Today!

Today I am remembering to blog! Twice I have forgotten!
Now here is an old story, passed down to me when I was a teen.

"The Woman Who Looked at the Wall"

One day, many hundreds of years ago (give or take a few years), a highly social Queen was having one of her weekly gatherings with neighboring ladies. She had just finished helping one of the ladies who had been coughing, choking on a bit of sandwich, when she remembered...
"Come ladies..." she beckoned, "Come see the newest gift from my husband, the King"
All the ladies hurried up many flights of stairs, past several torture chambers where groaning could be heard, and past a vista window with one of the loveliest views in all of the kingdom... past a dark, forbidden room in which could be seen a bubbling cauldron, and finally past a large portrait of an old couple frowning.
"It's just in here ladies," the Queen encouraged the tired women onward, "You'll love it!"
Inside the room, covering an entire wall was the largest single mirror that any of them had ever seen. It seemed bigger than the sky... deeper than the ocean, more vast than a field of dead soldiers after a pointless battle. They stared into the mirror for hours, danced before it... A portly woman with berry jam on her face, even tried to procreate with her reflection in the mirror. She was tempted away form the mirror with a croissant.
One of the women, a tall thin woman, seemed utterly entranced by the mirror, barely able to move.
"I should like to stare at you forever and ever.", she thought.
And as the other women fussed and giggled, wiggled and tickled... she stared at the woman looking back at her from inside this magic wall... her twin.
All of the carriage ride home, the woman thought of the wall in the Queen's castle. She had a small looking glass of her own at home, but only large enough to see her face in. She thought of returning home and standing in front of her own wall, staring for hours at the woman she saw there. She could think of nothing else... except occasionally of swimming.
She jumped out of the carriage as it approached her home, ran to her front door throwing it open, scampered up the stairs, not even saying hello to her husband and ten children, then finally burst into the large upstairs sitting room... the largest blank wall in the whole house. She looked... waited... blinked... blinked more... her eyes began to water, though she was not crying... not yet.
She stood for hours, clapped her hands, shouted at the wall, "Come to me! Come to me!!! Where are you?"
Many days passed and the woman still waited. Her family feared for her sanity... for her very life, and had begun preparations for an impressive funeral.
Finally after nearly seven days, the woman came down the stairs and joined her family at the dinner table where they were enjoying a humble supper.
"Why?", the woman asked, "Why could I not see myself in the wall?"
"Because...", her husband spoke cautiously, "Because it is a wall. I cannot see myself there either. We are not in the wall. We are out here with our children... and our supper."
"Isn't that obvious?", one of the oldest children spoke, "Is that what this has all been about? Mom, if you want to see your reflection, get a mirror! You can't just stare at a wall all the time and expect to see your reflection. That's like looking outside to try and see what is within. I guess that's what this is really all about, isn't it? You have to learn the difference between a wall and a mirror if you want to see your reflection. Just like you have to learn the difference between what is within and what is without. You can't be looking outside for what is inside of you and you can't pretend like that woman in the mirror is outside of you either. It's just an illusion! She's always within and that's where you should be looking. Maybe when you find her there, your mirror will arrive. Just like our royal Queen. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm blowing off this piss-poor conversation and broth for twelve. I'm going to get an education."
And after that, the woman began to look within, and eventually she realized... no mirror can show you who you are. You are your own mirror.

I don't know what this means but I just kinda went with it. Even though I checked it, there are probably typos. Have a nice day!
-C