The Renovating Reverend

It’s not paint removal this time, it’s wallpaper removal; nearly as tedious, but not quite, so I’ve just managed to maintain an attitude of gratitude as I scrape.

Although we recently moved into a condominium in order to reduce the amount of maintenance we had been doing, the place still needs a little help. Built in the 1970s and remodeled in the late 1990s, the needs are more modest than they’ve been in our previous two homes. We’re talking fairly low-stress improvements, such as painting, replacing toilet tank parts, curtains/blinds, light fixtures….and removing wallpaper. And none of these tasks have required the protective equipment we’ve needed on past projects. The steamer for the wallpaper can get a bit uncomfortable at times, but it definitely doesn’t call for gloves or a respirator. I save the mask for when I go out to the grocery store.

As I slowly worked my way across an expanse of wallpaper, holding up a steamer, then scraping, steaming and scraping, I got to thinking about the mask situation.

Funny to think that I need to wear a mask outside the home, to protect myself and others from COVID-19. That’s not something most Americans are used to. When Steve was going through chemo, he wore a mask for quite some time to avoid getting the colds and flu-like illnesses that are so common. I put a navy blue ribbon on each mask so that people would have some idea of why he was wearing one, without having to ask. At that time wearing a surgical-type mask or dust mask in public was an unusual sight, and many assumed that a person wearing a mask was sick and should be avoided. Now, it’s not unusual, although I still see that a large number of folks in our town don’t feel they should have to mask up for themselves or anyone else.

I guess the one major conundrum for folks who are wearing bandanas, scarves, or masks when they go out on necessary errands, is that nobody can see their smile. I get this because I’m a smiler, but I also understand that there are some folks who just don’t smile or can’t smile, so I don’t take a lack of smile too personally. Besides, not all smiles are created equal. There are smiles, and then there are SMILES. Here’s what I mean…

By and large, in North American cultures, a smile is a sign of happiness, welcome, or amusement, but a smile can also indicate embarrassment or confusion. So how do we explain what a smile actually is and looks like? The physical mechanics of smiling were studied by a neurologist way back in the mid-19th century. Guillaume Duchenne noted that your basic, generic smile is created when contracting the zygomatic major muscle raises the corners of the mouth. Duchenne also noted that there is a second type of smile, in which the zygomatic major muscle raises the corners of the mouth while at the same time the orbicularis oculi muscle raises the cheeks, making crow’s feet appear at the outside corner of each eye. This second type of smile is called the Duchenne smile or smiling with the eyes, and is almost exclusively associated with positive emotions.

Because at least half of it can be seen above the nose, the Duchenne smile solves the conundrum of how to visibly share a smile while wearing a mask. Uh, but don’t get too carried away…an exaggerated Duchenne smile can indicate that a person is lying or insincere. And don’t worry if you’re unable to do a Duchenne smile, for whatever reason. I imagine that many people recognize smiling is not a requirement for being a person of goodwill: smiling is as smiling does.

As for me, crows feet be damned! I’m going to smile with my eyes…especially when I turn off the steamer, set down the scraper, and see all that wallpaper gone!