Be You
There it stood in front of me, one of my favorite trees in our back yard. It was summer and this particular morning I had on my obligatory denim cut off jean and my brand new red gingham blouse. I loved that tree back then; to a kid of about 6 or so it seemed 50 feet tall. Well, I couldn’t stand it any longer so I managed somehow to hoist myself onto that first branch.
The bark was sort of black, with grooves and gobs of a thick jelly long the branches. I managed to climb up to a couple of loaded branches. I looked around and surveyed our yard as well as our neighbors’ and it looked pretty cool being taller than everything else for once. But eventually, that deep peachy fragrance and that thick fuzz just called out to me to grab one of those softball sized gems and take a bite. And that I did. Best peach EVER! It was soft juicy, sweet and fuzzy all at the same time. After devouring the first peach I whipped off my pretty new blouse (back then we wore t shirts underneath) placed a few peaches in it, climbed down and went back into the house. Oh, I forgot to mention I was allergic to the peach fuzz and would always itch like crazy. Did it stop me, NO! back then only tom boys or country girls climbed trees. My parents were flexible in some ways about the doing some boy type things but always reinforced positive female images which is the focus of this post images of beauty.
Styles and trends in fashion speak volumes to how women feel about themselves. Like some of you, I grew up watching Raquel Welch, Dianne Carroll, Sophia Loren, The Supremes and so forth, but Cicely Tyson (with that little Miles Davis era afro) was gorgeous. Her skin was like a beautiful sculpture with a brilliant megawatt smile. Oh, and the characters she portrayed on the big screen were admirable.
Back then, women in general had a very limited choice and power to influence our images of beauty. Today, TV and the economic power that women posses have changed (in some ways positively) our beauty standards. Beauty comes in all sizes, shapes, colors and ethnicities. Life is beautiful in all of it’s diversity, so just be you.