self-portrait

For many reasons, I've never been one for self-portraits or seeing photos of myself.  Mostly because I — like a lot of you — am highly critical of myself , my looks, my skin, my hair, my anything and everything.  So, I'm usually the one behind the camera (or cameras, as the case may be).  I'm quite the amateur photographer, you know.  But when I'm the subject of a photograph, I see my round face and double chin, the two scars from when I had chicken pox in high school, and acne.  I see the complete lack of color in my face and lips that point downward at the corners.  I see eyebrows that must be dyed to be seen and barely-there eyelashes.  And over the years I've noticed my freckles have faded and my nose is getting bigger at the end, which is par for the course, really, isn't it?  At least I still have my sense of humor.  Lord knows where I'd be without it. 

So, those are the thoughts that are with me when I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself.  And please, I've only listed the issues I have with my face.  I'd go into the rest, but frankly, I have plans later this month and I don't have that kind of time. 

As I've mentioned recently, I've been in a funk.  The funk has lasted for a few weeks and I'm thinking of naming it.  Maybe Fred, I'm not sure.  Anyanxiety, yesterday I was having a particularly bad day.  We all have them, but a bad day when you're in a funk is really bad.  Among other things, I ran into the garage wall WITH MY CAR, the wall I've already dented and made a nice hole in.  Pretty soon it will look as though the Kool Aid guy has run through it and into the laundry room.  I realized what I had done, put the car in reverse, then park, closed my eyes and told myself to breath.  At that moment "You Are the Everything" by R.E.M.  came on the iPod and my scalp tingled like all my hair was standing on end and I exhaled and started crying.  Now, I'm not one of those I-never-cry kind of girls, don't think that — but yesterday the dam broke and what started as a tear down one cheek and smeared mascara turned into The Ugly Cry. 

The Ugly Cry is best cried alone.   Fortunately, the three year-old bolted from his booster seat and into the house, leaving me to drench the steering wheel in peace.  Unfortunately, I am nothing if not cognizant of my surroundings, bordering on clairvoyant, and I wiped my eyes only to see in my rear-view mirror that the UPS man was standing curiously behind my van, a couple of feet from the garage.  Of course, I did what anyone would do in this instance and broke out into maniacal laughter, then got out of the car and got my package from Mr. UPS.  

Once in the house, I stopped in the powder room to look at myself and saw that I had cried every inch of makeup off my face, except for my Pixi lip stain in the color Love — which looks very bright pink when you're not wearing any other makeup.  For the first time in never, I was okay with my naked face.  Pale skin, blonde eyelashes, out-of-control hair and all.  I made myself some coffee and sat down to my laptop at my kitchen table, talked to a friend on Facebook, and took a picture with the webcam.  I don't know why I thought to do this, it's not like me at all — and even less like me to share a photo of myself without makeup with you.  After all, I was fully made-up when I was induced with all three babies, I don't leave the house without my eyes done and lipstick, and I sure as hell don't take pictures of myself without foundation, concealer, eye makeup, blush, and touched-up eyebrows.  

I didn't think anything about the picture.  I continued in my funk and forgot about it.  Last night I was blogging about friends and made the photo mosaic on bighugelabs.com (great site to do neat things with pics) and today went back to that site to play some more.  I love David Hockeny's work and his collages he's made with polaroids and thought I'd use the "Hockneyizer" and make my own.  And maybe it's Honesty Week on The Kerry Blog, but I want to share it with you.  Maybe I'm coming out of the funk, maybe I've finally lost it, I'm not sure  — but here I am.  Naked, with lip stain. 

I'm hitting the "save" button before I chicken out.