I was once considered beautiful. Perhaps, by some, I still am.
At fourteen years old, I took a modeling course with two of my girlfriends. The ultimate in turning the body into an object to be adored. After three weeks of learning how to walk, sashay, and twirl, we sat down to paint our faces. The palate consisted of endless brushes and shadows—pinks, browns, golds, and glimmering sparkles.
Now, I think of it as war paint. We were being trained in the art of disguise, heightening our beauty, to use sexuality as an enticing weapon, and as a means of power. But at the time, it was playing dress up, like a six-year-old getting into mum’s make up and smearing it all over her face, making garish designs that can look cute on children. I didn’t understand the implications.
As part of this evolution, thin eyebrows were a necessary part of the mask: pull out all those unsightly and unwanted hairs to create a narrow arch of both surprise and slight disdain, to disarm with a slight tilt of the head, gazing upward and flirtatious.
One of the instructors, Mary-Anne, was moon-faced, large lipped, and fish-eyed, with long lashes. She came at me with relish, gleeful, saying, “I’ve been waiting for weeks to get at you.”
As she carefully tugged out each hair my eye muscles contracted into an excruciating spasm. The tears poured out of my tortured left eye while I endured this in the pursuit of iconic beauty.
Lesson One: Vanity Is Costly and Finite
This was the first indication, although I didn’t get the message, that vanity has a price.
This attachment to the body, the idealizing of our skin bag, ultimately comes at great cost.
Women so often are defined by, and get their power from, physical characteristics that have a built-in expiry date. But at fourteen we can’t fully know this. It is impossible to feel what will become inevitable; we understand it as happening to others but not to us.
Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me.
So, I sat very still, passive, while my eye cried, fascinated that this eye had a mind of its own. Finally, the teacher finished. She examined her creation and was proud. Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me.
Lesson Two: Desire Leads to Suffering
When I was fifteen, Judy Welch, a diva of the modelling scene, and the owner of an agency, entered me in the Miss Chin Bikini contest that took place annually on Centre Island in Toronto.
We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued.
It was 1971, and I wore a white crocheted bikini with daisy-like nipple coverings and brown platform strappy sandals. The contestants lined up before the judges in a back room behind the stage. We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued in this competition of the female form.
Following this inspection, we swished along the runway in that contrived, lithe and pseudo-sexual manner to catcalls and Italian exclamations, and it was finally dawning on me that I am an object. It felt a little dangerous. I came in third place. Not the most beautiful, but still in the running. I won a bottle of Baby Duck that I was too young to drink, and my picture was in the Toronto Sun showing me walking, ash blonde hair, sharp jawed, bikini clad. I was a success.
Obscene breathy phone calls followed this win, until they stopped. Some version of me was wanted. I was repulsed and afraid, but clearly also wishing to be seen. It was confusing to do what was being asked of me and then putting myself at risk.
Thankfully, even then, the news was short-lived. Everything passes. This was the second lesson on vanity: As we attach, so do others, and this grasping is problematic.
Lesson Three: The Need for an Inner Life
The third lesson came when I went to see a photographer to create my modelling portfolio.
Every model needs a book of photos to display her various looks to potential employers. These are her wares.
Derek told me to go into the bathroom and ice my nipples and then put my tight black, ribbed cardigan back on. He directed me to partially undo my sweater. Dutifully, I complied. Already, I knew to do what men tell me. I was fifteen years old. The photographic image conveyed something unrecognizably coquettish in black and white: long hair, head tilted and mouth in a pouty kiss.
I see now how quickly we get lost in the appearance of things, hooked by the illusion of sex for sale, reinforcing the manufactured desire of the viewer.
It became important to cultivate an internal life so that when I ultimately arrived at the invisibility of middle age and beyond, there would be something more than the loss seen in the mirror. But this was a slow and painful learning.
My very brief modeling career soon ended after that experience. I didn’t have what it took to pretend in this way, to completely buy into the dream.
I realized early that my moment as a focus of male attention, and the power this gave, was time limited. It became important to cultivate an internal life so that when I ultimately arrived at the invisibility of middle age and beyond, there would be something more than the loss seen in the mirror. But this was a slow and painful learning.
At 28 and 34 years old I was pregnant, becoming a woman of substance, gaining 65 and 45 pounds respectively. I stopped traffic in the street when crossing, because I believed I was indestructible.
It was a fascinating time. My body was not mine. It did what it wanted and there was freedom in this choicelessness. The body was morphing while these creatures grew inside. I was a temporary accommodation for them. We were symbiotic while they were both inside and out, until they started running away.
Mindfulness and parenting are wonderful ways to develop an inner life. You come to know your experience inside and out.
Lesson Four: Learn to Let Go
Motherhood is a continual process of letting go. It is unfortunate that I didn’t let go of my attachment to my body and its changing appearance when I had that first opportunity.
