A ROOM FOR MY VIEWS

Today is the third consecutive day of clouds and rain.  While it is not the sort of cast most people appreciate this many days in a row, I'm sure my neighbors in the home directly behind us are taking a small bit of comfort from being shrouded in this fine drizzle.  Yesterday their house caught on fire.

It was a fire that began at the kitchen stove, although I'm not sure of the specifics.  Beth, my neighbor, said it had something to do with what she had on the stovetop and a nearby candle.  However, within seconds there were flames too virulent to control and smoke filling the house and billowing out from all the windows.  Pat, her husband, was at that moment airborne on a return flight home after a business trip and, obviously, could not be reached...not that he could have done anything other than pray anyway, and she was home with their two small children and two dogs.

She did the only thing she could or needed to do and grabbed the babies, the dogs and her cell phone and exited out the front of the house to our small cul de sac where she called 911.  Being a very intimate enclave of only five houses we are all very aware of and friendly toward one another so she was immediately aided by all the neighbors who took the children and the dogs and comforted her as she tearfully watched what she feared might have been the end of life as she knew it.  

Within minutes several fire trucks, ambulance, police cars, etc. were crammed into the circle taking care of what, blessedly, turned out to be a relatively minor fire, all things considered.  They will need a new stove and some minor repairs to the surrounding walls and the house smells much like McGonigle's Meat Market on the days they have the huge smoker out in front of the store cooking ribs and chicken, but other than that, everything is fine and they were all able to sleep in their house last night.

My job is now to provide dinner for them at five o'clock each night until their kitchen is fully operational again.  I am happy to do it since I've got to make dinner for my remaining family anyway, plus I still remember the excruciatingly long eight weeks when my kids were all under ten and we were reduced to a microwave and mini fridge in the downstairs laundry room while our kitchen was being renovated.  I did the dishes in the downstairs bathtub -when our Newfoundland, Frodo, wasn't sleeping in it, that is.  And while it began as sort of a campy, quirky alternative to conventional living, the fun of it all went out the window within the first three or four days, as soon as the kids realized their persnickety cravings and favorite victuals could not be sufficiently satisfied under those conditions.

I don't want my neighbors to have to experience that any more than they are already bound to do.

Whether it was precipitated by the near disastrous events of yesterday or by some other subliminal yoke strapping a weighty claim on my unconscious, I can't say; but last night's sleep was riddled by nightmares of nomadic wanderings in all manner of dark places.  Caves, underground tunnels that served  full-scale trains rather than the expected subway cars, and above ground places where there was a supposed sky overhead but one that was so dark and thick it left the impression of being more like an inverted (and dirty) Mason jar.

In any case, there was nothing familiar or comforting and a vigilant regard was paid to being perpetually on the move.  I was by myself, but there were hundreds of thousands of others there with me.  I knew no one, although many of those around me appeared to know each other.  It didn't seem to matter because the mood was so somber that the only connections were those of commiseration, so it wasn't like alliances could have been forged to alleviate the heaviness anyway.

Even though there was this hard dread and physical evidence of uselessness, senselessness and despair in all the grim and abstract images of dead-ended beginnings and never-begun endings, I didn't feel trapped as it seemed the others did.  I was aware that it was a dream and would summarily end in time, with or without my complete comprehension or endorsement.

I was a watcher, yet at the same time I experienced a definite emotional accord with everyone and had a visceral understanding of all that occurred, all that was felt, all that was missing and all that could never be in this nocturnal confederation of the damned.

This wasn't my first visit to this place.  I'm taken there regularly by whatever force it is that captivates all those unspoken thoughts and caches of denial I subscribe to inappropriate or selfish behavior in my waking moments and then compels them to expose themselves deep in the unconscious night when all pretense and contrivance sleep soundly.

I think we all go there because we all withhold more of ourselves then we should in the staid rounds of our day, and were there no releases or receptacles for these untended particles of thought and emotion, implosion would be the chief cause of death everywhere on earth.

My conscious walk through the world at the moment feels not terribly unlike those sepia colored, stained containers of non-being my soul travels to at night, which is giving the stoic in me a pretty rigorous workout.  It's a good and valuable exercise I don't regret undergoing, although it would be nice to have a better grasp on what it is all about.

When I was a kid I had these All About books:  All About Mammals, All About Birds, All About Reptiles, All About Dogs.  I wish they had not stopped there.  What I wouldn't give for a book, All About Apathy or All About Where To Go From Here.

