Almost all my life, people have been telling me, “You look just like your mother.” Of course, like any other girl, I cringe when I hear this. It isn’t because my mother has a wart on her nose, that I always thought resembled a witch. It isn’t because she has a scar between her lip and her nose from when she almost got run over by a car as a child. It isn’t even because she’s always had a short haircut that I never liked. Actually, my mom is, and always was, pretty well made up. And that is precisely the problem. Make-up.
Growing up, I rarely saw my mom without make-up. She was no glamour queen. She didn’t resemble Tammy Faye Baker or anything like that, but she had more than her fair share of rouge, eye shadow, mascara, base make-up, powder, and lipstick in every shade of red you can imagine––all shoved into neat stacks in her medicine cabinet, and tucked into small, square plastic baskets under her sink.
She never went out of the house without engaging in the ritual she referred to as “putting her face on.” It started with a small triangular sponge spotted with light brown liquid foundation applied all over her face, followed by a dusting of powder, followed by a dot of rouge on each cheek, followed by a smear of eye shadow on each eye, followed by mascara, followed by a line around the lips, followed by a full lap around the lips with some shade of red. Most weekends she wore an abbreviated version of this, sans eye shadow, around the house while she cleaned or sewed or attended to other motherly duties. You would never, ever, without a doubt, catch her at Sunday church without a full face.
I knew about what time she would adjourn to her bathroom in the morning to start the ritual, and I would always find a reason to be in her bathroom so that I could watch her application techniques. I loved and hated the process of putting on all her make-up. She took incredible pains to make the line around her lips symmetrical, and the two dots of rouge on each cheek absolutely balanced. It was like watching the old masters paint a person’s likeness.
PREVIOUS PAGE
