On Face Washing

When I was a young girl and my parents left me home alone, my idea of a good time was to open up the dishwasher mid-cycle and put my face down in the steam. I imagined that this must be what it felt like to go to the spa. Now I’m older and I have been to a spa exactly one time, but I found that it paled in comparison to my old dishwasher-steam facial because at a real spa you have to get naked and lay bare on the table with all your body’s imperfections.

These days there is no dishwasher in my apartment to stop mid-cycle, but you might occasionally catch me lingering over a pot of boiling water for a bit longer than necessary. Somewhere along the lines, though, I mostly stopped luxuriating in steam, no longer taking the time to breathe it in deeply and notice the cool condensation it leaves on my skin after I’ve pulled away. Instead, most nights, I stand over the sink and wash my face with near-scalding water while my husband Nathan tiptoes around me brushing his teeth. When he’s ready to spit, I step aside so he can use the sink and I lean over to examine my face at close range in the mirror. Usually we’ll chat for a moment here before he, with his unblemished skin, retires to bed without even bothering to moisturize.

In his poem “To One Waiting to Be Born,” Malachi Black wrote, “…you will spoil like a plum, but still / wash every day and wash again the rancid blemish that your body has become.” The perfectionist in me despairs at the thought of decay, but still I rejoice to read this because washing every day is something I could do with exactness, and this is extremely rare. The things a person can truly be perfect at in life are few and far between. But a person could be perfect at washing her face.

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