{"id":2868,"date":"2019-12-06T12:28:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T18:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2019-12-06T17:08:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T23:08:03","slug":"my-crepiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/my-crepiness\/","title":{"rendered":"My Crepiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The afternoon sun can be cruel for those who care about tidiness, its shallow-angled rays highlighting each individual dust mote, both on the ground and in the air.\u00a0 However, I find peace in knowing that a perfectly clean house is impossible.<\/p>\n

This same sun can be merciless for those who care about aging.\u00a0 Driving east with the sun streaming in from behind, I see the same effect on my face.\u00a0 Fine wrinkles, previously invisible, are now highlighted in exquisite detail.\u00a0 Even my earlobes have wrinkles.\u00a0 \u00a0As I raise my bare arm to the window, I see fine lines coursing across my upper arms.\u00a0 I could be a poster child for crepey-skin.\u00a0 Can I find the same equanimity as with my dust motes?<\/p>\n

Crepey-skin is a staple of insomniac TV ads, featuring fading celebrities breathlessly offering testimonials promoting products that claim, for sure, to erase this stigma of aging.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve easily dismissed them as something I\u2019d never need or care about.\u00a0 But now that I have seen, in full glory, the extent of my crepiness I begin to wonder.\u00a0 Is it time to avoid sleeveless attire?<\/p>\n

The internet informs me that the most common cause of crepey skin is chronic UV light exposure that breaks down the skin\u2019s elastin.\u00a0 This is the black wiry substance that provides the skin with its spunk.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, I can\u2019t imagine that my underarms, which are most afflicted, have undergone such exposure.\u00a0 Other causes include smoking, pollution, poor nutrition, or rapid weight loss, none of which would apply to me.\u00a0 Aging and the relentless effects of gravity are the most likely culprits.<\/p>\n

I resolve to find interest and curiosity in what our age-obsessed culture has demonized.\u00a0 On my next afternoon car ride, I pulled over to spend some quality time with my crepey skin.\u00a0 It is fascinating and beautiful.\u00a0 If I clench my fist, the skin on the top of my wrist is as smooth as a baby\u2019s bottom or the ocean floor.\u00a0 As I slowly open my hand and hyper-extend my wrist, I see a time-lapse reenactment of shifting tectonic plates.\u00a0 The ocean floor becomes corrugated, mountains emerge, and I imagine the Indian continent drifting and smashing into Asia, throwing up the Himalaya mountains.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I reclench my fist and watch the terrain subside, mimicking the sculpting of wind and water over the millennia.\u00a0 I see every topographical feature \u2013 I\u2019ve got mesas, buttes, chasms, canyons, escarps, cordillera, knolls and gorges.\u00a0 My wrist could be a stylish and handy geologic teaching tool.*<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Be sure to watch attached movie!)<\/p>\n

The finer parallel lines on my arms shift as I rotate my arm.\u00a0 I am reminded of the ripples that sweep across an inland lake in a light wind.\u00a0 Sailors can read the wind as it darkens the water.\u00a0 Skittering across the surface, the wind starts to ruffle the sails and the sailor knows it\u2019s \u00a0time to come about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I can do this with my skin.\u00a0 The west wind can suddenly come from the east, and in unison, just like on the lake, my crepey skin realigns as I rotate my arm.*<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How wind forms these small ripples is a curious rabbit-hole.\u00a0 Ripples are defined as the instant effect of wind on water.\u00a0 Ripples die down as quickly as they form, which is why shifting wind patterns can be easily spotted.\u00a0 Apparently, ripples are based on both pressure effects and shear forces of the wind.\u00a0 In the sand beneath the shallow water and on the beach, \u00a0I can see the same wave pattern, which has been described as \u201cone of nature\u2019s most ubiquitous and spectacular examples of self-organization.\u201d\u00a0 Add crepey-skin to this list.<\/p>\n

My rabbit hole veers off as I think of the bumps on a washboard road.\u00a0 Their even periodicity matches my crepey skin.\u00a0 Scientists cannot pinpoint the underlying cause.\u00a0 The distance between the two ridges is the same regardless of the diameter of the gravel, the truck speed, size of the tire or how bouncy the suspension.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A washboard road must be a nightmare for the Army Corps of Engineers.\u00a0 A dirt road thrown into a mountainous corrugation would have a withering effect on equipment movement.\u00a0 Of course, unlike crepey skin, the solution is just to grade the hell out of the road.<\/p>\n

So crepey skin, rippled water and a washboard road have converged on a similar visual effect of wave patterns through different and poorly understood physical properties.\u00a0 (I suppose moguls on ski slopes could fall into the same category, but my crepey skin has not reached these heights!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I begin to see waveforms everywhere.\u00a0 Nature is very economical.\u00a0 A slight perturbation can throw any loose surface, snow, water, sand or skin into a wave pattern.<\/p>\n

I have met my goal.\u00a0 I find delight in my crepey-skin.\u00a0 I can simulate the dawn of our world and recreate a sailboat race, think about all the waveforms that touch my life.\u00a0 My crepes are elegant and fascinating.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019m unable to make age spots as entertaining.<\/p>\n

*Please note that the pictures of my arm are only possible with the ultra-high relief of the late afternoon sun.<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The afternoon sun can be cruel for those who care about tidiness, its shallow-angled rays highlighting each individual dust mote, both on the ground and in the air.\u00a0 However, I find peace in knowing that a perfectly clean house is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-Kg","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2877,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}