Whose Opinion Counts?

I promised a post about this awhile ago, so here goes.

How do you feel when you see this picture:

(http://improveyouraim.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/construction.jpg)

Disgusted? Disapproving? Cynical? Do you think it's cute? Does it make you laugh?

I was never one of those girls. I didn't turn heads as I walked down the street. Ironically, once I lost my hair I began to get comments from men in public. Mostly when I wear scarves or wigs, but occasionally I have genuinely been complimented on my bald head.

I ask about the picture because I don't always know how to feel about these men who approach me in the grocery store or call out to me in the park.

For the record, this is not something that happens all the time. I am just struck by how often a bald woman like myself actually does get "catcalled". I never expected my confidence to be boosted by losing my hair!

But I don't always feel confident when a strange man comes up to me in the store and tells me I have a beautiful smile. Often I feel violated and uncomfortable.

I wish I knew the purpose behind these comments. Are these men trying to make me feel good? Are they hoping for some kind of reciprocal flattery? Are they exercising their perceived power and dominion over me, the opposite sex, who exists only to give them pleasure?

Whatever the case, obviously men feel they have the right (and maybe the duty) to tell a woman they find her attractive in some way.

(Women do this too, of course, but usually in our heads or to our girlfriends.)

Now, my therapist tells me that this issue of letting others' opinions of me determine my mood for the day or shape my identity is really an issue of how I feel about myself. If I dress up all cute and go out and don't get a single comment, why should I be disappointed? The only thing that matters is whether I am happy with myself, right?

Well, we all know this is not totally true. We live in a world where we are influenced by other people all the time. I personally feel a sense of responsibility to others to compliment them when I feel that they could use some encouragement. Nothing wrong with that. But I have some sense of the line between appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to who I talk to and what I say.

So, when we see someone who exhibits some kind of beauty that we appreciate, how do we decide whether or not to say something? If we all need to start focusing on our own opinions of ourselves and nothing more, should we stop commenting on what we see in other people altogether?

I'd love to get lots of comments on this one. :)

Form Over Detail

"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree."
--Joyce Kilmer



Why are trees so lovely?

I happen to love their silhouettes against the sky. My favorite are the trees with bright leaves in fall and black bark, such a vivid contrast against a deep blue sky.



I love the shimmer of leaves as their silvery undersides are flipped in the wind. I love the shapes of the branches, always reaching upward but never able to straighten out in a perfect line. I love how leaves are at their most beautiful (in my opinion) when they are dying.

But what defines the beauty of a tree, really? The shape? The details of the bark? The colors? The fact that each tree provides life-giving oxygen? The shade?

Well, years ago a couple of artists challenged the nature of aesthetic beauty. They looked at trees, bridges, buildings, even coastlines and said "Where does beauty lie?" They decided to blur out the details of each of their projects, allowing the basic form to express itself and impress itself on the viewer. It was beauty without the answer key, so to speak. Beauty without a heavy-handed exhibition of features. I am fascinated by their work.

The husband and wife team, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, included in their "portfolio" a project of wrapped trees. The beauty of the artwork, for them, was to be found in the shape, movement and light of the tree coverings. But when I show these pictures to students in the ESL classes I teach, they usually fail to see the beauty. "Why cover something as lovely as a tree?" they ask.

I get it. The wrapped trees look a bit awkward and bulky, and you miss seeing the individual leaves and branches. But I can't take my eyes away from the photos. I wonder what they would have been like to see close up. Here, what do you think?







It's an interesting idea, where you cover something in order to get at its true beauty. Or at least to see beauty in the form without getting distracted by the details.

So naturally I have been thinking about my own beauty. Before I lost my hair I never wore makeup, I hardly wore jewelry, and I bought clothes from thrift stores, keeping me perpetually at least two decades behind the current fashion trends.

After I developed alopecia universalis, I suddenly had a need to accessorize! I wear makeup almost 24/7, I never leave the house (or walk around in my house, for that matter) without noticeable earrings, and while I still buy my clothes from thrift stores, I at least coordinate outfits to look fashionable. I think.

