Coffee Shop Exercise #1, January 20, 2010

Why do older men tend to walk with their mouths hanging open? In a sense, it is a bit endearing. White haired, bent over, with their own little routines and ways about them. But don't they worry about stray flies getting sucked into their open jaws and then shooting down their throat? What if their denture cream wears out--won't they risk their teeth flopping out onto the floor?


Perhaps it's a habit of concentration. The mind is working so furiously at the one task on hand that the mouth is forgotten. Or perhaps as you age your airways are limited. Blocked nasal passages force the throat to fling open the mouth.


Maybe it just that expressions and movement get more exaggerated over time? First off, anything connected to the head seems to grow to twice its normal size as one ages. Eyebrows, ears, lips, even the skin seems to grow and hand from the jowls. There is required much more effort to control and shift these with their increasing size. For example, an elderly man reaching into his breast pocket must, in order to see, scrunch up his chin, lift an eyebrow to move that pesky under-eye baggage, and open his mouth to catch his breath as his chin is pressing against his throat. In this process, the breathing becomes heavier and deeper. I forgot to mention the glasses hanging onto his scrunched nose for their very life. 

To this day, I may never know the reasons for such expressions and ways of going about. Not even when I transform into a white-hair someday, as I will never be a man with his mouth hanging open. Now an old lady with her mouth hanging open, that my friends, is possible.

Until next time,
LKK xo