Smile wrinkles and the Man on the Moon.

About a month ago I went out on the lake in my little lime green kayak much later in the afternoon than typical for me. Seasons had finally shifted; the long Indian summer that our bees were enjoying had finally decided to concede to the chill of early autumn and crimson maple leaves covered the gravel and fallen walnuts at the marina.

By the time I returned to the dock to take out my boat the moon had been suspended just above the horizon for a good hour or so, and the man on the moon increasingly evident as dusk approached.

Since I was a child I’ve been fascinated by the man on the moon. I had, for over thirty years, ardently avoided contemplating scientific lessons taught through a telescope that had reduced my friend to mere craters and shadows because, well, I didn’t like that explanation.

Without fail, his expressions, even if only half way depictable through much of the month, mirror my own. And on occasion they instead provide insight when I’m troubled to articulate how I’m feeling. These past many years the man on the moon has looked down at me with grieving eyes. A tear or two often add further definition to his features and sad countenance.

But that night he was smiling… though not as if heartily laughing, or grinning because I’d done something completely stupid, amusing, or both. It was more of a gentle “See? You’re fine. Well done.” sort of smile. I don’t know why or what I’d done, but it was a reassuring change from our normal exchanges.

What characteristically stood out to showcase his gentleness and pride in me were the smile wrinkles around his eyes.

“Wrinkles should only indicate where smiles have been.” -Mark Twain

If this is the case, those adorable little monkeys in the zoos (and obviously in the wild, but we never see them there) must be the happiest creatures on the planet!

And yet… we do everything in our power to get rid of them.

Healthline.com headlines read “Smile lines and how to get rid of them.” A google search brings up so many pages that my phone on 5G and Wi-Fi (and whatever other boosters my father has set up in their house to ensure instant access to the web world) lags a bit as they load.

We recognize that what gave us comfort from the smiles of our grandparents, what gives us envy of a life obviously well- and happily- lived when we see pictures of elders with kind eyes from cultures far away pictured in journal articles, and what we look to detect in order to interpret our parents’ moods when we want something from them are those telltale fine lines wiskering out from their eyes and the corners of their lips. Yet we still try every cream advertised in YouTube adds or the ones with a thousand ingredients sitting on the polished glass shelf at the dermatologist office that cost more than a vacation.

“Your options are injectable fillers, Botox, surgery, laser treatments, collagen induction treatments, serums, retinoids, resurfacing procedures, OTC creams, light therapies, and silicone patches. But Botox or surgery will give the best results,” I was informed through online research and by a plastic- looking “Ken doll” physician who might have been more appropriately located in a Madam Touseau museum in London or New York.

Aside from the obvious financial investment I wasn’t prepared to reallocate towards his children’s college funds and the upkeep (as in constantly or monthly unless surgery changed me once for all), it just seemed all wrong.

But at the same time, media, social influencers, and the flawless profiles of my childhood friends on Facebook (now also in their forties) made me seem all wrong.

My skin had taken a beating from tanning beds in college and my twenties, I’d gone through two decades undernourished, and I don’t wear makeup. But rather than be proud of my courageous fight through eating disorder recovery, remember how happy being in the sun makes me, and feel pleased with myself for not being ashamed of my features and covering them up with layers so thick it takes more time to get it all off than put it all on, the world still tries to make me feel old and broken.

Our society is obsessed with “perfection”- a term with a historically and culturally evolving implication. As such, the elusive “fountain of youth” has been sought for most of history,

According to Wikipedia:

“The Fountain of Youth, a mythical spring, allegedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted around the world for thousands of years, appearing in the writings of Herodotus (5th century BC), in the Alexander romance (3rd century AD), and in the stories of Prester John (early Crusades, 11th/12th centuries AD). Stories of similar waters also featured prominently among the people of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration (early 16th century); they spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.”

Many of us are afraid of aging. Wrinkles remind us that, despite our best efforts, we cannot turn back the hands of time. But more often than not, it’s our physical appearances that occupy us.

Yet shouldn’t we be concerned with how we appear to God first and foremost?

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” -1 Samuel 16:7

This is not to say that we aren’t to take care of ourselves, or care about our appearances. But wrinkles that come from smiling, laughing, the structure of our faces, and resulting from chivalrous efforts through treacherous times in life should be worn with pride and dignity. They make up part of who we are. They are our story.

My parents returned recently from a trip to Paris where they met with old friends from my mother’s youth- the daughter of one family three decades later having also been a lovely friend to me when I was in my early teens. Thrilled to have seen my friend and knowing that I cherished our friendship greatly when I was younger, they were eager to show me pictures when they returned.

The first thing I noticed, apart from the heartwarming not-changed-at-all expressions of my dear friend and the fact that her hair was a different color from that of our youth, was that she, too, has smile wrinkles- just like me and the man on the moon. It made me love her all the more.

In a world that is so terribly sad, and living lives with so much heartache and suffering, why are we all trying so hard to hide the signs of our wisdom and happiness?

“You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” - Song of Solomon 4:7