Where have all the poets gone?

[hester_prynne]

Indeed Zlatko, enduring beauty.
That's where it's at alright.
Heck, that's one of things I like about being me. My own enduring beauty. It just gets amazingly better and better! Clearer and clearer.
Growing old, is a gift I am relishing.
smoochies,
H

[Lightning Rod]

Lucy,
In reading this tread, some things come to mind. Things about human body image.

First, let me say that I want to bitch-slap you a little bit for thinking that you are anything but a gorgeous woman. You radiate vitality and intelligence and humor. Don't sell yourself short.

Now, to body image. We all see ourselves in the most critical light. I have recorded many people's voices. Almost all of them say, "That's not the way I sound." What I'm getting at is that you can't really see yourself except though the eyes of other people. When you look in the mirror you see all your hopes and desires and bad thoughts and this blinds you to who you are.

Other people are free of those prejudices. So is the camera.

When we were putting those pictures of you up last night, I looked at them and felt a warm delight in my belly, because you are a beautiful person and you are dear to me. Yet you were distressed by them because you thought it wasn't your skinniest day.

Last night we watched a video tape of a TV show that we taped a few weeks ago. Doreen was lamenting, "look at those bags under my eyes," And I was saying, "My neck looks like a turkey." We are all our own harshest critics.

But we can't see ourselves. And what people take with them is not our bodies but our spirits. They remember us and see us in their minds for what we are and not what we look like.

Let me give you another slant on the weight issue. There has been talk on this thread about the ideal of female slenderness. There is an equal and opposite corollary to this from the male point of view. It's the Charles Atlas Principle. As much as women feel they should be slender and slinky, men feel they should be buff and as tall as John Wayne. All of us don't fit this profile.

When I was locked in prison with 2400 men, I was the second to the smallest person on the Unit. Cato Pena was the smallest. He was a weight lifter so he could whup me too. Until that time I had never viewed myself as a small person. I don't know what I was thinking, I don't weigh a hundred and twenty pounds dripping wet. But suddenly I was thrust into a world where physical size was an important issue.

Still I managed to survive four years in that institution without suffering predation or violence even though I was obviously the most vulnerable person on the block. I think it was because of how I carried myself. I just didn't feel small.

How we see ourselves makes a difference in who we are.

[abcrystcats]

I have to believe you, Lightning Rod, but only because I'd like to. I'd like to believe that a person's spirit outshines everything else. If that is true, then it is true only on this website and others like it. The world has a very different set of standards. We are here together in this microcosm of mutual support, and that has some powerful meaning.

I don't know how to account for your experiences in prison. You are a charismatic individual. Perhaps you managed to save yourself in some heroic way. I only know that most people like you are victims in one way or another ... I respect and admire your survival.