Many years ago we had our driveway asphalted by this buoyant and wise character named Delacey.  He could neither read nor write and for a time my husband, who is a reading specialist, tutored him.  But what Delacey could do was put things into perspective, and one of the things he said that has always stayed with me was said after watching all the traffic clogging the local highway:  "Nobody knows where the hell they goin', but they all goin' like Hell to get there!"

I'm not what you'd consider a 'type A' personality, but there have definitely been periods in my life when I felt that way; that I had no clue where I was going or why but that I was getting there on a souped-up bullet train of discontinuities.   Perhaps this is why I've come to such a screeching halt now?  I've used up all of my "get out of jail free" cards and cannot pass 'Go' without one, so the game has come to a stalemate.

But as I sit waiting for the bail bondsman of enlightenment to return me to the world of productivity and purpose, I am not idle.  My brain is working overtime and taking me to a non-linear zone where thought all but obliterates despair, as well as keeping reality enough at bay that it loses it's immediate relevance.   I suppose if you're stuck in jail, it's better that it is the one of your own making.  At least you know your way around and are on friendly terms with a couple of the guards.

Music also helps, and Friday night I reveled in a live dose of it delivered as it was from the recording- studio basement of my stellar rocker friend, Chris; where I was treated to healing decibels of jams between four solid musicians and friends.   I even got a playful stint on the drums, which is something I have not done since the seventh grade when I decided that pursuit of the male species would be more challenging and less redundant than seeking proficiency even on Ludwig's best percussion set (although I later and regularly question that assumption) and was prompted to abandon my drum lessons after only three years.   But let it be now noted that while vodka can substantially loosen inhibitions, it can also impair coordination; although I managed to hold my own, albeit not without backup.

However, my favorite spot was sitting on the floor with Chris's old dog, Duke, where I could happily scratch behind the the old boy's ears and drift away on rockin chords of possibility.  It was an absolute Be Here Now evening that I am grateful for.

And now that I have returned to this odd place of indeterminable boundaries, I am thankful that my neighbors still have a house with walls.   Beyond that, today not much else matters.

I'm confident that at some point form will again be apparent in my life and around me a structure of clear perspectives and sturdy objectives will once more provide shelter for all these quaking doubts and finally put them at ease.

 I don't doubt that the process of building a whole new exterior attitude on a house without any interior walls is going to be challenging.  What will this new building resemble if it appropriately reflects my thoughts?  One thing I do know is that it must have loads of windows without any locks.  I've had enough doors slam on me to recognize the value of open windows and fire escapes, and I want to ensure that plenty of air will be circulating opinions and ideas from the outside intersection at the corners of Conventional and Dissenting.

In the meantime I've got a foundation to put down, which could take quite a while to put together given the importance of making certain that it is a solid one; and if I remember correctly, the first step before laying any foundation is to dig.

If I had a hammer.....and some nails, some two by fours, a rotary drill, reciprocating saw, self-leveling concrete....

HEAVY MENTAL

Over the past few days I've established a tentative truce with my soul:  It will no longer sustain such lofty ambitions with its cloying and relentless quest for goodliness, cultural valor and artistic recognition, and I will no longer hold it responsible for screwing everything up.

 It is a treaty only two days old but bearing up well considering the odds for successful transpersonal mediations are rare, particularly if done sans the aid or blessing of an accomplished guru or highly-paid life coach.

However, I've yet to test drive it in the real world as I'm still clinging tightly to that boulder of compromise while remaining mired in the quickening sand of afterthoughts; and as of this moment, I still have no plans of climbing out.

It is surprisingly warm bathed in the thick, slightly coarse sludge of mental and emotional despondency, and I find a fair amount of solace in being held above muck-level by the finicky physics of raw anxiety and non-clinical depression. Besides, I am fascinated by the uncanny strategy in their collaboration to outwit the gravity of apoplectic despair by merely shifting sides.

Anxiety drills hard from the inside and creates a sort of neurotic buoyancy that elevates my mood through chronic activity while the soft grinding of apathy provides a kind of stationary landing that holds the body steady and prevents the head from slipping completely under and drowning in the grasping mire of non-being.

Of course, my daily dual hours on that damned elliptical have ameliorated any excessive physical frustration as well as taken up a handy chunk of my mornings, which leaves me fewer daylight hours in which to brood or slam the world with bursts of misplaced anger.  It's all good.  Theoretically.

