Appearances are everything

I revised my concept paper according to the suggestions offered by my chair and resubmitted it, a process which took less than an hour. While I wait for a response, I am pondering yet another odd aspect of life—the inordinate power of appearances. That is, how things look often seems to have more impact than how things really are.

Let me give you some examples. People sometimes say I look tired. They don't ask if I am tired. They assume that I am tired based on my appearance. (In most cases, they would be correct.) Here's a better example. People often say I look angry. Because I am a chronic malcontent, over the years my bad attitude has carved a deep fissure between my eyebrows. You know how some people have laugh lines? Not me. I have a permanent scowl. My former significant other called it stinkeye, just one of the reasons we are no longer a couple. This vertical groove is present whether I am happy or sad, angry or elated. It is now a permanent topological feature on the landscape of my face. Only cosmetic surgery will make me appear happy.

But that is what I mean. It's just an appearance. On the surface I may look angry, but inside I may be happy. Well, if not happy, at least neutral. But you will never know if you don't ask.

In my family, success was closely tied to appearances. No one cared how you felt. It only mattered how you looked. If you looked good, then you were good. So simple, yet so destructive. My father wanted me to look like a girl. "Why don't you wear some of those nice Ship and Shore outfits," he asked me once. Now I know he just wanted me to be happy, and the path to happiness was to look good. At the time I interpreted his request as a demand for me to be someone else, some perfectly attired, traditionally coiffed creature that I could never be.

I spent a lot of time trying to look good. When that didn't make me feel good, I moved to Los Angeles and started wearing the most bizarre outfits I could create on my little Singer 503A. Think shiny black vinyl capes over jumpsuits with padded shoulders the size of small turkeys. Picture pale Oregon skin, spiked hennaed hair, and black-burgundy lipstick. Since then, anytime I feel like I'm losing my sense of self, I shave my head. It's my way of reclaiming my identity.

I have a co-worker I will call Sheryl. She and I are often mistaken for one another. Because I had a sister, I know what it feels like to be mistaken for another. I'm used to it. When students call out for help, I answer to Carol, Sheryl, and everything in between. It's odd, though, because Sheryl and I look nothing alike. Apart from the obvious facts that we are female and on the downside of middle age, we have few similarities. Sheryl is blonde. I wear a black cap, so who knows what color my hair is. Sheryl wears brightly colored clothes. I strive everyday to impersonate Johnny Cash. I'm pretty sure Sheryl doesn't shop at Goodwill. The only things I buy new are underwear, socks, and shoes: Everything else I wear has been well broken in by someone before me.

In temperament we are dissimilar as well. Sheryl is goodnatured, committed to her job, and devoted to her students. I, on the other hand, am a chronic malcontent, committed to nothing, and devoted mostly to getting enough light. But I do my best to show up and maintain the appearance that I care. After all, I may feel chronically malcontented, but I can look good doing it.