Self awareness

John Nemo and I took the “L” bus to 3rd and Market and walked the four blocks to Moscone Center to officially register for the show.

I’m not a big fan of riding on busses, especially when they’re crammed with passengers. But this morning I was thinking, as we were bumping along from stop to stop, that all of us on that bus were a microcosm of this fabulous city.

Riding along with us baby boomers were young hipsters, three-piece-suiters, oldsters, and everything in between. But one of the passengers, a young tiny Chinese girl, caught my eye. She was looking at a part of her face, maybe the corner of her eye, with her compact. With all the jiggling on the bus she was having a little trouble honing in on her target. Her finger went up to the area, trying to smooth out or erase some makeup, I guessed. She kept the compact in her left hand as her right hand fished for a moment in her purse. She pulled out a little tube, probably mascara, and fiddled with the top trying to get it open. Her hands twisting and turning the tube she was unable to get it open. So she utilized the cloth purse in her lap trying to get a grip. Still no luck. After a few minutes she put the compact down to use her other hand. Nope. She used her thumbnail, scratching the side of the tube to see if there was even a seam there. I guess she found it because she tried twisting it again. This time she got her purse wadded up in both hands and used all her strength. Damn. It wouldn’t budge.

I was smiling, totally intrigued with her predicament. I told Nemo what was going on and he started watching her too.

She took a break for a minute, used her thumb again to make sure it was supposed to open, wadded up the purse and tried again. No dice. She was starting to get frustrated and put the thing down again. I could see her body heave as she took a deep breath and let it out in exasperation.

I was waiting for her to use her teeth—something I would have done waaay before this—but she continued twisting and turning until she finally just looked at it, turning it around a few times in frustration, and put it back in her purse.

Out came the compact. She held it close to her left eye while her right hand went back up to her face. She diddled with her “problem” for a few minutes, straightened her already arrow strait hair next to her face, put her compact back in the purse and sat there, resigned, I guessed, to looking “as is”, like a used car.

As this was happening I couldn’t see her face. She was sitting sideways to us as we stood in the aisle, hanging on to the bars for dear life. The next stop was hers, and she got up to leave. I saw her face for the first time. It was perfect. Her hair was perfect. She was as cute and tiny as a life-sized China doll.

I’ll never know what she was trying to fix and I really don’t care. What got me was the effort she put forth in trying to correct something only she could see. And that I could witness this little piece of humanity without any embarrassment, but actually wonder, that we all have these moments of self awareness that only we can sense about ourselves. We should never be embarrassed for being human and maybe even a little fragile.