Show Me a Beautiful Woman

Leonard Cohen has a famous quote: “Show me a beautiful woman and I'll show you a man tired of fucking her.” It's absolutely brutal.

And I love it.

Because we all know beauty doesn't protect women. Think of all the Hollywood beauties who have been cheated on and left by their partners. Beauty also attracts superficial dickwads.

I remember watching an interview with John and Bo Derek years ago. The interviewer asked John whether he'd still love Bo if she weren't beautiful, and he er'd and stalled before finally admitting that no, he didn't think he would. Bo, sensing his discomfort, quickly reassured him that she understood and wasn't angry. I was just a kid at the time, but it's one of those exchanges that remained with me.

I didn't realize it then, but I think I mistook it for the truth.

I spent one summer managing a lodge in Cape Breton. One afternoon I checked in a lovely family and showed them around the property, explaining how to get down to the ocean. A little while later I saw the couple emerge from their unit dressed for the beach. The woman wore a short cover-up and sandals, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the enormous varicose veins running down both legs- thick, swollen ropes of purple and blue that looked painful and, to my young eyes, hideous.

But what I noticed most wasn't her legs.

It was the way her husband looked at her.

He held her hand as they walked, looking at her with such easy affection that I was gobsmacked. She wasn't trying to hide her legs. She wasn't wearing a long skirt or pants despite it being warm outside. She walked as though nothing at all was wrong with them.

Maybe because, in the ways that mattered most, nothing was.

At the height of my physical beauty, I was twenty-seven. Lithe and strong, I had a brown belt in karate and not an ounce of extra flesh on my body. My varicose veins hadn't appeared yet. I sang lead in a successful Halifax band, acted in independent films, and wore my shiny black hair in a Cleopatra cut with a thick blunt fringe and streaks of red. I actually had fans. I remember the strange feeling of being recognized and watched when I was out around Halifax. It was the closest I've ever come to fame.

It was also the year my boyfriend of two years- my first love- broke up with me.

It came completely out of the blue. I sat there unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth as he explained the difference between being in love and loving someone. Then he started talking about trees, and how branches sometimes grow in different directions.

Forever a woman of pride, I didn't beg him to stay or ask him to change his mind. I was equally composed when I told my friends, unwilling to let them see how completely I'd been shattered by the rejection of the whole heart I had handed him.

Months later, I still felt like flaming wreckage.

Around the same time, my songwriting partner announced she was moving to Calgary to help her sister. We'd just recorded a full-length album, and she knew we'd need to tour and commit ourselves to promoting it. She simply didn't have it in her.

So there I was- as physically beautiful as I was ever going to be (according to conventional beauty standards)- and I was doubly dumped.

Fast forward 27.4 years, and here I am.

Eighteen years married to the love of my life. My actual soulmate. Not the man who taught me that beauty doesn't stop someone from leaving. Or that heartbreak can echo for decades in ways you don't expect. He rearranged something fundamental in me. Even now, after twenty years with the kindest man I've ever known, there's still a panic room somewhere inside me.

And yet...

Here is my husband loving me after I've gained thirty pounds since we married, most of it arriving quietly during perimenopause and menopause.

I eventually had the varicose veins treated, but the treatment came with its own surprise. As the damaged veins closed off and my circulation found new pathways, countless tiny spider veins bloomed beneath the surface of my skin. Purple and burgundy webs spread across my legs like little constellations. From a distance they look like bruises. Up close, they're simply part of the landscape now.

I used to try to keep up with treating them, but eventually there were simply too many. Then something unexpected happened. I became so loved that my legs quietly fell off the list of things that mattered.

Who knew that could happen?

Being loved for who you are instead of the flesh you're walking around in is one of life's deepest comforts. It's a peculiar kind of freedom. Your body continues to change. Gravity keeps doing what gravity does. Veins appear. Wrinkles deepen. Menopause arrives with all its little gifts. And somehow, none of it matters quite as much anymore.

When people talk about wanting to feel seen, I don't think they're talking about being admired. They're talking about being looked at with the same tenderness after the bloom has faded as they were before.

I still think about that woman in Cape Breton sometimes. Back then, I thought she was brave because she wasn't hiding her legs. Now I think she knew something I didn't yet. She was loved-not only by her husband, but by herself.

And suddenly that old interview with John and Bo Derek wasn't about beauty anymore. It was about the difference between being admired and being loved.

❤️

#Venus #VenusianThemes #RelationalDynamics #SelfWorth #SelfLove #BeautyStandards #TheArtOfRelating #AstrologicalArchetypes #SelfPossession #TheMirrorOfOthers