It's the pits

Continuing with our current koan, I would like to discuss some struggles I've had with beauty practices currently expected of women in our society. Basically what I would like to tackle in this post is hair. Yes, we all have body hair. Some more than others but, once we hit puberty, we've all got it. And most women spend a whole hell of a lot of time getting rid of it.

Armpit hair study #1 - pop art

Personally, I have never really connected to the reasons behind shaving, waxing, plucking, etc. I know that it is considered attractive and appropriate for a woman in our society to have as little noticeable body hair as possible. I know that the same level of hair removal is not expected of men, though some level of grooming is expected.

Armpit hair study #2 - sepia

For me, removing my body hair was always something that I did to fit in. With the sole exception of occasionally shaving my legs, I never did it because it made my body feel better. Here's what I remember of my indoctrination into our culture of hair removal:

• My younger sister asking me if I had thought about shaving my legs. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my body beyond what was on my head. I was 13 years old.
• My mother teaching me to shave my legs with a beige, electric razor from the 70's that pulled out more hairs that it ever shaved.
• My sister ordering this green goo from Australia that was supposed to remove hair in some manner that was better and easier than shaving or waxing. I had no interest in said green goo, but was talked into being a guinea pig. Let's just say ... never again.
• Sitting on the bus, my freshman year of high school, listening to my two best friends tell me that they had talked to a guy friend of ours who said I would be really pretty if only I plucked my eyebrows. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my face having any impact on my respective attractiveness.
• A few weeks later in a hotel room before my grandmother's memorial service, I asked my mother to pluck my eyebrows for the first time.
• At a pool party in high school, having painful awareness of red bumps on my bikini line from where I had shaved "down there" for the first time. No sunbathing for me.

Armpit hair study #3 - colored pencil

Retrospectively, what makes me uncomfortable about the above experiences is that they reinforced for me the idea that I had to shave, pluck, etc. in order to look clean, good, right, or attractive. It's taken a long time, and being in a supportive relationship, for me to be able to start to deal with my internal conflict over my hair removal practices.

Armpit hair study #4 - thermal camera

I gave up on my bikini line years ago and buy swim wear accordingly. It's been over a year since I've plucked my eyebrows though I still have a habit of pulling them out when I'm stressed or nervous. I haven't shaved my pits since the fall and am getting used to seeing hair there when I wear tank tops. My legs are currently nice and fuzzy. I can see myself shaving them when the weather is warmer, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Telling Our Stories

Butterfy tagged and ready to be released at Tremont in the Smoky Mts.

This venture into writing is intimidating to me. My story is my story and comes from my unique perspective. Or does it? I begin reflecting on my own privilege and good fortune as compared to the statistics and the numbers are staggering. The fact that I am well fed, can read, write, use a computer and live in safety puts me in a category of small numbers compared to the world at large. I am grateful for the goodness in my life. If I have gained any wisdom over the years, it is to count my blessings. So I have incorporated being thankful as a daily practice. I can only imagine what true struggle for survival must be like. I am indeed fortunate and though I tend to take my life for granted on a day to day basis,  I like to think I am aware of the bigger picture. For me it comes down to the question, "What kind of difference does one individual make? There are many examples of individuals I can think of that have made a difference in my life and the lives of others through their impact on society. Here are just a few.

• Maya Angelou
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Thomas Jefferson
• the Dali Lama
• Maria Montessori
• Dorothy Menard
• Eric Butterworth
• Willard and Evelyn Jones 

But for most of my life I have felt that I did not make a difference in any area of my life. The choices I have made and the people I have encountered have influenced me, but I have always had a hard time believing I impacted others in any meaningful way.

I have come to understand part of this tendency is because of my personality type. Intellectually, my understanding is, that the impact is there because I believe everyone is interconnected. We are born needing connection. In my many interactions with others they have expressed both positive and negative feelings about what I have said or done. As a teacher, I impacted the lives of my students and as a mother, well, I hope I have had a positive impact overall, but there have been times in my parenting (and teaching) I have been ashamed of my actions or words (or both)and forgiveness is a blessing. I've been reading Brene Brown's book I Thought it was Just Me, and in her introduction she writes about the basis for her research and studies about shame.

We are wired for connection. It's in our biology. As infants, our need for connection is about survival. As we grow older, connection means thriving-emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually. Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to believe that we belong and we are valued for who we are. Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection- the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories.

Here is a link to Brene's blog Ordinary Courage. Near the end of her entry she talks about the value of struggle and how important it is to give our children the gift of seeing us struggle. She says, " Watching us struggle gives them permission to struggle. Talking openly about the difficulty of forgiveness is an invitation to them to talk openly to us." So I guess my story isn't just my story after all. To live authentically and with wholeness is to value the connections in our lives. Our stories have meaning and so I am a little less intimidated in sharing my stories, given that I belong to a family, a community, a country and a world where my showing up each day matters.