Category: beauty (Page 1 of 5)

My senior year in college, 7 friends and I drove a million miles to Miami to sail on a cruise boat for a week and it ended up being the capstone to my college experience. Beautiful islands, beautiful friendships, covered in laughter. On a favorite stop to St. Maartin, Cara, Angie & I decided we wanted to beach it. We taxied to a local beach and each rented a chair that came with a free drink. Then, the beer was cheaper than water – and we’re cheap. At one point, Cara needed to pee so she sauntered into the water to “cool down.”

Cara had brought along her video camera – please remember I graduated in 2003, before our phones were so fancy – so while she was, ahem, busy, I snagged the recorder from her bag. First, I just recorded her peeing in the ocean, which was nothing really to see.

Then, I noticed two older individuals walking the shoreline. She was wearing a belly chain around her navel (yes, like a necklace, but for your waist). That was all. He was also enjoying the benefits of the sunshine without the fear of tan lines.

So, of course, I added that to our footage.

Now, the ensuing inner conversation likely focused on how these individuals, who were much older, seemed to be the last people who *should* parade down a beach naked. Everything that our society says should be hidden – specifically wrinkles and rolls – was out on display. In my immaturity, I wondered, do they think they have better looking bodies than what I see?  I had to wonder, why would they show off those parts of themselves?

That’s where my thinking went askew. I mistook freedom for pride.

Most of the folks utilizing the clothing-optional areas don’t do so because they’re showing off because, you see, they’re not at the beach for you, or me, or any other person lounging in the sun. They’re present for their own enjoyment. And how their bodies appear to the general public is not the cost of admission.

They have shed more than their tops; they’re rid of their shame. The opposite of shame isn’t pride or glorification. It’s freedom. 

It’s freedom from the weight of the opinions of others. It’s freedom from the yoke of believing my body needs to look a particular way in order to be seen; as if this body serves anyone other than me, and my own well-being. (Ok, I’ll give you this: my body technically served my four children well for about 5 years as their first homes and sources of nutrition. But not once did any of them remark about how they ate better when I was, or was not, in a bikini.)

You see, here’s the thing I cannot wrap my mind around. Who came up with the idea that, no matter what size is listed on the inside of your jeans, that the world would be better with LESS of you in it? You are exquisite, the only one the world has. The world doesn’t need less of you. Not less of your waist, not less of your mind, not less of your work, not less of your ideas, not less of your emotion. And, if any of these things get in your way of a flourishing life, you get to decide what to do about that.

I’m not the first to be told I’m “too much.” Too much energy, too much effort, and even, I take up too much space. But these words were spoken because they knew the “not enough” lie wouldn’t stick; it wouldn’t have the same sting. So they took the same lie and flipped it upside down as an attempt to make me feel shame in my bigness: my aliveness.

But the opposite of shame is not pride or glorification. I don’t have to feel that what I am is the ideal; I only have to accept that what I am is enough. Not perfect, but good.  The opposite of shame is freedom, living without the weight of expectations – or the fear of failing to meet those expectations.

Chances are slim I will saunter down a beach with less than a swimsuit – it’s just not my thing. More challenging to me will be speaking my voice when it dissents, asking questions others don’t believe belong in the conversation, and showing up when I don’t feel included. My willingness to be a person who doesn’t fit into the size expectations of society – pants size or energy size – is the work of freedom.

It’s no secret that our family hates October. Actually, I feel a large proportion of Upper Sandusky hates it. Everything dies in October; the leaves and the the people we love.

I’m not sure if the Star Players, the local community theater group, intentionally chose October as the season for their annual all-ages musical, but if they did: genius. It’s exactly what we need. Not just to “take our minds off of things” or to “numb the pain.” Of course, escaping into a story for a few hours is a good way to set down our grief for a moment, but it’s more than an epidural for our funeral season.

Watching the leads yesterday finish the first act in complete harmony, my eyes automatically started watering. The tears returned when the whole chorus set into a song about being our weird selves – and not just because I identified personally as a misfit. I watched the Pinocchio character step into his role and show no restraint. He lived and danced into his character fully and it. was. beautiful. The Sugar Plum Fairy danced big and loud and you could see something come alive in her eyes that radiated all the way down from her soul.

I’ve yet to go to a community theater production and not cry at the curtain call. Not because I’m reliving my stage life (because I don’t have one) but because of the connection it evokes. There’s nothing I love more than seeing people live their gifts so feely. Community theater is unpaid and under-appreciated, yet these folks show up for the rehearsals, put in the hours for practice, and subject themselves to critics and criticism.

All for the sake of beauty.

Their voices, their acting, their delivery of certain lines of comedy isn’t something that can be mass produced and easily found. They conjured that up from deep inside and then shared it with the world. It’s as if they were willing to dig into the muck in which we wade and pull out the treasure chest of jewels and hold them up to everyone willing to show up for a $15 ticket and say, “See! It’s here! There is beauty among us!”

Despite what I feel right now about the month of October, this world does hold so much beauty.

I see it in the parents who gather together to send their children off to homecoming.  There is so much beauty, not just in the kids cleaning up and dressing fancy, but in the shared sense of Where did time go? How did s/he grow up so fast? amid the excitement.

And even in the heartache, I see a beauty in the full-force recollection of one of our community’s favorite educators as we learned of his passing. The shared grief reveals a certain element of connection as people light the darkness with their individual memories of a shared beloved. Each comment, each photo, each quote is a candle, held high.

I’m reading Brene Brown’s newest, Braving the Wilderness, and she writes about these elements of Inextricable Connection (emphasis mine):

All of these examples of collective joy and pain are sacred experiences. They are so deeply human that they cut through our differences and tap into our hardwired nature. These experiences tell us what is true and possible about the human spirit. We need these moments with strangers as reminders that despite how much we might dislike someone on Facebook or even in person, we are still inextricably connected.

Perhaps that’s the lesson of this particular October. Not just that it continues to be a terrible time, but that it can be terrible for all of us and we can share in it’s terribleness. Perhaps it’s the brokenness of this season that binds us together, forming its own kind of beauty.