Title: Mirror, Mirror

 Character(s): Meryl Streep. RPF

 Paring: None

 Rating: PG 

Summary: The hours in the life of Meryl Streep on her birthday, when the clock stuck midnight.

Author’s Note: This is my gift to say Happy Birthday to Meryl. The things Meryl remembers regarding the movies are real and most of her thought are things she has said about her life and love of acting. The rest is how I would think she would go about her day and experience things. I have no idée where Meryl’s locations where during that day. She hopefully had a pleasant day and went to bed with a smile on her face.

 Disclaimer : Not me or my character.

 Author: via_proxy

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 Sunday the 21^st of June 2009.

 
In the still of the night a figure awakens, blinks but can’t sleep again. She turns to her side hoping that sleep will take her but not tonight. Reluctant she turns again, only to have her weary eyes fall upon the sleeping form beside her. She smiles. In the darkness she can only barely make out his form, as the moonlight silently caresses his forehead. Not wishing to wake him she slowly turns to look at the clock. Squinting and then widening her eyes after each other, she realizing what this means and her brow soon follows the eyes.

 It’s 23:35, les than a half hour to go before midnight, before she turns 60.

 Meryl Streep sighed. It was not the thought of growing older that discouraged her. No she loved her age, well as any person would love a good book or meal. They all had its moments and to complete utter brilliance, its youth had to end. In food the silver gleam of cutlery would be cleaned and porcelain become white again and in literature the pages would end. No, she was discouraged because she had less than a half hour to be relaxed before the madness begin.

She sighed.

Moving the bedspread a little away from her sleeping husband, she slowly got up. He did not stir. Step by step her feet kissed the wooden floor oh so lightly as she made her way into the living room, with out a sound. She knew her path thus no light was required for there in the corner was her chair. The fire had been long forgotten as the ashes painted the fireplace so that even with immense cleaning still left its burgundy black smudges. Though she could not see them, she knew they where there. The moonlight fell on it but she did not care for the dirt. She liked the way those blotches remained, they where memories of how she and her family had been together, how they had enjoyed the warmth of the fire. The stains where like wrinkles, needed for character and necessary for remembering how they had lived.

Turning the lamp post light on, she sat in her chair with one hand on the switch and the other on the alum she was holding. It was always on the lamp stand beside it. She sat, reading glasses ready as she turned the pages. Brimmed in a neat gold and alabaster finish, Henry, Mamie ,Grace, Louisa and her husband Don and her younger self smiled up at her. Beautiful was the only way to describe it, pure happiness. She peered up behind the glasses at the clock hanging neatly on the wall.

23:48

She sat there, the album still open on her lap, and she thought back. She smiled at time where she had to stuff her bra to be deemed sexy for a role in Out of Africa, when she had love scenes with Jim Carry in Series Of Unfortunate Events and how in Mama Mia she, as Donna, had a strange ability to split in mid air at her age while singing to ABBA. . She remembered how funny it was doing accents with Ellen and then she remembered Anne and Emily’s cappuccino stunt. How she was cracking herself up inside, searing with laughter at there reaction and yet kept a strait face all the while…

23:51

She remembered her days at Yale and how she never would have imagined her life to be so enriched with love that was not only in acting. She remembered her first Oscar and then the first time she ‘lost’ to someone ells. She never held a grudge. The strange thing is though that if she remembered correctly, the ‘loosing’ and winning, in a way, felt the same. There was exhilaration and then it merely stopped being the most important thing in her life. She thought how comical it always was to be praised to have 15 nominations, only to answer them that she had also lost 15 times. She smiled.

23:56  

She remembered when she met Don, when Henry was born, then Mary (Mamie), then Grace and Louisa. How they grew together, became strong, how she than later drove them crazy by singing ABBA songs all day. She remembered her 50^th birthday, how afraid she was that she would be too old to work on the roles she aspired to, to old to be taken seriously as an actress amongst the younger generation. She remember not long after that fear how she loved her age even more, how she felt that she did not have to prove anything to anyone anymore and that she could…what was the word?…be herself? But she had been that all along…

23:58 

Meryl closed the book and placed it with the glasses on the stand. She got up and walked to the mirror in the hall, the clock facing her. She looked at her reflection. Her face was not as young as it use to be but her eyes, ah her eyes where still her own. They where still Mary Louise Streep’s, before she became the famous Meryl Streep. She was still herself and yet…

00:00                                         ----Monday the 22^nd of June 2009----

She had changed

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 The day passed on. And as she had imagined, she did not have a minute to herself; but she loved it. It was interesting to see how many people had actually written her happy birthday letters. When her agent phoned to confirm a new role, he had mentioned that she should stop by latter the day if she had time because they had a bag full of good wishes for her. The thought made her smile again. In the streets random people would spot her, and pretend to know her by starting to want to chat with her: she still have not gotten used to that, at being so loved. It’s not like she is trying to please the world so they would love her, no it is as through her love of work and her honesty in it is the reason people love her. She smiles to herself as an old couple waved her a happy birthday and a little girl comes and pokes her for an autographed. She arrives at her event. She has her calibration, she is wished happy all day, she is congratulate by all she comes in contact with. Busyness is all she knows the whole day with no time to rest…

But when the night came, the piece started to creep in once again. At home she found a strange tiredness befalls her and soon she was in bed, waiting for sleep to grants his gift.

But again she awakens to 23:35, and gets up.

She sits, smiling again at her lovely but tiring day. She is beginning to feel her age. She laughs. Always hearing the saying and never believing it. 

The clock strikes midnight. It is now the 23 of June 2009. No longer her birthday and yet has the day seemed the same as just a few hours ago? Indeed like The Hours, it felt as if she had a life in one single day.

Unexpectedly she finds herself in front of the mirror like the night before, looking at herself. Not out of vain but admiration.

She was still herself and yet… 

She had changed but for the better

Smiling she remembered how she struggled with those 3 inch red heals and how loosing weight for The Devil Wears Prada, just wasn’t her thing.. .

She remembered when they started filming, that she decided to not be too evolved with the cast and crew for the characters persona to become real. She would sit on her own in the corner and watch the people walk by the first few weeks. Every time someone approached or walked by her, she would give them a Miranda glare, scaring the living daylights out of them, and if she was asked something she would flip her wrists and say….

“That’s all “ she found herself say before she could stop herself.

Her eyes widened. 

More than 3 years had passed and …no wig, no fancy cloths or heals where necessary. She could swear she saw her old silver haired friend and her icy blue eyes stare back approvingly at her with the sound of her brisk tone still lingering.

Smiling and shaking her head at her silliness, she thought… 

“By god Meryl, you still got it.”