Double Take

I read once that you should always add a picture to every blog post, so people will be more interested in what they are reading.

Well, I can't out a picture up tonight. You'll have to use your imagination. Tonight I'm writing about a woman I met the other day. I didn't take her picture, and I can't find anything that comes close to what she looked like.

She came in to the Dry Cleaner/Tailor shop in my neighborhood where I was picking up a pair of suit pants. This was last Thursday. It was a sunny day, not warm yet but no longer bitter cold. A decent wind was blowing, making it uncomfortable to walk long distances.

I was getting ready to pay for the pants, when this old woman came into the shop and asked the owner if she could use the phone to make a local call. She kind of shouted it, in a demanding tone, which immediately made me think she had a mental illness. She walked up to the counter next to me, and I turned to look at her while she was muttering to herself. She was dressed in baggy pants, high boots, a few layers of sweaters and coats, and a scarf wrapped around her head.

She looked in the full-length mirror that was propped on the wall to our left, and repeated over and over again: "I look like hell."

I wanted to deny it for her just to make her feel better, but I thought it would sound like an obvious lie. So I just shook my head and smiled at her. She began to show me the veins in her arms and tell me about the hospital she was just released from, where she came out sicker than when she went in. I never found out what her sickness was.

Somehow, the conversation turned to me and the state of my health. I assured her I was healthy, despite my own headwrap, and I started explaining my disorder to her. She suddenly became very lucid and attentive, and as she faced me head-on I could see that she must have been a strikingly beautiful woman in her younger years. Even now, dressed as a bag lady and drooping everywhere, she was not unpleasant to look at. Not at all. Right now all I can really recall are her large, brown eyes. Like a deer.

Well, after I described my condition to her, she asked if she could see my head. I've never had that request from anyone other than children. The owner of the shop, a cute little Korean woman, was also looking at me expectantly. So I pulled my scarf off in one quick, painless movement, and felt the color come rushing to my face. As I pulled off my scarf, the woman took a pronounced step backward and exclaimed "Oh, you are stunning!"

The very word I had thought of for her.

I've never had quite a reaction to my bald head. I took it to be genuine, coming from a woman who had clearly seen her share of both beauty and tragedy in this world. I felt like I had been given a special gift: my bald head was something to show off, my crowning glory.

It's interesting to me that we both realized each other's unique, breathtaking beauty only after we had taken the time to really see who was standing in front of us. We were able to see past the clothes, past the circumstances, and into the character of the woman before us, perhaps accentuated by our physical appearance. I've never experienced anything like that before. In that instant, she and I were queens.

This made me think of a recent post, when I expressed my trouble with the fact that women always seem to give each other compliments about looks above everything else. I feel that I need to adjust my position on that a little. One friend said that complimenting a woman on her choice of attire is one of our "cultural greetings". It's a standard conversational routine. As a linguist, I get that.

It also struck me, in listening to exchanges between women over the past week or so, that women simply notice beauty and have to comment on it. I don't think we are being superficial when we compliment each other on some aspect of our physical appearance. We just love to see colors that go well together, patterns that create energy, fabrics that wrap the body in just the right way, and lines that carry our eyes as we take everything in.

I still want to be careful to compliment women on other things just as often, like the confidence they exude, their wit, or good questions they ask. But complimenting a woman on her looks because you have seen past your own insecurities and noticed a manifestation of another person's choice, personality or values is a gift that women should not be ashamed to use.