Now, if I could only get out of my way enough to just work for work's sake, I would likely be further along than I am.  Apathy is absolutely my worst enemy.  It underscores all creative musings with the broad black stroke of what for? and leaves my senses to idly scan the room for clues of purpose while those naysaying nodes of thought race to my frontal lobe with objections to every possibility no matter how lame.

But I'm not panicking.  I've been at this place throughout my life in routine doses and durations (although the timing can be fairly random and unpredictable) and I know historically that my karmic addiction to change precludes the permanency of any disposition; maudlin or otherwise.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.....  I wonder how redundancy feels about that?

What really needs an adjustment is my resolve, as it appears that dredging up the resolve to bring forth better days is the first step in the transformational process.

If only I just weren't so full of  f***-you's,  I'd stand half a chance of willing myself to take in the world from a point of acceptance instead of from this hastily-crafted divot of marbleized regret with all these veins of bad habits, poor choices, wrong turns, unfinished business,  broken promises, useless undertakings and all-out failures converging to form a solid slab of Who-gives-a-damn.


I could pave an entire city with that slab.  Perhaps I have.

There is also the strong symbiotic collusion between the elements and the soul to take into consideration; which, if you examine the unusually lengthy rainy season we've been subjected to here in the Midwest,  it provides my present dark night with a plausible foundation.

As if the continual injury of heavy winter snows was not enough, there comes the additional insult of all this spring rain.  Perhaps they've adjusted their attitude meters for such a dismal meteorological pallor in Seattle and are able to thrive in spite of the relative lack of sunshine, but we've been given no choice nor preparation time in Tornado Alley and can't seem to shake the idea that we've been sucker-punched by Mother Nature in a big way.

I'm not the only one trapped far to the left of happy around here, and you can tell the level of desperation on the infrequent warm and sunny days when everyone with an independent option and half a brain is spending as much time out of doors as possible.  The parks and sidewalks are so dense with pale denizens- clearly exhibiting signs of deficiency in vitamin D- that it looks like a city under siege after a long drought.

There are definite needs not being met by nature, by me or by man; and God is not nearly as comfortably close as I'd like Him to be.

But tomorrow is Friday, and for some ridiculous reason, in spite of the fact that Friday- and weekends in general- have long outgrown their significance for me in terms of being days of respite and reverie quite different from the rest, I still feel those tendons of residual hope tense in my heart at the memory of it all and that unoccupied seat of freelance abandon begs for a willing rider as much now as it ever did before.

I suppose that the learned patterns of joy are just as tenacious as the acquired experience of sorrow, and if the constitution of hope is more resolute than that of pessimism, then the short odds are that I will get my mojo back soon; or at least retrieve enough of it to rejoin my imagination and create again, as well as resume a more reasonable regime with that damned elliptical.

For now, however, Friday also signifies garbage day, which means I have to trudge through the soggy, backyard terrain with my trusty bucket and garden shovel to pick up the dog poop, collect the trash from all the indoor containers, cut up the boxes for the recycling bin and gather and tie the large, black plastic bags containing another week's worth of our detritus.  As much as I distain the mediocrity and drudgery of these pedestrian waltzes with normalcy, they are also providing necessary distractions from my temporary march with the f*** you's, and I'm trying not to hold too much of a grudge.

The other day I received a very unexpected but lovely Mother's Day card from an old and dear friend I don't often see or hear from much anymore in these days of newly-redefined filial demonstration; and in the card was a holy medal that had once belonged to her deceased mother; a terrific woman with the resiliency of the tides.  My friend wrote that she had wanted to pass the medal along to me in the hopes it would help me in my challenges with my son.  It could not have come at a more appropriate time, and I was deeply moved and filled with gratitude for both the gesture and because of the significance.

It is a beautiful, contemporary medal of The Blessed Mother, and I immediately placed it on the chain I wear and never remove that holds a few other very precious medals and charms I've received from friends and family over many years; all of deep importance to me.

On the back of this one is inscribed:  Our Lady of Mental Peace.


Who says the universe never hears us?

Everything is going to be alright.

THE QUICKSAND AND THE DEAD

I've noticed lately that my blog posts are coming fewer and farther between while my time on that damned elliptical has increased exponentially. I am now remaining on the bloody thing in excess of two hours daily and am reluctant to dismount even when that respectable milestone has been met.

