Wabi-sabi & Brooke Shields' Eyebrows

Bicentennial middle school celebrated 200 years of our country’s birth and my green light to enter into the chasm of feminine preening. My lips were cherry gloss red, my skin stayed white, and my eye shadow was metallic aqua blue.

One weeknight evening, I found the tweezers. Having watched my brothers’ eyebrows fantasmically transform, I decided to leave the Boys 2 Men Club of the supraorbital arch. Time to pluck that hair!

Keep in mind that 1976 stood as a proud antecedent of the renowned Brooke Shields' Eyebrows. Young Shields hit the screen in the 1978 Lois Malle’s film, Pretty Baby, and mixed it all up in the 80's.


By then, I had already pruned my eyebrows. As any gardener knows, pruning delegates itself to be an ongoing chore. My tweezers didn't mind. Stop the horror! I do not presently ‘draw’ my brows in. Nor are they tattooed; but, I did create a left brow shape described by a blurting classmate as a constant “state of surprise”.

As forewarned by those many wives’ tales: arthritis sets in from skirted bare winter legs, horses spook when you have your period (still don’t believe that one), & eyebrow hair does not respond well to growing back in; I acquiesce. “That’s never going to grow back you know!” loudspeakered my degrading school chum. “Check it out! Ruth always looks like she’s surprised!”

Feigning fate, I have been.

I am surprised that women still earn less than men.

I am surprised most people do not know we are all racist.

I am giddy when young people go through, survive, and teach us oldsters what we should have learned on our own long ago.

I am surprised at how much work marriage requires, every day.

I am slapped with disbelief that the world is tolerating an election for a mass murderer in Syria.

I am seedling peeking through soil, fragile heart of foil, surprised calls still matter on Mother’s Day.

I am surprised by the wit and sharp reprimand to stay strong from my own dearest Mom.

Lastly, I am surprised, after what seems to be eons as a dedicated health care worker, that I forgot the rule of entropy, the constant of age, & Wabi-sabi.

I have decided that the 'vase' has fallen. It is somewhere in the vicinity of my knees now. Although the vase has not yet hit the floor, I can unreservedly say it will. I have been struggling to catch it midair with the slippery hands of life and circumstance. I have been casting curses that if the floor I had been standing on was in another state, the vase would not have fallen. Silly. Outrageous. Vases fall. Life happens. Health deteriorates. Age onsets. Accept it with grace. Once the pieces have hit the floor, safely access the situation, gather the proper tools and or assistance needed to 'pick up the pieces', regroup. Find the best kind of glue.

So I am breathing easier, knowing what I should have realized all along: I cannot control everything.

Of this obvious fact: known, held, crumpled and thrown away, retrieved, smoothed and reviewed, I am surprised ~

that it is so  very hard  ‘to do’.

 © ruth follmann