Today My Eyebrows

Some weeks ago I had a thing to go to—a poetry reading or speaking engagement or somewhere that I couldn’t wear dog-walking attire and I had to be presentable. Which meant I also had to make my face right. Ever since my actual eyebrows became annoyed with my constant plucking and decided to up and leave my face, I have to carefully sketch them in. (Well, “carefully” when an audience of humans might be staring at my face.)

So on this day, when my eyebrows had to be even and correct, it gave me pause. And I asked for help… from the spirit of my mother. And at the completion of that request, as I embarked upon the task of sketching, I began composing a poem in my head, a poem about my mom and my relationship with my mom (if you read between the lines). I will include the poem below (if you’re interested; no pressure). But before you get there, dear Reader….

My mother attended beauty school, as she liked to tell us, and in writing the poem, and remembering that, I also recalled seeing a certificate for such a school in her papers after she passed away. So I went back looking for it, and this is what I found:

 

Where do I begin? Illinois had a “Beauty Culture Act” in 1950? I need a historian from Illinois to enlighten me! Whose idea was that? What was the intent of such an act? And what in heaven’s name is a beauty culturist?

But yes, she did indeed have her bona fides for hacking away at my hair when I was a child.

Deeper in her folder of treasured papers was this:

It’s a letter to her “Dady” thanking him for sending her some candy. Given that it’s in cursive, but she had not yet embarked on her elementary school crusade of being the top speller at the spelling bee, I reckon her to have been about third-grade age. The year would have been 1926. One hundred years ago. Holy smokes…. How sweet and sentimental that she kept it all her life (and how unlike my mother it was to be sweet and sentimental). I wonder… Did she ever send it? Was it returned to her when her father passed away? As I’ve said before, I hate when age brings me around to questions about her life, about my grandmother’s life, that can never be answered… because it’s too late.

Anyway, here’s the poem. (Thanks, Mom!) The title is “Today My Eyebrows” and the subtitle is “A Poem Wherein I Reiterate My Childhood Nickname an Inordinate Number of Times.” Enjoy!

 

Today my eyebrows

Had to be

Perfect.

So I stepped

Back from the mirror,

Brush hovering

Over brow,

And prayed

 

To my mother,

Who always insisted

“I went to beauty school,

Damn it,”

Even when

For the hundredth time

She cut my bangs

Too short

And crooked,

Then cut them

Even shorter

“To even them out,

Damn it,”

As she reiterated,

“I know what I’m doing,

Damn it,

I went to beauty school.”

 

And damn if I didn’t find

Among her papers,

Posthumously,

That certificate

With her name, and

“Registered Beauty Culturist

Under the provisions of

The Illinois Beauty Culture Act

Of 1950,

Adlai Stevenson, Governor.

 

Well then.

Now’s your chance, Mom,

I say to my own face

In the mirror.

Guide my hand,

Damn it,

Make them perfect.

 

And so they were.