The Beholder

I tend to agree with the majority of people that Lady Gaga’s Halftime Show during Superbowl 51 on February 5, 2017, was outstanding.  Her dancing was unshakable, and her voice was robust even as she ran and flipped around the stage.  The woman had endless energy and performed at a peak level without hitting pause for one second of her thirteen-minute performance.

I knew that there was going to be a lot of arguments about her presentation afterwards just simply because so many people love to hate.  Some people immediately began to criticize her performance.  Other people praised her.  Many people debated what type of political message she was trying to send or if she even sent one at all.  I had expected to read all of these various comments, and I imagine that Lady Gaga probably did, too.

But there were some comments that actually took me by surprise.  I was shocked that there were people who were body-shaming this lovely woman.  (But then again….why should I be surprised?)  There were many uncalled-for comments about her facial features and her body shape.  I can’t help but wonder why that even mattered.  What does her face and body have to do with her amazing talent?  And when can we stop judging people by how they look and appreciate the amazing gifts they share with us?  Why do we keep taking everything down to the lowest common denominator?

Okay, maybe I am just being overly sensitive to the matter.  Like most people, I have had unusual comments made to me about my appearance, too.   The strangest comment happened several years ago when I first started teaching massage and bodywork at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.  During a break between classes one day, I walked into the front office to speak with the director, Karen, about upcoming classes and events.  I stepped through the open door of her office and found an older man sitting in a chair in front of her desk.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stated.  “I didn’t realize you were busy.”

“Oh, Jamie, it’s fine, come in,” the director answered.  Then she nodded towards the man who was sitting in her office and said, “This is John.  John, tell Jamie what you do for a living?”

John pulled his large form a little straighter in his chair and said, “I’m a mortician.”

“Oh,” I answered with a nod of my head, “that’s…that’s really…nice.”  Nice?  Seriously, I actually said that being a mortician is nice.  But I didn’t know what to say.  I was at a loss for words because I wasn’t sure why the director had prompted John to reveal this information to me.

Then John suddenly said, “Yes, I’ve been a mortician for over thirty years and I’ve been watching you.”

At John’s confession to stalking, I shuddered for a moment and choked out, “Really?”

“Yes,” the mortician answered, “I keep looking at you with your long, slender neck and thinking, wow, she would be easy to embalm!”

I stared at the man in surprise as Karen and John both laughed.  Then, I smiled nervously, nodded my head, and slowly backed out of the office.  I ran down the hallway to my classroom, stepped inside, and locked the door.  The whole disturbing situation caused a lot of random ideas to rush through my head.

Man, how is this even fair?  Many women are told they are beautiful.  I am told I would be easy to embalm!  But, maybe I shouldn’t have let the situation upset me.  Maybe I should have pursued a relationship with John.  Here’s a man who would probably appreciate my unusually cold hands and my pure white skin.

It was interesting, though, that instead of being mad at John’s rude words, I was ashamed of myself for not being beautiful.  I cursed myself for having a long scrawny neck, poor circulation, and skin that never tans.  Several years later, now, I wonder why I blamed myself for John’s comments and the laughter of the mortician and school director.

That reminds me of the day my friend, Stacy, told me that she was serving a customer at work.  Suddenly, the man looked at her and commented, “You know, you are way too young to have hands that look that old.”

I was horrified and outraged when Stacy told me about this.  “He actually said that to you?!  How could he say that?!”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Stacy responded.  “Look at my hands.  They are all dry and scaly.  He was right.”

I remember staring at Becky in surprise while wondering, even then, at what point all of these rude comments had become acceptable.  The comments are bad enough but when did we buy into a standard of beauty that ignores the divinity of our spirits?  It’s really sad, but true.  We lose our true sense of beauty when we become adults.

Some of the best compliments I have ever received in my life have come from children.  For example, one day, I had dyed my hair a bright red and put in extension.  The comments I received from adults were not positive.  I heard people murmuring, “God, that’s such a brassy color.”  “I would never go that red.”  “What was she thinking?”

