Mermaids and My Womanchild

Spent a day hanging out with my pre-teen and her friends. We went to see a screening of "Aqua Marine", Hollywood's "Little Mermaid" for the slightly older crowd. Suffice it to say, it was a very longggg day.

Being with young, pert "we know everything and you're old" girls was nothing if not mind bending. And it made me think about how Madison Ave. sells to these little ones. The not so subtle way beauty (as defined by those who sell it) is glorified - every young girl wants to be beautiful, but not every young girl wants to be capable and smart and gloriously living out the power of her person.

I struggle with this because I want the womanchild I am raising to Love herself unconditionally and to expect everything from Life. I want her to cultivate her mind and her body, but I want her to be intimate with her Spirit.

I am a woman who has rejected the importance of the beauty of the physical form. It's a carry over from childhood and it's a liability. I suffered from being told I was unattractive and flawed and overweight for all of my young Life. So, that when I finally looked into a mirror, I could not see the swan staring back at me - she looked always like a duck. To compensate I decided that beauty, my beauty especially, didn't matter.

Now, it truly is the inside of a person that counts, but what draws many to that light is what they see on the outside. I get it, I'm just not buying it. I still think it's a waste of time and money to pay others to do my hair, and paint my nails and sand the dead skin off the soles of my feet. All the rituals of feminine beauty (which more and more men now partake of) seem smoke and mirrors to me; a slight of hand and suddenly I have much less money in the bank, lots more little containers filled with color of all types and a sense that all this will somehow make me more attractive.

More attractive than my self, prettier than I am, sexier and more appealing to those men I am trying to ensnare. After about two weeks, the thrill is always gone and I begin to wonder why the uneven skin tone, the pinkish brown tones of my lips, and every other bit of me is not beautiful to the world around me. When I look at myself through the eyes of others I am disheartened. Not that I think others are repulsed by me, but they are not drawn in by my physical form. No, that would take a little make believe and pretend out of a bottle. It's ironic that I just want to be seen and Loved and viewed as beautiful by the world around me, but the world requires I do a little enhancement first. And, except for plucking those chin hairs which I just can't abide and coloring the grey which seems to make me feel old, I simply won't take the time or energy to do.

It's a stand I have taken in Life that has proven to be like spitting in the wind. It doesn't help to be so out of touch/step with the rest of the world. It gets you discounted.

But, back to my womanchild. She hasn't yet started experimenting with make-up in earnest. She is just beginning to be conscious of her body and what she wears. I watch her stare at her image in the mornings and hope she like what she sees. I hope she Loves what she sees. I do, when I look at her, but my opinion means less (or appears to anyway) these days.

As long as she knows that her full lips, hips and her broad nose are beautiful and that the milk choclate skin that covers them is exquisite. I want her to feel in her soul that her brown and golden touched hair is perfect in its kinky and locked state - gorgeous just the way it grows from her beautiful head. Because what I learned (maybe too late in Life) is that if you know your beauty and believe it to be so, others will be enamored with you. They can't help it, confidence is beautiful.

For all the little girls, no matter their color or shape or size I wish a sense of peace and wholeness with their physical form. That they reject the notion that there is some standard of beauty against which they fall short. That they shine from the inside out, always and forever...

post script: a few of you over these past months have mistaken me for the beautiful brown woman holding my great neice. That's my sis-in-law, Ethel, the dove from Harlem. I'm the lady in the pink turtleneck with her handsome nephews. I considered flying incognito for a bit longer, but the layers peeled back and there it is...Later Gators...