I like my face.

I've been having lots of feelings about this picture and I've decided to write it out.  The blog has been short of posts about feelings lately, because there's been so much work to do and adventures to be had.  But as I move into the office-work part of the year, hopefully I'll get better at writing about more thoughtful things.

My friend Emma took this picture near the end of our most recent trip to Moab and I was really looking forward to seeing it because it's associated with positive memories.  We had spent that day climbing at the Ice Cream Parlor in Kane Springs Canyon, while the first half of the day was kind of stressful, the last half was pretty excellent.  There was some laughing and difficult climbing and the views were really great.  There were even base jumpers.  Emma pulled out her camera to practice taking pictures with a particular lens and took some really excellent pictures of Brent and Karina and their hands while they climbed.  Then she pointed the camera at me and said "Becka, tell me what you think about puppies."  Boom, genuine smiling picture.  Days later when Emma posted the pictures I was really happy to see all of them, including the picture of me.  The happy feelings  included the following -

• The prompt - puppies!  
• The feeling - the smile felt very genuine
• The memory - climbing in the sun with my friends
• The flannel - I love the flannel

Then I looked at it more and felt this compulsion to pick it apart, to downgrade the initial positive reaction to something more self-deprecating.  Something like, "Oh, excellent picture.  But me- yuck."  I started to notice some negative things, like -

• The eyes - they're uneven and have wrinkles (when did those come along?)
• The mouth - I have two crooked teeth and smile lines
• The hair - IT'S EVERYWHERE!

I could feel my brain having this tug-of-war between going with the positive associations and being compelled to notice flaws in my image.  I thought about this for a few hours, particularly how my need to be self-deprecating fed into some things I've been reading about misconstrued notion of modesty,  photo-shopped pictures and body image, and the ways body-shaming affects those around us (especially children).  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'm generally happy with the face I have but I've never quite embraced it.  I've often focused on the acne, the tomato-face, or my one errant chin hair; aside from some tomato-faced based mocking, no one really tells me about these things.  I can't really take a picture without that big, toothy grin (there is plenty of evidence of that), but turns out, I like my face smiling.  Those eye wrinkles are from being out in the sun, a place I generally love to be.  The eyes are a little lopsided because I was really smiling, and my smile is a little lopsided.  Sure I've got two crooked teeth, but I've never had braces and that seems like an experience best skipped if possible.  The laugh lines are really from laughing.  And the hair has always been everywhere, because it's long and thick (which I hear are good things).  Altogether I think the picture captured what I like most about my life - being outside and laughing with my friends.  And wearing flannel.

Finally, I looked at the responses to the picture.  Karina re-posted it and called me beautiful, Brent's sister said it was a good picture of me, and a few of my friends gave it a thumbs up.  No one said "Gosh, why did you take a picture of that cock-eyed, crooked-toothed, red person?"  This has lead me to declare that I like my face.  It feels kind of bold to say.  Even a little shocking and cocky.  But the strongest feeling is peace, giving up the self-deprecating compulsion and the unproductive self-consciousness to just rest easy, knowing that Emma takes nice pictures and the good times from our vacation are well documented.