Laced-up Faces

I overnight with my dad at the ER. And here’s what strikes me—that the night shift goes off duty looking fresher than the morning shift coming on.

I’m not judging. Mornings are tough for me, too. I’d rather not talk until nearly noon. Certainly not about anything cheerful. Not about anything serious, either.

Not everyone’s like this. I’ve lived with morning people: my mother, my college roommate, and now my husband. For them, mornings are as yellow as the sun, as yellow as an egg, sunny-side-up. These people wake up, ready to eat, ready to talk—about cheerful things.

Me? Even though I taught early-morning classes for decades, I’ve always had to arrange my face, to disguise that tired appearance I have when first waking up. Emily Dickinson is with me on this one. In her poem, she ties her hat and tells her fingers to hurry. But what I like most is that she checks the laces of her face, using the metaphor of a corset to hold the muscles of her face into a pleasing expression.

To do this morning after morning, you’ve got to care about the faces in front of you more than your own—leaving behind worries about your children, a leaking roof, and a coming mammogram.

You’ve got to have some stamina, some staying power, and the hope that as the day goes on you can get into the rhythm of the way the hands swing around the clock.

I appreciate the nurses who woke before their alarms full of cheer and who now bounce through the double ER doors. But even more, I appreciate those of the laced-up faces, who go about doing good, not because a great day dawned, but because they’re determined to make it great.