you are beautiful
LJ Idol season 8 week 2 prompt: three little words.
I've bought a dozen roses and passed them out to strangers. I've folded a shopping bag's worth of paper cranes and left them on bus stop benches around the city. I gave $20 to a woman on the street who looked so beaten down it made my heart ache. These things do not make me a hero or a saint. They do, however, make people look at me funny. (I'm all right with that.)
I want to leave my mark on the world. So does everyone else, but I know I probably won't make the kind of mark that will make it into the Books of Historical Importance. What I want is to make my mark on people's hearts, so when they're 90 and lonely, they'll remember the girl who handed them a yellow rose, smiled and walked away. I'm a sociologist by career, a dancer and circus performer by hobby, and a glamourbomber by chance and choice. A faerie poetic terrorist.
Glamourbombing, possibly best defined here, first appeared to me when I was in college. UC Santa Cruz is already a magical place: the campus is hidden by hundreds of redwoods, old-soul trees who know how to listen and grow in circles we called elf dens. On the first day of college, which already had my stomach twisted in knots, I found a message on the wall in one of the bathrooms that said "Namaste, thank you for your beauty." A three year relationship had ended four days prior to moving to college, so I was already upset. Then a new place, with new people and new things to get used to. Those words on the bathroom wall made me smile, in part because they were so unexpected.
My favorite graffiti is to write "you are beautiful". Anywhere and everywhere. I carry a sharpie with me all the time so if the urge strikes, I can remind people in every bathroom stall, every corner of every cafe, every library, that they are beautiful. That someone somewhere finds them beautiful. Personally, I have such a hard time responding when people tell me I'm beautiful. Usually I scoff and roll my eyes and perfect my sarcastic face. Especially now, with a breakup on Friday that split me into tiny pieces and left me on the floor gasping for breath. But I am slowly learning to do otherwise. I am learning to say thank you.
♥ pacing while praying ♥
I've bought a dozen roses and passed them out to strangers. I've folded a shopping bag's worth of paper cranes and left them on bus stop benches around the city. I gave $20 to a woman on the street who looked so beaten down it made my heart ache. These things do not make me a hero or a saint. They do, however, make people look at me funny. (I'm all right with that.)
I want to leave my mark on the world. So does everyone else, but I know I probably won't make the kind of mark that will make it into the Books of Historical Importance. What I want is to make my mark on people's hearts, so when they're 90 and lonely, they'll remember the girl who handed them a yellow rose, smiled and walked away. I'm a sociologist by career, a dancer and circus performer by hobby, and a glamourbomber by chance and choice. A faerie poetic terrorist.
Glamourbombing, possibly best defined here, first appeared to me when I was in college. UC Santa Cruz is already a magical place: the campus is hidden by hundreds of redwoods, old-soul trees who know how to listen and grow in circles we called elf dens. On the first day of college, which already had my stomach twisted in knots, I found a message on the wall in one of the bathrooms that said "Namaste, thank you for your beauty." A three year relationship had ended four days prior to moving to college, so I was already upset. Then a new place, with new people and new things to get used to. Those words on the bathroom wall made me smile, in part because they were so unexpected.
My favorite graffiti is to write "you are beautiful". Anywhere and everywhere. I carry a sharpie with me all the time so if the urge strikes, I can remind people in every bathroom stall, every corner of every cafe, every library, that they are beautiful. That someone somewhere finds them beautiful. Personally, I have such a hard time responding when people tell me I'm beautiful. Usually I scoff and roll my eyes and perfect my sarcastic face. Especially now, with a breakup on Friday that split me into tiny pieces and left me on the floor gasping for breath. But I am slowly learning to do otherwise. I am learning to say thank you.
♥ pacing while praying ♥