Source : the age
At age 66, I’ve finally succumbed to face cream. I bought it at the chemist at the ridiculous price of $27.95 for a tiny jar. It’s imported from Switzerland and promises to “remove wrinkles”. Inspired by time-honoured male wisdom, I quickly decided that since a tiny amount is said to benefit the skin, giant handfuls of the stuff will be even more advantageous.
Which is why I now start every morning looking like Marcel Marceau.
Why has vanity suddenly overtaken me? I have never previously taken any trouble over my appearance. Up to now, I’ve been influenced by that lovely chunk of wisdom from Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, warning against “the awful fate of the man who always knows the right clothes to wear and the right shop to buy them at”.
Now I start every morning looking like Marcel Marceau.Credit: Getty Images
I’ve worn torn jeans, rock T-shirts from before Midnight Oil was famous, and assorted shirts from that well-known businessman’s accoutre-rer, Harris Scarfe Ulladulla. I have jumpers with “built-in air-conditioning”, my name for the holes that decorate both front and back, and shorts that could easily lead to a charge of public indecency.
And yet, here I am, slathering my cracked skin with face cream, offering particularly copious offerings to a section, just below my right eye, which has developed a large vertical gully, much like you’d see in a poorly farmed Western Australian wheat field.
In my anxiety, I’m reminded of a famous quote from George Orwell. “At 50,” he wrote, “everyone has the face he deserves.” I first read this when I was 15 and happily imagined the face I’d have 35 years later – one marked by a lifetime of laughter, with a sunburst of lines radiating from my mouth, and some crinkled kindness around the eyes.
Not a bit of it. At 66, it’s just cruel thin lips, a forehead that’s had a plough through it, and this unexpected outbreak of cheek-based erosion.
Check out the head of hair. Credit: ABC
And so I slather on the expensive cream, a tightwad appalled by his own extravagance, as well as by his own tiresome vanity. “You are a terrible person,” I say to my mirrored image, as I scoop out another over-priced handful.
Orwell has a lot to answer for. It turns out he was wrong. We don’t all have the face we deserve. I’m quite a pleasant chap – you’ll have to take that on trust – but am stuck with this miserable face. And so I stand there every morning, slathering away, full of a hope that is vain in both senses of the word.
Then I think about all the other optimistic rules – the ones I long believed to be true, before realising they were lies.
As a school student, I was told to work hard since my marks would determine my future. I now declare this to be a lie, since in nearly half a century from the time I sat the HSC, no one has asked me once to recite my marks.
We trust in life to reward us – a sunny face for a sunny disposition.
Then, as a young parent, I was told that babies who failed to sleep through the night would turn out to be exceptionally bright. It was the one recompense for standing there in the hallway at two in the morning, rocking them from side to side.
True, our non-sleeping children did turn out to be quite bright, but no brighter than the sound-sleeping children of our smugly well-rested friends.
Next, working on radio, I was told not to be worried by the daily wave of complaints, as this was a sign people were listening and were “actively engaged” – particularly if they swore, threatened violence, and wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS.
In retrospect, having left the world of radio, I now think there may be more reliable indicators of success.
Some helpful lies have not been required – at least by me. Not to brag, but above my thin lips I have a decent head of hair. Nonetheless, I admire my balding male friends who say, “Mate, it’s a sign of testosterone.”
Mate, it’s not. But I do applaud your optimism.
Human beings, at our best, are tuned to optimism. We want to assume the best, whatever our situation. We trust in life to reward us – a sunny face for a sunny disposition; a reliable reward for every effort, whether as a student, parent or worker.
And so we rely on a series of optimistic lies. “You can’t be an alcoholic if you don’t start drinking until 6pm.” “Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.” “It’s OK to pick up food from the ground, as long as it’s only been there for five seconds.”
In the end, our optimism will falter in the face of reality. Despite all the hopeful rules, we may discover that we are drinking too much, or that we have nothing but pennies in the back, or that we are nursing a bad case of gastro from that one dropped snag.
But, before those realisations, there is always hope. And right now, for me, that hope means the “nourishing day cream”. Lots of it and damn the expense.
Next time you are out, keep your eyes peeled for a wrinkle-free Marcel Marceau.
