A small thank you to a part of myself.
Looking back through old work is like reading a diary as I remember how I felt, what I was doing, where I lived.
Looking around at my friends it astonishes me that so many of my beautiful, elegant and beloved friends are caught up in thinking that they are fat or ugly or just not right. I look at them, I see beauty. And then I look at myself in a mirror and see a middle aged overweight woman with eyes like a basset hound and more folds than a hippo. But when I go back through the rare photos I have of myself I see this beautiful young woman looking back at me. And yet, when I was her I felt fat, ugly and just not right.
For a long time I wouldn’t have a mirror in the house, then I wouldn’t have to look at myself. I rarely had photographs taken, still hate it. Now I have mirrors. Now I look.
And it is time to stop this.
Walking yesterday I began to think of all the things this body of mine has done for me, so instead of despising it I am going to try and learn to love it and all its glorious imperfections. It has carried me through the world now for 50 years and in all that time it has never broken once, and for that I am grateful. It has walked miles and enabled me, through its bright blue eyes to see amazing things, and for that I am grateful. It has stood in quiet places while birdsong has fallen to ground, while music has played, it has stood and listened to the wind roving the earth, the sea song, so much, and for that I am grateful. It has touched and stroked cats and people and held children and the soft noses of horses, drawn and painted with brushes and paint, and for that I am grateful. It has wrapped arms around those that I love and have loved, kissed, smiled, praised and laughed, and for that I am grateful. It has grown two children inside it, an astonishing thing, and birthed them and fed them and for that I am so very grateful. And it is in no way perfect, lumpy and bumpy with stretchmarks on stretchmarks and wrinkles and folds and scars. But it is mine, and all that I truly am and it is time to stop despising it and instead treat it kindly.
I live so much inside my head, dreaming and drawing and thinking. Walking reminds me that my body is not merely a house for my brain to dwell in.
Maybe when I look back in 30 years time I will think, as I do when I look back at photos of my younger self now, ‘Beautiful’, but I want to do that now, when I look in the mirror, not in 30 years time when it is too late.
Wow that was a powerful post to greet me this morning, and for that i am grateful, i was moved to tears firstly and now my mind whirling, thinking im so much the same, and maybe, just maybe it too is time to make a change. For many years i have allowed others to put me down, it comes so easy to do it myslf now before any one else does lol so to you my dear i am grateful, and consider your beautiful body * hugged* have a fantastic day beautiful lady x x x x
Hurray for beautiful bodies, no one is perfect yet beautiful at the same time and it’s miserable to be un happy with yourself, life is very short.
I have bits I don’t like but on the whole I feel very lucky to be who I am.
Nice post Jackie and I like your glasses 🙂
If I told you that I had three goes at taking that photo you will know that I have a long way to go! And how I wish I had the confidence that I have, sometimes, inside these days when I was 25. I would have been a truly strange and powerful being! A force to be reckoned with!
Jackie this brought tears to my eyes too. It is lovely and so true. The soft noses of horses, yes! I do remember being 25, having just had my first baby, and being proud of my body for what it had done. But it is hard to hold onto that faith in the onslaught of the modern media world where young beautiful bodies (and often faked beauty) are paraded as the ultimate consumer item, to be bought and sold. I remember once a friend telling me (when my face was blighted by a horrible raw rash) that I should still put on all my bangles because I (me, the person I am) adorned the universe. I love that and remember it, because I like the idea of us adorning the universe. And most certainly you do. So much to relate to in this post. Thank you for its honesty, integrity and beauty, and thanks for all the beauty you bring to the world.
How deep those messages of our inadequacy are buried within us, that they are so hard to root out. I ask myself: who gave me those messages? Who benefits from the perpetuation of these ideas? These questions help me when I need help to deny those messages, and reinforce that I am fabulous exactly as I am. (It’s still very hard to believe in said fabulosity when I am seeing just how much of my hair has fallen out over the last four months… and, yes, it bothers me that it matters so much to me.)
Not afraid to admit I got more than a little choked reading this, Jackie. I was 60 last year and, like most of us, bought into the “age” “looks” deterioration crap. I am, and have always been, a confident person and was very annoyed at myself for even dipping a toe into the whole beauty fallacy.
I’m pretty much past it but recent photos from my photographer daughter had me begging for a photoshop touch up. Arghhh!