This might indicate a couple of things:  1.) I have nothing more to say, and  2.) I am running away from home.

Of course, my leave-taking is purely theoretical, as my body is the only part of myself given permission to actually do any running.  Yet it is definitely being egged on by my mind, which got the idea from my emotional state because, quite frankly, I'm fed up with trying to manage them all.

I'm fed up by many things these days.

Perhaps I should rephrase that.  Stating I am "fed up" implies that there has been an erosion of patience brought about by the million small inconveniences and adjustments I've had to oblige and make room for in a soul already crushed by the weight of its own shortcomings.  That isn't entirely accurate.  Not entirely.

Those millions of small hurdles are normal and perfectly acceptable especially given the lengthening bones of clarity and understanding they lend to my psychological stride once I make it to the other side of enduring.  Who cannot wade through a lifetime of pedestrian near-misses and patient side-stepping and not emerge having developed some level of passive assurance that it will all make sense in the end?   You almost have to or the alternative option of an early check out would be overwhelming.

No.  I'm not fed up.  I'm foreign.

Suddenly, I have forgotten my own language.  My thoughts pass through the same portals of interpretation as they have for fifty-four years, yet I no longer understand what I say to myself.  It is almost as if I've been summarily saddled with a Mandarin guide for my English-speaking psyche.

Even my body, once so patently reliable and subjectively native, lately functions more as an extrinsic vessel of questionable origin whose operational capabilities seems less internally orchestrated but instead are responsive to some remote organizational force with which I have no real communication.   It would seem I am no longer present in my own skin.

Last week I lived in the world as me.  This week I am a foreign exchange student from another dimension wondering just how long this midlife inculcation will take before I will finally be able to communicate through more than my eyes and exaggerated gestures alone.

There aren't very many reasons to continue manufacturing dialogue when the only one listening is you and you can't understand yourself anymore.  I've gone quiet for lack of interest; self or otherwise.

Ironically, during my protracted galavanting on that damned elliptical, my mind never ceases producing words and trying to string them together hoping for a yield of useful thoughts and concepts.   It is done mostly out of habit and while it produces little that I have been able to successfully translate into my former tongue, the effort remains sincere and steadfast.

After two hours I usually come away with the faint skeletal etchings of at least one poem, two blog posts, a half-dozen correspondences (to people I no longer know but will never forget) and one suicide note just to remain in touch with my edgy, tortured side.

While my insatiable curiosity as to how this life will all turn out prevents the consideration of suicide as a viable exit strategy, I find it important not to thoroughly dismiss the commotion generated by those prosperous inhabitants in the dark corners of possibility or they are likely to well up into probability.  I learned when my son played football that the best offense is always a good defense, and there is no tactic quite as disarming as to engage an attentive ear.  Just ask Julius Caesar.  "E tu Brute?"

What can I say?  Lately these maudlin toads of dark sentiment and emotional dysfunction have been beating my ear.  But I'm polite.  I listen, and even though my ability to interpret much of anything is presently stymied,  I understand enough morose-ese to have momentarily succumbed to the hard blow of failure and temporary confusion as it shoves me into the quicksand of apathy.

 At least I'm not so clueless that I don't remember that as with any quagmire, earthen or otherwise, the best resolution is non-action because the more you struggle, the deeper down you will go and so quickly you won't even know what happened to you.  A lesson learned through experience as well as observation.

So while the surrounding inhabitants of the moors sleep soundly under the moonlit wash of a night sky and wake expectantly to the warm swagger of promise in another day, I remain motionless; wedded to the lone boulder of compromise that will eventually be my method of escape as soon as I recapture my resolve and restore my mental footing.

For the moment, however, I'm forced to consider anything beyond breathing as a liability.

Where the hell are those Mandarin guides when you need them?

RELATIVE BEAUTIES

I grew up surrounded by great beauties: my mother, her mother and my sister.  I look like my dad, which is perfectly fine, except that I have always been aware of the difference, particularly after stumbling upon the photo album of some of my ancestors on my father's side of the family; most especially the women on those branches off my Great-grandmother's limb.  Putting it bluntly, if strong underbites were correctable one hundred years ago and I were a plastic surgeon, I'd move to Fall River, Massachusetts where I'd have enough money to retire on just from this one family.

