A lady walked up to me recently, shook my hand, and stared deeplyâsearchinglyâinto my eyes. âI just wanted to see the other half of your face,â she said.
I was taken aback. I didnât recognize her,so I couldnât narrow down which two-faced lie she might have caught me in.The list seemed endless.
But waitâif she thought I was two-faced, she wouldnât have said âthe other halfâ of my face. She would have said âyour other face.â Maybe I wouldnât have to apologize or confess after all.
In fact, maybe she wasnât being figurative at all. Maybe she literally meant âthe other halfââthe top halfthat had been blanketed with hair when I was young, before my âmale-pattern face enlargementâ really got going.I removed my hat to show that Iâm not just losing hair, Iâm gaining face.
But that wasnât it either. âNo,â she said, shaking her head. âI mean the part thatâs always hidden by the world.â
Ah. My picture at the top of this column.Of course.
She studied my right cheek, my right ear, everything normally eclipsed on this page. She seemed surprised that the right side of my face is no more hideously deformed than my left side is. Or at least, no less so.
She shook her head. âWhy do you hide behind the world in your photo?â
A logical question.After all, most people would love to see their face in the paper, right? Some folks go so far as to commit a crime in hopes that the coparazziwill hand their mug shot over to reporters.
I could have blamed it on my editor, explaining that he wanted to exploit the âPlanet Kerthâ wordplay to its fullest. But that would be a lie, because it was my idea, not his.
I could have taken the high road and said that in my columns I was trying to call attention to important issues like global warming, but that cheesy loony-eclipsed look on my left-half face would make me the poster boy for global smarming. Besides, it really would be two-faced to claim that anything I wrote had any merit at all.
So what kind of moron would want to tuck his mug behind Asia when he gets the chance to show the world what he looks like?
I used to have a column photo that showed my whole face clearly, and the result was that people came up to me often on the street or in a store and said, âHey, I know who you are.â
âYeah,â I would say, âIâm that guy who loaned you twenty bucks, and youâve been searching for me to pay me back, right?â But it turns out that readers of this column arenât stupid enough to fall for a line like that. Go figure.
So why the planetary veil?
Well, to be honest, though itâs flattering to be recognized by a stranger on the street, I just donât feel comfortable when I meet someone who recognizes me, but I donât recognize them. I like meeting folks on an equal footing, and the footing never seems quite equal at moments like that. In fact, it seems slippery and slanted, at best.
Have you ever been somewhere with your spouse and you run into somebody you probably knew in grammar school who calls you by name and comes up with a smile and a hug, and then itâs time for you to introduce your spouse toâŚumâŚwas it Carol? Or Carla? OrâŚmaybe Josephine?Or maybe it wasnât from schoolâmaybe this was your old insurance agent? Or the nurse who shaved you for one of your surgeries?Until they ask you how Aunt Lorraine is doing, and you realize it might be your second cousin from BemidjiâŚumâŚAlice? Or maybe Sue?
Well, thatâs sort of how it feels whenever I meet someone who knows me from my columnâs photo, but Iâve never met them.
Slippery and slanty.
Look, itâs not as if I donât know you. I know you pretty well. In fact, you might say weâre friends. Itâs just that I donât recognize you, and that makes me uncomfortable.
Let me explain: The most important consideration in all writingâany writingâis audience. Whenever I sit down to write a column for you to read, I have a clear picture of who you are. Every word I write is an intimate, one-on-one discussion with you. Thereâs only one of you, and youâre the one.
Oh, there are plenty of others who will turn the page, because they will know that Iâm not talking to them. They will hear it in my voice and go away, and Iâm fine with that.
But not you.Youâll still be there at the end. And if I crack a joke along the way, youâll smile.
I know you will, because I know youâeven though weâve never met.I have an idea what will make you laugh, cry or sigh. I know, because I laugh, cry and sigh at the same things. And thatâs what friends do, right? They laugh, cry and sigh at the same things.And all it takes for the laughing, crying or sighing to begin is to open up and be honest about whatâs on your mind or in your heart.
Those other people who donât see the humor, sadness or nostalgia in it? Let them go. Iâm not talking to them. Iâm talking to you.
And as pleasant as it would be to finally meet you face-to-face, please understand my discomfort if we run into each other on the street or in a store, and only one of us recognizes the other.Because then I have to come face-to-face with the slippery, slantyfact that our conversation has been a bit one-sided all along.
But if we ever do meet and we somehow get past that awkward moment, donât be afraid to say, âGee, I always thought youâd be taller.â
Itâs OK, because I always thought Iâd be taller, too.