GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Carol Westreich Solomon

“Watch,” she instructs as she squeezes lotion on her hands. “This will make your skin dewy. Now you take this mild cleanser and circle gently without a washcloth to clean out the pores and the surface dirt.” She makes circles on my face—spiraling from forehead to cheeks to chin. 

“Pay attention, Grandma. Just gently. Now go into the bathroom and rinse.” 

Over the sound of water in the bathroom sink, my twelve-year-old beauty instructor continues. “The second step—and this will take a while—is to put on this facial mask and let it suck all the bad garbage out of your skin and make it plump and fresh. And guess what, Grandma, it can even get rid of some of your lines. Here, let me apply it to your face. Now sit for about ten minutes.”

As I stretch out on her bed, I suppress my smile. It would take magic to make my skin dewy. But her enthusiasm demands more, so I ask, “Siggy, where in the world did you learn all this? Your mom doesn’t do this.”

“TikTok beauty tips. So here’s the good thing, you don’t have to just sit here. We can multitask while the mask does its job. Ta da!” She struts across the room in time to music from Spotify and returns with a rhinestone-studded box overflowing with hair clips, scrunchies, and bejeweled combs. “We can do your hair while you wait. So, the new look is asymmetrical. That means your hair’s not even or balanced. If you want to look in style, we can pull your right side back with a hair clip. Which clip do you want?”

“I’ll try the gold one. Who’s making that music you’re dancing to?”

“It’s Tay Tay. ‘Shaking It Off.’” Now she’s shaking her body in rhythm to the music, her lavender-heart PJs flapping with her movement, her hands periodically thrusting toward the ceiling to emphasize a dramatic beat.

“Tay Tay?” I ask.

“Oh, I forgot. You’re not a Swiftie. It’s Taylor.”

“She has a lot of energy. And so do you.”

“It’s not energy. I’m just feeling the music.” She dances her way to the bathroom, runs the water, and dances back with a steaming washcloth. “Okay, time’s up. So put this cloth on your face to remove the mask. Don’t rub. Rubbing is very bad for your skin. Just plunge your face into the washcloth. Ahh, feels good, doesn’t it?”

I start to say something, then realize her skin care routine has its own rhythm and just listen. 

“So now, let’s give your skin a treat. Just put a small amount of moisturizer on your hand and gently, gently smooth it over your face and neck. Feel the skin appreciating its treat. Come look in the mirror, Grandma.” I stand next to her, studying both our faces in the mirror above her vanity.

“See the glow of your skin? How some of the wrinkles are gone? You look young, Grandma. Not as young as me. But at least as young as you were when you came last year.”

I wonder how old I will look next year when I see her in person again, unfiltered by my device’s screen, close enough for her to notice how pebbly my skin has become. Still, I turn and smile. Because I love Siggy, even her obsession with makeup and skin care. Her own skin—even before skin care—is glowing, plump, wrinkle free—with only the hint of a pimple on her chin. Yesterday in the cosmetic store, I spent almost a hundred dollars on her skin care products. At twelve, my mother let me wear Tangee natural lipstick for special parties, but nothing else. I washed my face with Ivory Soap and pinched my cheeks to make them rosy. But my hundred-dollar investment was worth it.

“Grandma, are you listening?” She’s standing smack in front of me, her eyes piercing, her lips scowling. “Please listen, Grandma. This is very important if you want to keep your skin looking like this—or even get it better, like when you were thirty—you absolutely MUST do this three-step process every single morning. Do you hear me? Every, every, every morning. Why do you think Tay Tay still looks so good, and she’s already thirty-four?”

“Siggy, dear, I don’t always have time to do this. I might have a doctor’s appointment, or a class. Time is limited, even when you’re seventy-five. More so when you’re seventy-five. We move slower, more deliberately. Each step matters because the wrong step can cause a broken bone. Every minute matters because… well, just because.”

“Because what, Grandma?”

Because there aren’t too many minutes left, but this I can’t say to her because it seems dreadfully morbid. 

Instead, I say, “Because I try to save my minutes for my grandchildren. To travel here to California and go to your shows or gymnastics meets. To go to your cousins’ soccer games and rocket launches back home. I will try my best to practice good skin care, but I can’t promise every single morning.”

“But, Grandma, I have so much more on my calendar than you do, and I find time every, every, every single morning to practice skin care.” She’s talking now with her arms and hands, with the same gestures she used when dancing, emphasizing words that seem to matter—like “every” and “skin care.” 

“And I even find time to use special coverup on my acne breakouts to prevent them from becoming bigger. Because, Grandma, what is the first thing people notice about you when they talk to you? YOUR SKIN!”

I feel the chasm between twelve and seventy-five in her words. No, people don’t notice my skin first. They notice my thinning hair or my teeth that have become irregular in length, long-in-the-tooth. And if they’re younger, after a perfunctory word, they turn away. The skin is the least of it. That and more I can’t say to Siggy.

“Siggy, don’t you have to get dressed for gymnastics? I thought I heard your mother calling.”

“No problemo, Grandma. Close your eyes while I take off my loungewear.” 

I shut my eyes, her newfound modesty a hint of changes big and small in her body and mind.

“Loungewear?” I ask.

“What did you wear to bed way back in the day, Grandma? Long johns like in old-fashioned stories?”

