I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t tan. My cousin and I have the same skin color and we used to stand side by side in our family photos. We thought it was so adorable that we looked alike. We’d pose in the same positions, looking like two adopted Syrians in a sea of pasty-faced Brits.But now, as an adult and even in the dead of winter, I’ve got a bronze tinge to my skin. My sister refers to it as an ‘olive complexion’. If, when growing up, I would have ever gotten a straight answer about our ancestry. ‘We’re English’ is all I ever heard. Although I once overheard my father mention we were 1/16th Choctaw, a fact that I later shared with a member of the Neah Bay tribe in Northwest Washington. Take my advice, don’t ever tell American Indians that you’re 1/16th Choctaw. They don’t like it.
Anyway, I bring up the whole ‘tan’ thing, because recently someone sent me an email. The email read ‘Hey folks! Listen, I just received 10 free visits to a local tanning parlor and since I don’t tan’, (read: I’m far too together and intelligent to bake myself in a tanning bed) I was wondering, since you tan, if anyone wanted them.” Since you tan. The nerve! Me? Tan? Ludicrous!
Why did it bother me? Well, I suppose I don’t want to be thought of as the kind of person who spends an inordinate amount of time lying between two layers of fluorescent bulbs, waiting for your skin to get darker. I dunno. It just seems strange, and well, vain. Not that I’m not vain, mind you. I just think vanity is something that should remain somewhat covert. Go ahead, spend all the time you’d like looking into a mirror, but when you comb your hair, when you tweeze your nose hairs, when you dress yourself, when you coif and cream and dye and powder and shave and pluck, the goal is to make it look like it happened naturally. Right? So tanning. Hmmm. Maybe moderation is the answer. A little tan is barely noticeable. It’s like: two tanning sessions: “Suzie, you look so great. So aliiiiiiive”. Four tanning sessions: ‘Well, someone’s been to Hawaaaaaiiiiiii”. Twenty tanning sessions. “Sir, your face is scaring my children”. In order for a really pale person to remain as tan as I am, they’d probably have to spend oh, ten visits a month in the ‘bed’. But I don’t. I swear. Believe me. I wear sunscreen when I run. I wear hats and sunglasses. But it doesn’t work. I’m still tan. God, the injustice!
But I’ve learned to live with it. I have an entire set of retorts to “Gee, you’re tan. Where have you been? Mexico?” or “You should really consider using sunscreen”, I just say. “My family is from Damascus” or “It’s spray on’. “Wow. It looks so natural.” “Yes, you should try it and ask them to adjust the spray nozzle to the country sliced bacon setting. That’s what I use.”
But, I do feel like somewhat of a hypocrite and I have to confess that, yes, I went to tanning parlor once. I had planned a trip to Hawaii and I was urged, by a good friend to get a ‘base tan’. I know. It’s in our vernacular. Even little kids know what a ‘base tan’ is. So, I was told by a good friend that my natural skin color was ‘not sufficient enough to withstand the sun’s harming rays’. I now know that this friend is one of those people who not only watches commercials, but believes them. So, I called up Sudden Tan. I love that name. It infers that you'll become tan almost... accidentally. Like being stung by a hornet. Anyway, at the time of the appointment I approached the front door and made the decision to plan my entrance so that no one could get close enough to me to see me actually walking in. I started down the street and spotted a couple walking in my direction. Hmm, if we both continue moving at this speed, we will pass in direct proximity to the front door. Better stall. Ah, a movie theater, what’s playing? Hmmm. Let me look at this poster…. Ah yes…. been meaning to see the new Reese Witherspoon feature.…. Oh, and look there’s…ok they’re crossing the street. Time to make a dash. I’m thrilled that I’m able to make it down the remaining two hundred feet and to the door without passing anyone. Yes! I’m in. (This next part has been dramatized a bit so the real person won't hunt me down and kill me.)
Now I’m standing directly inside the front door and face to face with an old friend who happens to deliver for UPS. Hey! How are you? Great. You? Good to see you! What’s going on? Nothing. What’s happening with you? Oh. So on and so on…. interval of silence. Small sigh. Ball of foot, rubbed on ground in front of me in circles. Then I hear myself say…’ Well, I’d better get going. I’m meeting someone for coffee at Pony Espresso. Oh! Hey wait. This isn’t Pony espresso! It’s a tanning parlor! That’s nutty. We both share a laugh and he says “Yeah, I was gonna say. You certainly don’t need a tan.” “Tan?” I say. “Yeah right. Like I’d tan?” We laugh again and I back out onto the sidewalk. We say our goodbyes and I duck into Pony espresso. There I am, standing in the doorway, blocking the entrance as people are trying squeeze past me but I’m not moving. I’m keeping an eye out for my UPS friend. He crosses the street and disappears into another store. Time to make a dash for it. I run out of the coffee shop and into the Tanning parlor. ‘I had an appointment’ I say. Yes. Your name would be?” Door opens behind me. “Hey I found one more parcel for….” I hear the voice and my blood runs cold. It’s my UPS friend. This time, I don’t turn around. I don’t even acknowledge his presence. I’m frozen. Hopefully, but not likely, invisible. I’m hoping that he’ll just think I’m another guy, of exact height and weight, with a red ball cap and an orange ‘Beat Bush’ sweatshirt standing 2 feet from him. He leaves finally after 70,000 years and I make the mistake of discretely glancing back to see him at the very moment he not so discretely glances back toward me. We see each other. I am everything I never want to be. A liar. A loser. A tanner. I couldn’t go through with it. I felt so awful. I had the prevenient sense that that my lie would change the experience with guilt and would, most likely, affect the outcome negatively. I just walked back to my car, base tan-less. I didn’t even try to exit the shop secretively. I just tramped out, in a stupor of shame. Ran into three more friends in on the sidewalk. Hey. Hey. How are you? Tan. I mean good. Nice to see you. Nice to see you, too.
It’s the cross I was meant to bear and something I didn’t choose for myself. But I know that I need to love the ‘tan’ me. People may judge me but that’s about them. It’s their journey, their story. At least that’s what Oprah says. I may start a support group or write a self-help book. If that doesn’t work, I’m moving to Damascus.
