A Love of Geology, a Geology of Love

Contouring.

When I was little, I had a huge forehead and I still do. It’s kind of the shape of a letter ‘M’ with these fluffy, wispy hairs at the side that always stick outward and upward when it rains. If I forget my sunscreen, a prominent redness appears on the strong upper ridge of my forehead, where the bone juts out the most to catch the rays. There have been plenty of ’big Irish head’ jokes in my family. No amount of hair styling will conceal the increasingly large and shiny distance between my eyebrows and hairline. It just is what it is; an unconformity.

As children, we sometimes hate things like this, don’t we? Things that make us stand out in some way or things we’d like to change. I can still hear the ‘big hied’ taunts as I write.

When my grandfather was dying, the last memory I have is of his forehead. The same shape as mine, I remember wiping his skin and I remember the calm coolness of it when he had finally passed, like a still and smooth pebble. When I think if him, I often find myself running my hand over that boney ridge on my own head, hoping the topography of my own skull will keep us connected over time and space somehow. I trace the letter ’M’ of my hairline and find meaning there. I hum that ‘mmmm’ quietly, letting it resonate in my rib cage, searching for something that feels like it is fading from conscious memory while also forming layers of sediment in my subconscious. When I sign my initials ‘G.E.O’ I think of this geology of body and landscape, and of the love that still binds me to my grandad, George, a true rock.

How infinitely more these contours of joy and sadness matter than conventional arbitrary beauty standards.

What can the maps of our bodies tell us about belonging, about who we are and where we are from? What did my ancestors carry on the same broad shoulders as mine? What will my descendants do with the minds they carry inside those beautiful large skulls? What can the landscape of my physical being tell me about what I am meant for in this life? How can I become curious about this instead of seek to filter it out? I wish to live my life with such love that one day someone thinks it worthy to remember a tiny details like the unusual shape of my head.