Mind The Sap

Errant ramblings, mostly.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Grill Woes

So its been two weeks since the accident, two weeks since I bashed up my grill by falling face-first onto a concrete stair on my friend's porch, sucessfully cracking out the bottom halves of three front teeth. Miraculously, my face emerged from the wjole thing without a scratch. However, my dental nerves are still inflamed and my back teeth hurt from overuse. Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, and maybe it isn't, but the psychological trauma that this incident has wrecked has recently had me on edge in a way only charming in the likes of 'Rain Man' or 'The Other Sister'. What happened two Saturday nights ago has made me paranoid, actutely aware of the fragility of my own (fairly young) body-- afriad to walk around without a helmet, and worse-- afraid to look in the mirror and expect to see the memory of my reflection as it was before February 24th staring back at me. All this, and I *swear* its not just because my shrink is on vacation for two weeks.

The armchair psychologist in me (or was this Matthew?) reminds me that, of course, these reactions have been provoked because teeth are a tangible metaphor for mortality. Moreover, that teeth are a primal part of ourselves and how we interact with the world. I guess thousands of years ago, an accident like this may have compromised my ability to stay fed and survive. About one hundred years ago, due to a lack of cosmetic dentists and space-age dental compounds, this accident likely would have compromised my ability to (as a single woman) meet and secure a husband. But now, in 2007, with all the repairs made available to me within 72 hours, and for about the cost of a weekend in Vegas, I am as good as new: sort-of.

While to strangers and friends alike nothing has changed about my grill, when I look into the mirror (which, as it happens, is about 30 times more than average these days), I see a part of myself missing, the fragmented bottom of my real tooth practically glowing a neon sign that reads, "I am broken and damaged and will never be whole again."

So why the sob story? Thing is, I am trying to etch out an upside to all of this, like, "O.K. Dre, maybe this is a reminder that the trajectory of your life can turn on a dime, and often without your say--are you prepared to deal with yourself and yourself alone if (God forbid) some actual trauma were to befall you?" or is it less profound and more seethy, a la, "Dre, you are entirely too vain. What can you count on or like about yourself if part of your physical identity were to be mangled permanently?" (I don't want to mention how long or hard I cried until this mouth-mess was fixed, although I will tell you that at the time I wasn't reaching deeper to ask why--I was hysterical because I was unequivocally, obejectively, for all intents and purposes, ugly). I also covered my mouth to speak to the two strangers who processed the two necessary transactions I made during this time, actually feeling bad for them for very obviously averting their eyes from my mouth.

Either way, its got me a' thinkin, even if it is in a lose-lose way, and even at the risk of having gone overboard with existential inquiry due to toothy catalysts. Between this and the mediocre movie I saw recently, I am wondering what I would do if it was me and just me forever, or if resources and time and vanity and my host of regrets weren't obstacles? If I followed my inner self a little more, and didn't succumb so easily to my shallow, exterior, craven wants and desires? What should I be doing and thinking about, essentially, instead of wasting all this time worrying about what I did, what has happened, what is in the dead past? If I thought more about what could happen instead of what already has?

And I *swear* its not just because my shrink is on vacation for two weeks.