The Nose Knows

I know I wasn’t hallucinating; I know I wasn;t seeing things when those women came gliding by with imperfect noses, all nonchalant and without a seeming care in the world.  It got me to thinking.  And I did a double-take. But being the deep and ethereal type that I am, I started wondering about just how much rhinoplasty hs been going on out there.

In some cultures people are known to have naturally smaller noses. So if I spot some (naturally) blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian looking types, I know that they have not tried altering their DNA at any doctor’s office, but with those of the swarthy, Mediterranean bunch, such as myself, there is usually a more minute chance.

I sometimes regret that I fell into that group because there is beauty in imperfection. Barbra Streisand, by way of example, made a whole career of embracing what many would have had altered, though in her case, she knew that changing a thing would have perhaps relegated her to lounge singing status. The same for women and starlets who have pulled their faces so tight their expressions never change. Births, deaths, funerals, there they are kind of smiling and kind of not. I know it can be for business reasons, but once you start fiddling around with one thing, you have to start fiddling around with the rest, and it seldom works in the long haul anyway. It was and is about self-acceptance about embracing perhaps hips too wide, a nose a little too hooked and ears a little too big.

Maybe the sudden appearance of going au natural in the facial and body departments is a reflection of the economy. One plastic surgeon I saw for an imperfection asked me to send him some referrals because women aren’t even opting for breast enlargements anymore, and he was losing business over it. And he was a great surgeon with hands that could mend the legs of a ladybug, but he opted to retire rather than sit around and twiddle his (imperfect) thumbs.

This downturn can help the credo of women’s lib and help people the world over love and embrace themselves for what they are. As for me, my life may have gone down a different primrose path had I gone right instead of left. I may have even had a singing career like Streisand’s or Nicki Minaj’s and I may never have been kicked out of a choir in my life or watched my dogs’ ears twitch or run off and hide once I hit that first note.