My Mirror's Reflection

              I stare intently at myself in the mirror.  Dark brown eyes stare back at me.  The eyes of both my mother and father, framed by a mass of wavy, shoulder-length, chestnut hair.  My nose and lips are petite, and my right ear is slightly larger than my left.  My skin is pale, made that way by the dim, winter sun.  In the summer, it will regain its tan hue.  My reflection is a mixture of many different traits that define me: White-German Mennonite, Farm Girl, and Midwesterner.  All of these traits mixed together make me North American.

My family at Zion National Park, Utah

              I continue to stare, fascinated, into the mirror.  I see my cluttered desk, covered with textbooks, pens, and the weekly letter sent to my entire family by my Grandma Kempf.  Looking more closely, I see the pictures of my friends and family, tacked up on the bulletin board behind my binders.  There is one of my family standing in front of a waterfall in Zion National Park, Utah, with our exchange student from Germany, Milena.  Another shows the backyard of my childhood, complete with a homemade swing set and a jumbo trampoline with a mini-basketball hoop attached to the protective net surrounding the black mat.  A final picture portrays my roommate and I standing in front of a cow at the Kansas State Fair.  With it comes a poignant reminder of my past two years on the plains at Hesston College; two years where time did not stand still, but raced ahead, mocking me to try and catch it.  Two years that taught me to embrace my past, while also diving head-first into an uncertain and laborious future.

Kansas State Fair

            My mirror reflects things treasured by the unique American in me.  It reveals rich Mennonite traditions, sweltering summers on the farm, and the excitement caused by the perfect Husker volleyball set-up that wins the game for the national championship.  I see my mom and dad helping out in the confined kitchen at my country church, Salem Mennonite.  The tables are set up in the narrow basement along one wall, and as I finish putting chairs around each one, the plethora of crock pot dishes, hidden in the nearest classroom, begin to appear on the main table.  I see the haze of a summer morning disappear as the sun breaks the plane of the sky, revealing the endless blue above a fluttering corn field, drenched in the thick dew of the night.  With the field comes the smell of unspoiled dirt, beginning to thicken to mud as the life-giving water flows down each row from the dusty aluminum pipes.  My mirror catches a glimpse of me watching a Husker volleyball game on TV as a fifth grader, enthralled by the perfect execution of the most difficult plays.  Five years later, I am in the Qwest Center arena in Omaha, Nebraska, caught up in the exhilaration of the record breaking crowd of 17,000 fans as the Huskers win the final point and are crowned NCAA National Champions. 

                 I see downtown Shickley, bustling at 12:00 noon on a Saturday.  Workers are coming into town for their lunch breaks, their pick-ups parking in front of either the green awning of Dawg’s Café or the black and white striped of Cubbie’s Market.  Looking further, I see the local swimming pool teeming with kids, as the one hundred degree temperatures soar.  I see my grandpa driving his red pick-up with the white stripe out to the farm office to pay bills.  Oh, I can see so many treasured things!

            Then, as I look deeper into the mirror, geographical boundaries melt away.  Times and places blend.  I incredulously see the rhythmic flow of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans for the first time through the eyes of my former self, amazed by their magnificence.  My mind runs back through various family vacations of exploring North American wonders: Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the sequoias, Mount Rushmore, Pike’s Peak, the Cascades, the San Antonio Riverwalk , Washington D.C.  I see my North American legacy showing itself in all different shapes and forms, ranging from the diversity of the subways in New York City to the unique sloping of endless sandhills in sparsely populated western Nebraska.

My view of the Limmat in Zurich

            I see the legacy of my Mennonite Heritage: the monument to Menno Simons hidden in the tiny village of Witmarsum, Holland; the plaque remembering the execution of Felix Manz in the Limmat River of Zurich, Switzerland; the pictures of my grandpa’s twenty-year-old self building a dam in South Dakota for civilian public service during World War 2. 

            I look even further.  I see the influences of John Howard Yoder and his non-violent views in The Politics of Jesus.  I see the depiction of immigrants settling eastern Nebraska in My Antonia, written by Nebraska native Willa Cather.  I see the impact that music has had on my life, ranging from the a cappella hymns of my childhood to the endless country played on many Midwestern radio stations.  I hear the local stories of my past.  I hear about my mom as a child, scrubbing out turkey barns with her bare hands.  I hear about my grandpa walking two miles through fields on his way to school every morning.  I listen to the excitement of my older cousins reliving the time they backed Sylvia, the 1980 Chevy, propane-powered pick-up out of the irrigation lane at forty miles per hour. 

            I look into the mirror and capture more than my reflection.  I see that I am more than pale skin, brown hair, and brown eyes.  The mirror shows me a beautiful, rich, and unique heritage that is a part of me, my essence.  In fact, I see that I am, in reality, a reflection of this heritage.  Wherever I go, I can do so with pride, knowing what I am and where I have come from.  I carry the stories of my past and they reflect and intermingle with my aspirations for the future.  Indeed, I know that the changing self reflected in the mirror, will always proudly reflect the essence of myself.