Sod it – I’m going to face the world wrinkle side up. Thanks for a really interesting and provocative post.
PS If you fancy getting together “real time” I’m just up the road from you.
I remember reading somewhere some bit of wisdom that said: We need to love ourselves the way we love our children. I marvel at my son’s long eye lashes, the curve of his neck while he reads, his long fingers grasping a fork. Wish that I could conjure up that feeling of wonder about myself all the time. I also immediately thought of this talk by Eve Ensler, another woman who lived too much inside her head:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler.html?source=facebook#.T1jiFRipaRc.facebook
I love this, Jackie. When I’ve been moaning about wrinkles, bags, creases, I’ve often thought – you’d be grateful for this face in ten years’ time! But you have described so well. Thank you.
Oh Jackie you are so beautiful, so real and you will be even more beautiful and more real in 30 years time! My wonderful mentor and dear friend Anne Dybka who taught me glass engraving did one of her best pieces at 80 and was working in her studio until her eyes stopped working, then she died & she was still beautiful! She taught me that you get many lifetimes in this one life.
Here’s a link to a page I made to honour her memory
http://www.bluecatheaven.com.au/Mos%20art/the%20attic/memento%20mori/valeannedybka.html
It is a moving message (with an image that illustrates the sentiment and the beauty in you) and is sad to consider how many of us may suffer so. As another one whom you could have just spoken for,thank-you. Many blessings to all in soaring beyond this pain. And thank-you so very much.
I think you have the really important beauty: creativity, caring, nuture of child and animal, spirit and land. Who you are and what you are is written in the line and length.
What I really admire is that you are able to now see this. I think we are always our hardest critics. Thank you for voicing what so many of us all feel.
I’ve thought this, but never so cogently, articulately, deeply, beautifully, resonatingly. THANK YOU for painting the words for me to see with these old new eyes.
That was beautiful Jackie, very deep and well written, lovely folks comments make me realize that you don’t need more praise for it, nevertheless I want to tell you how much I was touched by your words, you rang a bell in my spirit and that makes smile in appreciation for I’m grateful to you and to the good fortune that led me to your post. Thank you.
Thanks. Just off to take myself out for a walk again, with camera and thoughts. Glad this posting hit a chord with so many people.
That was such a lovely post Jackie. I often feel the same, and i look back and think why was i so unhappy i was lovely back then. I guess it’s human nature or what being a woman does to you.
Have faith though you are beautiful!
Gem
x
Thank you for that beautiful post. I just bought “foundation garments” from a department store where they have people who fit you in the dressing room. I was fitted by a lovely young girl, and I suffered terrible embarrassment at my 50-year-old body with all its lumpiness and bumpiness. I even apologized to the young woman for my ugliness! She said, “Why, you’re beautiful! Never apologize for being you.”
You hit the spot Jackie.
thank you so much for your words, that come at exactly the right time, the synchronous time in my world. Your beauty is in all you do and touch, your artwork and your body and your spirit. I have been talking about this with my sweetheart, (and writing about this on my blog today), as it is something I struggle with. At 57 I have nothing like the body I lived with as a young woman, gravity has shifted my curves further south, and the thick hair and smooth skin of that time are long gone. But I’d not trade the knowledge and viewpoints I have now for that young body and ignorant and troubled mind. As I now do what I can to heal from uterine cancer, and live with the results of that, I remind myself that we all are beautiful, all of us in the bright world have our own beauty. Patina is not only beautiful on objects, it is beautiful on people too
How many of us thought that this post was right on target….exactly right for me to read this day, at this time….I’m walking along the same lines. Thank you so much for writing this!
Hugs Jane
Well, when I got down to the bottom of your words, so lovely, and saw your picture, I was moved. You are BEAUTIFUL. Look again and i hope that maybe you will see. We seem to find it so hard to see what is wonderful in ourselves. Thank you for making me think a little more about appreciating what is, and not criticising and finding fault as we learn to do (and are taught).
with love xx
Powerful and thoughtful. Thankyou.
