the wordless stories

Has anyone ever drawn your face? In pencil, or in charcoal?

Don't you think it's odd, how dissimilar you find the final product with the reflection you see twice, three times daily?

Your sketched face always seems too round, or too narrow, or the eyes drawn too far apart. You almost always look older, with all those lines and wrinkles painstakenly added by the careful artist in fear of leaving out any details.

I heard once that we are actually less "beautiful" than we perceive ourselves in the mirror. I heard it's the brain's fault, but personally I think it's the eyes--have you ever succeeded at looking at your reflection in the eyes? I know I can't--my gaze jumps from one eye to the other, and thus, I'm always surprised when I see pictures of myself with my mom's slightly rounder, more heart-shaped face, compared to the diamond-shaped one I see every morning and every evening.

I may despair growing old, but only because I have so much I want to do. I relish the aging of my face: counting the crow's feet and the laugh lines, that grow deeper and more numerous with every joyous occasion. Even the forehead wrinkles, which tell of how many challenges I took seriously and, eventually, overcame. Perhaps I could wait a little longer for the skin under my chin to sag, but I never want to get a facelift, nor try to look thirty years younger forty years from now.

I was just thinking of all the stories people's faces tell in photographs and drawings alone, even with just neutral expressions. All of the natural folds in the skin around the mouth, the shadows under the eyes, the mountains made by cheekbones. I've been looking at a picture of someone with such an incredible face--someone I know "personally," who is half a mystery to me, and as such, still intrigues and attracts me. This is such an interesting face, to me--the pronounced supraorbital browridge, the high zygomatic arches (for anyone who cares, I did take a Biological Anthropology course my sophomore year of college, and I love saying "zygomatic arches"), the deepest-set eyes I've ever seen on a person, a slightly crooked nose. Their whole face seems to be set in relief on their skull; looking at them straight on and in a good light, you can see the lines that make it so.

So much going on, and yet still so much I don't know.

Just so you know, there is a real lost cat that has been hanging around our house, following us around outside and trying to get in and mewing squeakily and wanting to be loved. We can't let him in until he's neutered, unfortunately, and we don't even know if he belongs to someone else yet, but he's got a makeshift shelter--a three-sided box and a towel under a bench on the back patio near the door--and we're arguing over names, should he become ours.

I mention this last item because you are anything but a cuddly kitten, as far as I know you, but when I listened to Metric's "Lost Kitten" over and over, I kept thinking of you. I just think it's a little ironic. (You're not a stray, again, as far as I know, but I peggged you as a lost puppy all the same. With those baby blues you could probably give me the sad dog look and I'd want to hang on to you.)

................

Strike at 1 pm. If anything, this show has taught me that theatre people are generally awesome, and that it doesn't necessarily matter how cool your life was before you met all these people--it doesn't make them any less awesome in the long run. I've learned to appreciate a lot of things while being in this show.

Now, onward.

................

And now I'm wondering why you're not at school.

Practicality says that I have more important things to think about, and so I do...but still...