I’m a sucker for a gap tooth. Luckily, there are a lot of them in this town. I think I’ve had a thing with teeth for a while now, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking. It started when I was young – young enough to still have my baby teeth – and my parents let me fall asleep with a bottle of orange juice in my mouth most nights. Eventually, the acid rotted my two front teeth and they stayed like that until the teeth fell out. It was quite a time while I still had the rotted teeth, especially when my parents dressed me in muscle shirts and I had dirt all over my face from playing in the garden with my mom or helping my dad mow the lawn. Trash child. Eventually, two buck teeth grew in their place and when someone called me Bugs Bunny at school, I started to feel ashamed of them.
Then, come middle school, when it was time to get braces, my parents decided to let my regular dentist do it instead of going to an orthodontist like everyone else. She claimed she had some special method so only she could put them on and take them off. When she decided to move to Romania five months later, I had to get the braces removed prematurely. THEN my parents took me to an orthodontist – a creepy man who called me baby – to get a retainer, which I obviously didn’t wear, so I was left with slightly crooked teeth. I used to cover my toothy laugh with my hand because I was so self conscious. I’d pose for photos with pursed lips, afraid to reveal my smile.
I don’t know what changed but I don’t cover my smile anymore. I laugh wide-mouthed and full-throated. I let my less-than-perfect set of teeth show. I’ve come to love my quirks, I think in part because I love other people’s quirks so much. I adore the people in my life for their quirks, the things that set them apart.
The low, gravelly laugh. The striking nose. The way they flip their hand up when they’re being sassy. The man I dated who had a built-in retainer but you could only see that flash of silver behind his top front teeth when he surprised himself with his own laugh and cocked his head back. The lover whose eyebrows jumped and flickered when he was considering something I said. The constellation of freckles on my friend’s face. How I map that constellation when I’m sitting knee-to-knee with them, naked by the river, and their face is slightly downturned as they read the dust jacket of my new book out loud.
Some say the word quirk comes from the German quer which means to twist or slant. It reminds me of the Sanskrit word vikruti which refers to a deviation from the norm. I notice that quer is just one letter off from queer. I love my queer, quirky people. I love the nuances of them, the peculiarities that leave an everlasting imprint. There is a comfort in knowing that their mouth will always be their mouth, that I can count on that crinkle in their nose when they smile, the one that reminds me of my sister.
I favor one side when I smile, the corner of my lip cocking up to the left, revealing a vertical smile line next to it. The depth of that line reveals how many times I’ve smiled, laughed, cackled with my friends. And I love it for that.
I’m turning 36 this weekend and, naturally, fears about aging can creep in. But, mostly, they are at bay, checked by my appreciation for who I get to be, how much more I am learning about myself as I age, how much more fiercely I am showing up for myself. I am so lucky to still be here. So lucky to age. So lucky to get more time to put care and energy into the people and things and places I love. So lucky I get to dream up trips with my best friends, stroll down the street to read with them in their backyard, be a part of a thriving community.
I’m still here, still tangled up in my wounds but practicing softness each day. I’m still so imperfect but also so loved for those imperfections. I am endlessly quirky. I love the parts of me that leave an imprint because they’re different. On my low days, I may see those quirks as flaws, but the more I love the people around me – the more I appreciate their idiosyncrasies – the easier it is to love myself.
to your quirks, your unique traits, & your singular set of teeth <3
s a r a h
This was so beautiful, thank you!