B is for Beauty

Baby girl, as a woman, you are going to be subjected to a lot of challenges regarding this whole idea of beauty. You will have to decide for yourself somewhere, someday . . . probably more like many somewheres, many somedays . . . what exactly you think beauty is. As if that isn't hard enough, everyone and everything around you will be bombarding you with their ideas of what is beautiful.

This weekend we faced your grandparents visiting, bombarding us with their ideas of beautiful--art slide shows and haunting guitar music. They want to make sure you understand their vision of beauty. They do not understand that beauty is not universal, that there are other ideas of beauty, other things that are beautiful, other people who don't agree with their perspective. I want to make sure that I protect you enough to shelter you from outside pressure and still give you enough room to grow and decide for yourself.

The thing is, no one agrees exactly. The truth is, as hackneyed as it sounds, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

What that means is that different things are beautiful to different people. Your perception of beauty is the result of your cumulative context--all your life experiences that, combined with your attitude, your response to them, will give you a background against which to measure all things. That challenge is knowing that and having the strength to feel secure and confident in your knowledge.

What I can do for you is tell you what my own experience with beauty has been. Maybe this will work for you. Maybe it won't. You will have to decide, when the time comes, what your own experience with beauty is.

The most beautiful thing I've ever seen was a sunset on a day I got the scariest medical news I've ever gotten. Left in the lurch, not knowing the extent of the danger, I was for the first time facing the possibility of something potentially life-threatening. I've always loved sunsets. I have actually stopped my car on the side of the road just to watch a spectacular Texas sunset fade through its various shades of brilliance, just to enjoy the beauty. But I never really felt the full extent of that beauty until something terrifying made me face the possibility of losing it all. I will never forget the beauty of that sunset that day.

Other things I've found beautiful: a wind storm one spring day shook the oak trees outside our office so forcefully that all the dry winter leaves were shaken lose and blown upward. It was like a shower of leaves, all spinning and twinkling in the sunlight, only instead of the shower falling down, it was falling up. A lone purple tree in a field of bright green (I found beauty not only in the sharp contrast of colors, but in the strength of the tree itself, the way it seemed to stand independent, confident, alone, tormented not by its isolation from other trees like it but determined rather to burst forth its purple bliss on the world in all the glory it was meant to have). Twilight. Twilight is the most beautiful time of day, a time when the entire world seems to hush for only five minutes and all is calm and peaceful and fresh. Your daddy's eyes. They are the most beautiful shade of golden brown I've ever seen, like a warmth that smiles at and comforts me, like a rich chocolate pool I could dive into and wrap around me. My pregnant stomach.

Physical beauty is an abyss of danger. Become too obsessed with it and you tend to lose perspective. I disagree with the modern idea of physical beauty, bony models with erratic hair and haunted staring looks. The most beautiful bodies, in my opinion, are muscular, toned, solid. It will be hard, and many days you will fail, unless you are a better, stronger person than I (which I hope you will be), but you must try to resist the unhealthy pressures of the world when it comes to physical beauty. Healthy is beautiful. Unique is beautiful. Innocence is beautiful.

You are beautiful.

My hope for you is that you can grow to have a healthy definition of beauty for yourself, that you live in such a way that beauty uplifts you and makes your life mystical and fulfilled, rather than burdening you and tearing you down.

I pray that you find beauty in your life, and that you can appreciate that beauty for what it is, when it is.