Wending around a Starbucks display,
Coming up against a fat girl taking off her coat.
The unfolding wings of a great bird,
That comfortable stretch -- then, upon seeing me,
Seeing herself an obstruction again
An encumbrance on a small world.
Excusing herself. Excusing myself --
In wanting further to say
Don't think anything but you're grand.
...
How perfectly lovely in picture and sentiment.
ReplyDeleteThe literal image itself was a day old. What went on in the woman's mind I can only guess.
ReplyDeleteI used to think 'self-esteem' was a phony category devised to excuse failure. I don't think so anymore.
It's a reality for too many that they can't do something or can't be something other than what they find themselves as -- some kind of lesser.
My 'job' is to get people to be the most they can be. A 'psychic' coach -- without the New Age implications.
There is a holiday commercial on TV here. It has five people of varying age, none of whom are what most would deem classically good looking. The commercial contains brief tributes by each of them for the Salvation Army. The camera pans in closely as they speak, showing any physical flaws many of us would hide. But each time I see this, I say, Aren't they beautiful? And they are. Their individual light shines so strongly with tenderness, it is almost heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteI fear that in this "New Age" of quantified perfection, much beauty is lost upon us.
Such as that moves me, too.
ReplyDeleteIn a sense, the effort of 'being real' about people on screen means that the same cinematic presumptions are being applied, although in this case, to be humane rather than to strike out toward the 'mythic Beauty'.
We like to see the beautiful, and wish ourselves to be so. We'd have to read a good book recording 'conversations with psychologists' to get their professional sense of why humans choose to think themselves desirable. Or hope that Charlie Rose did a roundtable on the subject.
If we love ourselves, we see ourselves as beautiful? And vice-versa: with noticeable and appreciated beauty, we gain love for ourselves?
What they called (in the Cave Days) 'positive strokes'?
What happens when the world sees us as a 'dud'? We start to think that way.
Bravo for letting the world know that 'the flawed people' may be plain, but have great hearts -- a quality one can depend on more than just great musculature and moist lips.