Letters to the Editor
alislaura
Published Letters: 32 Editor's Choice: 2
-
Beauty comes from within
[Read the article: I can't stand losing my beauty as I age!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, I am serious about this cliche. Well, up to a point. This has been my experience but I am a woman; men may be different. It's not that inner beauty really makes a person outwardly physically beautiful - although it helps - but a person who possesses outward physical beauty but lacks intelligence, character or other appealing qualities ceases, in my perception, to even be physically beautiful. I have had this experience with men and women, where I have asked myself: how could I ever have thought him or her attractive? So this is one qualifying remark I have to make: if people admire you and respond positively you it is probably not JUST your physical beauty, but physical beauty enhanced by intelligence and character and who knows, maybe warmth and depth, too? (Two of my favorite "beautifying" qualities.)
Also, I wonder if the change you are sensing around you isn't more a matter of you projecting your insecurities, reading them into others' reactions than you really losing the appeal of your beauty? I have a beautiful older friend. She was 48 when I met her, I was 24 and I was bowled over by her beauty. She also possesses a great deal of "beauty within" (character, intelligence, warmth and depth) and I think these two factors together have made her an unusually charismatic person. She is in her sixties now and I still think she is beautiful. Perhaps because I am one of her intimates who will always find her spectacular....and yet, even my parents, who met her when she was in her fifties remarked on how lovely she is, both from within and also from without.
Of course, I live in Germany. I remember reflecting about the letter where the mom was naked in front of her children, about another difference between European and U.S. culture - which I think is related - namely the youth-and-beauty cult. Not that there is not a youth-and-beauty cult over here. There is and it is growing. But it's not nearly as strong (yet) as in the U.S. And the concept of "beauty" seems more original. On German television you are much more likely to see older women actresses, or unusual-looking women actresses cast in the lead, romantic or otherwise. When I see U.S. series that are broadcast over here, the actors all look like Ken and Barbie. Okay, there's a black Ken and an Asian Barbie but there is so much boring sameness in the idea of beauty.
I wish you could embrace your 43 year-old beauty, which is perhaps different from 23 year-old beauty, but is it really less? A friend of mine loves to say "we see what we believe and believe what we see". You fear young beauty is superior to aged beauty and so you will notice all the signals and facts that confirm this fear. But if you could look in the mirror and accept what a few wrinkles add to your face -- maybe making it more human, appealing, or arresting (maybe!!! It's possible!), you might find yourself less harsh on the older women at the salon and realize that you still are getting plenty of admiring looks. Perhaps by more discerning, deeper-seeing individuals which only makes them (the looks)more valuable.
-
Wonderful Reply
[Read the article: I'm an existential artist. People just don't get me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear LW,
Cary has given you a wonderful answer and I hope it helps you. Now, purely for my own enjoyment and by way of reenforcing what many other commenters have said (for art is not about original content but in packaging those few universal and antediluvian truths in ever new ways)I am going to type up a brief excerpt from Russell Banks short story "Lobster Night". Says the same thing but in a different way. It is a conversation in which a young woman has just told a man the story about how she was hit by lightening when she was seventeen.
"...I was the only person I knew who'd had this particular expereience. Still am. It's strange, but when you're the only person you know who's gone through something that's changed you into a completely different person, for a while it's like you're on your own planet, like if you're a Vietnam vet and don't know anyone else who was in Vietnam, too."
"I can dig it," Noonan said somberly, although he himself had not been in Vietnam.
"You get used to it, though. And then it turns out to be like life. I mean, there's you, and there's everybody else. Only, unlike the way it is for everybody else, this happened to me in a flash, not over years and so slow you don't even realize how true it is. Know what I mean?"
"How true what is?"
"Well, just that there's you, and there's everybody else. And that's life."
End of quote. We are all going through something strange that is making us into completely different people - from what we were, and from others. It is called life. Some people may be more aware of it, or recognize it earlier on than others. But we do have this in common, that we are all going through it. I am sure that there is something significant about this paradox, only I can't quite put my finger on it this morning. I have a head cold, maybe that's why.
-
But...what is an advice column?
[Read the article: What would we see if we were behind your eyeballs, Cary?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A few thoughts:
If only brief, clear instructions constitute advice, please imagine all the problems and questions that cannot be considered.
The honest answer is sometimes "I cannot advice you" or "I will not advise you." Or even: "Advise yourself." And there are, of course, many ways to say this.
Finally, anyone who gives advice is - always - talking about him or herself. (As is anyone complaining.) This should be obvious.
PS: Myself a diplomat, politically cautious, overly sensitive to the expectations and desires of others, I admire Cary for his risk-taking, the way he just goes for it and doesn't play it safe, this column being a case in point.