Beauty is in the mind of the beholden
My mother was an enchanting beauty with her jade green eyes and thick honeyed hair. She turned heads. My sister with her high cheek bones and muscular petite frame has my mom’s looks.
Growing up next to these beauties never fazed me. I didn’t compare myself to them or any of the other strikingly beautiful friends I’ve come to know over the years. I know beauty is luck and sometimes even a curse.
But I’m going to be honest, I’ve been hearing some really nasty comments lately about my looks. Verily, I tell you these comments are downright snarky and mean. They say I’m fat. They remind me I might have been cute when I was young but that’s gone (ahem) forever. They tell me I have no muscle tone in my thighs or arms. They laugh about the cellulite that outlines every inch of my thin, dry skin.
This mean mugging shoots straight from my lips. I’m a horrible person the way I talk to myself. And I should know better – damn it – I talked myself into believing bald is beautiful not too long ago. (Hint: I accomplished this by whispering I love you, Rachel every time I passed a mirror.)
So today I put on RED LIPSTICK. Woo Hoo! When I was young, my mother not so subtly begged me to wear makeup. I wouldn’t couldn’t. She shamed me into wearing lipstick. It stuck. But this quarantine life does not lend itself to even the minimum of decorum. So the jabs and barbs leak from my brain after days of wearing the same black yoga pants with their dog and cat hair design and those tortured looks in the mirror as I brush the same boring teeth set in this wrinkled mouth.
Then it snowballed! The red lipstick made me want to put on earrings – not my big hoops but a pair of my mom’s studs – 18kt gold studs with blue sapphires to catch the sunlight. Jazzy leggings with colorful socks. I even dabbed on my signature scent. Wala! Transformed! Project Runway here I come.
I flung open the door and strutted down the deserted streets of Bay Saint Louis as beautiful as a peacock.