“PJs, we called them. Or nightgowns. Or when I was little, just my underwear when it was hot and I was trying to fall asleep.”

“Why didn’t you turn up the air conditioner? Weren’t you embarrassed if your father or brother saw you like that?”

“There was no air conditioner, Siggy. And no, I wasn’t embarrassed because it was dark, and no one really looked where they shouldn’t.” For a moment, I’ve traveled from California to my small room in Pennsylvania, a child illuminated by slivers of street light angling into my room, waiting for my father’s rough skin to brush against my forehead in a goodnight kiss that said all was right in the world.

“Grandma, why do people call back in the day ‘the good old days’ if you didn’t even have air conditioning?”

“Oh, they were the good old days.”

“Even without the air conditioning?”

“Even without air conditioning…” And without so much more—without three-step skin care or gymnastics classes or TikTok. We had none of that. But they were all here—my father, my mother, my grandmother, my aunts—people whose love freed me to dream, something I didn’t understand until the good old days became the good old days.

“Grandma, I don’t think the clip in your hair is really doing it for you. Your hair’s a little saggy. Let me see what else I can do for your hair.”

We hear my daughter, her mother, calling that it’s time to go to gymnastics. I want to linger in the room with twinkling fairy lights. Siggy pulls back her thick, wavy hair into a scrunchy, twists it expertly into a knot atop her head, and thrusts in pins to hold it firm. 

“I’ll pack the hair stuff so I can do damage control in the car.”

My daughter calls again, this time with agitation. Siggy puts the hair stuff in her workout bag, and I follow her to the car.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make your hair work.”

I want to tell her that my limp hair is a lost cause. Unlike hers—so thick, full of natural waves. The sun is picking up copper glints in her hair. So dazzling. All the vibrancy of youth contained in her one beautiful knot. But this, too, I can’t say because it reminds her how old I am. Later she’ll learn how little control we have over our body and skin and hair, unless we become clients of plastic surgeons, dermatology spas, hair implant specialists, and turn into caricatures of ourselves.

“Grandma, don’t worry if the car bumps a bit. I won’t mess you up. I’ve got just enough gel to make your hair thick. Just a dab. Too much will make your hair clump together.”

“Don’t worry. I trust you.”

Her hands caress my hair, spreading raspberry-scented gel on every strand. 

No one touches my hair except my hairdresser, and he does it like a robot. Not even my husband touches it anymore. I feel like she’s transferring some of herself through her magic gel. Don’t stop, Siggy. 

I remember another pair of hands. My grandmother’s—crêpey skin with one arthritic finger bent so dramatically that it pointed in the wrong directions. At first I was scared to touch her hands, they looked odd, deformed. But the lotion smelled good, and she was smiling at me. So I massaged the lotion on her hands, painted bright red polish on her nails, fanned them and blew on them until her nails were dry and shiny. Then she donned her gold bracelet, the one with charms for each of us grandchildren, and she waved her ruby red nails above her head, the bracelet jingling with delight. 

“I’m blow-drying your hair, Grandma. See how the gel gives it body. It’s so full and fluffy. You’re almost beautiful.”

The car turns into a crowded lot next to an industrial building with a big sign “Marvel Gymnastics.” It’s too soon. I haven’t even had a chance to use the gold clip to make my hair asymmetrical. It’s much too soon. Tomorrow my husband and I will go to the airport, fly across the country, and resume our distant lives. Siggy and I will both grow older. At thirteen, will she spend time fussing with my hair and skin? 

“I’ve gotta dash into the gym. Will you watch from the viewing room?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

For that moment, I want to be young again. To dance unrestrained in my bedroom. To be surprised by life. To think beauty tips can make someone beautiful. Even to cry in frustration one minute, then feel it dissipate, the tears cleansing me like Sigal’s cleansing lotion.

From the crowded viewing room, behind a glass that separates us already, I watch her in her leotard, hints of curves that suggest a future not far away. I watch her mount the beam, her feet gripping it, her hands gracefully fluttering up and down, maintaining balance until she fearlessly jumps and—surprise—lands back on the beam. She pirouettes, tilting slightly, falls off balance to the mat, remounts, pirouettes again, determined, flexible, beautiful even in her mistakes. 

Oh, Siggy, let me see the twists and turns of your life—the boys you fall in love with, the adventures that change you, the dreams fulfilled or unfilled, the resilience you develop. 

Or at least, let me catch a ride in your heart. And one day, when you are combing your granddaughter’s hair, you will feel your fingers in my hair and remember.

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Carol Westreich Solomon has returned to her first love, creative writing, after decades of sharing her love for language and literature in the classroom. For twenty years, Solomon’s company Carol Solomon & Associates helped professionals in government agencies and corporations write and edit. She also taught writing, literature, and theatre in high school classrooms in Maryland. The Writer’s Center (Bethesda, Maryland) awarded her the Emerging Writer’s Fellowship. ImaginingKatherine, her first published book, was designated a Notable Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Her short fiction collection Love, Loss, & Ghostsearned a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. Carol’s short works have appeared in Lilith, Jewish Fiction, Fig Tree, Persimmon Tree, The Loch Raven Review, Little Patuxent Review, Bethesda Magazine, Pen-in-Hand, Jewish Literary Journal, and the Washington Post.