ONE OF THE FEW BEAUTIES OF A PANDEMIC? NO LONGER SAVING FACE.

Probably, a small group of people (i.e., those who are riding the wave of the pandemic on the luxurious spray of their bidets) will have the means to smuggle someone into their homes for covert pokes of Botox. These folks will still be trying find ways to literally and figuratively save face – even during a pandemic.

The rest of us are trading corny jokes about finally bearing witness to each other’s true hair colours.  Some of us are enjoying the sprouting of our own.  We have seen the memes about what our post-apocalyptic coif could come to.  
Even people who have tried to stay grounded in the 21st century have struggled not to succumb to preposterous age-defying beauty ideals. “It makes me feel good to look good!”  And while that might be true, it seems to be taking exceedingly more work.

I wish I were an exception.  I am loathe to admit (though am apparently doing so publicly) that I have succumbed to the pressure. I thought that I would surely go blind, when as a bride-to-be, I lay prone for two hours as a chirpy “eyelash technician” glued fronds to my face with what smelled like paint stripper. While I left still sighted, I probably looked better prepared for a cabaret than for my nuptials.

Now, weddings are being cancelled outright and I sit here reading the sobering news about about a lack of medical supplies and people dying alone and unceremoniously without funerals. My hair is pulled back with my dark roots on display.  A bit of toothpaste is caked on the same sweatshirt I have worn for the least three days. (At least I am still brushing my teeth?)   And for once, I couldn’t care less about how I look. Although not much else feels good, relinquishing vanity rituals has been a relief. When I scroll through this week’s calendar, there are innumerable events to delete.   Some of these cancellations are sad – a missed dinner with a friend, having to postpone a session with a client, not having a final goodbye with my students. But in this time of darkness, there is a sense of relief to say “no can do” to a nail appointment. Eyebrow threading? Ouch, bye.

I can speak for many of us when I say that the price, time, pain, and moral betrayal that has been required to look “good” and stave off middle age, was starting to feel like absurd and sad compulsion.

When looking around the globe and anticipating the tidal wave of illness and pain to come, it feels a bit callous or Pollyanna to talk about the benefits of a pandemic. That said, wouldn’t it be nice for us to reorganize priorities and live in a society that spent less time saving face.