Varicosities abounded as a result of pregnancy. I had one long, wriggling and twisting vein that traversed my lower leg removed for an obscene price.
In my forties, I started running long and fast away from the Grim Reaper, following my husband who is five years younger than I am, trying to hang on to a youth that was already gone.
I ran four marathons, culminating in Boston in a 90-degree Fahrenheit heat wave. I finished. So many do not. I have perseverance and pacing. I managed to develop a bleeding gut, from dehydration, and a bacteria called campylobacter picked up a month before in Guatemala. It turned my body into a vomiting, excretive, bloody mess. When this healed, I got pelvic cramping whenever I ran more than five kilometers.
Many years have been devoted to the mirror. I sometimes now think of hanging a black cloth over it so I can stop the compulsion to look and mourn the loss of my good looks.
I asked an esthetician friend of mine what she thinks are the best anti-aging products or techniques. She says, “Honey, hold back the hands of time and stop them before they start moving.”
Every day I examine myself through the looking glass and take in each tiny detail—the fine lines around the mouth, the darkening under the eyes, the fat herniation in my eye lids, and the gentle sagging of the jaw.
I asked an esthetician friend of mine what she thinks are the best anti-aging products or techniques. She says, “Honey, hold back the hands of time and stop them before they start moving.”
We could also consider accepting the inevitable. Just let go of hanging on to what is already gone. But we revere our youth and beauty, as do others, for so many reasons. If females need protection, it is much more likely we will get it if we are young, gorgeous, and reproductively viable. We can avoid presenting the reality of sickness, aging and death that we desperately want to ignore. Our culture, unlike some, hates aging and the aged. They are a frightening reminder of our end. We push away what we don’t like. We behave in defiance, avoiding the unavoidable truth: that we are mortal.
We push away what we don’t like. We behave in defiance, avoiding the unavoidable truth: that we are mortal.
I note every wrinkle that has begun to engrave its way into my face and see the effects of gravity over time. I see the development of the estrogen pouch as my waistline thickens. The varicosities increase, and my skin thins. Sunspots creep over my hands. Red dots pop up on my chest and belly. Thank medicine for liquid nitrogen. We can burn a lot away. Hairs sprout from my face.
I make a pact with my friend that she will pull those hairs out of my chin if I am dying in a hospital bed. Why stop then? I see my nails thicken, skin dry, my hair grey, my libido decline.
Lesson Five: Acceptance Is More Helpful Than Resistance
I look good for my age. In that sentence there is the gripping on to that which is passing before my eyes, the need to look makes me feel good. I never tell people to guess my age. What if they are right?
Unable to let go, I hang on with hair colour, tweezing, exercise, vitamins, estrogen, testosterone, vein removal, facials, botox, and filler. I am careful not to cross the line into looking freakish. No duck lips or chipmunk cheeks for me. I want to look natural. To pretend on top of pretending.
A lack of willingness to embrace the impermanence and decline of the body is an expensive practice. Acceptance would be far more skillful than resistance, and this absurd continuous re-modelling of an aging bag. I am still chained to this body and an idea of who I think I am or who I think I should be.
What is acceptance if not resignation? I don’t understand it is not a battle.
Three of my friends are turning fifty. I have three gifts for them. A care kit for the future. These are: a magnifying mirror, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Larry Rosenberg’s Breath by Breath.
The mirror is such an interesting companion on this journey, and avoidance of its reflection is as much an act of hanging on to your view of self as is the gazing at and manipulation of your image. It can also prevent eye trickery if one can see clearly. The books have two functions. One is for lightening attachment to the body with humour, and the other is an instruction for working with the truth that change can be a friend, rather than the enemy.
I have understood this lesson in acceptance, but there is still the looking glass, and I remain bound to its glitter and my image.
This futile attempt to freeze the march of time on my face and body is the cause of suffering. Intellectually, I know this, but the idea of giving up on my body is currently aversive. The cosmetic surgery business is booming. Women in their 20s and 30s are taking the plunge into myriad injections, surgical removals and implants, spawning a generation of females who are more like Barbie than Barbie herself, with their immobile faces, large eyes, and protruding lips. If only the body were perfect, we would be happy—and yet another part of me knows this is not true.
I have understood this lesson in acceptance, but there is still the looking glass, and I remain bound to its glitter and my image.
I am in my 60s now, still measuring myself against my cohort. I see these bulges of back fat, falling biceps, and increasing fatigue. My bones and muscles, however, carry me lithely and my sight and hearing are still almost perfect. I await the time when I can no longer keep up with the maintenance and am completely unseen. It would be a good time for a second career as a spy.
Alternatively, as an 80-year old woman I knew once said, I could let it all go, “…wake up every morning, look in the mirror and laugh, shake my head, and say, How did I get here?”
