Seeing Face

 

 

A few weeks back, this is what my horoscope said to me.

You will never be able to actually gaze upon your own face. You may of course see a reasonable likeness of it in mirrors, photos, and videos. But the real thing will always be forever visible to everyone else, but not you. No matter how sincere you may be in your efforts to see yourself clearly, there will always be fuzziness, misapprehensions, and ignorance.

Now, granted, it’s just a horoscope, I know; an internet horoscope to boot. So I shouldn’t be too quick to take offense, seeing as horoscopes have very little experience in the way of social graces. Most horoscopes I know, barely leave the house, let alone get involved in conversations.

But there it is…a smug little foretelling, implying that I’ve been living under some sort of a delusion…like the time I told myself I could pull off skinny jeans.

That was no delusion…I could…I did.

At least until I ate that Twinkie.

Then I couldn’t.

After that Twinkie I couldn’t pull my skinny jeans off…nor on.

Luckily the fire department has all those special tools.

Truth is, there’re a lot of body parts I can’t see, and really don’t want to, with or without a mirror.

My elbows for one…or two.

Who wants to look at their elbows, especially when they resemble Peter Lorre in "The Maltese Falcon".

Or the back of my knees.

Who wants to look at the back of their knees?

It’s bad enough I have to see the front of my knees.

But when it comes to my face I have no delusions whatsoever…whether I can see it clearly or not, the way other people see it.

When it comes to my face, I’m no different than anyone else…I have two eyes, two eyebrows—which I can now tie into twin pony tails—two ears, a mouth—sometimes smart…sometimes not so smart—a nose and that peculiar little hair, with a life of its own—not to mention a cell phone—that sprouts from the side of said nose, from time to time, when I’m not looking.

So not seeing my face in the flesh is probably a plus.

Not that I haven’t tried…I have.

But trying to see your own face is hard on the eyes….

I mean, literally hard on the eyes.

You can only stretch them so far before it starts to look weird.

And then what’s the point of looking at a weird face.

The best I can comfortably get a peek at, without too many gyrations, is the tip of my nose.

Sometimes, even a nostril.

But there’s not a lot of upside to looking in your nostril…unless you have a cold.

But even then….

So I’m content to just look at my mirrored reflection and see myself backwards.

I just compensate by talking backwards, which is probably why everyone says I mumble.

And I don’t like looking at myself on video or film…never have.

I’m not sure who that guy is, but it’s not me.

I don’t cock my head like that or make those weird faces in between sentences.

I don’t know how movie actors can look at themselves on those 40 foot screens.

I mean the poster I have of myself pasted onto the side of the garage is only 20 feet tall and I’m just barely comfortable with that.

But it looks nice, when the evening light hits it just so.

Especially my face.

 

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