Journal Day 2: My 71st Year
Mom would “put on a mouth” before she left the house. Whether stepping out to grocery store, church service, neighbor’s house, downtown, or post office, our mother applied lipstick. She seldom included full makeup; but she always felt that she could not be seen in public with bare lips. From as early as I can remember her until her last ninetieth year of life, lipstick and a comb were her minimum requirements in preparation for facing the public. She was not always happy with her attire – I remember a day in 1960 when a waistband button on her skirt popped off before we left the car to enter the mall. She nearly cried. But she grabbed a diaper pin from my sister’s bag, pinned the waistband, applied lipstick, and gathered us to make a quick trip into the J C Penney store. – but lipstick may have been her answer to the natural qualms she always felt about the public’s eyes on her. Men and women did notice her. She was a beautiful woman.
This reminiscence is more than a pleasant childhood memory. It was a lesson in my early life, and one that I will never forget. We didn’t leave the house with our mother unless our faces were washed, our hair combed, and her lipstick carefully applied. From an early age, I understood that we needed to look proper. Later, I understood that we did these small things to show respect for ourselves. Our mom did not work outside of home after the first child arrived. By the time that the fifth child came, she had given up on having any time to herself. And even though my parents struggled financially in the first dozen years of their marriage, my mother desired respectability. Wearing clean clothes, having hair combed and tamed with cream or spray, walking into public with clean and polished shoes, and stifling our sibling rivalry were the most basic ways to show self-respect. According to our mom. She could not sport expensive boughten clothes. But she could show off her good figure under the very nice clothes she sewed for herself and for all of us. We were proud to be with her, and she was proud to show us off in public.
Those days were before parents toted their small children into every venue, whether concert or restaurant or theatre, casually bringing small children into places where other adults go to escape children and stressful situations. Families rarely “ate out”. Parents cooked. We ate around a table and talked (or yelled) to each other. We were taken to church services, into Sears and Roebuck or Woolworth, to the doctor or dentist, and the homes of cousins and grandparents. We looked good, and we behaved. I find it ironic that most parents now take their children everywhere they go but are far laxer about teaching their children how to behave in public. It is as though parents do not understand respectability and self-respect. The children are not only ignored by parents who stare into their own iPhone screens, but the children have tablets shoved into their hands…” Take this, kid, and keep quiet.” I’m not only invisible because I’m old and gray; I’m invisible because young parents and their children are not looking around. The disrespect is palpable.
I am not saying that those days were the best days, or that our parents did all things right and today’s parents do all things wrong. Every era has its best and worst elements. However, I am acutely aware that we’ve lost something inside ourselves. We do not dress for the public’s eyes, much less to be pleased with our mirrors’ images. We’ve done away with dining tables and traded home-cooked healthy meals for quick restaurant food. We’ve given up. We don’t talk to each other while waiting in adult queues or teach our children to talk with other adults. We’ve given up. Unless we’re hidden behind social media screens, we’ve nothing to express. We go to jobs or church or shopping in attire that’s appropriate for cleaning out the garage. We’ve given up. We’re not only uncommunicative; we’re also rude and crude and crass given opportunities to be otherwise. We’re boasting about family values but showing that we value nothing less than family. We’re spending billions of dollars on products that purport to make us feel good but spending no time or effort on learning and understanding.
I have thin lips that easily chap. They are nothing to show off. However, I want others to see that I know who I am and what I have, that I’m willing to make the best of myself. I apply color and cream to my mouth before I leave the house. I comb my hair and spritz perfume. It’s the least I can do for a public that I appreciate every opportunity of meeting. My car is eighteen years old; I live in a multi-generational home with my daughter and special needs granddaughter; I’m still paying on student loans for a master’s degree that I needed when I was a classroom teacher. Nothing is easy anymore. Lipstick and a smile on this old face is my way of saying, “We’re all in this together and I appreciate seeing you.”