Mirror

Standing squeezed upright among my fellow commuters in the bus, feeling about for footing, heaving sighs at the non-movement of the densely packed vehicle through densely packed roadway, I glanced up at the round rear-view mirror over the door, and in it a diminutive white face looking out from among black haired, dark skinned heads: Who's that? Why, it must be me.  The face looked composed, but the expression faintly quizzical: 'This is what exactly?'

That evening, in my first classes of the new term, an array of new faces were looking into mine to see what kind of teacher they had signed up for--hard to understand? confusing to follow? dull?  I could see, as I kept referring to them to help memorize their names, their faces started to relax from wariness to occasional amusement, as when we made up stories with the words whose initial letters they'd chosen to spell out their names. The mirror of their faces told me they were seeing a face that welcomed them to that learning-English-place.

Full frontal face doesn't tell me much that's interesting; it's just someone giving looks, making faces, my morning washbasin ceremonies. It's the glimpses I sometimes get of my face in flux that I find intriguing.