Eyebrows

I've been thinking about eyebrows lately.  My own in particular.  They are rough, but I've never really seen them as so...not until I looked at my friend Jeanne's eyebrows that she'd just had waxed.  First, it's important to know that both Jeanne and I are on the hairy side.  Not abnormally so (whatever that means), but fuzzy -- more hair than a lot of women. 

 

And it's black hair.  That makes a difference.  

Blond hair or lighter hair seems to go unnoticed say on unshaved legs or armpits, but black hair shows up.

Even in the dark.

So I was intrigued when Jeanne told me she'd waxed her eyebrows. 

I took a close look.  Yes, they were thinner and not nearly as thick or full as they'd been before. Certainly leaner and lighter than my own.  I was surprised Jeanne undertook such a procedure for she, like me, is not a girly-girl, not a lipstick lesbian or a femme -- all those labels people still pass around despite the changing times.

Once I'd seen her eyebrows it got me looking closer at the eyebrows on other women -- friends and passersby alike.

Eyebrows, in and of themselves, are simply swaths of hair placed in unique positions above people's eyes. They move.  They arch and furrow.  They lift.  Sometimes they lift awkwardly, haphazardly.  Sometimes they lift without each other.  They convey emotions.  Anger and fear, patience and sadness, love and frustration.  

Men's eyebrows are more varied. They are allowed to be.  Old men are prone to bushy brows like the man I saw standing in line ahead of me at Starbucks. Wisps bent in all directions, varying lengths of coarse hair curling into his forehead and temples and even into his eyes.  Some men, and women too, have uni-brows -- that line of hair that extends across the forehead, no distinct break for the natural line of the nose.

But women, I've noticed, sculpt their eyebrows.  Some, it seems, pluck the unwanted hair creating an arch and puffy red skin where the hairs used to be.  

Others do what Jeanne did -- waxed their eyebrows into a shape with a bit more curve.  No pointed apex, no tips sharply slanted toward the ears. 

Beauty or some perceived notion of beauty drives such artistry.

Or maybe it doesn't.  

Did Jeanne wax her eyebrows because she was worried about the shape and thickness and volume of hair?  Did she want to look more beautiful?  Did she look in the mirror and scare herself into making an appointment for an eyebrow wax?

I can't picture it.  Jeanne is beautiful no matter what her eyebrows look like but somehow she felt moved to rid her forehead of unwanted thickness.

Looking at eyebrows has made me look at my own.  Years ago I thought I'd never be a woman who plucked anything, but then weird, wiry hairs started to appear on my chin.  I took a pair of tweezers to them and yanked whenever the black whiskers showed themselves.  

One day, a few years back, Ann and I spotted an older man who had huge strands of hair emanating from the moles on his face.  Lengthy.  Five or six inches lengthy.  I have moles, too, and hair pops out all the time.  In fact, one particular mole gets so hairy old women and young children often try to slap the spider from my neck.  

I clip those hairs often.

When we saw the man with the long wisps of hair on his face, I turned to Ann and said, "You'd tell me if I had hair protruding from my face like that wouldn't you?"

She just laughed, but when I looked in the mirror, my god, there were three hairs curling out of my cheek mole.  They  must have grown for weeks. I trimmed them instantly and then watched the mirror every morning for signs of unwanted growth.

So what's the difference? Why am I okay with trimming mole hairs, but not pruning my eyebrows?  

I looked at them closely this morning.  They aren't too bad.  They certainly aren't trim.  And when I use the word "trim" I mean like the trimmer or edger Ann uses to give the front parking strip that well-maintained, golf course look -- no raggedy edges spilling onto the sidewalk.

If my eyebrows are the grass and my skin the sidewalk, well I have to admit there are some wisps of grass growing out of the pavement.  

Should I pluck them?  Should I schedule a wax?  

Isn't okay that hair doesn't grow in neat little rows?  Isn't it okay that sprigs of black pop out at random locations?  Are people walking around looking at my eyebrows and saying, "Jesus, even cavewomen had less fur!"

I remember as a teenager deciding to no longer shave my legs.  This was a big deal because I was already an outcast and the hair on my legs is just like the hair on my head -- thick and dark.  

My nickname in high school was Magilla Gorilla.  

In college, when I walked into the women's bathroom with shorts on (and short hair on my head) women would gasp or even worse, tell me, "This is the women's bathroom!"

Once my mother said, "Oh honey, you should shave your legs, it looks so dirty!" (She'll deny that she said this, but believe me, it took years of therapy to get over that one.)

Of course, she sleeps with a man who has just as much hair on his legs as I do and more on his chest and back than I ever expect to see on my body.  Is he dirty?  

Our friend Trina came by today.  She has sculpted eyebrows.  They're almost perfect.  She's very young, of course, so it's hard to know if she makes them look like that or if they just come so well groomed.  

What did my eyebrows look like 20 years ago?

I haven't a clue.  I never looked.  I never even thought to look.

Now I can't seem to stop.