Beauty

I had one of those interesting days yesterday. The ones where everyone is beautiful.

Now, obviously, around home, that's not surprising. I live with Jack and Rod!

But every so often I have a day when everyone I see strikes me as beautiful. Not "conventionally" beautiful -- these aren't hallucinations, but rather the flashback to 30 years ago, when I was struggling with my self image.

Like most young women, I grew up watching television and reading magazines. I grew up with the ideal of airbrushed beauty and impossible standards. Like many young women, I held myself to that standard of beauty and came up far short.

I was shorter than the "ideal" and a lot softer and rounder (I only became really fat later. Not that I knew that then.) I hated the way I looked and I was depressed, because try as I might, no amount of dieting ever hardened my curves or sharpened my soft features. I used to cry about the need to eat -- at least a drug addict can go cold turkey, but for a dieter, the struggle is eternal. (And in my case fruitless.)

Eventually it dawned on me that I was never going to "succeed". I was far to far from the ideal to ever attain it. About the same time, I started browsing in women's bookstores. I came across books and magazines that talked about those beauty standards and pointed out that they have constantly changed across time and cultures.

As I began to understand that there could be many standards of beauty, I invented a game. I would sit at a bus stop or a public place and watch people. I would study each one for the thing that made them beautiful.

At first it was difficult with some people, but gradually I began to find beauty in almost everyone. I noticed how even coarse, uneven features can be lit up and made really beautiful by a smile. I noticed that a marred complexion often sits over features that are otherwise lovely. I noticed how supposed "imperfections" faded in the face of a dignity of bearing and confidence. I noticed, even more compelling, how otherwise lovely features could be spoiled by an ugly expression.

It became a habit, so that today, I find beauty in most people.

But sometimes the intensity of that beauty is turned up so that I don't just notice it, but I am astonished by it. Yesterday was one of those days. Maybe it's all the loss in our lives lately. Maybe it's a transit.

Whatever it was, it was a comforting thing.

I'm sure almost everyone has seen the Dove Real Beauty campaign. I sure wish this ad had been around when I was a young woman. It could have made the whole understanding thing so much clearer