A Face For Picasso

YA memoir 

"I am ugly.  There's a mathematical equation to prove it.  Or so I was told by the boy who sat behind me the first day of seventh grade art class.

     'I'm going to stick a pencil through the back of your eye,' he told me laughing.  "It's not like you could get much uglier.  Even the teacher thinks so.'

     Ariel Henley, author of A Face For Picasso, and her twin sister, Zan, were born with Crouzon syndrome.  Basically the bones in their heads fused too early in infancy.  There was no room for normal brain growth.  So the girls' growing up years were full of painful surgeries and recoveries.  So they could survive they had to have their skulls broken and reconfigured on a regular basis.  Memories of past surgeries made anticipation of future ones torture.  Plus, because of being twins, Ariel also had to witness the helplessness and suffering of someone she loved dearly.

     "Though the physical aspect of our condition was sometimes painful, it was nothing compared to the emotional toll of navigating life with a facial difference.  The everyday stares, comments, and subhuman treatment were constant reminders of our painful medical history and perceived shortcomings.  We were treated as less attractive, less intelligent, and less worthy of basic respect."

     You're probably thinking that kids can be so cruel.  And one of the things Ariel and Zan had to regularly face was peers excluding them, making cutting remarks, and being mean in a myriad of ways.  But the adults were worse.  Even those who should have known better such as teachers believed and acted on stereotypes.

     An episode that shows this especially well is what happens when Zan becomes cheerleading homecoming princess.  The girl who had assumed that she'd win started loudly insisting that the votes had been changed and started harassing Zan.  It was, however, her coach mother who supported and promoted her daughter's campaign to get her "acknowledged as the real winner" to the point of quitting in protest.  The director of the organization had to intervene.

     In her author's note Ariel tells readers "Writing this book was my way of dealing with the trauma that fueled my childhood and young adulthood...It was my way of letting go and moving on.  Of choosing to continue loving a world even when it didn't always love me back."

     I highly recommend A Face For Picasso to readers at the higher end of the age and reading comprehension YA spectrum.  I even more highly recommend it to college students, especially those headed into fields like teaching and coaching where they'll be influencing children and teens.

     But the group I most strongly recommend it to is parents.  We have a unique role in influencing our children's perceptions.  From the moment their eyes focus they watch and pick up on how we view others.

     When I was a child racism flew under the radar.  Now many moms and dads curate the messages they send in this regard.  But most of us still subscribe to and convey our society's revulsion at all that does not align with our commercialized and usually aspirational concepts of beauty.

     Let me give one small example.  As an adult I had a sebaceous cyst under my right arm that was only visible when I wore a bathing suit or sleeveless top.  Given my family's financial status I wasn't going to incur the costs of purely cosmetic surgery.  Kids sometimes asked me about it and I was fine answering their questions.

     One day a little girl asked me about it.  I'd started answering her when her mother stormed over, grabbed her arm, and pulled her away, loudly whispering, "We do not call attention to other people's deformities."

     I'm giving the mother the benefit of doubt.  Once kids start walking and talking we're sometimes caught off guard, scrambling to figure out what to say and do when they inadvertently embarrass us or we're afraid of looking like bad parents.  But the admonition that asking questions about visible differences was not OK, the use of the word deformities, the whisper shout, and the act of pulling her away as if I was contagious or in other ways dangerous...

     ...that was sending quite a message.

     It sent me a message too.  I didn't swim for nearly a decade, partly out of self consciousness, but also a desire not to be the object of another child receiving a similar message.  I finally can swim since last summer my primary care provider pitched the operation as cancer prevention, something I can fiscally get behind.

     And the thought that went through my head when I stepped out of the dressing room into the pool area: now I'm as undeformed as anyone else.

     I couldn't imagine what it would be like to receive this kind of message on a daily basis from a wide range of people until I had the privilege of reading A Face For Picasso.  Ultimately I recommend this book for everyone able to get its message who interacts with other human beings.

On a purrrsonal note, I am so thrilled because I got Tobago to her check up and back home before the first drop of rain.  Dr. Keene declared her to be the picture of feline health.  Julie Keene has been my family vet for quite awhile and took really good care of my medical special needs Joey cat in the 16 years we were blessed with his loving presence.

I had a wonderful surprise.  The vet tech was someone I hadn't seen in well over a decade.  She went to school with my younger daughter and was one of the kindest and most authentic and least peer judgemental of all the kids in their class.  Veazie Vet was quite smart to hire her. (Jules)

I don't have to go through that again for a year.  Someone remind me what a year is. (Tobago)

Great big shout outs go out to Dr. Julie Keene who has just celebrated her 18th anniversary with Veazie Vet and rising star vet tech Tanna.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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