Skin

in case you're like me, no, this post is not about foreskin and how i feel about it in general. and believe me, i have some pretty well-developed and nuanced opinions on foreskin. we can have that discussion at some point. but not today.

i'm talking about all our skin. from our toes to our scalp. i'm recently fascinated with skin. and my recent fascination with skin, stems from my long-standing fascination with makeup.

background: i am really, really, really, really obsessive. not so much compulsive. just obsessive. like, not OCD, just OD. i get so wrapped up and worried about the planning of a project, that i inevitably reach a point where i become terrified of actually starting it, because i've built it up into such a nuanced and detailed machine, that i am convinced i will inevitably fail.

for a long time, upon receiving a sandwich, i would spend several minutes taking it apart and reassembling it in a manner i found more pleasing. my family continues to make fun of me for how long it takes me to prepare food. and it bugs the hell out of me. and they can eat shit and die.

obsessions can also be soothing. when the big messy world is simply too overwhelming, i can focus in on a single little detail and very easily tune everything else out. i could stare at birds, or bugs, or the birthmark on my hand for ages. sometimes, i look at catalogs of flower bulbs, and read the glowing prose about each variety of tulip or lily, and i look at each wonderfully composed picture. its all very, very soothing. or at the least, a defense mechanism; a way of kicking the complexities and worries of the world out, and creating order and simplicity within.

naturally, makeup is a perfect outlet for my obsessive tendencies as well. i love walking up and down aisles of carefully arranged bottles and sticks and compacts, all grouped by face area, by ingredient, by product line, by product type. and then, within each of those categories, all the various hues are assembled in ranks; pinks and plums and reds and oranges and browns and buffs and teals and taupes and greens. its very, very soothing.

its also very much a study in covetousness. because in real life, i actually never wear makeup. but i still feel like its always good practice to have a bottle or two of good foundations at my disposal, "just in case." and of course, with those, i need so eye-shadow, maybe a couple of liners. some lip gunk. etc. then there's nail polish, which comes down to a rothko-like study of color. i haven't painted my nails in at least two years, but i hang on to my two dozen bottles of polish, taking them out of their box at times to look at them, and marvel at the strength of their hues. its similar to how i view the buying of a scarf as a tribute to the art of the spinner of the wool, the weaver, and the assembler. its barely clothing, straddling as it does the line between functional item, and an exercise in fiber art. nail polish is even less functional, but in its retreat from purpose, it at the same time blossoms into an experiment in pure color.

now, i never have an occasion to wear makeup in real life. so sometimes, i just choose an evening during which i will apply everything that i have on hand, just to see what it all looks like. i immediately wash it off afterwards, several times. but its still important to give in to the compulsion.

except the last time i put on a foundation, it resulted in an odd effect.

it was a relatively lightweight neutrogena foundation, matched quite well to my skin tone. but after applying it evenly, i looked in the mirror, and all the color had been sucked from my face. i suppose it smoothed me out, made my face a blank canvas, which i suppose can be the purpose of foundation. but it was remarkable how cold and dead i suddenly looked and felt.

hence, my current fascination with skin.

never mind that our skin is our largest organ, weighing in at about six pounds. never mind that its a wonderfully dualistic creation, simple in its appearance, complex in its function as a border between the inside and the out. never mind that it serves as physical protection, sensory system, temperature regulator. skin is all these things, and by fulfilling its purpose, it is utterly beautiful.

it is beautiful in what it reveals and what it conceals. it is beautiful in its layers of transparency and opaqueness. just like a squid or cuttlefish, we change our colors, blush and flush, pale and turn ashen, glow, almost flouresce. our forests of tiny hairs spring forth from our pores, raise and lower according to the weather. our pores open to bring in air and release sweat. veins are revealed and concealed with each movement. fields of wrinkles surround our joints. our knuckles are like great canyons. our genitals like florid blossoms.

makeup, i think, does the world a great disservice. it takes all of this away from us. it trades in artistry and a facsimile of "perfection" for the millions of permutations that our bare skin can display. it robs us of our emotions, every one of which registers on, IN, our skin. makeup can only conceal. it can only convey one thing. our skin, can convey desire, envy, pain, sadness, joy, everything and anything we may be feeling. and at the exact same time, it shows where the knobs of our elbows sit. it reveals and then hides away the muscles of our forearms. it breaks out in gooseflesh when a cool breeze whips around the corner, and all our little hairs rise up; taut skin, soft down.

its comforting to know that if i'm exhausted, i can look in the mirror and get evidence to support the theory. the slick, shiny purple bags under my eyes, my sunken sockets and heavy-lidded eyes all say, "yes, you must sleep." its soothing to be able to look at my hands and recognize them as my own, to recognize my knotty joints and bony knuckles, the flushed expanses of muscle between my thumbs and pointer fingers, to see the same patches of miniscule hair, and the same moles in the same places.

and its comforting to know that my cheeks flush red, and my lips remain a ridiculous hue that varies between pink and rosy purple; they are so garish, my lips, that they are part of the reason i wear a beard. alone on my face, they would be too obvious, too much "... a piece of raw tuna laid across my face." (go read "Memoirs of a Geisha," IMMEDIATELY!)

i am in love with skin. my own, and yours. its vitality. its expressiveness. its two-fold nature; what it reveals, and what it conceals inside.

i am in love with skin, and secrets it keeps.

and the secrets it doesn't.