The Beauties Become the Beasts

     I think I've learned a little bit about the essence of compulsion today. 
    
     Emotionally, I've had a complex weekend and it's the start of a new work week. I'm at the Dayjob and there's not much work to do. Instead of finding something productive to make the day go by a bit faster, what am I doing? I'm chewing my fingers off very, very slowly.

I've noticed that I tend to do this a lot at this job. I'm isolated in a corner of the haphazardly renovated office. Literally, people often just assume I'm here but can't honestly say for sure until I seek them out for something.--Side note: As cool as that sounds, I'm positive that if I ever tried to exploit this fact, I wouldn't get away with it long... I'm just that gal. The one that always gets caught attempting anything daring-- Anyway, so here I am with nobody overseeing me, tomb-like silence except for the occasional fax that comes in, and I'm alone with my thoughts.

     I notice that my hands are dry. I have that problem a lot. As I go to put lotion on, I notice a flake of skin that interrupts the smoothness of a finger tip and that's all it takes. Removing it seems so very necessary before I can move on with another task.  Before I know it, almost all of them are raw and a little sore from my nibbling, picking, and peeling and I berate myself for not treating my body more lovingly.  Would I ever be so rough and demanding on someone else's fingers? No. Would I ever insist to someone else that this is healthy for them or would be at all attractive? Hell no. Why do I do it then???

     I have all these thoughts that are bouncing around in my mind. Ideas come to me incomplete and vague but poignant enough to keep my attention and distract me from work that actually has resolution. My dry and torn cuticles are like those nagging thoughts that won't go away but stay unresolved. Any little rough patch nags at me until I can make it smooth again. Anyone who's had a hangnail knows that without the proper tools they get worse not better, but I keep messing and pulling at them. I get frustrated watching my efforts compound the problem and fervently wish I would've just left them alone in the first place.
    
     I only do it at the Dayjob. At home, all weekend I don't think twice about my finger tips. I also very rarely do it if my nails are manicured. I used to be a nail-biter from way back but I quit after wearing acrylic nails for almost a year. When the falsies were gone and my own grew out they had changed into the same strong, lovely shaped nails I remembered my grandmother having when I was little. She was dying of cancer and I would sleep next to her in her hospice bed when I stayed the night. I'd fall asleep holding her hand and exploring her long, perfectly curved fingernails. Ever since I saw them on my own hands, I've respected them and tried to keep them nice. I don't bite them anymore. I love them. Damn that imperfect flesh around them!

     We do this to ourselves in all kinds of ways, don't we? We find the one flaw or weakness we have in an otherwise good and beautiful whole being and pick it to death. We pick at it and fuss with it until it's all we can think about, see, and feel. We keep it raw and vulnerable which completely dims the greatness of the admirable traits we've been blessed with. Compulsiveness feeds on our condemnation of ourselves; we deem ourselves as not measuring up-- not perfect enough. We feed the flaws instead of the virtues and our wounds overshadow our graces. The beauties become the beasts.

     Maybe the hand-washers and neat freaks can never be clean enough of their shame, the over-eaters (been here too) can never fill their tanks with love, and we nail-biters and finger-nibblers feel we can't accomplish or create all the treasures we hold in our dreams.

    Upon reflection, I have also noticed (big duh) that I can't chew on my fingers if I'm writing. Ten fingers on the key board channeling those ideas and emotions; acting as a conduit from my mind down through my heart, arms, and out the finger tips to the world. Maybe if instead of bottling them up I imagine the thoughts as a healing energy and let them flow down my arms, through my freshly colored womanly nails, my ravished skin will heal and I will have practiced treating my hands and soul with the respect and love they deserve.

      

Rush Hour Goddess

     If I had it to do all over again, I would've pulled over. Granted, if these are the kinds of regrets I'll have in my later years, I'll count myself lucky but it could've been a wonderful memory too. It happened while I was driving home from work yesterday.  I'd had a typical mundane day at the "day job" and I was really looking foward to getting home. In this downtown neighborhood the flow of traffic was moving fairly well. So, I was cruising right along when I saw her outside my window. A woman was playing with a child on the lawn of a run down apartment complex.

 ---You know, there's nothing like the late afternoon sun. The light just bathes the world with a sheer blanket of yellow-gold, obscures flaws, and gives everything an ethereal glow.---

     Well, that sunlight bounced like sparks off of her long, thick hair creating a crackling halo around her head and shoulders. I wondered in that brief instant if she knew how beautiful she was? I questioned if I should pull over, roll my window down, and tell her that I was so transfixed with her loveliness that I felt compelled to stop and say so. I hadn't, though, and now it was too late. I could turn the block and drive back by but that seemed contrived and just a tad bit creepy. I wasn't altogether sure that my heartfelt compliment wouldn't be taken as such anyway. Or... it could've made her day and changed the way she saw herself even for a moment.
    
     She struck me as a woman who hadn't heard enough kind words in her life. From my quick glance, she physically had the kind of build Ruben immortalized on canvas; the kind sonnets were written about-- The kind that goes unappreciated by current aesthetic ideals. Her figure was amply round and soft. She was barefoot and bare-armed; her complexion was rosen and creamy in the forgiveness of the late light. That glowing mane was an average chestnut brown that hung wavy and ended in a straight line at her waist. It was parted in the middle, frizzed, and all the same length in a carefree way that reminded me of someone I once knew that hadn't changed their hair in 20 years as a way of holding onto her past. In the context of her surroundings, it gave the impression that an elaborate hairstyle was a luxury she didn't have time or energy to worry about. It suited her, though. It gave her a timeless feel as though she'd just come down from Olympus on a sunbeam.

     So there she was... just casually tossing a ball back and forth. I couldn't really see her face clearly but I imagine now that she must've had a laughing expression befitting her frolic and I hope she really was happy. If she was real, and not a deity posing as a commoner, I hope she felt peace in that time in the grass. No matter what was going on in her world, she was setting it down to play with her little one-- Which is an act that only ever adds to the beauty of a person.

     If I would have stopped and confessed my admiration, would her eyes have sparkled with knowing because she'd lured me there? Would they have lit up to clarity from a dulled fatigue? I wonder what color they were? I wonder if that child saw her exactly the same way I did as a Goddess incarnate? I wonder if she knows that's her true state of being? We could ask the same about ourselves.