The Shape Of Things - The Definition of Beauty (?)

I have been in transition for a few weeks, or maybe realistically, about 7 months.  So, I love all things beautiful and my house is now, not a home and NOT beautiful anymore.  As I take things down, strip all the personal touches, it's boring;  great bones, but boring.  Still, my eyes, my heart, and my mind are drawn to what is lovely.  I was meditating...thinking...and just relaxing and pondering  beauty. Tonight I went to the gym and had a great workout.  I did, however, see a woman whom I feel I have competed with for years. She was 'any' woman, no woman in particular, but still, my imagined competition. A young, small breasted, straight up and down woman with whom you could see her veins. She was soooos skinny. Yes, I admit I have wanted to be skinny from the first day I saw Twiggy on the cover of Seventeen Magazine in the 60's.  I LOVED Twiggy.  Her streamlined body, with her small breasts didn't need the the straight, long  hair that matched her body type. But she did have it; that straight , perfect hair,  right out of Haight Ashbury hippydom.   I loved her big, amazingly long lashed beautiful eyes....I loved her blonde hair.  Yep, everything that this jewish little girl didn't have.  I had big breasts at 11, and curly, long black hair. Yuck for me and the 60's.

Still, at my 'mature' age, I love beauty, I love a pretty face, both male and female. So, tonight at the gym I saw this girl who reminded me a whole lot of Twiggy, only maybe more extreme. The muscles were sort of portruding from her straight-lined body, and she ooozed leanness; if she were to turn sideways and stick out her tongue she'd look like a zipper. The odd thing is she had the face of a woman.  I then realized that women, in their curves and their soft, roundness, and  long, flowing hair (at least some) were so beautiful, and yet this woman looked like a little girl.

  In any case, I had this sort of 'aha' moment where I loved my body.  My 59 year old bod suddenly seemed beautiful to me. Tonight I took a good look at it.  It was sort of like being outside of myself, like a third party looking on and judging.  Smoothness is what I saw, and a healthy glow.  I work out and I'm tight. I just did a boxing class where I was stronger than the young, cute Twiggy.  Really!!! Healthy!  Strong!  And limber..yes, I can stretch with the best of the yoga crowd.In my mind, in my opinion of what I like to see, that is so beautiful.

Geeesh, how much pressure is there on our teens, our 20, 30 and 4o year old women? Men are also feeling the pressure of  defining themselves in their looks. Where is the real definition of healthy and beautiful?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to refinishing, refurbishing and taking advantage of today's medical miracles.  However, being happy with what we see in the mirror shouldn't be dictated to us by a math formula of how far apart our eyes should be, what the number on the scale says, or how straight our teeth are.  Beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, is happy, it's confident, it's peace.

The skinny, maybe young woman I saw at the gym tonight...was she really healthy?  Health, like everything else, is in the mind and then flows down to every other part in our life.  There are so many beautiful women who let the media tell them what beauty is.  I have posted some pics I found of very, very beautiful women...enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Happy New Year to all of you and let it be the healthiest ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





men want real women










Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.  Ralph Waldo Emmerson



The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune.  old english proverb
Art can never exist without naked beauty exposed....willam blake






It's important for all types of women to know that you don't have to fit a prototype of what one person thinks is beautiful in order to be beautiful or feel beautiful.... People think, Sexy, big breasts, curvy body, no cellulite. It's not that. Take the girl at the beach with the cellulite legs, wearing her bathing suit the way she likes it, walking with a certain air, comfortable with herself. That woman is sexy. Then you see the perfect girl who's really thin, tugging at her bathing suit, wondering how her hair looks. That's not sexy.

JENNIFER LOPEZ, Readers Digest, Aug. 2003

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays

           

 

 

 

 

 

      

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness.

"It's beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.”






















“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” mary ann williamson