Fortunately, I was spared that specific feature; however, not so the round, soft-edged, ruddy-cheeked, moon-pie visage of my Irish ancestry with its marginally comely but very indistinct impact not unlike that of vanilla pudding.   Everyone is indifferent towards vanilla pudding.  If it is in front of you, you'll eat and enjoy it, but otherwise it is an entirely forgettable experience and one you seldom find yourself repeatedly craving.

However, growing up with these extraordinarily attractive women alerted me at an early age to the beguiling and mesmerizing power of beauty while at the same time making me cognizant of the danger in accepting physical comeliness as the standard of beautiful.  Not that any of them were vain (well, my grandmother was, but it suited her larger-than-life, operatic presence), but I saw that, from most people, nothing more was expected or required of them.  They were easily accepted because they were easy to look at and in most cases, popularity was a given.

With my younger sister I was aware from the moment she was beyond drooling that there was a definite visual disparity between us based solely on the response she elicited from the friends of my parent's and even passing strangers.  In point of fact, she was usually readily noticed while I was regarded more like a beige carpet in an all-white room, if I was regarded at all.

My sister was more apt to be feathered with fascinated fingers; fawned and cooed over with gooey delight in a seeming uncontrollable response to her considerably ample adorableness.

In those awkward times when recognition of me was obligatory, it was all very polite and was often accompanied by a remark of vague neutrality like, "My....um... you've grown!"

This dynamic held throughout our childhoods and adolescence, (although the cooing was eventually replaced by deep, heavy sighs) and while we are quite different, in some ways, it remains the standard even today.  However, my sister is a very kind woman and did have the great charity to move to England many years ago, thus sparing me the frequent indignities of direct comparisons.

Actually, I remained emotionally scar-free until our twenty-one-month age difference placed us in the same high school simultaneously.  Then with the predictable burst of teen angst, I became officially bothered by this genetic injustice.  But that goes with the vapid and tentative emotional terrain of high school where vast quantities of otherwise healthy egos are consumed, so that, with few exceptions, by graduation day what remains are gilted facsimiles of peer pressure in corporeal form; all with an attitude.

In retrospect,  I was probably more comfortable than most with my own external shortcomings because I had never know anything else.  I was born into and could not escape the field of physical perfection that was genetically stamped on the women surrounding me and had no other choice but to find a way to individuate myself by other means, which I am sure was a major contributing factor fostering what became a full-scale, drug-fueled, counter-cultural rebellion throughout my teens and early twenties.

Yet even as I staked my claim to radical individuality, I was not unique.  My grandmother was not only beautiful but also a card-carrying eccentric as well as a matron of and participant in the arts.  She was a painter and a cabaret singer at Bill's Gay Nineties in New York City for many, many years.  Never one to shirk a challenge she then trained her voice for opera, and was a frequent performer at venues as well-known and respected as The Waldorf Astoria.

She was also a major drama queen whose insatiable lust for attention knew no bounds and often resulted in considerable residual damage being inflicted upon us, her only family; especially my mother, her only child.   But she was ours and that fact alone qualified her for lifetime benefits of unconditional love.

However, I noticed that among her wide circle of eclectic and eccentric friends; both celebrity and non, how willing they also were to repeatedly forgive her unbridled self-absorption no matter how often they had been cornered by the egocentric beast of her indifference to them.  It was obvious that, at least insofar as her friends were concerned, this forgiveness was more readily forthcoming because she was simply so beautiful and such a dynamic presence in the world.  Even so, I found it a confounding pattern.

My mother is different.  Her beauty radiates from a place of deep refinement and class and the older she gets, the more stunningly breathtaking she becomes.  She was voted the "Best Looking Girl" at her high school, and although now into her late seventies, she shows no signs of becoming less so.

Unlike my flamboyant grandmother, my mother's beauty is carried with an understated and perceptibly regal bearing that staggers onlookers almost to the point that you'd half expect them to ask for the privilege of kissing her ring or to bestow them with knighthood.

In fact, it is not at all uncommon for men or women to approach her when we are out somewhere and ask her who she is, if she is a celebrity, where does she get her hair done and comment on how beautiful she looks in the clothes she is wearing.

When my children were young and we lived in proximity close enough that we could occasionally go shopping at a mall or department store with her, I used to joke that I felt much like Quasimodo must have felt all hunched over slogging after Esmerelda while surrounded by these snot-nosed little gargoyles that passed for my kids.  It was a humbling experience, but also an extremely joyful one in that I was so proud of her and of the fact that I could also state, unequivocally, that I was not adopted.

