America has a Beauty Problem
It happens overnight.
One day you are an elegant, Francophile in a silk scarf imagining you are in a café in Paris, and the next, you don’t recognize the older woman staring back at you in the mirror.
Where did she come from? More importantly, where is she going?
Now that my hair has morphed from brunette to silver to white, many assume I am making a statement about how we should look as we age.
If only I had it figured out! I certainly do not.
Suddenly, We are Someone Else
One of the very best parts of aging is it makes you take stock of who you want to be. Time is running out so we have to get on it.
For me, this kind of editing is rejuvenating. It is like shedding clutter that is bogging you down.
As I look ahead, and I’m going to be really, painfully honest here, I see an old woman in the mirror and I want to know how she’s going to look in that Paris café. Will she be elegant? Or just tired?
Role Models are Hard to Find
It does not help that these days beauty in America is an absolute freak show. Perhaps it is not only an America problem, but that is my lens.
The recent photos of stars on red carpets from a variety of award shows is frightening. They are gaunt and can barely walk from muscle wasting. There are good examples of plastic surgery to be sure, but there are also nightmarish results.
I don’t want to be any of those people.
Yoga is the Path to Acceptance
As a yogi, the practice has meant to me acceptance on the mat. It is the “finding more” of who I am. The mat loves us back, on good days as well as rough ones.
My practice has become slower, more in tuned to who I am these days. Even my most challenging class of the week with complex poses is a slower, more precise affair. I like this path. I like it a lot. I think it will lead to an elegant woman on the Champs-Elysees.
Waking Up is Hard To Do
I recently had a wake-up call about my own feelings about beauty. I like to think of myself as not being particularly vain; I’m more about being kind and purposeful blah blah blah.
Then I had an accident which broke my nose and separated my cheek in two pieces. You should have heard me caterwauling in the ER that I needed a plastic surgeon to put me back together. You would have thought I was dying!
Where is that calm, self-accepting yogi when you need her? I don’t have an answer. But I’m looking for one.
Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She is the author of four books on yoga and life and teaches movement in Denver, Colorado.