But suddenly there was my co-worker’s 6-year-old daughter dancing around me and screaming excitedly, “Momma, Momma, look…she has Little Mermaid hair!  She has Little Mermaid hair!”  I never worried again what other people thought about my red hair.  And it’s been some shade of red ever since!

And I will never forget a situation that happened when I was in Malaysia.  I had been backpacking around Malaysia for two weeks.  One afternoon, after walking several miles, I climbed onto one of the town buses.  I lugged my backpack over to one of the tattered, stained, green vinyl benches and sat down wearily.  As the bus began to make its slow, rickety progress down the potholed street, I suddenly felt something swat at the back of my head.  I put my hand up and brushed it over my hair.  A few seconds later, it happened again.  Again, I brushed my hair back.  When I felt something pull my hair for the third time, I turned around in my seat to find a beautiful, 2-year-old little girl sitting on her mother’s lap.  Now, as I looked at the child, she reached her hand out to me again, picked up a strand of my hair, and tangled it up in her small fingers while she repeatedly murmured, “OOOOHHHH!  OOOOHHH!”  I smiled at the girl’s mother and suddenly realized that the majority of people in Malaysia are dark-haired and dark-eyed.  And there I was with my green eyes and long reddish blond hair.  It was unusual for this child to see something so different.  But instead of being afraid, instead of shying away, the girl found beauty within our differences.

And it used to be those differences that embarrassed me.  As I was growing up, I tended to focus on my physical flaws and could very easily turn a tiny pimple, scar, vein, or bulge into a major trauma.

It’s too bad we lose our true sense of splendor as we grow older.  Is it conditioning, hormones, cynicism, beauty blindness, or just pure insanity?  There has to be some reason people look for ugliness.  There has to be some reason people think it is their right to humiliate and criticize others just for their appearance.

Or maybe, it just comes down to a choice.

I am choosing to know beauty, to see beauty.  I am choosing to be a BEHOLDER.  And I am choosing to say positive things to other people.  I don’t know of any other way to live.

So, yes, Lady Gaga was talented and beautiful and amazing last night….

But then again, aren’t we all?!

 

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Memorable Moments

When I started writing my blog last year, I had actually planned to write a travel journal.  I thought I would be writing about my expeditions around America, my travels overseas, and my day trip excursions.  However, over the past year, my blog had morphed into something entirely different.  I am writing instead about out-of-the-blue experiences that happened to me throughout my ordinary days.  Instead of writing about traveling, I am writing about everyday life lessons.  I am recording the sudden insights and moments of joy that occurred during the quiet moments of my life.  So instead of writing about my recent trip to Vegas, here again is a surprising moment that occurred in my life last week.

I had just finished instructing my morning class at 11:30 am on Thursday, May 28, 2015.  I was happy it was Thursday.  This week was the first week of a new term and it had been exhausting.  I decided that I needed to get off campus for a while and decompress before my next class began.

I just went across the street to a small restaurant.  It wasn’t until I had received my glass of unsweetened iced tea and immersed myself in the pages of the latest novel I was reading that I finally began to breathe and relax.  I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath until this moment.  Yes, the week had been very stressful and I’m afraid my appearance had put my exhaustion on display.  I was dressed in a pair of old black slacks, a red sleeveless shirt, and a pair of blue flip-flops.  I wore very light makeup and my large purple plastic framed glasses tilted sideways across the bridge of my nose.  I had been too exhausted all week to put contact lenses into my eyes.  I knew my hair had been tossed around by the wind when I left campus just a few minutes earlier but I didn’t stop to brush it again.  The sad thing was that I just felt too exhausted to care.  (Hey, I’m not writing a fashion blog for good reason!)

