My Face

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older."
-Tom Stoppard

I feel obliged to reflect on the above words: Mr. Stoppard must surely be acquainted with my mother.
I received a wonderful Mater-package last week and inside it, among the teabags and books, was a little plastic keyring for Spouse. Tucked into the tiny frame was a miniaturised photograph of me at about nine years old, hands over my face, one eye peeking out with vehement truculence. I was clearly very angry about something or other; I most certainly had not wanted to have my picture taken, never mind having it delivered to my Spouse one Summer's day years later.
Reader, think for one moment, what it means for me that Spouse is now happily using it to carry his many keys:
it means that every time we go driving I see my infuriated eye staring at me as the keys weave back and forth with the uneven rhythm of the road; it means that every time Spouse and I let ourselves into the apartment- there I am, caught in time, captured in a particularly unflattering moment.
I said to Spouse- of course it did no good whatsoever, since he continues to use it, even holding it up to the light while in my presence to capture the essence of the thing- to consider just a little how he might feel if I regularly displayed a photograph of my crying, sulking Spouse everywhere I wandered.
He is so good-natured, however, that it is a redundant point. I must simply learn to live with my face on a keyring, and that is that.