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A New Wrinkle
February, 2001
Spring Cleaning at our house means Christmas decorations are put
away, though again not packed with care in cartons designed to
protect and prevent tangling.
This
year, I decided to follow the advice of experts. I would narrow
my lens to view the small spaces, not widen it to see the whole
picture. When I opened a kitchen drawer, I thought of Sam Levenson.
Sam, the school-teacher turned comedian in the 1950s, who said
"everyone has a junk drawer in the kitchen, and in it there are
dead batteries, a threadless spool and half a scissor. The audience
roared and I ran to the kitchen to see if I passed the grade.
Levenson
jiggled and giggled as a stand-up comic, laughing at his own lines,
and couching wisdom in humor, teaching lessons for us all to live
by, laughing as we learned them. This portly teacher told homemakers
that everyone has a junk drawer in the kitchen when we thought
it was just us. Sure enough, my drawer of shame contained a
threadless spool, some dead batteries and half a scissor -- not
to mention four dried-out ball-point pens, pointless pencils,
handleless knives, assorted nuts, bolts and screws.
Today,
my narrow lens focused on the shelf containing at least $173.00
of useless cosmetics not discarded years ago because I believed
the hype. No one in her right mind would throw out Lancome or
Clinique or Revlon products and no one would share mascara with
a friend so here they sit.
I
wanted so much to believe the Royal Jelly of the Queen Bee, a
popular skin moisturizer in the sixties, would really do for me
what the ads promised. But, no luck, out it goes. I have collagen
in 14 varieties but none so fine as to make me fair. Pitch them!
I have perfume samples so sickeningly sweet they repel insects
but from Elizabeth Arden's private collection. It hurts but I
banish it from the shelf. I have 16 tubes of mascara, all shades
from smoke gray to jet black; waterproof, smudge proof, but removal
proof, as well. I threw good money after bad time after time.
And, for what?
Referring
now to having learned from Sam Levenson that we really are all
alike, I knew I was not the only crazed woman in America with
shelves full of cosmetics bought with hope of gaining supple skin,
ruby lips, almond shaped eyes and blushed high cheek bones. And,
because we waste not, want not, we still have every jar and tube
we ever bought -- as well as the ever-widening wrinkles we intended
to erase.
Sam
is the sage who said "You must learn from the mistakes of others.
You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself."
With his round rosy cheeks, wire-rimmed glasses and perpetual
smile, he couldn't possibly have learned from his own mistakes
that beauty doesn't come from bottles of lotion and boxes of powder.
Somehow he saw into the shelves of so many of us and quite naturally
knew we were missing the point.
One
of his pieces became so important to our late national treasure,
Audrey Hepburn, that she considered it her credo. The lines are
an important part of the many biographies remembering Ms. Hepburn
not only for her beauty and starring roles in Breakfast at Tiffany's
and My Fair Lady, but for her humanitarian work with UNICEF in
the troubled, poverty pockets around the world.
Perhaps
they never met, but Sam Levenson's idea of what constitutes beauty
and Audrey's willingness to embrace this embodiment of beauty
made them, if not soulmates, then strange bedfellows indeed.
As I emptied the shelves, I remembered the lines, remembering
as well the lessons that came naturally since I first read them
in the sixties. Oh, I still paint and polish -- can't see a thing
without mascara -- but beauty in the eyes of this beholder is
seen in new light. I know for sure that beauty is skin deep
and that beauty is as beauty does.
Here's
what Sam Levenson called "Beauty From Within."
For
attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For
lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once
a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you'll never walk alone.
We leave you a tradition with a future.
The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed,
revived, reclaimed and redeemed.
Never throw anybody out.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at
the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands,
one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Your 'good-ole-days' are ahead of you. May you have many of
them.
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