Masks

I have had a week in which I have often found myself looking into other people's faces.

I have been reminded of what masks our faces are or can be, of how that mask is what remains when that which has made it a face begins to fade, to withdraw and eventually go away.

There was this man who was quite withdrawn from his face when I met him, his eyes half-lidded behind his expensive sunglasses (yes, you may ask, as I did, why was he wearing sunglasses?; surely not because the light bothered his eyes...), and his mouth agape in that relaxed yearning of the dying, a mouth grown comfortable with its openness, and thus feeling no need to close. This was not the way this man, during his span of living, would have wanted to be seen-- not, as it were, "caught dead" looking this way-- and yet, he would be, within hours after I saw him last. Perhaps his sunglasses were to protect his eyes from our seeing eyes, in the vain hope we would notice nothing amiss. He also wore headphones, tuned to his favorite radio station, filling his ears with Mozart. Maybe he was taking that music with him as he went? In any case, he gave every appearance of a person not paying attention to this world outside of him, but perhaps totally engrossed (except for the Mozart) with what was going on where he was going. His physical eyes were not seeing us; his other-eyes, the eyes of what one could call his soul, were perhaps seeing grander visions. In any case, what remained was the mask of him: gaped mouth, sunglasses and headphones.

Then there was the woman net yet where the man was, who would have three visages: one closed-eyed, and relaxed, like sleeping, only with less light in her face; another open-eyed, but eyes not seeing, like one of those faces you catch on the tv as you change channels and the digital picture pauses during changing, until the new picture appears; and then the one that was some shadow of her former self, the one in which she pushed herself forward into her face, as if to show she still could, that she still was that much alive. Around her, around her room, were pictures of herself, from various times in her life. In all of them, she was different than in any of the three faces she was showing me that day. She was, well, less mask-like... Comely, vital, engaged. Present, even, or at least, less ambivalent about being present. She wanted to be known, in those pictures. They said, "I was here!" Her face on the day I saw her evidenced the vain struggle to summon the energy in herself to be present.

And there was the young mother whose body had been wasted by cancer, and who worried whether her life was wasted as well, whether she had lived long enough to have a positive and lasting influence on her children. Fear bulged her eyes, and clenched her mouth. Through a sheer act of will she would live one more day, a victory over The Inevitable, one more evidence to her that she might have mattered. The mask of her face revealed as much as it hid: the sheer power of her will against inexorable forces. Her face was pressed up against the glass of this side of life, and she would hold it there as longs as she could.

Finally (for now), there was the man who'd decided to die. As the days went by his face became puffy, his eyes sliding behind slits, his mouth becoming mis-shapen, like a man who'd been too long in the boxing ring, in a fight of countless rounds. Day after day, he answered the bell, and greeted me, his internal battle still going on, until that last day I saw him, spread with a knock-out punch on the canvas of his bed, the count, the endless count, ticking like a loud clock. Would he rise once more, to face The Vanquisher? I was told maybe he did... But of course, all along he'd hoped only to rest, to lay his body down at last, and rest.

Over the weekend I did a retreat of sorts with other chaplains, some of us in hospice, some not, all of us professionals. As part of the day's activities we were asked by our workshop leader to choose someone we did not know, and sit opposite each other. This man from OC and I found ourselves face to face. The exercise was to be in listening, in speaking and being heard, but there were times of silence in between, and we found ourselves simply looking into each other's faces. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, really, to sit opposite another human being and look into their face-- and let them look into yours! I found I had to work to keep myself in my face, in my eyes, so I could see and be seen. I kept wondering what he saw. I had to work not to avert my gaze, not to be frightened, to be relaxed and OK with whatever it was he was seeing in me-- and whatever it was I was seeing in him, for I saw him working to stay with his face, too! His eyes would dart, go away and come back, and his facial expressions would change, becoming worried or tense and then relaxing, as I suppose mine did as well. How hard it is for us to stay in our faces, I thought, to keep our faces, especially when looked at. How easy for our faces to become our masks, which we can change with the occasion, as suits our comfort level or need for protection.

Perhaps the dying show us something about the difference between face and mask-- the masks we all have; the face we only can be when we are our truest selves. Perhaps the living show us something of this difference as well...