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| Tending towards the left |
Immediately out of the operating theatre ago my buggered-about mouth sagged wearily to the left. The expression was sinister yet ultimately rather sad. “No woman,” it seemed to say, “will ever want to kiss me again. Ever.”
Notice the vanity, the assumption that women were demanding my lips pre-op. In fact, the best I could hope for in those distant days was to be regarded as a smart-aleck. Nobody kisses smart-alecks.
Two weeks of convalescence have passed. As I carefully shaved away two days’ bristle this morning I realised the lip line had straightened but it’s still not right. The lips to the left are thin and mean. Cliché-mongers say we are more than our faces, but it’s faces that are preserved in others’ memories. Post-op I am a different RR. Should I modify my behaviour to match my new look?
The changes are comparatively small but might I have ended up in a Freak Show in the Middle Ages? Not one of the stars like The Bearded Lady or The Indiarubber Man. Perhaps the guy who sold the tickets. Or cleaned out the cages.
But here’s a question: did I look sneaky pre-op? Possibly. Now my face says there’s no doubt I do and I must live up to this new façade. The oldest apprentice pickpocket in history, say, recently liberated from sixty days’ community service. Or – more tragically and more up-to-date – a petty thief who once prised coins out of parking meters put out of business by the swipe card.
Would the mouth go better with a suit? “Cheers folks. Just off to audition for a part in the new horror film, Barber Clippers And Blood. A prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Or just wear a pandemic mask out of doors?
Wear a mask for so many other, obvious reasons. You may protect lives while you're at it.
ReplyDeleteMy mother had this theory about lips and how they reflect character and the thinner the lips the meaner the person. I think my lips were thinnest in the line-up of her kids.
Sabine: The implication being that there are no aesthetic reasons for leaving my face uncovered; the world will not miss its sneakiness.
DeleteThin lips. In writing fiction, and especially when tackling the appearance of women (which is not, contrary to many, an inherently anti-feminist act) the lips are the next important facial feature after hair. Important fictionally, that is. Tradition has it that full lips are the most appealing. I spent some time, secretly and mostly from memory, confronting this belief. I had in mind a pair of thin lips I knew moderately well, and was interested to discover that they were just as symmetrical - always assuming that this is a useful criterion - as any other. And that the imputation of meanness, if it had any justification at all, was a nonsense. However, in the post above, I refer to half a pair of lips and thus all previous bets are off.
I continue to wear a mask in all the situations I used to. But here's a conundrum. An engineer visited me at home recently. Before the appointment I was required by his employer to answer a whole set of questions concerning my Covid-19 practices. I greeted him wearing a mask (as he did) and we talked, socially distanced, in the utility room. After a while he said, "You don't have to wear a mask now." Normally I would have continued to do so but in this case I took it off. Because he was Asian and I didn't want there to be the slightest hint of racial difference between us. Did I do wrong? In the broadest sense almost definitely yes. In a human sense things get more blurred.
Asian or not, he said this with what authority? He had a direct line to covid? But then again, masks (mainly) protect the world around you from what your breath is sending out. Not so much the other way around.
DeleteHave you read the reason why women paint their lips? Not the relatively new cosmetics industry reasons but ethnologically, related to rituals and traditions?
Have a guess, think of the colours and the word lips.
Sabine: He needed no authority. Great swathes of restrictions had been lifted by the government throughout the previous ten days.
DeleteBut you're missing the point. This was not a case of Befehl ist Befehl. I faced a true dilemma in which both decisions were right and/or wrong. I could have retained the mask and thereby have rejected the engineer's quite casual/friendly advice. Or have taken it off and - conceivably - exposed myself to infection. His ethnic background swayed me towards the latter. Besides which he was a nice guy.
I'm sure a German would have made whatever was the correct decision. But despite my deep enthusiasms for Germany and the way it is run I am at heart an English wimp. Certainty has always worried me and journalism has encouraged me to ask questions about it. But you never know. Surgery may have changed this.
Oh dear, the usual stereotypes - I forgive you. We Germans often think all Brits are stuck in images of us dating back to The War, you know rapid goose stepping to follow orders like John Cleese has shown the world.
ReplyDeleteCompletely untrue, I know.
With authority I actually meant "someone who is an expert on a particular subject" (according to the Cambridge dictionary).
Sabine: How about the stereotype with which I characterised myself?
ReplyDelete