But I was more inspired by the fact that she took herself and her appearance lightly.  She could have used her disarming beauty to manipulate and acquire whatever she wanted, but she never did, and I know she never will.  Of course, this humility makes her even more beautiful.  Darn it.

I remember when I was in high school complaining to her about the seeming inequity in the heart of God that he would place an average schlep like me in a family of favored graces like she and my sister, whereupon she would remind me of the story about the Ugly Duckling and how he grew to be a beautiful swan.

While I knew she offered this only as a helpful tether of hope to harness my woes to, I don't recall being much comforted by the idea at the time.

First of all, it was a fairy tale and everyone knows fairy tales were written to amuse, appease and morally instruct the masses.  They were a means to placate people into believing that there is always a chance you'll lose that frog face and take breakfast in bed with the queen (or king as the case may be) in that castle on the hill one day if you just keep a handle on that glass slipper, make nice with the seven dwarves, avoid indulging in gingerbread and steer clear of bad-tempered elves named Rumpelstiltskin.

Second of all, who wanted to wait for some unknown future date before they even found out whether they were in fact an ugly, life-long dependent of the Duck family or a truly long-necked Odette under wraps?

Everyone knows that high school is a short-lived, highly demanding time period without any do-overs, and from what I was told, beauty is fleeting!  I didn't have a very big window of opportunity there, so if the Makeover Fairy were going to visit my pain, I was hoping she'd get her ass in gear well before I turned eighteen!

Evidently, she took a wrong turn in Cleveland.

Oddly enough, it has only been since I've begun the half-century waltz with my fifties that I find myself suddenly being singled out and decorated with adjectives and accolades more in keeping with those I've heard directed at my mother and sister these many years.  It is purely genetic.

Rest assured, the irony in the timing of it all does not escape me.

I find it perfectly in keeping with my latent development to experience that blush of appreciation long after gravity has become a major shareholder in my future options.

To finally find myself on the receiving end of positive notice only now that gray hairs dominate blonde;  close observational demands require glasses;  and my abdomen has enough residual scarring from three C-sections and several surgeries that it looks like the switching yard of the Chicago Train Station, will not a narcissist make.

Honestly.  My body is far more tormented than toned, and the girth of future promise is notably eclipsed by the potential girth of my waist, should I ever decided to abandoned my resonant dance with that damned elliptical.  It is a blissful irony surely visited upon me for a reason.  Perhaps some ill-conceived life of hubris in the past or as a preventative measure against conceding to one now?  Who knows?

However, what is obvious is that this perfectly-timed system of checks and balances will ensure that my humility remains intact for the duration of my natural life no matter how wrinkle-free my complexion is.

Aging offers what no other consequence of sentiency can and that is the opportunity to drop all pretense and simply function as a mortal aggregate of all we have assimilated in a lifetime and as a dispensatory vehicle for all we have culled that is good.

Of course, this premise is valid only insofar as we are willing to deeply examine ourselves and rightly decide to end the game with more presence of mind and compassion than when we began, which is a lot easier to accept in theory.

In actuality, the lineage of egocentric behavioral models is long and wide and can be a much stronger opponent than our lilting altruism, especially in moments of weakness or faced with the prospect of one day melding into the faded and brittle-boned pit of geriatric anonymity.

Given the eventuality of our one day hobbling into that walker-laden realm of senior dimensions, it takes a whole lot of grounded focus and dogged introspection to refrain from wanting to lap up every last drop from the fountain of youth and cling to the worldly notion of beauty for as long as we can.

For the most part, I am very pleased to have reached this age and stage in life and don't begrudge the fact that experiencing the youthful, belle of the ball- status was not part of my earlier resume.  It granted my imagination and intellect, however limited, free reign in the experiential processing department and enabled me to discover some precious and invaluable truths about what beauty truly is; and, more specifically, about what it is not.

So, even though I may occasionally be graced with a compliment that has little to do with who I am, what I do or how I see myself and everything to do with what others believe they see on the surface, there is little danger of my assigning any great value to the observation.

And should there ever come a weak, indulgent moment of vanity when I am tempted to think otherwise, all I have to do is remind myself of one other reality:  They have never seen me naked.

Reality?  Check.