When do you feel most beautiful?

Calypso brought my attention to the above video.  I liked it, especially the poem at the end.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing skip ahead to about 4:30.

When I Feel Most Beautiful

I feel most beautiful

When I am four and I straddle the gas tank of Daddy's motorcycle and we fly across the field.
When I am six and letting the sea breeze tangle my salt-water washed hair.
When I am eight and wearing an old sweatshirt, muddy sneakers, and hand-me-down jeans as I hike through the woods collecting berries.
When I was ten and spent hours drawing the visions in my own head.

And then my body began to change with the normal passage of time.
Boys and men noticed.
The boys teased me, called me ugly or assumed I'd let them touch what was changing.
The men leered at my widening hips and swelling chest.
Girls and women disapproved.
The girls either envied early breasts or spread rumors that it meant I'd let the boys have their way.
The women told me young ladies didn't tromp through the woods, bite their nails, let their hair blow unkempt, that I wouldn't be pleasing.
I was not beautiful.
I believed the lie.

And yet...

I feel most beautiful

When I am thirteen and I teach a friend how to row a boat and we help measure a tranquilized wild bear.
When I am fourteen and performing on stage and have the power to hold an audience, make them gasp in horror, or laugh, or weep because I have created a character they believe.
When I am sixteen and a kind, intelligent, adorable boy my own age who I never dreamed would take notice of me does just that and admits he thought I'd never notice him.

And then he and I part ways and I make horrendous choices in replacing him.
They lie to me.
They use me.
They tell me I am a selfish bitch.
Those words echo.
I almost believe the lie,
until one raises his hand to me
and I know he is the ugly one, not me.

And yet...

I often do not feel beautiful

In the next few years during college.
I do not conform.
I do not match.
I've learned to walk hunched over to hide my breasts.
I dress atrociously in rebellion to those who want me to be pleasing.

And yet...

There are those who don't care what I do to the outside.

They tell me I am beautiful

When I listen to their pain.
When I stay up all night with them after they have surgery.
When I sit in an all-night diner trying to speak Spanish with them.
When I want to learn about all the wondrous places they come from all over the globe and I'm willing to look ridiculous trying new foods, or sports, or clothes, or words.

I begin to believe again.

I feel most beautiful

When I see the look in my groom's eyes when I join him at the altar.
When I am pregnant and my body swells with new life.
When I nurse my babies and watch them fall asleep well sated.

And yet...

I look at stretch marks
and a belly stretched beyond recognition
and things that jiggle like jello.
I hear the words that I should work harder to lose weight
and why am I not an athlete like my husband
and why am I eating that dessert.
I begin to doubt.

And time passes,
and injury, illness, trauma, and time
all leave their indelible marks
on body and soul.

And yet...

I reclaim being beautiful,
and though I still doubt at times,

I feel most beautiful

When I look at surgical scars and remember I have survived and can laugh at the pain I endured.
When the grey stripe in my unruly hair falls just so.
When I put on my Chucky T's, skinny jeans, and tie dye, even if my ample derriere requires a bigger size than I'd like.
When I am in yoga and stand in mountain pose with heart lifted, no longer afraid that a posture displaying my breasts makes me a target.
When I writhe in pleasure and know the one beholding me is rendered breathless.
When, in my library, I look into the eyes of a child who needed some love or attention or just needed the right book and I was able to give what was needed when it mattered most.
When, on a hot summer day, I hang laundry while wearing an obnoxiously bright colored maternity dress I sewed over two decades ago...because I made this with my own hands, it is comfortable, and it helped me carry my baby.
When I walk barefoot through my spongy moss yard or on the wet sand of the beach, feel the earth receive my footprints, inhale the universe and all its wonder, exhale the doubt,
and dance to the song in my soul.



When do you feel most beautiful?