“You know to wear sunscreen right? You have a hat?” This is not my mother speaking. This is a stranger.
“You know I lost half my face to skin cancer?”
What more than “oh” can you say to that one?
“Yes,” he continues. “From here to here and some of this.”
He’s touching his face now, drawing long lines across it.
I don’t want this information. This is not helping me.
But people are driven to tell me. Because, you see, I’m a pale, pale white girl. I am so light, Cover Girl has a hard time selling something that matches my deathly sallow skin. I glow in the dark. If I sit out in the sun all summer in a hopeless quest for a tan, the best I’ll do is “ivory.”
Because of this, people think they need to tell me about skin protection. As if I haven’t been watching the news for the last 20 years. As if I wasn’t aware that I’m on melanoma’s most wanted list.
They don’t do this to my Jewish husband. They leave him alone to burst into flames. But me, they’re all over.
And do I wear sunscreen?
Of course not.
Well, a little.
I am adamant about not getting burned at the beach. I hate beach burns. Not because of the pain or the health concerns.
It’s that they always turn out wrong. Too much red on the tops of my thighs, nothing on my calves. One stripe of red down my arms, with lily white at the stripe’s edges.
And don’t forget the freckles! They love to make themselves known, but steadfastly refuse to join together and form a tan.
My very favorite freckles? The only team players? The ones under my nose that join together to form a mustache.
But beyond the beach I don’t bother with sun screen. Vogue would have you believe you should slather up on before you go to the curb to get the mail. The man with half a face seems to be of the opinion that I should wear it to bed at night, just in case
I hate this kind of overreaction. This brand of vigilance. Because the Lord is a tricky one. I don’t think he likes people who prepare against certain disasters too well.
He can’t wait for the health nut who’s always taking vitamins to get sick this year.
For the SUV driver to make a trip to Lowes and confidently buy an item just an inch too large for the cabin of that big-ass cruiser.
For the family with the out-sized generator to run out of gasoline before the hurricane’s eye wall has even shown up.
Maybe he wants us to trust more? I’m not sure what his problem is, but he likes to play with us and the assumptions that we’ve been vigilant.
Case in point: you know that sunscree.n you’ve been using for the past few decades? Yeah, that only protected against UVA rays. Guess what, there are also some nasty little suckers called UVB rays. And those UVB rays? Well, those suckers made it right past your slathered tush. And guess what? Those are the more harmful ones. Sure, NOW you can buy lotions that have protect against both, but what about all the beach parties that came before the UVB protection? What did all that vigilance do you? And God laughs.
People look at me set my blanket out on the beach and they laugh a little too. They probably think I’m Canadian. Or English. What’s up with those two countries? Don’t they ever get any sun? They are the pastiest people out there! Even I want to tell them about the dangers of the sun.
People talk to me about sunburn (they feel it’s a topic I know much about) with a wave of the hand. “I’ll bet you just burst into flames, don’t you?” they say, laughing. “Yup that’s me, a regular human torch.” I don’t tell them the truth. Mostly because they wouldn’t believe me if I did.
The mystery revealed: I don’t burn. At least not right away. I always amaze people by settling down on the beach ad eschewing suntan lotion for a good half hour or so. Because I don’t need lotion for that long or even longer.
Because I reflect the sun. My pasty white thighsjust bounce that light right back into space. It can take up to an hour for the sun to work through my protective layer of white reflective material.
That doesn’t mean I don’t ever burn. Far from it. Once the protective layer has been worked through, I sizzle. I can sit and reminisce about bad burns. Once, as a young teenager I had some guy yell “Noxzema!” down from the boardwalk overhead as I felt my back radiating the sun’s heat. Another time I sat in front of the TV all night after a day in the sun and ran ice cubes across my face. They dissolved instantly. And who can forget the burn I got just for the junior prom? Especially when we have pictures?
Cancer man has stopped telling me about the dangers and is now letting me pass. I am free to burn as I like. The Cancer advocates who are alwas trying to get me to wear sunscreen shouldn’t be appealing to our vigilant side. They should be appealing to our lazy side. Instead of screaming “Put this on! Now in 2 hours, put it on again!” they should be saying “stay inside!” No one gets sun cancer by sitting on the couch. Another excuse to stay indoors and watch HGTV? Sounds good to me. That’s vigilance I can believe in.
FaithieP Online 