The Sunny Side

On having a face.
Yesterday a man and his wife came through my line at the cafe. I was asking the gentleman customer if he had a membership card when he stopped me mid-sentence...

"You have a pretty face."

I was really startled by it but I instantly, and without question, accepted the compliment as my own. I thanked him. I moved to the expresso machine and mechanically started making his mocha. And of course, left with a minute to my thoughts, the incurable doubt set in. I started to acutely overanalyze the situation. What did he mean by pretty? Which features? Was he just saying it to catch me off guard? Was he hitting on me? I stumbled back over to him, staring at the floor as if my shoes were philosophical inquiries, took his money without even looking up, and the couple was gone. Just like that, no explanation.

The incident left my mind for a while.

Today after school I took a short stroll downtown to check out some of the new art galleries and drop by my favorite used bookstore. Bottega, one of the more modern art galleries, has mixed media pieces outside for sale against a backdrop mirror. In a second glance, I caught a glimpse of my face in an archaic mirror chip. The slice of reflection was off because of the shape and unbalanced portion of the mirror, so that I had to focus my pupils for a minute to catch it.

And for the first time, I thought "You have a really pretty face."

It's not an extraordinary face, no remarkable features, no pouty lips, no stunning straight smile, no celebrity cheekbones. On the contrary, underneath a bold layer of foundation and icky-thick mascara, my face is rather sulking, somewhat blemished, definitely scarred. My eyelashes are dull outward lines and my eyes are not of a distinct color without enhancement. My skin is ghostly pale and blotchy pinks. My face has brought me years of discomfort: my smile is made of flat metal braces, chipped teeth from childhood sommersaults, multiple mouth surgeries, and a yellowish, coffee-stain tint. I have a long, prominent family nose. I hide behind dark bangs parallel to my eyebrows. And the bottom half of my face, which I cannot hide, is a half-circle; I have a sort of cartoonistic double chin and plump cheeks that characterize the symmetry of my face.

But what I haven't noticed until today is that when I'm not thinking about it too much, my face provides a rather kind front to the world. I have inquisitive eyebrows that arch in thought. I have a slightly-slanted almond shape that open my eyes sincerely. Even though my lips are pursy and thin, they have a tilt to them that makes me appear happy most of the time. And there is a sort of roughness, a harsh reality to my deep-set laugh lines that reminds me that we're all sort of plain in ourselves, all sort of the same, you know? Not pretty, but rather ineffably beautiful in our sketchings. Not ordinary but unseperated from the whole. We have different reasons for smiling, but we all smile. Or at least everyone has at some point in their life.

It occurs to me that a face will never delight the soul in itself. But inside the valley of eyes and through the timeline of aging, mute and speaking loudly, we are happy to have this expression of outward creation. I think when I saw my face today I mostly saw how indefinably pretty God is. It was more than asthetic. Like unfolding a love letter, I was reminded by my reflection of God's plan: an offhanded compliment from a stranger carried in my sub-conscience until I realized its true worth. You have a pretty face and I have a pretty face brought to the light. We cannot express our love any more than our inward smiling followed through our external appearance.

It isn't vanity but it is acceptance that helps us realize that we're all just kind of needing a small compliment.

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