Beauty and May Days
Burdens laid down and baby horses
The other day I was playing bluegrass videos on Youtube while I folded clothes, when our daughter, almost four, said: Look Mama— look at her— She’s so beautiful.
She was pointing to a young woman in an Amish-style head covering, quite plain in worldly terms.
Yes she is, I said. What is beautiful about her?
Her bonnet and her blue dress and her music maker. (A violin.)
This was not the first time I’ve been recalibrated to my daughter’s beauty standards, and reminded that it really wouldn’t cost me much to wear bright dresses when I can. I don’t have the skill for a music-maker, but I’ve learned that most anything domestic that directly blesses her (like biscuits from the oven) or sewing counts as beautiful too. Gardening, as well, if you have a basket over your arm. Children are simple, but so is the truth.
The reason I need to be recalibrated is because I’ve come to the age where I’m concerned about those deepening lines on my face. My hair is starting to darken to black at the roots and, with the occasional white strand, I know it will soon be the coarse salt and pepper of my grandmothers. So effortlessly we learn things from this world— tan is better than pale, flawless is better than speckled with various veins and marks and discoloration, smooth is better than rough, big lips are better than small ones, curled lashes are better than straight ones, flat is better than round, toned is better than soft….
None of these ideas come from children, or most of our husbands for that matter. And yet, how quickly we start to feel pressured by them, compared to them, fallen short.
This beautiful piece by Mary Jackson (linked below) has been on my mind, as I recently saw an ad insinuating that breastfeeding makes our skin loose and saggy. Perhaps it does…
And what else does that? Time. Time that not a one of us can slow down.
I have known enough elderly ladies to know that it comes for us all, and that in the end one old woman doesn’t look much different than the next, though their lives have told different tales. As we age we grow more like one another. Skin loosens, shoulders round, eyes gray, muscle falls away. This is humbling for some and a comfort to others, and perhaps both to us all at various times. It’s a comfort to me just now, for in my quest to be beautiful like the others, I asked my husband what he thought about Frownies and a sunless tanning lotion. He shrugged and said it was fine if it was important to me, but it wasn’t important to him. When I thought of the children, I realized it wasn’t important to them either.
Is it important to me? To turn the tide of my wrinkles and have flawless legs? No, it’s a burden to me. It’s a burden I can unload on the tracks and watch the fullness of my life run over. How about you?
These horses aren’t ours— they belong to my dad and our neighbor— but that makes it, as my mama says, more better.
My dad said he always dreamed of raising horses. I told my husband this one night as we laid in bed. He was looking up. We each have our own favorite tongue-and-groove board on the ceiling and he was looking at mine.
You know, I did too, he said.
What?
Dream of baby horses.
We were quiet for a moment.
Yeah, so did I. And we laughed, for it might be that everyone born naked dreamed of baby horses, once upon a time.