[Prose#6] Furrowed Brow

I glanced in the review mirror last Monday and realized it was never going to go away.

For some reason, this revelation was shocking to me. It was a normal Monday commute, summertime sunshine lighting up the Oregon sky, as clear as a summer in the Pacific Northwest can possibly be - such a contrast to the rain this region is known for. The sun is already up and at'em by the time I start my drive to work, iPod on shuffle, my favorite songs filling the interior of the car.

Warding against squinting through the sunlight bouncing off of street signs, I wore my favorite pair of sunglasses - Aviators, gold frame. I'm not one of those girls that spends a lot of money on clothes. But sunglasses - now that's different. I usually get my sunglasses beyond cheap at thrifts stores, and I struggle getting rid of any of them. This fact explains the seven pairs of sunglasses I have roaming about my station wagon.

Sunglasses on, I glanced in my review mirror. I saw, just slightly above the nose piece of my sunglasses, a crease in my brow. I've always had that crease right between my eyes slightly left of center. But today, it popped out at me as being particularly indented. And permanent. This wasn't any delightful and delicate brow furrowing. No, it was a deep furrow, deep enough to plant seeds in.

My face is a frowny face. It just wants to frown. I've been told I have a lovely smile, but timidity and thoughtfulness were always its biggest foes. This goes back to infancy. From the photos, I look to be deathly seriousI did so, but I didn't carry a smile on my face to just throw out willy-nilly. Part of that could be due to being incredibly sick as a young child and living with great pain for the first two years of my life. But even today, my best friend told me that 1) my face at rest looks annoyed, and 2) that when I narrowed my eyes in thought, I was incredibly intimidating. My dry and sarcastic sense of humor don't help the situation too much.

But for some reason, I didn't realize how permanent the creases would be. For some reason, I figured I'd fall in love or something and smile so much that the brow creases would cease to exist. Instead, I'm sitting at a stoplight, trying to contort my face so that the line disappears. I smile. Nothing. I lift my eyebrows and smile. Oops, too high. I balance it out just right so that the crease is slightly less noticeable, but it's still there. Plus, my face feels like it's been glued on.

I started getting sad. Frowning, actually. It's just going to get worse, and all of a sudden, I'll find myself the scary old lady that looks mean. I don't want to look mean! I want those wrinkles around my mouth that say I've smiled too much freely over my life and look at what it's done to me! I want to have wrinkles in the right places. And hopefully they won't show up until after my 25th birthday.

Once I put my eyes back on the road as traffic started to break up, I took my attention off of the mirror and more on the deeper situation. I realize that I wanted my face to reflect who I am - a loving friend, a kind daughter, a laughing spirit. And someone who frowns when she thinks or when she cracks a joke. I can't do anything about the lines that are there already. They inform my character, who I am both around others and by myself. But, if I want the grandma wrinkles, born out of love and many free smiles, then I need to start earning them. There's no better time than now, I thought, as I pulled into work and greeted a co-worker getting out of a minivan with a huge grin.

[Poem#23] Eva

I said, "No problemo," and turned to return
the file to its proper placement. He,

former Spanish major, corrected me,
"It's problema." As it happens, problems

in Spanish are feminine. He chuckled,
deflecting, "I didn't say it" and turned back

to his computer. I think back to dear
Eva, the world's first mujer, the cause

of problems being female, or so history
has painted. Could it be her fault

when all she wanted was a fruit
that would taste like heaven
in a garden not built to last?


(first [hopefully!] in a series about every [maybe?] woman i come across in the Bible)

doesn't even count as a numbered poem

In most every coming of age
movie, involving a young girl
on the cusp of womanhood,
especially a period piece, say, set
in the 1940s or 1960s, there tends
to always be a strong woman who
challenges her assumptions,
her ideals, her morals, the path
that the young one is on. This
woman is educated, usually wearing
pants and/or glasses. She reads,
has a dry wit, enjoys music and
art. She is often poor, finding literature
to be of her greatest value. And, not
to give it away, but in the end, she
is the savior of the young girl, pulling
out that potential that was there all
along. This woman also is marked
by her singleness, that is, her living
alone, her lack of husband, the sense
of being solo. And she is the strong
brave one who tells every girl that
they can survive without men, yes,
they can, while young protagonist
starts making out with her romantic
lead, even while retaining her head
smarts. And this trope is a truism,
those single women who taught us how
to be feminists, to be fierce and
confident in our own muscles, blood,
and brains.

(UNFINISHED...but i wanted to prove i wrote something)

[Poem#15] My Mother's Sunglasses

I found them when I was cleaning out the old teal
Ford Explorer, handed down to me when I left home
for college and now waiting for the tow truck to be taken
to that final resting place - the salvage yard - due
to a cracked radiator hose and a faulty transmission.

While leaning across the driver's and passenger's seat
to the small pocket on the door, I pulled out old pens
from insurance companies in South Dakota, a pad of paper
from a funeral home in Washington, receipts from gas
in Oregon, remnants of travels taken and life lived.

They were at the bottom of the pocket, tucked behind a map
of Montana. Brown specs, rounded, tortoiseshell,
a little too outdated to be new, a little too late 80s to be retro.
When I put them on, I saw her: brown hair wavy and unruly,
short and stylishly unfashionable, her kind eyes hidden

in the mirrored lenses that warded off the Minnesota sun
that glinted off the white snow. For a second, her eyes
were mine, and I loved that 22-year-old version of herself,
edgy and lively, and I loved the 22-year-old version of myself,
because we were the same behind my mother's sunglasses.