Timecode of a Face Quotes

“2:58:36 And maybe here’s a bit of insight: My face is and isn’t me. It’s a nice face. It has lots of people in it. My parents, my grandparents, and their grandparents, all the way back through time and countless generations to my earliest ancestors—all those iterations are here in my face, along with all the people who’ve ever looked at me. And the light and shadows are here, too, the joys, anxieties, griefs, vanities, and laughter. The sun, the rain, the wind, the broom poles, and the iron fences that have distressed my face with lines and scars and creases—all here.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Face

“As I sat by my mother's side and held her hand and watched her, I remember thinking, I'm going to do this too, some day. This is what dying looks like. This is what Dad looked like when he died, and what I'm going to look like, too. Like Mom and Dad. It was comforting to know what I would look like. It made death a little less frightening, a little more intimate, a little more dear.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Face

“I feel I should be moving away from the question "Am I still fair?" toward a more existential question: "Am I still here?" You'd think seeing myself in a mirror would be somewhat reassuring.
And yet, recently I've noticed that when I catch sight of my face in a shop window, I'm quick to look away. When I brush my teeth, I'll often turn my back to the mirror, or focus on a detail of my reflection, a blemish or a spot, rather than on my aspect as a whole. It's not that I don't like what I see, although that's often part of it. Rather, it's more that I don't quite recognize myself in my reflection anymore, and so I'm always startled.
Averting my gaze is a reflexive reaction, a kind of uncanny valley response to the sight of this person who is no longer quite me.
It's not polite to stare at strangers.”
― Ruth Ozeki, Timecode of a Face

“Bring the mind back. Try again. Don’t look away. What do I spy now? Heavy bags under my eyes, saggy, slightly puffy, baggage from my dad. I first started noticing them in my late thirties and they horrified me. I didn’t want to look like my dad. Didn’t want to see his reproachful, drooping, disappointing gaze staring back at me every time I looked in the mirror. But there was nothing I could do about it. The bags were there. They were the most conspicuous part of my face. It’s possible no one else noticed them but I couldn’t look at my face and not see them. I think I started wearing thick-frame glasses around then. Twenty-four minutes, thirty-two seconds. Strange. I just realized I haven’t paid much attention to the bags for several years now. I mean, I see them when I look, but I don’t obsess about them anymore. What’s changed? Certainly not the bags themselves. If anything, they’ve only gotten worse. Have I just gotten used to them? Or is it that my feelings about my dad have changed? He’s been dead for more than fifteen years now. The grief and anguish I felt at his death have softened. And when I see his eyes in mine, I don’t see reproach or disappointment anymore. Instead of judgment, I see concern, watchfulness, maybe even a kind of compassionate discernment. So, this is better, an improvement. I don’t mind meeting him here in the mirror. It’s kinda nice. Hey, dad, how you doing?”
― Ruth Ozeki, Timecode of a Face

“Later on, I asked her [her mother], "How does it feel?"

"What?"

"When you can't remember things. Does it frighten you? Do you feel sad?"

"Well, not really. I have this condition, you see. It's called osteo...ost..."

"You mean Alzheimer's?" I said, helping her out.

She looked astonished. "Yes! How on earth did you know that?"

"Just a guess..."

"I can never remember the name," she explained.

"Of course not."

"It affects my memory..."

"...And that's why you can't remember"?"

She frowned and shook her head. "Remember what?"

"There's not a single thing I can do about it," she told me when I reminded her. "If there was something I could do and wasn't doing it, then I could feel sad or depressed. But as it is..." She shrugged.

"So you're okay with it?"

She looked at me, patiently. "I don't have much choice," she explained. "So I may as well be happy.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Face

“We place such crazy importance on physical appearance in our image-obsessed culture, on youth and beauty to define our sense of self-worth, that aging, by default, becomes a kind of defect, something secret and corrosive and shameful.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Face