mythology | Inappropriate Footwear

This post is dedicated to every person who looks into the mirror with a question, and is too often disappointed with the answer. It’s for every one of us that has written a valentines card and then binned it prior to delivery, or almost worked up the courage to tell someone how stunning they are, only to blush and turn away at the last minute. And it’s to those people that we turned away from, the ones left unaware that they caused us such discomfort in such a beautiful way.

Over the past year I’ve lost count…actually no, not lost count, started counting the number of people who genuinely don’t seem to realise just how much they have the potential to light emotional fires in others. How many people out there grew up anxious that they weren’t found attractive by anyone? And how much that blindness to their allure was due to someone, someones, being capable of letting them know of it?

What’s your reaction when someone tells you you’re beautiful, sexy or handsome? Is it instant denial or evasion? Maybe followed by an embarrassed silence? You are gorgeous. Sorry, I don’t want this to come across as trite, this is no half-hearted penmanship hoping to garner kudos from the dispossessed. Instead it’s a heads up to everyone who found a way to avoid letting someone else know just what you see in them.

For a range of reasons many of us in New Zealand (please let me know if this is an international issue…) are subject to social conditioning which acts as a barrier to simply walking up to someone and saying ‘Hi, I just wanted to tell you that you’re gorgeous, you honestly walk with an elegance most could only ever imitate.’ Even reading that I imagine some of you doing a gentle cringe. That’s such a shame. An honest compliment is such a simple way to improve someone’s day, maybe even their year. With the way I was raised it used to take an unfathomable degree of courage to speak these words to a friend, stranger, or maybe even girlfriend. There was the fear of rejection, the anxiety around someone taking it the wrong way, the feeling I’d look foolish. Any society that coaches us to build up walls against giving or receiving compliments becomes a difficult place to grow up with any degree of self confidence. Especially if you’re brave enough to embrace your individuality.

But this social inhibition, this fear of reprisal for offering a kindness is just one side of an important issue. The other is environmental. We are reminded each day of airbrushed idealism. We’re taught to compare ourselves to physical impossibilities. Images are stretched, narrowed, lightened, smoothed and blended. Things get worse though, some of us feel a twisted need to be surgically manipulate to look like these satin haired shop dummies. The terrorists who perform these invasive augmentations are known as ‘plastic surgeons’ for a reason, Barbie and Kim Kardashian are anatomically misshapen PVC marketing gadgets, not an aesthetic ideals.

I’m here now to raise my hand and let everyone know, but women in particular, that I find ‘imperfections’ to be the source of your beauty. Every smile-dedicated wrinkle at your mouth’s edge, every dark or light spot on your arm, every inch of freckled skin. They separate you from the magazine advertisements, the super smooth waxy misrepresentations of humanity. I look at a cover girl image and I can no longer see a person. I look at a face in a skin care advertisement and I know with absolute certainty that all of the people I touched, kissed, held, or chatted to in the last year are far more attractive to me. The hairs on your arms, the birthmark across your stomach, that dimpling on your thighs, that’s gorgeous reality. It’s texture, it is differentiation, it is what gives your beauty depth. When I meet you I see you holistically. The way you hold your head, how much you transform when you smile, the arch of your eyebrows at my comments. I’m not drawn to what you see as your flaws unless you draw my attention to them. And they shouldn’t affect my opinion of you unless they’re all you can focus on.

So how can we transform our self perception, how can we undo the influence of all those who should have no impact on the feelings that are created when my eyes spy your form? How do we reverse the damage caused by marketers, media and merchants? The greatest and simplest way I can think is to take the definition of beauty back into our own hands. That’s it. The responsibility for determining what beauty is lies with each of us. And the best mechanism to reclaim beauty as something personal may come down to simple communication. Every person we fail to address with our honesty in regards to their attractiveness to us, is another of us who hasn’t reached their deserved level of self-confidence. I know that I sometimes fear that my words might be taken as inappropriate, that someone might think I’m hitting on them, or that I’m attempting manipulation. But if I’m an honest person and I tell someone simply and humbly with all my focus and attention that I see their beauty, then I hope that they’ll see my words for what they are, a genuine expression of what I observe. I’ll start. To every woman I have ever made asian coleslaw for, taken the piss out of ‘The Batman’ with, filmed swimming with dolphins, or laughed at German words alongside, you are all so, so beautiful.

