disasterpants jones (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} muse) wrote,@ 2008-04-03 21:20:00 |
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beauty is as beauty does.
At work, I have to touch, speak to, and reassure people--amongst my other tasks. Sometimes, I am doing this with metallic turquoise eyeliner traced around my eyes in New Wave streaks and my hair a Lichtenstein car crash, poked with Warhol (Edie, can you hear me?). Other mornings, I tend to my wards with black kohl rimming my inner and outer lids, like I'm an Egyptian goddess and the sun is too bright for my eyes, so I must remind it that everything cool to the touch is black. I wear wide-legged trousers and black ballerina slippers, drink my green tea with blueberries and clover honey, and carry a dangerous handbag. The handbag is dangerous because it possesses its own personality and life, and is the stuff of which petting and fawning is made. Although I drop things and rattle around like I am still lost, I am learning so much, and seeing how much trust is being placed into my lap. I am its gentle container.
One of my biggest goals at work is taking these ladies who seem insecure and uncertain and making them see that they possess beauty and that it's all inside of them. Ayurvedic medicine is a part of this philosophy. Ayurveda means "the science of knowledge" or "life of knowledge" (depending on the language it's translated from). I like that. The other part of it is that I've always--even when I was a little girl--felt other people's emotions deeply. I can watch people and figure out their deepest fears or insecurities, and I try to soothe and comfort those dark places. I possess so many, all labryinthine, that I understand them in others. I watch you to heal, not to hurt, I say with direct eye contact.
A woman near my age today, told me that I was beautiful--several times. Before she left, she said, "I know you'll do well here because you have a good vibe and are so beautiful and kind." It's funny how most younger women are afraid to compliment each other, as if drawing attention to what's lovely in others will dim what shines in us. Older women are much freer with compliments. The interaction with this stranger--as I was stroking the tension from her hands and rubbing soothing cream into her raw flesh--reminded me that it's good to openly acknowledge the beauty in others, strangers or not, friend or foe. I am learning so much in this city, this Philadelphia with its blossoms on the trees, more fragile than we who walk beneath them ever could be.
The sky, when I leave work, is a muddy river that the moon will dip her face into. I am missing my desert and the family I cobbled together there, even as I know that I needed to grow. I've loved the myths and histories for too long, and know that the heroes always had to leave and grow and suffer before they could return whole. My blood is singing songs to my canyons, the hollow-belly arroyos, and to the endless, starry nights there. My forehead is smooth as an antelope's antlers and my feet, my terrible hooves. In another life, maybe I was somebody's coyote-lover, maybe the wife of a mountain lion. I sing, I sing, I sing.
jewelynx
P.S. My work is sending me to a conference in DC Saturday through Tuesday if anyone's in that direction. Drop me a line at astreetfaery@aol.com. At the end of the month, I am going to the UN (yes, the United Nations) with some elders from the Yawanawa tribe. Then, there's soliciting donations for Clean Ocean Action, another of the pet projects at work. It's Earth Month, you know. I am blown away by how together this company is and how the things they believe in are not just talk. They really walk the walk and also, have built an empire on ethics. It shows me that it can be done, sustainable, organic, and all.
At work, I have to touch, speak to, and reassure people--amongst my other tasks. Sometimes, I am doing this with metallic turquoise eyeliner traced around my eyes in New Wave streaks and my hair a Lichtenstein car crash, poked with Warhol (Edie, can you hear me?). Other mornings, I tend to my wards with black kohl rimming my inner and outer lids, like I'm an Egyptian goddess and the sun is too bright for my eyes, so I must remind it that everything cool to the touch is black. I wear wide-legged trousers and black ballerina slippers, drink my green tea with blueberries and clover honey, and carry a dangerous handbag. The handbag is dangerous because it possesses its own personality and life, and is the stuff of which petting and fawning is made. Although I drop things and rattle around like I am still lost, I am learning so much, and seeing how much trust is being placed into my lap. I am its gentle container.
One of my biggest goals at work is taking these ladies who seem insecure and uncertain and making them see that they possess beauty and that it's all inside of them. Ayurvedic medicine is a part of this philosophy. Ayurveda means "the science of knowledge" or "life of knowledge" (depending on the language it's translated from). I like that. The other part of it is that I've always--even when I was a little girl--felt other people's emotions deeply. I can watch people and figure out their deepest fears or insecurities, and I try to soothe and comfort those dark places. I possess so many, all labryinthine, that I understand them in others. I watch you to heal, not to hurt, I say with direct eye contact.
A woman near my age today, told me that I was beautiful--several times. Before she left, she said, "I know you'll do well here because you have a good vibe and are so beautiful and kind." It's funny how most younger women are afraid to compliment each other, as if drawing attention to what's lovely in others will dim what shines in us. Older women are much freer with compliments. The interaction with this stranger--as I was stroking the tension from her hands and rubbing soothing cream into her raw flesh--reminded me that it's good to openly acknowledge the beauty in others, strangers or not, friend or foe. I am learning so much in this city, this Philadelphia with its blossoms on the trees, more fragile than we who walk beneath them ever could be.
The sky, when I leave work, is a muddy river that the moon will dip her face into. I am missing my desert and the family I cobbled together there, even as I know that I needed to grow. I've loved the myths and histories for too long, and know that the heroes always had to leave and grow and suffer before they could return whole. My blood is singing songs to my canyons, the hollow-belly arroyos, and to the endless, starry nights there. My forehead is smooth as an antelope's antlers and my feet, my terrible hooves. In another life, maybe I was somebody's coyote-lover, maybe the wife of a mountain lion. I sing, I sing, I sing.
jewelynx
P.S. My work is sending me to a conference in DC Saturday through Tuesday if anyone's in that direction. Drop me a line at astreetfaery@aol.com. At the end of the month, I am going to the UN (yes, the United Nations) with some elders from the Yawanawa tribe. Then, there's soliciting donations for Clean Ocean Action, another of the pet projects at work. It's Earth Month, you know. I am blown away by how together this company is and how the things they believe in are not just talk. They really walk the walk and also, have built an empire on ethics. It shows me that it can be done, sustainable, organic, and all.
