καιρός remembered

The face of beauty

or the beauty of a face

A train in Kyoto. It’s the end of the day; work is over and people are heading home. Everyone is lost in thought, listening to music or quietly exchanging messages with friends or family. And amidst all these commuters, the strikingly beautiful face of a young woman.

As I look at her, another, equally admirable face comes to mind: a face I once saw on the wall of an ancient ruin in Egypt. Or rather: part of a face, the part that had withstood the ravages of time.

Thousands of years separate these two women, yet their faces share a striking similarity. Not only do their features resemble one another in their classical beauty, but both faces also radiate a similar sense of modesty and femininity. Their mouths betray the same subtle expression of amusement. Their lips almost seem to be smiling. In the case of the girl on the train, we might think this is due to what she is hearing through her headphones. But in essence, the barely perceptible smiles of the two women – although separated by thousands of years – may well have their origin in the same source: the admiration they perceive in the gazes of others.

Photo of the week: Kyoto, Japan, 2008