Smooth Brain
Wrinkled Face
Here’s how it works. First we get this really smooth velvety skin, ever so slightly suffused with the subtle glow of blood passing beneath. Further up we have the brain, which better be deeply, deeply ridged and rippling with the impulses that enable us to sing, dance, stand on our heads and pick our noses clean.
That’s how we begin. But eventually things turn inside-out. Synapses still fire but spark-out sometimes in mid arc, spilling ash into the brain canyons which fill up like the grooves in a worn-out LP.
Meanwhile the face starts to look more like a young brain. In a prehistoric turn, ridges and valleys start up from the shimmering veldt. The once deep pools of our eyes begin to dry up from the edges, their shores now ringed with multiple water marks. Underground streams have carried all our dewy moisture down, down, where it rests in a heavy swaying puddle right under the chin.
More than all the facial wrinkles and grooves (which can suggest an athleticism of character) I despise this catch-all condition of the chin. I am considering a procedure. Yep—I’m really almost ready to do a chin lift.
Maybe we can’t recognize our own mortality, but I do worry about it all the time. A woman might think a good facelift, ever-dazzling hair and body reshaping make her look nineteen, but she recognizes and mocks that same deceit in someone else. Sixty never looks like nineteen. So I’d like to accept this and not kid around about what’s really down the road. We change, grind down and die. I need a strong chin to deal with this.
Wrinkled Face
Here’s how it works. First we get this really smooth velvety skin, ever so slightly suffused with the subtle glow of blood passing beneath. Further up we have the brain, which better be deeply, deeply ridged and rippling with the impulses that enable us to sing, dance, stand on our heads and pick our noses clean.
That’s how we begin. But eventually things turn inside-out. Synapses still fire but spark-out sometimes in mid arc, spilling ash into the brain canyons which fill up like the grooves in a worn-out LP.
Meanwhile the face starts to look more like a young brain. In a prehistoric turn, ridges and valleys start up from the shimmering veldt. The once deep pools of our eyes begin to dry up from the edges, their shores now ringed with multiple water marks. Underground streams have carried all our dewy moisture down, down, where it rests in a heavy swaying puddle right under the chin.
More than all the facial wrinkles and grooves (which can suggest an athleticism of character) I despise this catch-all condition of the chin. I am considering a procedure. Yep—I’m really almost ready to do a chin lift.
Maybe we can’t recognize our own mortality, but I do worry about it all the time. A woman might think a good facelift, ever-dazzling hair and body reshaping make her look nineteen, but she recognizes and mocks that same deceit in someone else. Sixty never looks like nineteen. So I’d like to accept this and not kid around about what’s really down the road. We change, grind down and die. I need a strong chin to deal with this.
I like the part where you say, "I'd like to accept this," because there's accepting the aging bit and there's accepting the chin lift. Both need a kind of acceptance because both come with stigma attached. My Mom's been joking about a facelift for a while now. Mostly I think she's seeking acceptance from us, worried that we'll judge her. I say get one, and here's to your chin lift too. The only thing that troubles me about the whole business is that eventually everything is going to start to fall, even all the bits around the chin. Then what? As for myself, I'd only worry that once I started messing around I couldn't stop and eventually I'd look like some horrible cat woman. My own aging is troubling, especially around the eyes, but cat woman face, or any face that looks obviously messed with troubles me more. Good luck.
ReplyDelete