That was lovely Jackie, I could have been saying it, I feel exactly the same. Your lovely personality always shines through your posts. Lisa x
Oh Jackie, these words are so beautiful to hear, you filled my heart with emotions so powerful they made me cry. I so love & understand this line “I live so much inside my head, dreaming and drawing and thinking. Walking reminds me that my body is not merely a house for my brain to dwell in.” Thank you treasure, you are even more beautiful than you can know for your inner beauty shines so very brightly. x
That’s just beautiful Jackie – as are you. Hope you don’t mind me sharing this a little more widely.
Not at all. The wider the better I think. Wish I had understood some of it better earlier in my life. Since I wrote this I have been walking for at least an hour almost every day. The time spent walking is time for thinking, about work, about writing, about stuff and sometimes, in moments of bliss, it is just time spent as much in the moment just looking and listening, to birds singing, to the wind, to the silence.
I do love those moments of listening to the silence.
What a lovely piece of writing, Jackie. And you’re completely right. Time to be grateful 🙂
A truly beautiful post Jackie. You are so right that what we have with us right now, is what needs to be noticed and appreciated. Or as Omar Khayyam puts it “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life”.
I loved what you said about how our bodies are so much more than something that just transports our brains around – they allow us so many incredible experiences. Beautifully written. Thank you.
Your beauty shows through your writing and your art. You, I think, have a beautiful soul. BUT you made wonderful points. I was taught from a young age that it was not attractive to think yourself beautiful, then later that I must measure up to someone else’s standard. All that was wrong. Sadly young girls still aren’t taught that they are beautiful just the way they are.
Beautiful , Thank You !
Have you been reading my mind? Thank you, again, for putting into words what so many of us feel. Xx
Wise words, my friend… and too true!
I have often thought the same looking at old photos. I sometimes put a swimming costume shot into an album (eek) knowing that in years to come I will say “look how slim I was then!!”
I am going to heed your words and enjoy living just as I am x
I still remember looking at your wedding photo. Bloody beautiful woman.
I love this, and I can relate to living inside one’s head and regarding the body as a vessel for the soul-Beach walks bring me out of that…and quiet forest paths❤ We are always our own worst critic-as I am now middle- aged-ish at 37, with wrinkles, stretchmarks, random age spots appearing on my legs (?!) and a very clear memory/loads of photographic evidence of my past appearance, I have gone through times fairly recently where I have broken plans with old friends just because I felt I looked so much more rundown than I truly felt. Believe it or not, joining Facebook last winter helped alot- people were so happy I was ‘finally on Facebook’ and able to be found, and so eager to catch up with me after 10-20 years, that I sort of forgot how I was feeling about my looks and just wanted to exchange proud family pics with long-lost friends, and a few new pals❤ I know I am a relatively new fan, and I have not seen you ‘in person’, but I am being honest when I say I think you have enviable natural beauty, and I have said to myself more than once ‘She has such great skin; those eyes- I wish I could look THAT good at 37!’ And you don’t even wear make-up!! But then, there is the beauty of your soul, and your presence..Again, haven’t met, but your art and your words have made such an impression on me-the sheer depth and dimension of your being is awe-inducing and I feel like you would have the type of energy where people can feel you walk into a room without having seen you enter because your heart and mind and soul are just so alive and active and empathetic❤ Long way of saying I have never seen anything but beauty in your photos, words, art and actions. I am glad you are able to see your body for how awesome it really is!!
You ain’t middle aged lady! I’m 55 this year. Always been too busy putting paint on paper to put it on my face. It disturbs some people, going out with a naked face, but then t disturbs some if you use make up. Some people are just critical. But yes. It’s that cruel voice inside that is the pain in the arse.
I hope for this, too for myself, for you and all women. Being active for many years in women’s circles, I have been with every size and shaped woman and it always astounds me that when they share about their bodies, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them, no matter how “perfect” they look to me, has a certain amount of hatred for their bodies. I’ve been working on this for years… sometimes I feel as though I’ve got it down, then, poof! I have the same experience looking back at photos of myself… and understand how I could only see myself through the lens of others. Its a damn waste of energy to have to “work on this” but a radical act of reclaiming our worth in a world of airbrushed women. I am 52 and just recently visited my older sister. She is a LOT thinner than I am and colors her hair. She made a comment about how she could NEVER let her hair go gray and how could I… I also wear no make-up. That all I’m good with, its the roundness of my body that I must remember to love each and every day.
I have had a small physical defect which almost no one would ever even notice. It has vexed me my entire life. It is time to move on.