There is a lone red tree across the street from my house. I had not noticed it before today. Probably because it used to be green. Just goes to show what a little splash of color, a little make-up perhaps, can do. Which is why I tend to shy away from the stuff most days -- I prefer to be like the tree when it is still green -- or, better still, bare -- flying under the radar. But when I head out for the evening, out comes one of the many little make-up bags I've acquired along with freebies from the department store make-up counters, on goes the mascara and the blush. It's not much, but the difference, to me at least, is startling. I am in costume, ready to be spoken to, prepared to interact.
I often wonder who decided, back in the day, that a woman's face, like a blank canvas, should be painted before being displayed. That our eyes should pop, that our cheek bones should be lifted by some magical blend of rosy shadows. That our lips should shimmer with colors not found in nature. Same guy who conjured up the idea of bikini waxes, I assume.
Last night, when I came home, I stared at my smokey eyes in the bathroom mirror. Smudging had made them even more dramatic, more of a masterpiece than the one I had created hours earlier. It was kind of sad, really, to scrub off the paint, to restore the canvas to its original state. I stared back in the mirror, wondering what had become of the museum piece. The woman staring back at me was virtually invisible. The way I like her. I think.
I am going to pay more attention to that tree now. Even after the red leaves blow away.
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