Last week as I traveled to Carmine's on the upper west side for the birthday party of a friend who just turned 71, I noticed that it just so happened that the most beautiful people on the subway car I was riding were 60 or older. It was a welcome inversion to the usual order. There was an older woman with the softest brown eyes, cheeks and lips, it was very easy to imagine what she looked like at the age of 3. The same. To my right stood a man of about 75, his white hair slicked back, his brow wide and nose aquiline. He had a shockingly beautiful skull. Wickedly, I looked around for any young person on the car as beautiful. There were none.
On another day I was sitting across from a younger woman meticulously applying moisturizer or something to her face. She held her mirror in her left hand and had applied a pat of the moisturizer to the same hand, so she could quickly take a bit without squeezing her tube. She worked with such thoroughness and fervor applying this stuff that I could hardly take my eyes of her. She proceeded slowly, only moving on to the next tiny patch of her skin after the last had been completely polished.
I kept thinking about how I never do that, and how self conscious I would feel if I did. I also kept thinking about how well this woman was taking care of herself. For some reason, wrong or right, I wasn't reacting to her like she was the average self absorbed narcissist trying to be more beautiful than anyone else. She was becoming a model of someone who loved herself in a good way, with passion and thoroughness. I wondered, if she had a baby, would she show the same attention to detail while she gave her child a bath, scrubbing the baby until it glowed. Then trimming the nails, swabbing the ears, applying oils and unctions, carefully coming it's fine, thin hair.
By the end of this process her face was actually glowing like something Michaelangelo had just finished. Then she applied some brownish red lipstick and some eye shadow. I wondered what she would be like when she got to the office, kind to her coworkers or frighteningly demanding. Reactive of watchful. Normally I would react against this kind of display, accusing the individual of being profoundly self involved. But for some reason that day watching that woman coax luminosity from her skin seemed like a revelation.
She noticed all my staring. I wonder what she thought about it. I doubt she knew that the process of watching her glaze her face was a good lesson for someone like me.
1 comment:
I always find it fascinating when women apply make up on the train. I can't stop staring either and have also learned some tips!
The other day I watched this women draw in her eyebrows and completely transform the expression on her face!
On the other hand I can't stand it when people use their time on the train to trim their nails!!
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