And now I implore the rest of you, just stand up, walk out, and find that person. Take them by the hands, the shoulder, the leash, and engage their eyes with yours. And tell them. Unleash the shackles, drop the filters, and let them know just how beautiful they are. Because that glance down at your shoes as you approach, that looking up from under your fringe, that quick shy grin, they’ll all be noticed. And the blush, the quickening of the heart, the gentle perspiration is all worth it. Trust me.

I’ve only just got it. Really, really got it. I’ve figured out that I travel for the interactions with others, the scenery really is just a set of backdrops. Iceland prompted this realisation. It’s a wet wee isle, entertaining scenery, but nothing hugely different to what I can see back home, at least in summer. And certainly not as dramatic as some of the visual splendour I travelled through in the US. But the people, the stories told by the people, the self-deprecation, the feisty humour. Smashing. A tour guide led a small group of us through Reykjavik the day we arrived. She told stories of christmas trolls, believing in elves enough to move motorways and the surprise election of the current mayor of the capital city (a stand up comedian). She lovingly took the piss out of her compatriots, and I knew I wasn’t in America anymore. This was an arts university graduate working for tips, and she was genuinely witty in her second or third language. Not even on brewery tours had anyone been this engaging in the States.

I love that Iceland is so proud of their gene sharing with the Viking hordes. They quietly, almost reluctantly admit that their own Viking heroes were largely sheep farmers and horse breeders rather than raping, murdering pillagers. They sell Norse God action figures and install huge longboat sculptures on the foreshore, and their mythologies are woven into their lives. They seem a very self-assured people, fighting International conventions to ensure whale meat remains available in restaurants. I’m from a tiny island in the middle of nowhere too, but we have a nationally tendency to be somewhat apologetic about what others might see as our short comings. Icelanders have a depth of pride that maybe kiwis can learn from.

The Maori people back home have a strong mythologised culture too. Legends provide children with strong heroes, moral guidance and a sense of belonging. I found that many Americans were ignorant of the tales of the Native American tribes, which is a great shame. I loved the myths of so many countries as a child, and I was proud that my country had our own. But lately in New Zealand general access to our mythic heritage may be under threat. The cultural icons of the Maori people are being assessed for copyrighting and trade marking. As a result I’m starting to lose confidence in my right to claim any degree of allegiance with what I see as my own cultural heritage, seemingly because I’m a whitey. Where in Iceland their stories and legends are a unifying point of cultural pride, I hope that in New Zealand they don’t end up contributing to divisions between people.

I didn’t have nearly enough days in Iceland, but at least my flight out was bound for another entertaining stop, London. Every time I accidentally on purpose end up in the shining jewel of the British empire something fun is kicking off. This time I did a search for “beer festivals” just a day or two before I flew out of Denver, and lo! The biggest beardy weirdy drinking convention in the British Isles was kicking off from the day I arrived. Yes please! London Olympia was lined with 800 beer, cider and perry (pear cider) taps, pork scratching vendors and bratwurst stands. The London Craft Beer Festival was having its debut outing the same weekend, but we decided to kick it old skool in hopes of avoiding over-hopped new world styles. We had no regrets as we sipped at creamy stouts and comfy brown ales. It was one of those events you wish you could teleport all your mates to. We shared a pint with one of the Scottish brewers, many of the smaller breweries had only one pint on tap (out of a total 800), and their alcohol architects were at hand to talk up their wares. The event was more about tasting than boozing, and there wasn’t a single screen showing football…Good on ya English beer brewing fellah’s and pickled fish vendors.

London was another briefish four-day interlude. Gatwick to Dublin is a quick hop, and then it was a skip to the bus lanes, and a jump to Castlepollard in Westmeath. I’ve been living in Castle Tullynally for a week now, helping with the gardening and tourist shepherding. I was shocked to find it only took 48 hours to get used to waking up and looking out the boudoir window to see white and grey towers and the arched gateway. I guess that’s a positive thing though, running a huge mansion looks like exhausting work, and the place probably costs even more than a two bedroom flat in Wellington. I’m enjoying being able to wander down to the vegetable gardens and harvest fresh beetroot for tonight’s chocolate cake though. And on the way back to the kitchen I pass donkeys, llamas and battlements, and I reflect on how fortunate I am to get to call another place home, even if briefly. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Republic of Ireland, again it’s a people thing. It’ll be interesting to see how some time living with the locals shifts my perspective. And of course there’s some lovely scenery.