Taking Off My Make-up

I'm preparing to leave on a week's vacation tomorrow--a yearly camping trip with extended family. I'm looking forward to exploring part of the country I haven't seen before, and of course to reconnecting with far-flung cousins and with my own husband and children! But you know what I'm looking forward to most? Not wearing make-up. I don't wear a lot of make-up. And what I do wear is almost indistinguishable from my natural coloring; it makes one wonder why I spend money on it anyway. The answer is the same reason that I'm glad to have a break from it: make-up makes me feel put-together, professional, ready for my role in the world. It makes me think a bit about my colleague Mary Herman's reflection on the masks we wear at last Sunday's platform service, although in this case I think the mask can be a positive one. Or maybe it's less a mask than a marker, to ourselves most importantly, that we are engaged in the world in a particular way. But any engagement needs breaks, and so taking off my make-up signals to me that I'm engaging with the world in a different way, that I don't need to look "presentable" or prepared. (This isn't a comment, by the way, on whether or not any of us really need to wear make-up to look anything...just a reflection on my own practice). So I'm looking forward to my week without make-up, my week of different engagement in the world. And whatever your "make-up" is, I hope you get a break from it now and then, if only so you can return refreshed, pores clean and open, ready to take on the world once again.