Beauty

I see or hear the word beauty and I immediately think of the song by Dru Hill.  I also think of my friend who calls her closest girls that...but, what I think of when I see or hear the word...is how UN-beautiful a lot of beauty is.

Beauty's standards are screwed up...we all know that. One of my girls and I were discussing the light-skin/dark-skin issue that a lot of us Black folks grow up with. Complexes of skin complexions...ridiculous. It's sad to recount the obsessions that some of us had with either feeling not light enough or dark enough.

Then there's those of us who either feel not tall enough or skinny enough or not big enough. Brown-eyed folks wanting to be blue-eyed...thin-haired folks wanting thicker hair.

"I wish I had long nails..."
"I wish I had perfect teeth..."
"I wish I had a booty..."
"I wish I had bigger breasts..."
"I wish I looked like her/him..."

Well, I wish we thought that we were beautiful as is. I wish that we thought fat thighs and nappy hair and short stature and uneven skin tones and big feet and thick noses...was beautiful.

I wish that we saw the world in it's amazing proportions,  multi-hued humans, it's crystal clear to midnight blue seas, epic mountains and volcanoes and dainty flowers and shrubs...

it's heaviest animals to it's almost-not-there insects, it's musical sounds of nature, deafening sounds of war...and the eerie sound of "peace" in the aftermath...

If we could only see the beauty...in the differences and the trials and the triumphs and grasp the enormity of how blessed we are TO be ABLE to see at ALL is beautiful!

To be able to see in color...to bask in the gradient grays of a dark day and then see the rainbow on a bright one...is a gift from God.

I don't wish to be thinner, have a booty, long straight hair, light eyes or even dimples (which I used to want as a kid)...as much as I wish to be able to see the beauty in life...every single day.