I am becoming the kind of lady who subtly runs her fingers over her upper lip three or four times a day. All throughout the day, if I’m being honest. When I wake up, I find myself checking. When I’m about to get out of the car and run an errand. Standing at the park watching the girls climb. In the grocery store. In any spare moment, up goes the pointer finger. Or sometimes, I’ll make it look like I’m just running my whole hand over my face. You know, like maybe I’m thinking about something profound. But really I’m feeling for stubble. It grows in, mostly on the left side of my lip. I think that’s odd. Isn’t it odd? And I wonder if there’s something energetic about the left side of my body? More masculine, perhaps? Or more feminine, fertile, fecund. It’s consistent, whatever it is, because when I wake up, it’s always there, a little bristle. It started five years ago after my second baby was born. I thought it would go away after the postpartum period ended (whenever that is), but it had made itself at home. This daily growing season. And so now every morning has me running a razor quickly over my lip. Quickly, so I can pretend that I’m not really standing there having a shave. Then checking, of course, for any mutant hairs that may have grown in (anywhere) overnight. You know the ones that sprout inches, magical in their ability, to appear suddenly and out of nowhere, and to remain hidden, until you turn - just so - in the light (usually in the car when you don’t have a pair of tweezers) and find that the bugger has sprouted from your cheek. The question, instant in your mind. My God, how long have you been there??? Sometimes my daughter walks past the bathroom when I’m leaning forward, looking, searching, a razor in my hand, and she will stop and stare. She does it lovingly and with a smile, and we laugh together. One time, she asked why I had hair on my face. I quipped that after I gave birth, my body was really excited that it could make things, so now it just does what it can to show off. I’m just grateful it’s not still making teeth. Later, I wonder if when she’s a teenager, she will walk by the bathroom and see me there, and it will irritate her. That angry embarrassment that bubbles up in adolescence when teenagers find themselves witnessing the humanness of their parents. The other night I was watching Four Seasons with Tina Fey, and right before she goes out for dinner with her husband, she runs into the bathroom and she runs a razor nonchalantly across her face and jaw. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen what I’d just seen, and giggled. It made me laugh, which felt like relief. Sometimes I lie awake, afraid that I’ll find myself old and in a nursing home someday. That I’ll be out of my mind with dementia, and the mutant hairs will have grown long and unchecked, my face like some weedy garden the owner of the house has become too frail to tend to. A shadow, as always, on the left lip only, and I wonder if I’ll be able to talk someone into helping me find the strays. Or if I’ll even know they’re there. I hope so. And I hope we will laugh about it and talk deeply about bodies and bathroom mirrors, grown children and Tina Fey, like two ladies just out working in the yard.
I’ve always been extra hairy and I’ve had a bit of a mustache since puberty, now something of a beard too. I’m not comfortable with it, always get rid of my facial hair by any means necessary but it’s been normal for so long. Welcome to the Lady Sasquatch Club 😆
I feel like we should have membership cards and t-shirts, definitely a special handshake involving an invisible Machiavellian mustache twist!