Details, details.

What if I were to go out one day with no head covering, no jewelry, no makeup--just me and the shapes on my face? I guess for me I would be totally uncovered, very un-Christo-and-Jeanne-Claude-esque. But I think the effect would be the same. Beauty in form, not detail. Beauty in shape, movement, and inner light rather than color, design and definition.

I doubt I will ever get the nerve to do that. But it's an interesting way to think about beauty, isn't it?

The Mirror Has Two Faces

I can't believe I haven't posted anything about my favorite movie on this blog yet! Have you ever seen "The Mirror Has Two Faces"? Get it. Watch it. Love it.

I saw it in high school, and I immediately fell in love with it. The actors, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the theme. Everything.



When I watch this film, I'm reminded that beauty is something we have to feel inside of ourselves, no matter what judgments we make about the image we see in the mirror. Mirrors, after all, reflect our feelings about how we look.

Yesterday I was in my bathroom, putting on my eyebrows and makeup like I always do. I felt good about the finished product when I looked in the mirror. A few hours later, I was in another bathroom, looking in another mirror.

My reflection had totally changed.

My eyebrows were crooked, my eyeliner looked patchy, my scarf looked lumpy...in short, I looked a mess.

Even later, in a third mirror, I was surprised to see that I looked really pretty. Hmmm...

Was the lighting different? Was the angle different?

Or was it my expectation, my attitude and emotions at the time, my sense of comparison with other people I saw, etc.?

Maybe a combination of both. The point is, the mirror actually has several faces. And the truest mirror is when we see ourselves reflected in other people. Someone gives us a kind smile and we feel the goodness of humanity. Or someone acts selfishly and we recoil, recognizing our own capacity for selfishness.

So, next time you look in a mirror, try to see the different layers of reality being reflected back to you. Your own impression of how you look, your personal standard of beauty and how subjectively you think you measure up, even your mood. The mirror shows it all. And it's all beautiful

Insatiable

Why do we get bored so easily? Maybe this is not a common experience, but I have been realizing lately how quickly I tire of things that at one time ignited me. At this time last year I had figured out a new way to tie my scarves and I thought "Yes, this really feels like a style that fits me. I think I look great!" Now, I just feel frumpy in my scarves. I have been trying to shake things up a bit by stepping out bald a little more often. But even that is getting old. Well, the looks and comments are getting old (strange comments from strange men--that's in the next post).

Even this blog--a couple months ago I felt like I was bursting with postworthy material. Now, in case you haven't noticed, I have total writer's block.

I realize that, in my case, this boredom is often actually a type of fatigue. When I find a new interest, I go hard after it. I obsess, I ruminate, I max it out. I don't have sustainable outlets. My outlets end up draining more than I needed to "get out".

But sometimes I really do just feel bored. I mentioned in a previous post that I have been doing Instagram. For awhile I was on it all the time, in awe of the tiny scenes I was holding in my hand: amazing sunsets on the beach, black and whites of the streets of Paris, close ups of delicate flowers, blah blah blah. After a few weeks every photo has started to look the same. How can it be that the same pictures taking my breath away weeks earlier are now making me yawn?

How can someone married to, say, Jennifer Lopez, ever get tired of seeing such a perfectly beautiful face? Sadly, we all know that husbands and wives sometimes act in ways that appear to indicate boredom with their spouses. If not boredom, then a breakdown in their ability to see the beauty they used to see.

It's a shame, really. It's like we're never satisfied. Is it because, deep down, we know we're made for a lot more beauty than anything we've yet seen? Or is it because we try to handle overwhelming beauty in ways we can control, thus cheapening it?

Food for thought tonight. I challenge you to think of something that used to be a source of beauty and is now collecting dust, figuratively or literally. Take another look and see what has always been there.

Sometimes "beauty redefined" is simply beauty remembered.