Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

Ha!

C’mon, admit it. You look into that mirror and some days that morning glance is enough to ruin the entire day. Who is that lard-faced, wrinkled-wretch looking back at me in the mirror, you ask? Ah, the scourge of women, and probably many men as well – never to believe to their core that in each of us we possess our own brand of beauty.

Why is it that there are days that we look in the mirror and think, Gee, not too bad! And yet, haven’t we all had those days when we look into the mirror and miss the beautiful blue eyes or the infectious smile that is ours, and the delicious apple-red cheeks and the sensual mouth that will drive some man mad?

Why is it that some days we gaze in the mirror and we see the fairest of them all and others, well, what we see is… Susan Boyle. Susan with the bearish brows, the ruddy-complexion, the too-bold chin, the frizzy gray mop, the once youthful figure long lost to the dowdiness of age. Haven’t we all had our Susan Boyle days? Oh, don’t you just hate those days when what mirror reflects back is someone we really would prefer not to see?

How often might you wonder why, oh, why don’t I look the way Lady O does in that same 90 dollar dress?

We are all of us insecure and I suspect that in most of us we are equal parts Lady O looking mavel0us in a 90 dollar dress -- and 50 percent Susan Boyle. On Susan Boyle days, even if you were wearing a Givenchy original, you would still feel more Susan Boyle than Jackie O.

So what a reflection Susan Boyle turned out to be. And a metaphor for us all: a bloomin’ onion so to speak, whose exquisite essence was masked by an unattractive outer skin belying the beauty within. Susan Boyle as it happened became a slap across the face of a world gone mad over youth and beauty.

Susan Boyle, the middle-aged woman who found the courage to stand before us as she is, fat, aging, unattended and with a Mary Poppins sense of fashion, yet gloriously confident despite her outer-shortcomings.

Yes, Susan Boyle is one of the rare ones who was smart enough to know that while she is no beauty according to 21^st Century ideals, her magnificence lay within, attached to a set of golden pipes that when played, were indeed, a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.

Her courage allowed her the audacity to stand in all her vulnerability before a crowd of vicious, snickering fools. Focused on her dream, which required that she first believe in herself, and second that there was someone out there who could see past the outer-package inherited by her gene pool, Susan was hope itself.

Perhaps having long ago made peace with the familiar cruelty that one human being can impose on another, Susan first walked upon that stage looking almost a hearty fräulein. Mirrored back to her were the all too familiar hisses and snickering of the shallow, judging her because she didn’t fit their cosmetic bill.

But then the miracle: they heard. Susan Boyle sang and a voice as beautiful as the trilling of a lark, the song of an elegant English nightingale danced on the vibrations of the air. Those who first heard Susan were startled into silence. Susan owned the stage with her lute-like song. The snickering soon turned to silence.  Heartfelt lumps built in throats. Tears of astonishment and then recognition welled in the audience’s eyes.

It wasn’t the magnificence of the voice we heard that so threw the hardened off their game, no, not that. What caused eyes to widen was the recognition that inside of Susan Boyle is a little bit of each of us.

But soon after the miracle turned into a rude awakening; finding oneself under the focus of the harsh Klieg lights is not what one thought it would be. The tabloids began to nip at Susan’s heels and reportedly Ms. Boyle started to lose her composure under the unkind glare.

Whether it’s true or not, the press should have left Susan Boyle alone. Come Saturday night, Susan Boyle will face the test of her life. And so will the members of the press, and you, and I. If Susan wins, we all win: Susan Boyle, you, me, and our collective Susan Boyle’s within.

If she loses, the loss will be a reflection on ourselves.

Mirror, mirror on the wall …

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