Thursday, January 13, 2011 I took a flight from Prague airport and entered the United Kingdom’s borders for the eighth time in my life. Friday, January 14, 2011, I woke up in the land of Chaucer and Shakespeare and looked in the mirror. Now that I had left the mystical ancient netherworld of the Czech Republic and embarked upon the latter half of my Anglian-Studship, I felt the juxtaposition between Old World and New World was manifest in me somehow. But how? Being in front of a mirror, I naturally looked at my face and checked to see if the changes that Old World Europe had exerted upon me were at all noticeable. The only thing that was different about me than before I left for the continent was the beard that had taken up residence on my face during a week of not shaving.
Seeing both the visual and symbolic significance of these hairs on my face, I interpreted them as the summation of my Eastern Europe travels; but, I also felt an inexplicable, yet substantial renewed connection simultaneously with my current homeland. A newly reforged bond that I felt should be represented equally with my newfound European revelations. I felt the need to start fresh, but not abandon what I had learned. I felt the need to merge the Old World with the New. I felt the need to express outwardly this innate, hard to pin down, inner feeling in my life. I felt the need for a moustache.
So as the swift strokes of my Gillette removed the hairs from my neck, chin and cheeks, this inter-world reservoir of gained experience was planted firmly in the hairs between my nose and my upper lip.
It has not been an unusual occurrence, for me to grow a moustache. Nor has it been odd for me to grow a moustache with a specific goal or target in mind. And thirdly, it is not strange for this moustache to get results.
When I cast my thoughts back to the great moustaches of the past, my mind naturally makes its first stop at my Finals Moustache of December 2009. It was in the days leading up to finals week during the first semester of my sophomore year at Allegheny College, when I resolved to institute the first of my target-based moustaches. Those several days proved to be quite the interesting time for L.A.Wronski: budding scholar, for it seems to me that all I did during that week was smoke pot and watch A Few Good Men; but, against all odds, in the midst of those two great pastimes, I cranked out two A papers and did capably on and exam. When all was said and done, I was pleased with my 3.675 GPA. How can you explain that? Other than, of course, the power of the moustache.
So it was on the night following a full day filled with England and moustaches, when I decided to take it easy. I went downstairs to my mate’s flat to chill out, relax and grow my moustache. It was the nice, calm night of moustache-growing that I felt I really needed after a week of nights out until 6am, painting the Czech capital. There were a bunch of us there, hanging out, talking, hugging and reconnecting, back at UEA after a long winter break. Some were growing moustaches that night too.
It is a contagious thing to grow a moustache. Some people wanted my moustache. But not out of jealousy, nothing of the sort. Rather, my moustache took them back to their best, most cherished, possibly first moustache. Maybe this is actually the true aim of my moustache.
A moustache seems to enhance everything. Giving someone a hug is a great thing; but, if one or both of the people involved has a moustache, so much the better. Walking to catch a bus is nothing special; but, if the walk to the stop consisted of a couple well place strokes on the moustache, I’ll be damned if that doesn’t make the trip a bit more fulfilling. Or, how about going to a lame party? ‘Yeah, that party wasn’t the best, so I just kinda hung out and grew my moustache.’ You see? A moustache is not just facial hair, it is indeed a way of viewing life. A lens through which one sees the world.
As I ramble on, you may be asking yourself, ‘what the fuck is Luke on about?’ and rightly so, for as my brain searching for words to describe it, I invariably come up short each time. No other words beside 'moustache' seem to do it justice. I think this is why a moustache is a physical thing, and its experience can only really be related from one to another by means such as the foam stuck above your lip after your first sip out of a pint of Guinness. Or through the difficulties in eating an ice cream cone, or the stubbly touch of short hairs above someone’s upper lip. It things this is why a moustache is a physical thing and a tangible experience. Not something that appears instantaneously, but something that is grows in time. Not something given, something earned ... LW
OH.MY.GODDDDDDDDDDDD
ReplyDelete