“Oh, yes, hi, I think we met before.” The attractive Icelandic man was so tall he had to bend down just to shake my hand. Self-consciously, I saw his eyes dart to my mouth and away. He was trying not to stare at the giant blister that had spread in glistening, pus-filled mounds across my face, leaving crusty yellow scabs behind as it traveled from the center of my bottom lip to my left cheek.
I met him at a different music festival two years earlier; I had a blister then, too, and I wondered if the blister was how he had recognized me. It occurred to me that many of the Icelanders I have met more than once have never since me with a healthy face. There might be quite a few people in this country who don’t know that fever blisters (or cold sores) are a common side effect of air travel, jet lag, and stress, and who think of me as “that poor American girl with the deformed face.”
And then I wondered, Is this how my daughter feels all the time?
