Wrinkles...and a tasty disappointment

Watching the new Harry Potter movie, I was struck again—remembered what I felt last time—by Maggie Smith’s marvelous face. All those wrinkles! Rivulets. No face lift job for our Maggie. Do we all remember the gorgeous young redhead in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie? And now Dame Maggie—she’s been knighted, right?—presents her beautiful self to the world as the forces of nature and her own inner being have shaped her. I bless her for that.

I have friends who have had their faces tucked, bucked up, lifted (probably more than I realize!). I understand and empathize with their reasons for wanting/needing to look younger. I looked younger once. When my husband of 46 years died 8 years ago, I was still relatively unwrinkled. But time and flesh seem to have caught up with me and for a wonder—especially since I lost 13 pounds (The Flat Belly Diet)—the extra globules in the interstices melted away and up popped a purer me…molto wrinkled (what’s the Italian word for “wrinkled?” I’ll bet it’s prettier).

I hadn’t seen my wrinkles for the most part. Didn’t ignore them, just hadn’t noticed. But then for a photography class a couple of years ago, I had to take a self-portrait. Whoa. Wake up call! Big shock (photo attached).

Too, from my father’s side of the family, I inherited bags under the eyes. Not attractive. But there they are. I remember so well Betty Friedan’s face. Heaven help us, that was a real face, a true face, an honest face. In this world, in this society, one is well advised to look as young as is credible. Still the writer in me wants to say to the world, Look. I’m not a movie star. My face is not my fortune. What is the wonderful line, something about, The face you have is the face you’ve earned.

Dame Maggie is a movie star. And she lets her face be her face.

She has given the rest of us the courage to be our own true selves.

Huzzah for Maggie Smith!

And, yes, I loved the movie.

Oh. The sourdough wheat bread. Didn’t work. Pity. It came out flat, slices resembling biscotti. Crunchy on both sides, nice spread with cream cheese and ajvar. Which is a notion for my next entry…