Beauty

Wonderfully Made

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She wears her body like she is proud of it.

Like it is something fearfully and wonderfully made, and it is.

She holds her chest high, unembarrassed by its perkiness.

She lets her hips sway, honoring their curves.

She works to bless and please the body she has been gifted with.

She eats sumptuous foods and waters her body liberally.

She stretches and challenges her body to make it stronger.

She pampers her body and rests it.

Rather than denying her body’s beauty, she allows the compliments in with gracious acknowledgement.

She wears her body like she is proud of it.

Like she is fearfully and wonderfully made.

Because she is.

I am.

You are.

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Because I love words

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As a friend pointed out, while “fondle” and “caress” are indeed synonyms, the former has taken on more of its erotic connotation through practice and is therefore viewed with more of that color than the other words included in the definition.

And, yes, that is Khaleesi Daenerys Stormborn and Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones.12046563_1119631811397472_5056938008544459704_n

Inventorying Your Beauties

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  1. What color makes you feel beautiful when you wear it?
    1. A color that makes me feel beautiful is yellow. I feel sunshiny yet poised, and it feels like my own personal light is shining through the cracks. One of my favorite dresses is a lovely, 60s-esque yellow, white, and grey striped pencil dress with a belted empire waist. Love the way it makes me look and feel!
    2. I also love basic black and grey. They are understated and elegant and they give me the chance to be creative with my hair, shoes, and accessories. A little pop of the right color can do wonders for a look and for this woman’s head-holding and hip-swaying.
  2. What is one of your physical features that you think is the most beautiful?
    1. My hands. They are small and petite and delicate. I love it when they are held, caressed, and kissed. A friend in high school used to exclaim over how small they are and say how a man was going to fall in love with me for my hands alone.
  3. What is it about your heart that is beautiful?
    1. I have a deep-seated desire to help the hearts of others. I want them to know that they are thought of and cared for even when all they feel points to otherwise. I want to be able to give someone’s horrible day some life, light, and a silver lining.
  4. What is your definition of true beauty?
    1. I will be the first to admit when someone is physically beautiful and to call them so. But, for me, what makes someone truly beautiful in the deeper sense of the word is how they treat others. I am not saying that a beautiful person is calm and graceful all the time and lets everything just roll off. No, we are all human. A person of true beauty is one who lovingly holds space for the hearts of others, speaks truth and life, and does their best to treat each other as well as they can in every situation, even if it means stepping away from said situation. I cannot tell you just how much people like this have done for me in my lifetime, how they have saved and buoyed up my heart and spirit. I am truly thankful for the space they have held and the beautiful souls they have shared with me.

One of my favorite Scripture verses

Beautiful Bellies

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This past Sunday, I performed with my belly dance class at the end-of-semester recital for the arts center where our class and others were held. As I watched the other belly dance classes perform their pieces, an idea struck me. I love the bellies that I see in this community of dance. Almost every woman and girl there Sunday bared her belly, proud in her beauty and grace, as she danced, and I found myself observing them as well as enjoying their performances. And I found that I love those bellies.

There are bellies that have borne children, still bearing the marks of that great effort, and have perhaps gone with less or even without so a child’s belly would not.

There are bellies that have seen decades of life, work, changes, and love.

There are bellies still soft with baby fat, barely in their first act of life.

There are bellies slender with vivacity and activity. Bellies strong and muscular with hard work and determination. Bellies voluptuous and curvy. Bellies dimpled and scarred with evidence and proof of life.

There are bellies of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and each and every single one is beautiful, graceful, lovely, and powerful.

It is the magnificence of each woman that makes up the beauty of the dance.

Yallah!