It felt good to relax especially since I would not be heading back home until 10:30 pm when my night classes were over.  I decided to take full advantage of this moment.  I was just going to sip my tea, read my book, and not worry about anything.

A few moments later, however, a movement at the front of the restaurant caught my attention and I glanced up over the top of my book.  I watched as a very small, adorable, elderly woman entered the restaurant.  The woman was dressed as eccentrically as I was.  She wore a pair of old jeans, a purple long-sleeved knit shirt, and a pink puffy vest even though the end of May temperature outside was approaching 100 degrees.  A little, beige, knit cap covered her short, dark, curly hair.

I know it’s not polite to stare but I watched as she shuffled slowly up to the front register and placed her lunch order.  Then the woman slowly turned around and ambled over to a table in the back right hand corner of the room.  I was a little concerned about the elderly woman.  She had a small hump at the top of her back that caused her head to hang a little lower than her shoulders.  Her neck was slightly bent in order to keep her eyes up.  Her legs seemed to be a little wobbly as she moved slowly between the tables to the booth.

I watched her for a moment as she settled into her seat.  When the clerks called out the number of her food order, I started to stand up, but relaxed back down in my seat when one of the workers left the counter and carried the tray of food over to the woman’s table.  The elderly woman, however, refused to be helpless.  As the clerk placed the tray on the table and walked away, the elderly woman stood up and shuffled over to the condiment counter.  I know that I shouldn’t have been staring, but the gentle rocking motions of her gait was like an intriguing dance, a shamble of endurance and grace.  As the woman picked up some napkins and hot sauce and started walking back to her table, I turned my attention back to my book.  I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable because I had been watching her.

I read just a few words before I was distracted.  A slight movement caught my attention.  I looked up to find the elderly woman now standing beside my table.  I smiled up at her…and then nearly fell out of my chair!

The woman looked at me and said, “You are so pretty!”

I stared at her with my mouth hanging open in surprise.  “Th-th-thank you,” I stuttered.  I was shocked.  I didn’t know what to say.  I took a breath and stated, “So are you,” for I was stunned by the woman’s incredibly deep blue eyes and smooth shiny skin.

The woman waved her hand at me before saying, “No, not me.  But you are really pretty.  Your skin is so smooth…”

Again, I could only stammer a “th-th-thank you” before the woman continued.  “I am 91-years-old,” she stated.  Ninety-one?!?  This woman with the bright blue eyes, treating herself out to lunch all alone, was 91-years-old?!  Before I could make any comment, the woman continued, “I am 91.  At my age, I have seen many beautiful things.  I know beauty…and you, my dear, are beautiful!”

And with that finally pronouncement, the woman turned away from me and ambled back to her table again.  Her head seemed to be held up a little higher and her gait suddenly seemed to be a lot lighter as she moved away from me with an amazing amount of dignity and elegance.

I tried to turn my attention back to my book after this encounter but I couldn’t concentrate.  I suddenly felt myself changed by this moment and I was too excited to sit still.  I got up from my table and refilled my tea cup.  Then, as I walked towards the exit, I detoured over to the woman’s table.  I thanked her again for her compliments and wished her a great day.

“Oh, you, too, my dear,” she answered as her right hand waved joyfully.

I left the restaurant and walked over to my car.  I sat for a few minutes and contemplated what had just happened and the connection I felt to this elderly woman.  I glanced around the parking lot for a moment wondering where the woman came from.  Did she drive herself to the restaurant at 91 years of age? How amazing! I knew then that God had once again sent another person into my life to bless me.

I know that this moment may not mean anything to anyone else.  I know it’s not adventurous or overly interesting.  However, I know that these out-of-the-blue moments, these sudden connections with kind strangers are the elements that gives meaning to my life.  I know that I will always remember the times I’ve driven cross-country or traveled overseas.  But will I always remember random acts of kindness?  I write about these events because random these are the moments I really hope to remember.  I know that random acts of kindness are the moments that make my life extraordinary!