Good Teeth

 

                                               The Author's Mother, 1948

I began this week with a root canal. Fun times! I’ve always liked my teeth and I believe--generally speaking--I have good teeth. I don’t take this for granted, mainly because I witnessed what happens when your teeth betray you. My mother began losing her teeth when she was only in her thirties. She was a beautiful woman, but then her teeth began rotting. I was only about six years old when the final surgery took place and all her remaining teeth were pulled out in one go, after which she received a pair of ill-fitting dentures.

It took several years of enduring pain before these dentures were replaced with a better pair. By then, I was twelve years old. I remember driving up to the doctor’s beautiful house in Westport, Connecticut and then proceeding to his beautiful office. I imagined that he must be a very good doctor to live in such a beautiful house. I sat in the waiting room, waiting—while the doctor talked to my mother. And then, he came out and asked to see me because he wanted to examine my teeth. He took out a camera and said that my teeth were a good model for what my mother’s teeth would have looked like had she not lost them. So basically, I served as the model for her new dentures. In my adolescent brain, it felt as if I was doing something on par with donating a kidney to benefit science--not to mention my mother’s good looks.

All this is to say, I didn’t mind getting a root canal this week. I was simply paying homage to that twelve year old girl tooth model who helped change my mother’s life.

Creative Friends—Your assignment for this week is simple--reclaim your power. Brush and floss. Paint and write and dance and sing and then go ahead and take a big bite out of life.

Love,

Jamie