Why I Walk Around Naked

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11150479_630544590414714_184724744336153178_nI frequently walk around the house naked. I know. Big deal, right? Well, for me, it has become quite a big deal. First things first, though: cards on the table. I am 32 years old, a wife of almost a decade, and the mother of a rambunctious two-year-old girl (remember her, she’s the lynchpin here). I am 5’1 and my weight is currently hovering at 135 lbs. Is my body perfect? No. It’s why I work out at home just about every day, try to eat better than I have in the past, and hit Planet Fitness with a friend a few times a week to run and strength train on the weight machines. No, my body isn’t perfect, but it’s healthy and getting stronger as I continue to work. More importantly than even that, I have a daughter to whom I want to teach a positive body image and comfort, as well as healthy habits. I want my girl to grow up at ease with herself, to find her body strong and capable, to find herself beautiful. Who will she learn that from but me? Whose voice will battle all the others that will bombard her from society, television, movies, toys, etc.? Mine. Mine is the voice she hears all day. Mine is the body she sees working, playing, exercising. Mine are the reactions and self-talk she will learn from. Therefore, accepting, working on, and speaking kindly to myself are not only for me for but for my Elizabeth as well.

Not too long ago, I watched a video from my belly dance class that my teacher had posted in the class’s Facebook group. We were drilling portions of choreography and my posture was wrong, terrible even. And I told my husband:

“I hate the way I look in this video! I look like I’m still pregnant!”

I immediately regretted and kicked myself for the unkind statement, as Elizabeth was sitting nearby playing with her toys. I maintain that, though she’s only two, she understands everything that is said to and around her. So I have to check the negative self-talk, both inner and outer. If I want my daughter to learn to accept herself, love herself, and see the beauty in every curve, line, and angle of her unique body, I have to do the same. She won’t learn or develop a sense of body comfort if she hears me constantly bad-mouthing my own body. My unique, maddening, triumphant body.

So I walk around the house naked, and I let Elizabeth run around in her diaper, especially now that the weather is warm again. Together, we work on her learning that everyone has a body beneath their clothes and that it is nothing to be feared but everything to be respected and appreciated. At the same time, I am working on my own comfort level with being naked around her and explaining the differences between my body and hers, even at her young age.

“Yes, those are Mommy’s breasts; some mommies feed their babies that way. Yes, you have nipples, too.”

We teach our children to name the parts of their faces, their arms, legs, fingers, toes, and tummy as a necessary benchmark of their development, but I think that it is also important for children to see, from their parents, what those bodies will look like as they grow. I want to be comfortable enough with my daughter and her with me that she can ask me questions about my body and her own as she grows older. I want her to see her body as beautiful, no matter what the voices around her might say. She is strong and brilliant, energetic and curious. I want her mind and body to exist and work together, not against each other.

When I was a girl, I marveled at my mother’s waist. She had a stunning curve to her waist that her A-line dresses gorgeously accentuated. I would trace my hands over her silhouette and hope to be as lovely as her when I grew. When she’d let her hair down, I would hold its weight in my hands and stand in awe. I saw my mother’s beauty, even when she couldn’t, but I struggled for a long time to find my own. I would dearly love to protect my daughter from that uncertainty and for her to always be assured of her unique loveliness and brilliance. Even better if she will then, in turn, remind others of their own.

So I stand naked before the mirror, deny the negative self-talk, and call myself beautiful. My little girl comes to stand beside me, as tall as my thigh, and leans smiling against my leg. I hug her close and call her beautiful, and, somewhere in that little child brain full of all things new and amazing, I think that she thinks so, too.

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Fascinating Facets

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I sit with my daughter in my lap as she indulges in some Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. As she sits quietly (a rare occurrence in and of itself), I take advantage of the opportunity to wrap her lovely pigtail curl around my finger and find myself once again mesmerized as I twirl it again and again and again.

Her hair is soft and glossy and smooth, as soothing as silk as I coil it around my finger. As I do and the curl tightens, I find myself marveling at it. It almost looks like an ombre candy cane, composed of shades of brown sugar and sable, though it is also shot through with bright copper and even honeyed blonde in some spots.

