Blearily we walk along

Following yesterday’s appointment with the ophthalmologist, I was hoping to get home in time for a walk before starting dinner preparations.

But when I left the eye doctor, I remembered that one of my car’s headlights had burned out over the weekend, and I was only ten minutes away from the dealership.

“An hour and a half, maybe two hours,” the customer service rep estimated for the repair. So I wouldn’t be home in time for a walk. Which is why I ended up taking a walk along Route 2A in Littleton yesterday afternoon instead.

There were numerous problems with this plan. When relinquishing my car to the repair bay, I’d left my sneakers in the trunk. I was still wearing leather flats without socks.

Also I’d brought my laptop with me in case I had time to get some work done, so the laptop and case would have to go along on the walk as well.

Moreover, Route 2A is not the most scenic place to go walking. It’s a highway, though it does have a curbed sidewalk. But the scenery didn’t actually matter much, because I had just had my eyes dilated at the eye doctor and could hardly see in the bright sunlight anyway.

Walking along the edge of Route 2A, it occurred to me many times that I must look somewhat unhinged. Dressed for work, carrying a laptop, blindly squinting in the sun, out for a walk.

It was one of those times when I had to seriously weigh the burden of knowing I looked ridiculous against the rewards of fitting in a walk.

The rewards won. I walked around the dealership’s several large parking lots, and then down the road to a supermarket plaza. I was happy to find places to walk that were safely out of traffic. My shoes, though not ideal for walking, weren’t all that uncomfortable. My laptop didn’t feel too heavy. I was just glad to be out walking.

As I squinted my painfully dilated eyes against the sunshine and made my way around the parking lot and then along the highway to the supermarket again for one last lap, I took comfort in the fact that at least it was very unlikely that anyone would recognize me. I was nowhere near home, and I know only two people who live in Littleton. And one of those two people is my cousin, who was spending the year in Colorado.

Then I remembered seeing a Facebook post earlier that day from my cousin. She was actually moving back to Littleton. She had left Colorado by car three days ago. At the time she posted, around lunch, she was at the New York/Massachusetts border.

She could drive past at any minute.

Would she recognize me? I wondered. Would she think, there’s my nutty cousin, striding along the highway in work clothes and flats, carrying her briefcase, shading her puffy eyes?

Or would she just wonder how the town and its populace had gone downhill so fast in her absence?

In general, I think it’s worthwhile to care about appearances. That’s why I ask at least one other member of my family if my outfit looks okay before I leave for work every morning, and why if something seems a little bizarre even for me – like powerwalking along a highway in office clothes at rush hour – I try not to do it.

But yesterday I just really wanted to fit that walk in. Blindly and inappropriately dressed, I walked. And it was worth it. I was happy to have fit in a good walk. I was also really happy when it was over.

But mostly, I was happy I did not see my cousin.

And as far as I know, she didn’t see me. But of course, I can’t be sure. With my dilated pupils in the hot bright sunlight, I couldn’t see a thing anyway. Including my own reflection in the storefronts I passed. And that’s probably a very good thing.

When moms go for cosmetic improvements, is the message all bad?

Beth Teitell wrote here in today’s Boston Globe about the conflict mothers of growing children face when they – the mothers – want to get plastic surgery. In effect, Teitell’s question is this: How can we promote the message to our fashion-hyperconscious and eating disorder-prone daughters that you’re just perfect the way you are if we are running off to get tummy tucks and face lifts?

Though cosmetic surgery is not an issue I’ve personally confronted, I see it a little differently from some of the moms in the story who worry about setting the wrong example. I don’t necessarily see it as a problem to communicate to our children that it’s okay to think about your appearance and it’s okay to strive to improve it. Especially if we can tie it in to with aging and make the point that our skin, our hair and our bodies tend to change a little bit once we are well into adulthood, and that children are lucky not to have to worry about gray hair or wrinkles.

When I was growing up, my parents were unflagging in communicating to us that everyone is just fine the way they are. At the opposite extreme is a mother like the one in the book I am reading right now, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Poor 23-year-old Skeeter is tall and slender, and her Southern belle of a mom constantly urges her to diminish her height by slouching.

There’s no question that a mother as critical as Skeeter’s is detrimental to her daughter’s mental health, yet I would argue that the “perfect as you are” message in families like mine might go a little too far in the opposite direction. As late as college, I was still looking to my friends to pick up basic grooming tips and to remind me not to leave the house in clothes that were missing buttons. My 17-year-old niece clearly knows more about cosmetic enhancement than I did at her age – not in the form of surgery but certainly in the form of beauty products -- and I so admire the poise and self-assurance that appears to have carried her throughout her teens. I suspect that having the acumen to use a little bit of makeup and get a good manicure ultimately has a more positive effect on a girl’s self-esteem than being told over and over again that she looks just beautiful the way she is.

Not long after turning 40, I became increasingly bothered by wrinkles around my brow. Botox is simply not in the family budget right now, but some kind of cosmetic enhancement is definitely something I’ll be open to if and when our finances improve, and if that happens I think I’ll be fine with explaining it to my daughter. After all, she’s the one who just last weekend peered closely at my face and commented that the wrinkles around my eyes made me look a little bit like a grandma. I don’t think it will be all that difficult to explain to her that sometimes our skin and bodies age and make us feel older than we are, and it’s okay to try to fix that. (No doubt I’ll also insert a hearty endorsement for the importance of sunscreen into this same discussion.) Moreover, I can claim to my children that I go running every day for reasons of health, and they do understand that a toned body is probably healthier than a flabby one, but I don’t mind if they also know that I’d rather look lean than chubby and I work out in order to help attain that look.

So: by seeking cosmetic improvements, what’s the bottom line in terms of what we’re telling our children? Is it that our bodies are not good enough the way they are and our kids should probably start saving now for liposuction in order to compensate for what nature gave them?

I don’t think so. I think we’re showing them that we are empowered by taking opportunities to make ourselves happier and more confident, whether those opportunities arrive in the form of getting a new job, running a marathon or coloring our hair. And if in my case that’s erasure of the wrinkles between my eyebrows, all the better.