Une Envie de Sel

I think I posted this picture, which hangs in my mother's beautiful Prussian-blue kitchen, without reference in an earlier post. This is in fact my Dutch grandmother, from whom it seems I inherited my height (I am head and shoulders above most everyone else in the family, both male and female). Wasn't she a beauty? That bone structure! That thick, coiled hair! Though she doesn't exactly look like my mother, I can see my mother in the structure of her face - the high and intelligent forehead. The perfectly symmetrical proportions of the face. The eyes with their heavy, laconic lids...almost, but not quite, like the mother that I know so well. The nose, for instance, is unique - architecural, strong, neat, tipped up and squared at the end. It is quite an amazing face.

As for me, I only wish I had inherited that high brow and symmetrical face, the thick, beauteous braid. In fact, I inherited very little of her other than the height. My hair is fine and flimsy, and I could never grow such a braid. I was not born with the privilege of that high, aristocratic brow. I do share the narrow lips, but my face has none of this clean, square, symmetrical beauty. In exchange, I have long and gorgeous limbs. Such is the random nature of genetics.