Her hair is smooth like her father’s but also curly like mine naturally is. She gets the shades of brown with red highlights from us both, but the shot of blonde is her father’s, as are her long eyelashes. We deal with the snaggles and tangles and she hates every minute of me combing them out of her hair. When her hair is loose, it is curly and fun and wild; when it is combed into pigtails or a ponytail, it is cute and coquettish. Either way and both, she is brilliantly lovely and I am constantly fascinated by the work of art that is my daughter’s hair. It is beautiful and unique and perfectly suited to her sunshiny, smiling face.

I dream of what that hair will be like some day, falling over her shoulders in abundant, glossy curls that bounce, the most superlative physical complement to my girl’s own buoyant spirit.

Let Down Your Hair

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As I sat in my hairdresser’s chair the other day, I picked up the magazine that was on the counter – a back-issue of Hype Hair and began to flip through it. I realize now that I should have counted advertisements, meaning I should have counted how many advertisements for Remi hair that I saw in the half of the magazine that I flipped through. Its frequency was almost literally every other page. For those of you who don’t know, Remi is a supplier of hair extensions. The reason this sparked in my mind is because, a month or so ago, I posted this selfie on my Facebook page sans make-up or anything, on a whim and sense of feeling pretty. 968036_10152100165903133_807967466_n In the comments, someone asked me if I had Remi hair. Honestly? I had to look that up. When I figured out what it was, I alternated between laughing out loud and feeling a little insulted. For the record, though, I have never once had hair extensions, weave, or anything of the like. Every inch of that was my own hair (six to eight of which came off the other day). But what I also realized is that is not the first time I have been asked that. I have been asked if not only my hair is real but are my nails real? I like to grow out my nails a little bit, always have. They grow quickly and my cuticles have a curve to them that makes my natural nail growth graceful (at least, I think it does).

So, in my mind, this prompts a question. What is the expectation of beauty in a black woman that seems to predicate an assumption of falseness? False hair, false nails, false eyelashes, intense make-up, etc. Why must any part of me, or any of us, be false? Let’s be honest, the advertising would not be so intense and frequent if it were it not successful. What is it about current social expectations of beauty that would prompt people to look at me and ask if I am all ‘real’? I mean, the same thought is prompted when someone asks, “Is she a real blonde?” or “Are those her real breasts?” By the way, I am 5’2 and a D-cup; I’m pretty sure that latter question has been lobbed in my (in)direction a time or two. Next confession: I relax my hair. It’s easier to manage and care for this way. So, no, while this may not be my hair’s natural state, it is still my hair. All of it, every inch, every grey, every (sometimes broken and split) end.

I know that this an old debate but yet the question remains. Why is falseness assumed (or worse, expected) in certain standards of beauty, for both men and women?

#LoveYourSelfie – A Brush with Beauty

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I feel beautiful today. I don’t know why. I’m in my pajamas, my living room floor is cluttered with toys, clothes need to be sorted and folded in the bedroom. Aside from my toddler, who’s napping, I’m alone. But I feel pretty, beautiful, desirable, pick a word. I do.

Maybe it’s my hair. My mother helped me do it while she was here, touch it up with relaxer, curl it up in rollers. I can do it myself but it always feels so much better when she does it. It’s years worth of memories, conversation, etc., during that process. So now my hair falls over my shoulders, still in light curls, as I left the curlers in for about nineteen hours and just took them out yesterday. My hair is light and soft and it flows when I move. I had a ridiculous fun time just rolling around in my bed with fresh roller curls and feeling my hair  bounce and flow and brush my face, shoulders, neck as I moved.

I don’t know what it is today but I feel beautiful. Last night, I dressed up with the intent of expression just such a feeling. Today, I’m content in my ladybug pj pants and pink tank, my hair a lovely tousled mess.

I guess the song is rather appropriate today: “I feel pretty, oh so pretty! I feel pretty and witty and bright!” I don’t pity anyone who isn’t me, though I do wish you a brush with you own personal beauty today that will last much longer than you dare to hope. ^_^