Finally Unveiling… The Mouth Behind The Mask!!
By
It’s a June opening.
No, it’s not a play or an Art Installation, it’s a parade of lips and teeth, and words that aren’t slurred while covered over, or hair that popped up on the chin, (female, that is,) and smiles that we haven’t seen for well over a year .
We are slowly coming out. I mean that in the purest sense. We have become so used to mask wearing everywhere that many people don’t want to stop. They like that they cannot be held accountable for anything they said, because nobody can prove it was them. Unrecognized. They got used to it. But now, so many people are feeling alive again in hug position, or wandering into a store together, or just talking mouth to mouth once more. Trying to tie the lips to the eyes, the only thing that was available this last year to get an emotional reaction from.
For over a year we looked at eyes, our only means of facial recognition. In a store when we kept the sales person too long, unable to decide what we wanted, we could see their eyes “crossing,” sending us an exasperated message to “please get on with it or get out!” Or the utter delight in our dentist’s eyes, when the hour-long very uncomfortable extraction went smoothly. Even the questioning or confusion in the eyes of the delivery person who brought a big food order, to the wrong apartment…yours! (And didn’t have another apartment number written down.)
Life this past year was an eye job for sure. But what about now? We are suddenly in a game-changer. We are confronted with a nose, cheeks, a jaw line, lips. People blowing their noses, biting the insides of their cheeks, and talking through wagging mouth openings.
Are we really ready to see all that? It’s almost like throwing all the ingredients into the pot at once and not really carefully putting each one in at a time. What would that food look like? Maybe we could have started off with the nose…just a mask that went up to the nose but not over it? And then waited a week or so for the lips? We could use something that would just hide our chin and cheeks for the next week and then expose it. It would sure help with the overload of suddenly recognizing your upstairs neighbor who said “hello” to you on the elevator many times this past year, wearing a hat and mask, while you just nodded in reply, thinking, “Who is that person? Do I know her? (Or him?)
We now have to face the Face. This year has brought some dryness, maybe some visible strain, a pimple or two, hair that we have had to cut for ourselves, and perhaps some plumper cheeks. But hey, what’s the alternative?
Happy Unmasking Hip Silvers,
And Face up! Someone will remember you….
Cynthia… Unmasked.
Leave a comment