockwell illustration on its cover. But if you are, I bet you’re smiling right now as you think about it. Maybe you even have a Rockwell favorite or two. I do. But that’s a different story.
This story is how every now and then I’m lucky enough to see things through Norman Rockwell’s eyes. He saw things true. He didn’t try to pretty things up. He stayed away from the worst sides of things. For the most part, he just saw plain, ordinary people doing ordinary things. Some were touching, some funny, some heroic. And you could relate with them. And because Rockwell saw people through eyes of humor and love, you liked the part of you that related with his characters, you accepted your humanity with a little more lightness and grace.
What a gift, hey? To be able to draw people so truly that looking at them made you like yourself more?
What if we could do that for ourselves? What if we could look at the reflection in our bathroom mirrors with eyes of welcome and happiness and, oh, such deep appreciation—despite the flaws and faults and traces of sin. Appreciation means you see all that and it doesn’t matter or detract from the truth of you in any way. It means you’re seen and forgiven. I think that’s how Rockwell looked at people. His love and appreciation was so tender and deep that he found even the flaws endearing.
I suppose it’s asking a lot to be able to see all of that in the mirror. I don’t think that I could try it without laughing. But maybe laughter is exactly what I’d need. Maybe it would let me see that character in the mirror as somebody I knew, and forgave, and appreciated, and loved. I’ll try it. Only me and the face in the mirror will know.
Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to imagine that Norman Rockwell is standing behind me, smiling at me with his artist’s eyes. Maybe you could imagine that, too. Might be fun to try, hey? Maybe you’ll catch him winking at you. You never know.
Wishing you a week of brim-full appreciation, starting with that face in the mirror.
Warmly,
Susan