My name is Jessica Pearlman, and I live in Berkeley, California with my two young children. This is my piece out of the mirror.

We look into mirrors, seeing ourselves as though another, and when we gaze, we have the unique perspective of seeing and being seen all at once, a visual self -touch. This is true reflection, and that experience of looking at and into oneself can be Dizzying, especially in the wake of trauma or when contemplating difficult decisions. In principle, life is what happens to us and what choices we do or do not make. Looking not into but breaking out of the way life is reflected back at us. Choosing sometimes seemingly possibly to alter the passive course is brave and powerful, and, in some cases, life-saving. In the wake of trauma, choosing to break free is resilience and challenges victim status.

This work is an homage to my female ancestors and family members who have bravely chosen life despite trauma, in order to save themselves and their future generations. My great -great -grandmother, Hannah Ziven-Pearlman, was born in Russia in 1846, and by 1900 had fled with her family to a small gold rush town in Australia. For many years, that was all I knew about her. One day, while searching through Australian archives, I came across her will, written in sweeping cursive and digitized in color. At the end of the will, after discussing her possessions, how she planned to pay for her own funeral and tombstone, she states, "I direct my executors to cable the news of my death to my eldest son, Leib Aronoff, of Moeslav, Russia." Another son, her eldest, still in pogrom ridden Russia, and why was his last name different from hers?

Years later I discovered Hannah had been married before to an abusive husband with whom she had one son. Her husband had driven her to such a physical and mental state that she begged him for a divorce, and as strictly religious Jews, her husband had sole control of granting her one, called a get, and ultimately gave her a get, on the condition she relinquished her son to him. This was the life -saving choice she made. Lieb in Russia and Hanna in Australian ever saw each other again. Hanna created choices for herself instead of succumbing to the fateful consequences of doing nothing.

In February 2020, my then husband was arrested for domestic violence. With this began the complete and unexpected sever of our marriage and the complicated cascade of a sudden divorce against the backdrop of a pandemic. My children at the time were 11months and nearly two, both still in diapers and nursing. I was utterly directionless, falling through a kaleidoscope of problems, physical, mental, emotional, financial, my inner and outer turmoil burning and screaming. But I remembered Hannah.Hannah, whose only way to survive her first marriage was to break free, whose only way to survive Jew hatred was to insist on moving her family across the world to a tiny town to which they'd never been and whose language they didn't speak. Hannah, who is the reason I and my children are here today. We, every one of us, are descendants of survivors and women who created space for choices in their lives. Every mother before us gave birth. Every mother before us faced adversity and chose over and over to break free and to live.