Bri Neumann, "Nose" (creative non-fiction)

BRI NEUMANN | NOSE

The Bambara have broken the human body down into four essential parts, the four ‘workers’, which allows us to function as a whole. The tongue, the legs, the sexual organs, and the nose. I picture these parts flashing in my brain like a PowerPoint, and it is only after the presentation is over that I realize it’s not my own body parts I have been seeing, but yours. Your tongue, against my skin, and your chest, small and bony, and your legs, spindly and thin, only growing a little thick at the thighs. And your nose, always your nose.

Do you remember how we used to lay on our backs with our feet in the air, staring at the shape of our bodies, comparing them? Your feet were long, Roman, statuesque. Low arch and toes shaped long and squarish, shrinking as they went down, while my feet were stubby, rounded, my toes curled and stout and my feet so arched that there is a part which will never touch the ground. We used to wind our fingers together and look at the big, flat surface of your palm against mine, so small, dipped away. There was always a little part of my hand that would never touch yours, the center.

And our noses. I could stare at your nose all day. A big classic nose, like something from a museum. From the side, it curved out from your face and I always pictured you, centuries earlier, draped in a hand-woven dress with thick jewels around your neck, the subject of a royal painting. I think back then I thought you were a queen, royalty, and like some wide-eyed peasant I would do anything for you. Your skin translucent and pink-toned, your ears folded like seashells, and the dark flow of your hair. I was hypnotized when you stood before me. I thought I was gazing at something divine. That is what the peasants once thought, didn’t they? That the royalty were the descendents of the divine. In my brain, you were the original human, you were more than Eve, you were the lineage of God.

Tribes in Siberia believe that we are keeping our souls hidden in our noses. Watching you paint self-portraits, I know you thought this too because you’d spend the most time perfecting the slope of your nose. Your mom always wanted you to get work done, but you thought your whole being was tucked into your nose. A self-portrait of yours had an Impressionist body and

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a Da Vinci nose, the face getting clearer and clearer at its center, for you couldn’t keep yourself from congregating there. When you cross your eyes, do you see yourself sitting at the point of your nose, gazing out at me, your loyal subject? I swear you do, because so many times I felt I was not talking to the big you but to that little you, that tiny you wavering on the front of your face that couldn’t hear a thing I was saying, could only hear the big wobble of my voice, far away.

After I left, and the worship ended, I was reading about noses and I learned that Japanese folklore does not trust those with big noses. A long nose is an indication of pride, boastfulness, arrogance; they even have a word for it. They believe that evil spirits, mountain demons, are known for their hook beaks, that same center point. I doubt the Japanese believe there is a soul inside those enormous beaks, and I should have listened to them this whole time. The soul in your nose, the you that you think perches above your nostrils, is nothing more than a mountain demon, dressed as royalty, unable to hide her beak.

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