The Face, Part 6

No, I am not talking about movie star faces, celebrity beauty. Those people--are they real?--must feel heavy pressure to appear in public looking always perfectly beautiful or at least on camera that way. Recently all the women of the Today Show appeared for one entire program without face make-up. Gutsy. If you watched, you saw what they really look like. By the way, the men wouldn't do it. Got that one figured out?

No, I'm talking about the person with natural beauty who wears it easily and seems quite unaware of it. There are those.

And I don't mean to say that we think about our face every minute we're in the public eye. I do believe we would like to venture into that eye confident that the face is looking good or at least okay. Then we don't have to think about it.

But remember, the face meets the world on our behalf.

The Face, Part 5

A childhood friend had a favorite limerick, which she repeated often.

I know how ugly I are.

I know my face ain’t no star.

But my face, I don’t mind it

Because I’m behind it.

It’s the people in front that I jar.

I never believed it. Never will believe it. No, I know we don't think of the face every instant, but that's only because, or if, it generally looks okay. Then we can forget about it, forget, so to speak, what we look like, but those times, I believe, are rare for most of us.

Unless we're really old and have given up concern over these matters. I suppose that happens. I may not be old enough yet.

I could be wrong here, and I think it important to say that I speak as one who saw herself, her face, as attractive enough but never strikingly beautiful. So I don't know for sure how those people think, the ones with strikingly beautiful faces. I assume they simply never worry about how they look--in the face, that is.

For the rest of us, maybe when we know we look good or when we're in the company of someone who knows us well, we don't give a thought to our face. Otherwise, we're aware, sensitive, and if the face has extreme marks on it or if we see it as ugly, we're anxious. We might even stay in, refuse to show our face in public.

Because the face is what meets the world on our behalf, and I suggest that most of us want it to look good, to look like a real crown jewel.

Then there's the matter of inner beauty, which also shows in the face and may have little to do with its physical beauty. That brings up the soul again. Right?

The Face, Part 4

Emily Grosholz calls the face “that register of the soul,” which has a familiar ring. I grew up hearing my mother say, “the eyes are the window to the soul.” Grosholz also says, “The face is the jewel in the crown of the body.”

I have two pictures of me as a small child--if I could figure out my new computer well enough to post them, I would, but I can't yet. Both pictures show me as a child, three or four years old. One I like because you can see part of my Grandmother’s face. The other I like because you can see the profile of my face. Neither may be a jewel, but it is the face we want to see. Right? Otherwise, we can’t quite know the person.

Photographers sometimes take pictures of feet, bellies, butts, and other body parts—cute shots or novelty shots or pictures to sell something. But when they want to know and show the essence of the person, they shoot the face, “that register of the soul.”

That's something I believe, pretty much have always believed--that the soul shows in the face. I must have believed it, as evidenced by my behavior as an adolescent. I willfully made my face neutral, inscrutable. Or I tried to. So that no one could see what I was thinking, feeling, desiring. I'd walk into a social gathering or into a church meeting with my face as blank as I could make it, believing that then no one could read my face, see into my soul.

I wonder now if I was right. And was I trying to keep people away? Or intrigue them so they'd want to know me? I just assumed people were looking. Whichever the plan, I must have thought that was smart of me. Now I'm pretty sure it wasn't smart.

When I was very young, if I frowned or sulked, some adult would probably say something like, "You'd better not frown. Your face might get stuck that way." I thought that was impossible and quite silly. Now I'm pretty sure it wasn't so silly.

Thanks

• For the greenbelt, because I love to walk along the river, love its movement and its sound.
• For the plenteous blue sky, the wisps of white clouds, the jet vapor trails, because during those last several weeks of rain and dreary gray days I had been thinking of Ray Bradbury's short story, "All Summer In A Day." But this is day two of wonderful color and glorious air. (Read the story if you haven't. Not a light-hearted one, just so you know, but good.)
• For the openness of people here, because they will look you in the face, maybe even smile and say a word. Like the guy running by who said, "Finally, a beautiful day."
• For the birds on the wires. For the martins zooming here and there.
  
• The songs of birds--red-wing blackbirds, robins, quail, even the sparrows.
• The young woman running with her beautiful blond dog loping along behind her.
• For my shoes. They're Brooks, and they're really good.
• That I can walk.
• For the middle-aged jogger struggling along in his too-tight gray shorts which made very clear the line of his "athletic supporter," which then caused a person (me) to think, "You know, wearing a bra is not so bad."
• For the rhythmic whirr of bicycle wheels as they pedal past.
• And for the riders who call out, "On your left" as warning. Well, only one did today, but that's pretty good.
  
• For the two women walking along, conversing in a language I knew was Eastern European but not which one and because I always want to know I asked. They're from Bosnia, they told me, but they have been in this country long enough to speak very good English, I say, and long enough that their reply to my "thanks" was "not a problem."
• For the order of the golf course and the wildness of its perimeter.
• For chicory's blue flower and the purple phlox.
• For the fence between me and certain golfers.
• For my lovely car waiting just where I left it.
  
• For the fact that after 55 minutes I could say, "Come on, Carol, pick it up" and actually do it.
  
• For the Saint Saens piano concerto on the radio after I got back into the car and for the fact that I knew it without being told.
• For this wonderful day.

And, oh yeah, my cell phone so I could call Alyce in DC while I was walking.

Observations

1. It takes five guys to do a public works project, like cleaning out the bottom of a pond (no water in it) near the green belt. Three have to stand near the machine/generator, or whatever it is, with hands in pockets and talk to each other. One has to stand with hands in pockets and talk to the actual ONE who is doing the work. That’s five. I have noticed this kind of thing on roadwork, too.

2. No one, no matter who it might be—really—that’s no one in person is as important as someone, whoever it might be, on the other end of a text. Somehow these invisible people have thumbed their way into the heart of everyone you know. Trust me.

3. There once was a time, and it was kind of like this: when you left your home you also left your phone. I remember that time and think I remember not worrying overly about whose call I might miss. And I know I didn’t see nine out of every ten people pulling a small gadget from purse or pocket every few minutes to check on calls. And texts.

Once, not long after my sister got her first cell phone, it rang while we were in a public restroom—this was a long time ago when some people actually thought it intrusive for phones to ring and play tunes and make weird sounds in public. She pulled the phone from her purse, turned to all assembled, and said, “I’m not going to answer that.” I say that’s powerful.

Western Tanagers

They're back. I saw one last Monday and thought, "Maybe . . . " Today about a dozen flew right above my car, crossing the street from one old tree to another.

I don't see them every year. In fact, this year marks the third time in twenty years that I have seen them in numbers I would call significant. But no matter. This year, any year, I welcome their flash of cheery yellow as they fly from here to there.

I'm sure they nest in the very large old pine around the corner, and I have seen them running their errands of a late afternoon. They usually go together, a dozen or more at a time. I don't know where they go beyond that other tree. Food and a daily bath, I suppose. That should be easy enough with all the rain we're having.

But, really, I don't care where they go each day. I'm just glad to have them in the neighborhood again.

Poor Me

I am really tired. Actually, I am sleepy, having been deprived of sleep lately. Lately meaning the last few months.

They say all you need when you have missed sleep is a good eight hours. Okay, I'd settle for that. But I cannot remember the last time I slept eight hours straight through. And pretty much, even if I get to bed late and don't sleep well, I get up early. It's just me, the way I am.

Heavens. Look at all the to be verbs in this post.

So here is what I will do. Not about the to be verbs, about my tiredness.

1. A little laundry
2. Take a nap

I know. Not much of a post. But it is my blog.