Beauty Marks

My mother calls them beauty marks and on Marlena Dietrich that is what they look like. I call them moles and on me they more and more resemble their "homophonic" connection to the little varmints with furry bodies and long tails.

I have many stories about my moles. A favorite took place when I was in college and an elderly woman sat down next to me on the city bus. We talked for a moment. She was on her way downtown to shop at Frederick and Nelson's (a now defunct department store, but back in the day a posh business where many an old lady in blue hair enjoyed shopping). This older, almost blue-haired old lady was on her way to purchase a new coat for the upcoming winter. I'm not sure where I was headed, but I distinctly remember her destination as it became the topic of conversation, the exact details of which escape me now.

No matter.

As the bus bounced along and she went on to describe the kind of coat she was looking for and the need for "versatility" in such due to the unpredictable Seattle weather, she reached into her clutch purse, retrieved a tattered tissue, gave it a lick and then reached toward my face saying, "My dear, you have a smudge on your cheek. Let me wipe it off for you."

In attempt to be polite, I didn't pull away nor did I decline the rather slimy offer thinking that, in fact, I had some crust of jam or some other foreign object clinging to my cheek. She gave a rub and then rubbed harder and finally clucked with frustration and said, "Well, I wonder what it is. It simply won't come off!"

Just as she was about to pull her compact mirror from her purse it struck me -- She's trying to wipe off my mole.

"Oh," I said, "I'm so sorry, but I think you're trying to wipe off a mole." And then I laughed. She laughed slightly and then inspected my face through her bifocals just a bit more intensely.

"Why you have quite a few moles on your face, don't you?"

I've never actually counted the moles on my body, but there are at least 10 on my face of various sizes and I'd venture to say about 50 or more covering my body. If I count the smallish ones that look like freckles, I might have close to 100 moles in total.

When I go to the doctor for my yearly physical, she has me stand naked in the middle of the room and she examines me front to back, side to side for any irregularities. At first, it was embarrassing and chilly, but now I'm used to it and know that she is simply, and thoroughly, scanning for any changes to my skin and my moles.

I don't mind the moles really except the few on my face that sprout thick, rigid black hairs that if unchecked, can grow to look spooking. Which leads me to my second favorite mole story.

I was working with one of my students at her desk, crouched down beside her trying to help her choose a topic for her writing assignment. She stared at me long and hard, which I took to mean confusion on her part. Then I realized she was staring at my neck just below my left ear.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"I think you have a spider on your neck," she offered.

Quickly, I swiped at my neck, not in a panicked sort of way because spiders don't freak me out like that, but in a matter-of-fact kind of way because the thought of a spider on my neck was rather unappealing. But I did not feel a spider. Instead, I felt the rough hairs of my mole so neglected and long they curled into what, no doubt, looked like the many legs of a spider.

"Oh," I laughed. "That's just my mole."

"Yuck," squirmed my student, "You have a hairy mole?"

Now, as I approach 50 my response to her reaction would be much different than it was then. "Yes, well..." I stammered back then, "It's not uncommon, really, it's just the way this mole is."

Today I would say, "Yep, moles get hair on them and as you get older, you'll get hairier. Just you wait, little Missy. You'll be plucking and trimming every morning for the rest of your life!"

And it's true, for me anyway. Not only do I trim the hair on my "spider" mole on a regular basis, but the same has to be done on three other face moles and one on my neck. In addition, the same determined black hairs poke out on my chin and my upper lip and with much grimacing, I pluck those out with tweezers at least twice a week.

I wish I could mature enough to not care about my moles or the hair that grows out of them, but I have yet to grasp the beauty of such marks. Most of the time, I am unaware of them until a photograph is taken, up close and personal, and I see not only the moles, but the expanding gray hair on my head.

In high school, when we had our senior pictures taken, the studio photographer painted out the moles on my face. The photograph hangs in my parents' spare bedroom and when I look at it now, my skin looks almost porcelain, very clean and very smooth. While I can see the resemblance between that person and my older self, the girl in the photograph looks fake, almost like a painting, an artist's abstract rendering of the teenager before him.

I heard on the radio the other day how doctors are offering minor plastic surgery options at their general practitioner's offices because they can make more money than waiting for insurance (Medicare mostly) to pay for normal, every day health care. One doctor commented, "In the future, we'll have a lot of really good-looking sick people in our country."

A doctor once told me I could have my moles removed and, in fact, almost recommended it to avoid possible future bouts of cancer. Though now I see the idea as outrageous (and my current doctor does as well), at the time I almost took him up on the offer. Not because I was worried about cancer (though I was slightly), but because I knew I wouldn't have to put up with an old lady's wet tissue or the fear of spiders on my neck.

Is that vanity? I think calling the black spots on my face beauty marks is more vain than possibly removing them all, but in the end I've done neither. The moles are still here, speckling my skin and occasionally growing bristled hairs just in case they think I've forgotten about them.