My Chin

Before we move upwards, let’s start with my body.  It’s basically European peasant, broad hips, chubby thighs, nice ankles and not bad on top.  Shopping while young, I assumed in my old age, I’d be wearing half-sizes.  Guess what, they no longer make half-sizes.

My one dream since the age of twelve, when I started saving my money to buy “Seventeen” magazine every month, was to buy that classic Pendleton skirt. You know, the kind with the pleats that draped over the hips, flatteringly.  I bought that skirt and could never wear it because the pleats opened wide to accommodate my chunk.  (This caused a much envious hatred toward my sister, tall, slender, no problem wearing pleats, the bitch!)

And then there was my chin.  When I lost my baby fat—only to regain after menopause, I had a chin.  My face was shaped like an upside down equilateral triangle.  This never would have bothered me, but my mother kept staring at my chin, as if something was wrong with it; and she couldn’t figure out quite what or what to do about it.

We used to watch the Jackie Gleason show every Saturday night.  God, how I hated those “Honeymooner”sketches. But at the beginning of the show, they had a parade of beauties from the June Taylor dancers.  My mother examined them carefully to see if any of them could match a chin like mine.  One week she spotted a dancer and said,  “There! Her face is almost like yours.”  Yeah, like I’d ever look like a June Taylor dancer.

I remember one time looking in the mirror when I was in the tween years and commented—within my mother’s hearing—“I’m pretty,” in a very surprised voice.  My mother’s response:  “You’ll do.”

Crush me now!

It wasn’t until I went upstate for my Grandfather’s funeral that I had a vision of what was to come.  I was twelve at the time and was, as usual, surrounded by the entire clan, whom I loved so much.  During the gathering, Verity, my Great Uncle Sam’s second wife, leaned over to my mother and said, “Your daughter is going to be a real beauty.”

That remark lit up something inside of me that never died.  Of course, I was never a real beauty, but not a dud either, and I’ve grown to like my looks, even my chin.