Anatomy of a Face

By: Vaishnavi Tiwari

"Eyes define a face."

"I've always felt a bit funny wearing eyeliner, like it's cheating, a betrayal of who I am, to try and make my eyes look bigger."

Ruth Ozeki, Timecode of a Face

When I heard about Timecode of a Face, I instantly knew that I'd love it. It's about the author, Ruth Ozeki, who is going to be 60 soon. She's inspired by an experiment conducted by an Art History & Architecture professor at Harvard, where she urges her students to visit a museum and observe any work of art for 3 hours and make a detailed record of it. However, instead of going to some museum and staring at a painting, she decides to sit back at her home and look into a mirror which she decides to clean right before the experiment. She makes it clear that her face is not a work of art but did end up writing 135 pages about it and it's not ironic because there has been absolutely no bragging about her face in particular.

Ozeki sat in front of a mirror for 3 hours, deciphering the origin of her face and remembering her parents, grandparents, childhood, and life. She discusses the disbelief on people's faces while they try to decode her genesis and the racism that fuels it, the projection of ideas forced onto her and how scary aging can be. What things would you think of if you ever sat in front of a mirror for 3 hours? Will you immediately notice everything that's wrong with it, every pimple, all the spots, bags under eyes, unwanted lines and then would you remember someone who has none of that, who's exceptionally beautiful, someone opposite. That's what a face does, it makes you want to forget yourself and lose your identity. Strange, how your face will not make you remember anything about yourself, but of someone else, someone who's a complete stranger. But what is a face anyway, if not a depiction of everyone who loves you, if not a portrait of all those years that shaped you, if not a reflection of everything you love?

When I completed the book, I did not start to love the way I look, unlike what I expected, it was just one of those feelings where you finish something and then move onto the next. I did have a good time reading it but it made no impact. I must've woken up the next day and looked into the mirror, thinking what could've been different. I do exhaust myself to look exceptionally beautiful and I hate it. I hate trying to hide my original identity. There is no point of doing any of that. Over the years the perception of beauty has evolved drastically and women are expected to fit in such unrealistic standards every time. It has become a barrier for women to crawl over in order to be liked, but beauty shouldn't exist only when it's highlighted or is passed through a certain checklist, it should exist regardless of anything that cages it.

After reading 'Timecode of a Face', I realized that my face is not just a face. It's a reflection of my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and everyone else who came before I did, those who created a foundation for my existence and all I should care about is that our eyes are horizontal and our noses are vertical. Just this.