tuckova

Seen and Not Seen

There are some faces that I love to look at, have loved to look at, even when my love for the person has so completely evaporated that I barely trust my memory, I still feel such pleasure in the tilt of their eyes, curve of lip, chicken pox scar, whatever. There is still, in their faces, something of what initially pulled me to them. Other faces as my love faded the veil slipped and they became unattractive on the outside as from the inside, until they are just faces, flowers of no particular interest. 

And then there are faces I almost can't bear to look at. 

What I am wondering this month, as I fail to watch another political debate partly on aesthetic grounds, is whether these people were born with terrible faces and then gradually developed personalities to match them, or whether their faces reflect their personalities. This one constantly surrounded by every stale fart in the world, judging from the curled lip and the pinched nose. This one with his lips pursed tighter than any sphincter needs to be. These faces physically repulse me, and yet other people must find them attractive. What is that about?

I walk down the street and look at faces and think about chickens and eggs. Is this the face you would have chosen, if you had a choice? Were you born looking like the world had failed to meet your expectations; arms crossed disdainfully already on the playground, a bossy dissatisfied child; does the thin upper lip reflect a disappointment you were born with? Were you born this way and your personality grew into it, or did your looks grow this way because of how you lived? The result is the same, I guess, so maybe it doesn't matter, but I have a half smile, slightly widened eyes, and I'm asking.

give me a bee

Last night an angry bee was bothering me as I took a leisurely stroll down a narrow path that seemed mostly like a grocery aisle. Flapping my hands in front of me to get rid of it. I don't know why I didn't just turn and walk the other way; this fuzzy yellow creature was obviously intent on stopping me. Fwap fwap fwap with my hands at it, effectively blowing it out of my way on puffs of agitated air until finally it landed on my hand and I couldn't shake it off, and I felt the stinger go in. A mixture of pain and... relief, then, because now the thing I had been dreading happened, and now the bee would die so I could proceed unhindered. Except it kept coming at me. A wasp? Is it bees that die and wasps that don't? And which are hornets? I could feel my hand starting to swell. I just wanted to get to the end of the path, where it opened out again; also, I wanted to find tweezers to get the stinger out, and they're on another aisle. I am, even now, confused about why I didn't turn around. Instead waving my hands, sometimes brushing against the fur of a very determined and angry hornet, the buzzing, the pain in my hand. I put a scarf over my head, tenting it over my face so the hornet couldn't sting through it, then wondered where the scarf had come from and why it was so heavy and finally woke, buried under the blankets, sweating and frightened and very confused. I still need tweezers. 

somebody come and play

There is one piece of playground equipment in particular. I think it's called the spinner? It's hard to find any more, as they're clearly death traps. When I was little, the spinner was a large round platform about a foot off the ground with several metal rails on it that you were supposed to hold onto for balance. The less popular kids (I think this is how it was decided?) had to hold the outer legs of the metal rails and run in the inevitable mud around the spinner until it got some good momentum going, and then jump on and enjoy the vertigo-inducing spin, holding on tight or risking being flung right back off, as the outer edge was the riskiest place to be but the momentum made it hard to move inward once the spinner was in motion. If you were already on the spinner as it was being spun faster and faster, your job was to stay on and not vomit, which was easier if you were towards the center of the thing, and had not just drunk your chocolate milk ration too quickly. Ah, childhood.

There's a modern version of the spinner now, a one-person deal, which I find excellent as I do not and never have played well with most others. This version is a pole in the ground, slightly tilted with a one-person platform for standing. It involves just one good kick off the ground to get it started, since you're only pushing for one person. It starts to whirl pretty fast and all you have is the one pole to hang on to. The instinct is to hold on really, really tightly, because it feels like everything about this innocent-looking playground thing wants to hurl you directly off of it.

But here's what's funny: if you almost let go, if you open yourself to the wind whipping at you, if you go so far as to fling out your arm and leg, counting on just one hand to hold you in place ... it slows down. It stops feeling so damn scary. The magic that made the inner circle feel safe on the spinner of your childhood is the same magic physics that makes it such that when you are alone, the best way to stay upright is to spread out, open yourself up, even though it really feels like the safest thing to do is shrink and cling.

Which is not a metaphor for anything.