Skip to main content

Beauty

 

                                                                                                                Artwork by Gerd Altmann

One time, my wife and I were out to eat at a nice restaurant. It was busy and we had to wait a bit to be seated. I noticed another couple, also waiting, who had decided to sit at the bar until their turn came. It was a young man and woman, probably both in their twenties talking and laughing. It was obvious that the young woman had been in a terrible fire at some point in her life. Her face was a mask of fire scarring that no amount of plastic surgery would ever put completely right. When you see the effects of such a tragedy, there is a natural feeling of sympathy. And who knows what the full story of that incident was. What injuries could I not see? Was anyone else hurt in the fire?

But my sympathy and pity were washed away by the sheer joy on her face. She was having a good time with the man she loved. You could feel the love. You could see it in her eyes, the elation of just being in the presence of the one she loved. I don’t know her story. I don’t really know anything about her. But her joy gave me joy. If she can feel such joy, what excuse do the rest of us have? How superficial was I being, to think that a person's looks should limit their bliss? Joy isn't determined by a person's looks or wealth, or status, or the clothes they wear. In this media frenzied world we live in, it is easy to forget that. Sometimes it takes a bit for something to sink into this thick head of mine, but I suddenly realized this woman was beautiful. 


Star Liner


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second Wind

  You have heard about athletes getting their second wind? It is not that they feel better, that they are warmed up and ready to run more easily. It is not psychological (at least, not all psychological). No. There is an actual physiological truth to a second wind. It all has to do with respiration. When I say respiration, I am not talking about breathing. Respiration is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level. It is how the cell gets energy. There are lots of chemical processes that are constantly going on in each cell, and those processes require energy. Without a constant feed of energy, the cell will die. The more demands there are on a cell, the more energy it needs. For example, every one of your muscle cells need more energy when you are running.   In fact, you won’t be able to run if the cells don’t have sufficient energy for it. The energy currency of the cell is a molecule called ATP. You may have heard that sugar is how our bodies get energy, wh...
1 comment
Read more

The Outsider

  I am reading The Outsider by Stephen King. The first 150 pages or so I found disturbing. Not for the reason you might think. It is not scary, not creepy in a traditional horror way, but disturbing in a tragic way. The first hundred to 150 pages is tragedy on top of tragedy. The most disturbing thing to me (it is disturbing to me anytime I encounter it in any story) is a false accusation. A man is falsely accused and may well be convicted of a horrific crime. That kind of thing disturbs my soul. It makes the whole world seem wrong. I have always been disturbed by stories with that kind of thing. And why not? It happens in real life too. That makes it all the more horrific. In the Jim Crow South, all you had to do was make an accusation against a black man to set the lynch mob in action. No need to bother with a trial. But even if there was a trial, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, innocent or not. We see Vladimir Putin inventing charges against people and they get locked up...
1 comment
Read more

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more