Revel

In every landscape, there is beauty.  In every expression of nature we occupy, we find beauty.  We celebrate the vast difference, the curiosity, the smell, the feel, experiences we are given; 

The mountains with overwhelming heights and ridges and sharpness and dips, crevasses and rough patches; 

The desert folding soft, smooth brown sands; layers and layers of earth rolling further and further away; 

The ocean and undulating waves, crashing waves, bobbing waves, stillness of muted life; 

The jungles whose lush earth exclaims every color of the wheel bursting at the seams of strong trunks and long vines; 

Ice Caves, where cold, crisp, flowing, frozen waves surge risk; an unstable fear of collapse; 

Snowfields softening still mounds of cascading white hills, curving and rolling back and back and back until they meet horizon; 

And the list goes on – every inch of earth dusted with diverse beauty.  

And we see it, we recognize it, we celebrate it, we photograph it, we revel in it. 

Yet, the landscapes of our bodies are different. They are war zones; littered with land mines.  Every day we are told to groom.  We are attacked with products, pills, surgeries, devices, garments, lotions that will silence the joy in our skin, the laughter, the stories of our past, the stories of our present, the stories of our future.  The stories, they are washed away.  The curves, the dips, the bumps, the roundness, the rough patches, the softness, relegated to the sidelines or worse, erased.  We are sold one ideal landscape. One. One! Nature tells us this is false; that diversity is beautiful and healthy, that there is strength in individuality, and joy in the unique unedited imperfections of life. 

 We are encouraged to be at war, with ourselves, against each other.  We criticize ourselves for not matching an image that is sold to us like a sports car and then criticize and ridicule those of us who resemble it, concluding that we are weak, hungry, starved, insecure, obsessed.  What of the rest of us, then?  Full?  Secure?   We criticize those who don’t meet the standard, concluding that we are weak, heavy, insecure, lazy, undisciplined.  No one is good enough.  As long as someone gets paid, we will never be good enough.

 We can only be better.  Love yourself.  Honor your body.  These actions are not marketable.  These actions are like grenades.  Remove the pin. Throw.  Breathe in and fill up every crevasse, every dip, rolling hill and sharp angle, soft curve, scar, wrinkle, every rough patch. 

 Let us not demonize our bodies.  Minimizing ourselves into parts – objectifying sections of our bodies like meat cuts.  Let us celebrate ourselves and each other.  No more competition. No more comparisons.   

 Our bodies are the landscapes that tell the stories of our lives. 

 We are each mountain, desert, ocean, jungle, ice cave, snowfield. 

 Find beauty there. See it.  Recognize it. Photograph it.  Celebrate it.  Revel.