Mask

The moments that pass and leave a mark aren't always bad.  I've been observing a photographer edit my recent photo shoot.  After he's cycled my image through various filters, I'm left with a mar free face...a face minus life's scars and my own character.

A modeling career hasn't been part of my life for 25 plus years.  Part of me wants to puff up proudly and proclaim that its mindless drivel is too little for my intellectual growth.  That would be untrue.  Rather, it's fear that kept that career in the drawer.  Succumbing to modeling is almost like succumbing to the iron mask.  Forget the adage that a model can "dress up and play anyone" because a model is given the dress and told WHAT to play.  Mannequins come to life are still mannequins.

Stepping into these old shoes isn't comfortable.  As my daughter noted, "Your life is a dream...who wouldn't want to be a model?  Who wouldn't want to have their choice of men...of young men even...?"  Her questions have to be answered with harsh realities so that this "dream of a divorce" is NOT something she admires.  Life's success and failures for the young is marked in black and white.  The mosaic gains color only with trials and tribulations.  The cliche of the journey being the real prize is true.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but those words are necessary steps.  A picture could just be the mask and not the meaning.