A Beautiful Paradigm
I was born at six in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, 1959. Each year I become a little more aware of the dissonance between an ageless soul and a fragile frame, subject to the wear and tear of passing time. Reflecting upon current perspectives on aging, especially for women, it seems a lot has changed. Growing old gracefully used to mean acceptance of the attenuating physical transition, recognizing its synchronicity with wisdom arising from lifelong experience. Today it means botox.
Emphasis on physical beauty has historically been central to cultural norms of female worth. Men are celebrated for accomplishment, women for their appearance. Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships. David, though handsome, especially in Michelangelo’s rendering, is best known for killing a giant, and saving a people.
What, then, is beauty?
There are entire stores dedicated exclusively to selling women what they supposedly need to achieve it. Service industries, from fitness programs, salons, and spas to the more serious surgical solutions, all claim to give women access to the penultimate in pulchritude. The fashion industry, and its attendant publications, blogs and instructional videos, promise transformation of even the ugliest duckling if one adheres to their axioms. Of course, in the story, that duckling found its beauty in the discovery of its real identity.
For most women, the un-airbrushed variety, the idea of beauty leaves us joking about ourselves, at best, yet often privately sad as whatever we may have once had appears to have disappeared from the mirror. The despair for some leads to that ugliest of pastimes, self-hatred.
This superimposed paradigm is cruel tyranny.
I know a brilliant writer, a nurturer of other writers, who spoke of crying over her body, as if over a departed loved one, when she compares her form to her former self at eighteen. One of the smartest women I have ever known, possessed of inspirational generosity coupled with creativity that touches on the divine, has seemed sad, even fearful, of shopping because of the dictates of the fashion and fitness fascists. In my mind’s eye, she is clad in glittering, regal purple, floating just above the ground, trailing loveliness in her wake, artistic beauty infusing everything she touches. I have known her to take unlikely, castoff trash and transform it into an exquisite thing filled with purpose. It made my heart hurt to hear a cherished friend, one of the truest I have known in my sixty-one years, tell me she wondered if she was stylish enough. She has a gift for photographing breathtaking scenery. Mountain, land, and ocean seen through the crystal blue of her expressive eyes transform into vistas that feed the soul.
How many women in my life do not believe the word beauty can be applied to them because of inflexible cultural dictates? How often have I believed the same things of myself? Our society faces a systemic problem when body image issues afflict women of all ages, even those who should still be enjoying the unselfconscious wonder of childhood.
Is there any comfort or wisdom in time-worn adages? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is only skin deep. Is beauty really just a subjective concept, dependent only upon the opinion of the observer? Is it merely a superficial attribute?
I searched for answers in one of my two favorite books. Webster’s New Collegiate began as always with the etymological evolution of the word. The Latin, bellus, essentially meant pretty, but derived from bel, meaning good. The Middle English beaute, though close to our modern spelling, added no nuance of understanding. The Old French, however, contributes its two francs’ worth, biaute, from biau and bel, emphasizing the beautiful. Webster’s defines beauty as the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or a thing that gives pleasure to the senses (to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to feel), or that pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit, adding also that beauty includes any graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality that contributes to beauty. In its historic and original meanings beauty encompasses more than simply superficial artifice or an exclusively subjective ideal. In short, this definition has little to do with the perfect shade of red lipstick or a great pair of heels. It is not in any way limited to a certain size or style. Beauty has less to do with externality than essence.
I confess I love red toenails and a well put together outfit. I like to do my hair and makeup, and don perfume. Is it wrong? I think the answer is: it depends. Liberated by this expansive definition, if adornment or enhancement are an expression of the unique beauty one recognizes in oneself, that can be uplifting. Pursuit of external artifice in order to meet with the approval of an arbitrarily imposed, subjective ideal is undermining.
The idea of beauty as ornamental, for some, may harken to a time when a woman’s beauty meant little more than being “arm candy.” Even in this aspect of the definition of beauty, however, there is redemptive application. It is a most excellent spirit that offers enhancement for the benefit of another. How very sad Charlie Brown’s tree looked, until ornaments and lights lent their individual beauty, creating a source of joy for all who beheld its transformation.
In light of the definition’s reference to the five senses, consider just a few of the myriad ways in which women bequeath their beauty to their world:
A friend’s eyes beam with compassion and kindness in a time of loss or uncertainty.
An exhausted mother sings to her son as she nurses him back to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.
The flower, tended by the gardener’s nurturing hand, graces all in its presence with a transporting fragrance.
The spouse lovingly prepares a favorite meal from scratch for her partner who has had a difficult day.
The grandmother tenderly kisses a brand new cheek, soft as a rose petal, an unconditional promise of love and protection.
Thrillingly, the definition goes beyond sensual aspects of beauty, encompassing qualities that bring pleasure that exalts mind and spirit. Pursuing excellence of execution, a numbers “whiz kid” brings perfect order to the company books. The painter unleashes her revelation of truth, wedding color to an eager canvas. The author weaves a grace-filled tale of personal growth and triumph with authenticity. The counselor uplifts the despairing and enlightens the confused with patient wisdom. The spiritual leader shares insight laced with humility, warmth, and candor that sustains in times of trouble. The women in my life, in all their unique diversity—possessed of qualities singular and aggregate—generate beauty every day, of which I am a humble beneficiary.
As I celebrate my birthday this year, I will be giving thanks for the women in my life, each one a purveyor of unique capacity to bring pleasure to my senses, to exalt my mind and spirit. I declare for my sisters and mothers, daughters and friends, that beauty is our birthright and our legacy. May their heritage always be graced with transcendent beauty that does not diminish over time or fade with age. Thank you, my lovelies, for all the beauty you have given to me.
