Decent mirrors are a scarce commodity in Florida’s women’s prisons. There are no full-length mirrors at all, leaving us always wondering what our butts look like in these pants. Plastic versions — less likely to be shattered and used as shanks — hang over bathroom sinks. They have a funhouse effect that can complicate the act of applying makeup.
Meanwhile, we can buy small mirrors for personal use for $3.03 plus tax. For most people in this prison, that price is steep. But the personal mirrors double as excellent fans, which has the added bonus of annoying nearby bunkies with refracted flashes of light.
The lack of quality reflection can lead to a somewhat distorted self-image. With our skewed images looking back at us, many of us inside tend to accept a kinder version of the truth about our appearances. Consulting one another on our looks tends to result in gentler assessments, too.
A bunkie once asked me, “I don’t look 68, do I?” I answered in all honesty that no, she did not. She looked 88. Of course, I did not tell her that. This is a dilemma I encounter regularly behind these prison walls, and I’m not sure whether the white lies we favor over brutal honesty help more than they hurt.
Another time, in a rare instance of harsh truth-telling, the truth was delivered but not believed.
One early morning, I sat with a different bunkie, L.J., on my lower bunk as we drank our first cups of coffee for the day. Neither of us is an early bird, so we sat in a companionable, zombie-like silence. A woman came over to ask L.J. how her eyebrows looked.
With pale white skin, jet black hair, and no makeup, she was giving goth vibes even before we considered the half-inch-thick black brows she had drawn above her eyes.
“Stupid,” L.J. answered, so quickly I choked on my coffee.
“Ha ha. Funny,” the girl replied. “But for real, how do they look?”
“Stupid,” L.J. repeated.
“Stop joking!” the girl protested. “Tell me.”
L.J. was not joking. She had yet to crack a smile. I tried to be helpful.
“It’s too much,” I offered, softly. Demon Brows ignored me.
L.J., unable to contain herself, blurted out: “You look like a goth witch from a low-budget sitcom. All you need is the broom.”
At L.J.’s suggestion, the goth girl trudged over to another woman for a third opinion.
In my old prison job as a wellness instructor, I helped women weigh themselves on the medical-type scale in our workout cage. Once, as I adjusted the sliding measure for one woman, she let out excitedly: “Oh, 127 pounds!”
“Um. No,” I corrected her. “You missed the 50-pound marker right there.”
How can one come to believe they are 50 pounds lighter than they are? Maybe it’s because when women ask if they’re gaining weight, a not uncommon response is: “Oh no, girl. I hear the dryers are overheating and shrinking our uniforms.”
These self-protective delusions may be a way to cope with the harshness of prison life, especially in a society that expects women to meet unmeetable beauty standards. The often unhealthy food and the steady march of time all take their toll on our looks — a situation not at all helped by the astronomically priced off-brand cosmetics and shampoos we have to use.
Without a good mirror or blunt friend to tell us otherwise, there’s not much we can do to fight back other than believe we look as good as we hope.
I worry about the ramifications of our self-delusions, and the benefits of our dishonest responses to each other. Is it really kinder to go along with an illusion than to tell the truth, even if it stings?
In the continued absence of any decent mirrors, maybe I can get a pair of those rose-colored glasses everyone else seems to have been issued.
