New Town, Same Girl

It's been quite an adventurous five months!  I've moved across the planet with kids in tow and started a new marriage, new life!  Now the kids are all in school, we're in our house, work is flowing and all is 'normal' in the universe.  Spending plenty of time at Topshop on Oxford Circus, Smythson on Bond Street, and Junky Styling in Brick Lane!

What's in my beauty reading radar lately?  I've been on the Tube A LOT lately and reading voraciously.  Loving "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein and just finished "I Think I Love You" by Allison Pearson.  Makes me strangely happy that I have given birth to three sons instead of daughters... When I found out that each of my boys was, indeed, male, I was shattered.  With each pregnancy I had visions of pink nurseries, hairbows, Barbies, Mary Janes with white anklet socks, and on and on.

Reading these books, though, is a flashback to my own perceptions of beauty and understanding just how deep those roots go...  When Pearson writes about wearing brown (a shade that makes her skin look decidedly yellow!) because she read in a fanzine that David Cassidy liked it, you realize just how early we are conditioned to conform to someone else's vision of beauty.

For me, I remember experimenting with pin curls because I thought boys liked curly hair.  I was about six and one Saturday night I painstakingly crafted the curls.  At church the next day, I flushed with embarrassment when I was convinced that two older teenaged boys were laughing at me.  Even now I can recall that feeling of just wanting to hide - even though the Grown Up Coni knows the boys probably hadn't even noticed me and wouldn't have thought twice about a little girl's hair.

Beauty Workout:  What incidents do you remember from early childhood that defined your image of how you perceived yourself? How do you feel when you think back?  

Embracing Your Scars

I've just started reading a new book "Little Bee" that has received very good reviews. I'm only a few pages into it and was stopped by a wonderful quote from the narrator, a Nigerian girl living in England: "I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because, take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

I don't yet know what her scars are, but I'm sure they factor in the story and reveal much about her.  All of our scars reveal things about ourselves and instead of hiding, we need to embrace them.

I have a 4 1/2 inch scar that traces my collarbone.  It's the result of surgeries I had to fix the bone after it was broken in an accident.  The surgeon inserted a metal plate to heal the bone, waited 9 months, then went back in and took it out.  The accident itself was traumatic - and when the doctor told me I would need to have surgery to repair the bone he was apologetic about the requisite scar.  There's no way to hide the incision across that bone.  I thought I would be upset by the scar.  I thought my 'beauty OCD' would kick in and it would bother me (it's the same condition that makes me keep my nails polished nicely and legs shaved at all times!)

Surprisingly, I have come to see my scar as a badge of honor, in a way.  It's an accidental tattoo that acknowledges that I'm a survivor.  It's sort of sexy, even - makes me feel like a woman of mystery! (Hey, where did you get that scar? Knife fight?)

Most days I forget it's there unless someone points it out.  It hasn't changed what I wear or how I feel about myself and my beauty.  So, when I read that passage, it resonated with me.  The same attitude applies to all my scars.  I can look at the stretch marks from having three children and be distraught, or I can remember that I earned those marks and I have beautiful boys to show for it.  I see the scar in my left eyebrow where my brother and I ran into each other playing 'kick the can' in the dark when I was 10 and I remember my childhood.  Every scar has a story and deserves respect.

Padma Lakshmi, a former model and gorgeous television personality, has a prominent scar on her arm that she sees as something that makes her special.  "I've started seeing my body as a map of my life," says Lakshmi.  Her perspective is very inspiring!

Your assignment:  Look at your scars and remember how you got them.  What did you learn?  How can you embrace your scars to make them beautiful?

xx
Coni