mirror, mirror

“Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face – the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man – all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us – we have died – what is there to be afraid of?

It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I’m afraid of being rushed.”
― Christopher Isherwood,  A Single Man

“Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action.”
― Virginia Woolf,  A Room of One’s Own

“Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.”
― P.G. Wodehouse,  Right Ho, Jeeves

reflection

Mirrors are undoubtedly strange. Common, so we get used to having them everywhere, at least in privileged areas of the world, but for me they never lose their strangeness.

There is the strangeness of the mirror-image itself, the version of the self most familiar to the self, yet bizarrely wonky when compared to a photograph (or reality), the version of the self most familiar to others. Like the discrepancy between your voice as you hear it and your voice on a recording. I have a staunch loyalty to my versions, feeling a shame that the world only gets these diluted, misshapen versions of me.

There is the strangeness of knowing what one looks like at all, the technology for mirrors—and especially accurate, clear mirrors—being relatively recent in human history. There’s a bit in the mockumentary What We Do In the Shadows wherein the vampires, who cannot see their reflections, ask one another to draw their likenesses so they can see what they look like. The drawings are comically bad, which is the bit, but it rings true that they would want to know, and take any scraps of information they could. I want to know. I want every scrap of information.

Then the strangeness of making eye contact with oneself, and seeing (almost seeing) what other people see. And the strangeness of knowing that, because you can only be yourself, you aren’t necessarily seeing what other people see at all, not noticing what they might notice. And so, in a way, you are not able to see yourself at all. I often have this thought with clothing, when I can’t quite decide how it fits. Sometimes I’ll take a photo, and look at that, but what I really want is to see a body identical to mine but not mine wearing the same thing. Then, it seems, on some other being/mannequin/stand-in, I would be able to judge it properly.

I have a suspicion that I spend more time than the average person in front of the mirror. Likely due to some combination of having a lot of mirrors around, giving my skin a lot of careful attention, doing a fair amount of making up, wanting to check on things generally, not trusting my hair to be where I last put it, and liking the act of looking at myself.

This last reason is not, it is important to clarify, because I think I look so great.* I am equally or perhaps even more interested in looking at myself when I look awful, or just unremarkable, which I mean in a matter-of-fact way, sans negativity.** I mainly look unremarkable (that is, normal). Still, I don’t seem to tire of inspecting my reflection, as if it might tell me something.

*Though I do sometimes think this, or something like this. It is more that I now and then have a glad feeling toward my face, like I might toward at anything that pleased me in the moment.  Not necessarily because it is ‘pretty’^ in that moment (not because it’s been made to look so-called pretty), but because I just like it, for whatever reason.

^Pretty is a problematic term, no? I use it but as a commercio-cultural construct it’s difficult.

**Negativity is aimed directly at various blemishes and scars to maintain a good relationship with the face as a whole.

reflection

My face and body, though in a sense random, genetically random, don’t feel random. They feel integrated. Not significant, exactly, not as if they mean anything, but influential, yes. Perhaps this is only my attachment to the material world.

 

endless summer

It’s strange how fully I (and we, as a culture, it seems) fall for the myth and the romance of summer given how, at least here in the Boston area, summer is a horrible, humid stretch of days during which one attempts to stay in the air conditioning as often as possible. I am miserably hot for the better part of summers here, if I think about it, a fact I seem conveniently to forget sometime around January, and fail to remember until June. It’s really only nice for a few days here and there, and usually only part of those days, before and/or after a sudden, unforeseen downpour.

I still feel the consumerist desire to kit myself out for the mystical stretch of the year that is summer, however. I want to be prepared for the impending vacances (I am not scheduled, at the moment, for a single day of vacance, reader), the long, languid soirées (ditto soirées), the sangria and mojito filled late afternoons (I will be working through virtually every one of those afternoons…).

Still I read such articles as ’10 summer must haves’ and ‘5 best lipsticks for summer’*. I want to wear orange lips, too. I really do.

*ALTHOUGH one is always taking in more data than one needs, and carefully over-preparing for hazy impending events. So…not necessarily a waste of time. Not entirely a waste of time/money.

This is to say, I am living in a fantasy wherein it seems I need to prepare for a life that doesn’t quite (at all) coincide with what is realistically (even just based on the statistics from last summer) going to happen. Really it is likely to be like a lot of the rest of the year, just inconveniently hot.

Yes, but! I could go to more parties this year! I might! Be invited to more! And then actually go!

I could.

I might.

I’m considering it.

So I probably need a new dress. A new bikini, clearly. And some lipstick. And, like, special summer moisturizer, and better legs, somehow. Suddenly my legs won’t do at all?  I need which products to mollify the gods of summer?

And somehow all the stuff I did and got for last summer and the summer before that (and the summer before that…) do not quite cut it?

Summer is such a genius cultural myth, capitalism-wise. I will give summer that. Even seeing through it, I genuinely fall prey to some of this marketing. Some of it overlaps with basic optimism about life (it’s optimistic to hope to go out, to plan social events, and to plan for the trappings of those events), and in some cases I just want the kind of stuff I want all the time, and the season provides a fresh context in which to want it. And in some cases it overlaps with common sense, like needing lighter clothes for summer, or sunscreen.

I like the kind of beauty looks that always crop up around summer, sheer, natural looks that tend to focus on looking healthy and fresh-faced. They hark back to the 60s and 70s concept of the American beauty, when the fashion magazine industry had just sprung up to document a world of fashion, and American models were known for their overflowing good health, athleticism, and a preference for natural (or natural looking) faces.

What I’m leading up to is: I bought some summer lipsticks.

And they are excellent.

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Lipstick Queen’s Endless Summer collection has a sheer, emollient formula like that of Jean Queen (the formula I wanted their Saint lipsticks to have, and they don’t quite), which I’ve already mentioned liking so well.  I think this kind of transparent formula, its texture hovering somewhere between a cream and an ointment (shea butter-based), its pigmentation unassailable, is effortless, foolproof. I think it’s on par with Chanel’s Rouge Coco Shine formula, and at a better price (if fewer colors). Want to get someone a gift of lipstick? Get them one of these (especially Jean Queen, which is a dark, I would say universal pink). Or one from Chanel.

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Stoked is a gently orange-toned tomato red, and Perfect Wave is a blue-tinged bubble gum pink. Stoked is the winner for me, but orange reds often are.

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Oh, OK. Here are some swatches.

I like the name, too. Endless Summer. I have summers that live on persistently in memory like this, seeming not to fade or lessen in their significance over time. Ready to be turned to, returned to, at any moment.

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I really like this packaging, too. This metallic orange  is beautiful.

I would wear these all year round.

 

P.S. For the record, I prefer autumn.