I’ve always been average-looking. Not a face to turn heads, but not one to
make small children cry either. This
means, of course, that for most of my adolescence I considered myself hideously
ugly. Middle school was particularly rough. My mom made most of my clothes, I spent lunch
hour in the library reading Anne McCaffery’s Dragon Song series and Agatha
Christie mysteries, and I sang bass in the school choir, because my singing
voice was deeper than most of the boys’.
I could give your more examples—or a completely different set—but either
you know exactly what I mean, or you never will.
Things started looking up in high school. Overt cruelty became uncouth, for one thing,
and I had the good fortune to attend a public school where getting into a four
year college was the expectation, not an exception. Suddenly, being a serious student was cool
again. I joined the swim team and made a
good group of friends. I applied for a short-term
exchange program, and the summer I turned 16, off I flew to an island suburb of
Bergen, Norway.
I had a fabulous time.
My host sister, Judith (Yoo-deet), and I became instant friends, which
is fortunate, as we spent six solid weeks in each other’s company. I saw fjords and glaciers and the midnight
sun. I shopped at Benetton and got a hot
pink and black checked sweater AND a hot pink jumpsuit (it was 1985; what can I
say?). Judith and I walked down to the
gas station and bought double decker ice cream cones, pistachio and chocolate,
and listened to Springsteen singing “Jersey Girl” on the jukebox. I learned how to say “good dog!” in
Norwegian, and said it constantly to their sweet Burmese Mountain dog. We took a ferry to Stavanger, and I bought a
hand-knit sweater from a little old lady; a sweater I still break out every
December. I toured stave churches, and
we watched Dallas on their VCR and Eurovision on their TV. We went into town and saw Amadeus in
the theaters, then hitchhiked back because we’d missed the bus. (I was terrified, which amused her.) The family made me a wonderful
birthday cake, all whipped cream and fresh fruit, and I didn’t even miss my parents
as we celebrated. After I’d been there
a month, Judith and I got weepy every time we remembered I’d be leaving
soon.
Somewhere in the midst of that delightful summer, I was
dashing down the stairs of their home when I saw a familiar face. I felt a jolt of happy recognition. Sure, I was having the time of my life, but
it was the first time I’d ever been so far away from the known. I’d always taken a friend to summer camp with
me; all my other travels had been with my family; I’d lived in one house my
entire life. So when I saw someone I
recognized from home, I had a flash of sheer joy.
It was my own face in a mirror.
As soon as my brain identified that dear, familiar, face, I
had an epiphany; one that has never left me.
To those who love me, my face is beautiful. The affection I felt for that sweet little recognizable
face is something like what my family and friends would feel if they ran into
me unexpectedly. Not “Wow, she sure has
big earlobes,” or “That left eye is a bit squinty, isn’t it?” or “I guess she’s
never heard of eyebrow shaping.” Just,
“Hey! There’s Wendy! Yay!”
I pressed on through all those years, into what I currently
recognize as my life. I have days when I
feel pretty, days when I feel hideous, and weeks when I don’t really think
about my looks one way or another. Only
one person has ever really fallen for me, but since it’s the one person I fell
hard for, it’s quite enough. I smile for cameras like I
was born to it. I wear my bathing suit in
public despite having put on 40 pounds in the past three years. I wore a burgundy and silver gown to my
wedding, because white makes me look more corpse-like than bridal, and I
figured it was more about feeling beautiful than following “rules.”
Then I adopted a little girl. A very pretty little girl. One who is fascinated with Barbie. One who begs for earrings, and make-up, and
heels, and who is perennially disappointed that I utilize those accessories
sometimes, rarely, and never, respectively. One who refuses to wear a plain
t-shirt, or even a simple striped one.
All shirts must have glitter, butterflies, or some other evidence of
merchandized femininity.
Last spring I went on her first grade class field trip to
the zoo. She was unabashedly thrilled
that I would be there. Then the night before the trip, as I lay next to her at
bedtime, she said, “I told the other kids not to laugh at you when they see
you.”
“Um, okay?”
“Because of your skin,” she clarified, patting my cheeks,
covered as they are in the characteristic red bumps of rosacea. "And your teeth," meaning the gap between my front teeth. “I told them that you are pretty on the
INSIDE.”
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Clearly, this was meant to be an act of love on her
part. Clearly, I wasn’t taking it quite
the way she’d imagined, so she plunged ahead.
“See, some people are pretty on the outside, like they’re a
gem on the outside, but they’re a rock on the inside. You are a rock on the outside, but you’re a
gem on the inside.”
“Ah. So, I’m a like a
thunderegg.”
She still wasn’t sure if I was taking this the right
way. That made two of us.
“Because of your HEART, see?
You have a beautiful, beautiful, heart.
And that’s what’s important.
Kaliah at school is like a gem on the outside, because she’s pretty, but
she’s like a rock on the inside, because
she’s mean, but with a little bit of a gem inside of the rock, because
sometimes she’s nice.”
She trailed off. This
conversation was not going quite the way she had thought it would when she
practiced it in her head. I’ve been in
the same situation, and I knew she really did mean well, so I rallied enough to
thank her for looking out for me.
It bothered me all the same.
If there’s anyone who will think you’re beautiful, it’s your small
children, right? So if your adoring
child thinks you’re ugly enough to warrant warning others, you must be pretty
awful looking.
And yet. I’ve seen
her face light up when I show up to pick her up at the end of the day. I’ve seen her make a beeline for me before
she’s all the way awake in the morning.
She kisses, she hugs, she pats, she clings. She turns to me when she’s scared or hurt or
can’t get to sleep. She quite literally
can’t get enough of my cuddles and my attention. She doesn’t think I’m pretty. But my face is beautiful to her—I know this
even if she doesn’t. Someday she will
look at pictures of me and sigh, marvel at how lovely I was, just as I do when
I see pictures of my mom at 4, 13, 25, 68.
My epiphany holds up.
I am beautiful to those who love me, even if they themselves don’t know
it. I am beautiful because I bring them
joy.
