“Because our present habit of mind is governed by the calculus of consumerism and busyness, we are less and less frequently available to the exuberance of beauty."
- John O'Donohue
Lately I have been thinking about beauty. Noticing it everywhere. Of course, one needn’t look far to find beauty at this time of year. Even though some plants and trees were burned during the recent heat wave, there are yet many bright green leaves and vibrant flowers. Indeed, I have recently spent long moments just standing in front of my garden taking in the sights and smells and bird song. Nearly drowning in the beauty of it all.
But this is not what I want to write about today. Instead, I want to talk about human beauty.
A week or two ago, while indulging in my first post-pandemic pedicure, I was arrested by the beauty of the young woman taking care of my feet. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty. And she was lovely. Long black hair, smooth skin, beautiful eyes.
The feeling wasn’t personal. It was like the feeling you get when standing in front of a beautiful piece of art. Or a just-opening flower.
I was tempted to say, “Do you have any idea how lovely you are?
I didn’t, of course. And it is likely that she, as is the case with so many young women, was insecure about her appearance and would not have known what I was talking about. Certainly, if I was lovely at twenty, I didn’t know it. (Now, I believe one has to work hard not to present as lovely or handsome at that unspoiled age, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that then. As the song says, “youth is wasted on the young.”)
I found this young woman’s beauty poignant because I knew it would not last--not, at least, in this form. As with a flower, her budding beauty would change as her life unfolded. She might one day be a good-looking middle-aged woman and after that a handsome older woman. But, for now, she was the epitome of beautiful youth.
In truth, though, it is not generally the beauty of extreme youth that draws my eye. The faces of those in their twenties are a little too smooth. I more greatly appreciate those in their thirties and forties. They have a little more life behind them, a little more experience written on their faces.
And why do we, in this youth-worshipping culture persist in believing that beauty ends by middle age? There is beauty in the face of a fifty or sixty-year-old. Life has laid down a few lines, but a smile can light up the most ordinary of middle-aged faces.
And what of those over seventy -- the cohort I have recently joined? I see so much beauty in the faces of my friends. It is the beauty of a life well-lived, of traumas outlived, of wisdom gained.
It is a beauty etched by laughter and sorrow.
Sadly, I was not able to see this beauty when I was very young. I remember a day in my mid 20s, standing with a friend decades older than I, watching a woman of perhaps 60, who was running across an intersection. My friend, who was constantly expressing joy, turned to me and exclaimed, "Would you look at that old girl!" These were not words of disparagement. He was grinning broadly in appreciation. Although I could not then see what he was seeing, I see it now in retrospect. The woman was smiling -- full of life. She was exuding what the poet and mystic John O'Donohue called "the exuberance of beauty."**
There is much written on a face and it is, I think, a terrible thing to attempt to cover or arrest the signs of age on one’s visage. I don’t mean we should subject ourselves to direct sunlight or throw away our face creams. I just mean there is beauty in a lived-in face. Not the untouched beauty of a twenty-year-old face, but beauty nonetheless. To undergo, say, a facelift is to erase a life. In any event, no one is fooled.
I recently noticed when looking in a mirror, that the sides of my face wrinkle when I smile. I'll admit this was briefly disconcerting, but you’d better believe I’m not going to stop smiling in order to present the illusion of smooth skin.
I’m going to keep smiling and I’m going to appreciate the beauty of those around me, whatever their age, size, shape, or color. For when we smile, the beauty of our spirits shine through, no matter our age or presentation.
Photo by Janaya Dasiuk on Unsplash
** I know some might be offended by the term "old girl." I probably would be if it were applied to me now. But my friend was a man of his time and place and his delight in the woman's exuberance of beauty was so very clear.
