205 Marbles
My landlord has hired a guy to do some repairs around the house. I’m a little uncomfortable with him in our home - he seems a little too eager, but perhaps I’m just slightly cynical. Maybe he just wants human connection and his offer to drive me to work today was a nice gesture but I feel like he’s after something I’m not willing to provide. What I’m most curious about is my discomfort over his attempts at making connection – his over-eager “I do yoga too” when seeing my yoga mat, looking at my art “I’m a painter too”, and his inquisitiveness about what I do. It all feels like probing to me.
When I was practicing yoga today I asked “Why does this attention make me uncomfortable?” Some women thrive on male attention and bask in it but somehow I tend to shy from it. Sure, I will dress up and put heels on, do my make-up and toenails but I do it because it makes me feel good. But why the uneasiness when I draw unwanted attention?
As I was breathing through my yoga practice, I remembered the first time as a young woman that I recall drawing male attention. I must have been about thirteen and my parents and I were at a fishing resort. There was a boy there a few years older than me that kept coming around our cabin and offering to take me and my father out fishing (I sensed he was already fishing). My father teased me, saying that I was starting to get boys “sniffing around.” His choice of words seemed appropriate because I did feel like a piece of meat. To add to my embarrassment, the boy kept coming by with gifts of fish for my father who continued to chuckle at my expense. Thus began a series of unfortunate suitors including a friend’s brother, another friend’s young uncle, and when I started working a couple of years later numerous older co-workers. Ex-man was the only one who I wanted to notice me and it took him a couple of years before he finally did.
I try to go back to that young girl to understand the discomfort. If I am unfolding into my womanhood and attracting attention, why is this cause to draw back into the bud? And is a flower only beautiful because we say it is so, or does its beauty exist regardless of having an audience? This reminds me of the Zen koan “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?” My koan is “If a woman is beautiful and no on is around to see her, is she still beautiful?” This is at the core of my discomfort – the idea that at some point the attribute of beauty was externally imposed and not internally experienced.
When do I feel most alive and beautiful? When I am doing what I love. When I take care of myself. When I feel that my spirit is in line with my personality. When I feel love for those around me. These moments make me feel like I am a sun of burning light, not a moon of reflected light.
I go back to my thirteen-year-old self and let her shine, regardless of who is there to bask in her light. Then I note an irony: I become conscious of this truth just when the lines are deepening around my eyes and mouth and society’s standards of beauty are slipping away. Perhaps this is my time to shine.
Did some of your beauty die post breakup if you lost the "one" who voiced your beauty? The truth is, your beauty exists with or without an audience. What would it take for you to own your beauty?
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