[I wrote this post last summer but didn’t feel brave enough to post it then. My friend is visiting again soon, and I’m posting now in happy anticipation of her visit.)
Every girl wants to be Beautiful.
There have been two or three times in my life when I’ve actually felt “pretty”. And I’ve been called, more than once, “cute’. Now, cute may be flattering when you’re eight years old, and maybe again when you’re 80, but when you’re in your middle years, mature and lovely, “cute” is not what you want to hear.
We had a dinner party here the other evening. Aromatic reds and chilled white wines and sparkling crystal were set on white linen out on the table in the garden, bright flowers all around, and avocado-spread toasted rounds, tequila-glazed grilled chicken, creamy risotto, and arugula salad. A friend who travels the world, volunteering with service and education projects in unlikely locations, returns to Vermont about once a year and spends some time with us. She also happens to have a Masters degree (from an Ivy League School) in French Bread (honest!!), and when she visits, loves to put on a dinner party. I simply offer to help cut vegetables and set the table.
The air was clean and warm and laughter flowed, well into the night after the stars and bugs came out. After the second mosquito, we took our wine glasses and meandered inside, and at some point, I think after I dribbled some wine onto my chin as my Palsy side doesn’t work so well and sometimes drinking without a straw is a challenge, anyway, somebody said “ah you’re so cute”.
I know it was meant as a sincere compliment, but I worked at a smile and a laugh through my trembling lips and ducked into the potty room. I sat on the edge of the tub and had a good 4-minute cry. Then I splashed some cool water on my face, holding my palsy-side eye closed with my finger of course. And then I looked in the mirror.
I so long to be composed and sure and beautiful, able to sip a simple wine without concentrating on how my mouth is working; and feel instead awkward, lopsided and disfigured. The face looking back at me wasn’t me at all — I’m still unfamiliar with this palsied face, even though it has been three years. I don’t know who this person is, that looks so unattractive to me, with her twisted smile. The threshold to this pathway of thinking is wide and strong, and there alone in the bathroom, with sounds of laughter and conversation coming through from the room on the other side of the door, there at that moment I had a choice to make. “I am NOT my face,” I chose to remind myself. Inside, my life is full of fun and joy and strength and dignity and, yes, beauty. My life and love can still shine through my one good eye. And these people here are all friends, which means they know I love them, and enjoy them, as they do me – and they see past my face. Way past my face. I stood there, and chose to smile at myself in the mirror. And half of my face smiled back, and my eye was full of joy, and it was a beautiful smile.
“I’ve learned my face is an incredible gift,” said Mr. Roche…”Not the kind of gift I was excited about, but it’s a gift because I’ve been forced to find my inner beauty….And I’ve learned that my experiences are universal experiences. Everybody feels disfigured, whether it’s on the inside or the outside. When you step out of the shower in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, you know what I’m talking about.”
[Quote from a 90-minute program on ‘Inner Beauty’ with Post-Gazette executive editor David Shribman serving as moderator]
You can see my other posts on living with facial palsy:
Carie… thank you. for being willing to be transparent and willing to share and give of yourself. Expecting its OK with you, I’d like to read this to my friend Lora whom I care for on Wednesdays, who can’t speak well and sometimes has to try 4 times to be understood, who drools and has to have her face wiped for her when she sneezes or coughs. And in order to enjoy the pleasure of a small taste of food has to endure the humiliation of spitting it out in front of whoever is with her. And can’t even get away to the bathroom if she needs to cry. But she really is beautiful. All I see is beautiful when I look at you, and sometimes notice there are muscles that don’t work as well but that’s about the same as noticing your color of socks. And is there really any face that is not beautiful when it is smiling? I love you so much. Part of you…Kiki Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:35:25 +0000 To: kikicc@msn.com
ahh Kiki, your words as always surround me like a hug. Lora is so fortunate (God’s gift!) that you are one to care for her 🙂