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2014-06-07
Teeth

I have a space between my front teeth, as you can see.

I can't spit water through it, like Valerie could spit through hers. There's still time to learn. I couldn't whistle until I was 16 and couldn't blow a decent gum bubble until about 18.

I can fit a ruler through it, sideways, and that was considered a feat, a quirk, around the old recess crowd. I stopped immediately after Mrs. Dooley said I would probably make it bigger.

For three years, I had braces. Three years. The space defied those braces, refused to budge. The two front bottom teeth gave in and uncrossed, the left eyetooth did a 90 degree turn, so pressured was it, but the two big front ones -- nope, not moving. Even the months with the small plastic band around them and the retainer, pleading with them, all nice and cozy, no. The front teeth did not fall for their pleads, they felt forced, and no.

They like their space. Ha.

Considering all the other stuff that was going on in my mouth back then, and the stuff happening there now that is happening to all of us, all the time, the space is nothing much. I don't think about it. I don't remember it until someone mentions it.

"Ah, you have a space between your front teeth," more than one person has said, two or three hours after first meeting me. Maybe we've had dinner and wine and we're in the honeymoon stage of seeming to like all the same things and dislike all the other same things.

"Yes, I do," I say, "I do have a space between my teeth." Sometimes I will add, "I also have a lisp."

I do have a lisp. I think the space contributes a bit to it, but it seems to have more to do with a very inconsistent tongue -- at times pushy and then lazy. That thing has a mind of its own.

It was traumatized more than I would have guessed by all that orthodontic work. It had no idea what to do. It was held down or encompassed in gauze while molds were made of the teeth or little stainless steel jackets were ratcheted onto the teeth. The tongue was ordered to relax and hold still. Instead it would stiffen like a stick. It was told to move to the other side of the mouth. It might, for a second, but then it would come right back to where it was and nestle down, a confused little animal.

I often find my tongue pushed up against my front teeth which over time, has led to many conversations about this "problem area". "More tartar and build up," the dentists and the hygienists say. The tongue sheepishly retreats for a bit. Then it returns to its post. Clearly, it is more invested in being at the ready for any incoming metal tools with their points and their ridiculous scraping and plying at its friends, the teeth, and its cousins, the pink gums.

And the tongue, and the gums, and the teeth love to defy the words of the professionals by their absolute adoration and worship of all things sugar. "More please," they would say, if they could.

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