(Ugly) On the first time I understood the feeling of ugliness.
in the abundance of shame
I was 11 years old and living in South Africa. It was the end of autumn and the beginning of spring. The weather was funny like that in South Africa, skipping winter altogether. On what felt like a Sunday, the rain had stopped around the afternoon. Drops of water from the balcony upstairs could still be heard, hitting the cement pavement outside the sitting room’s big windows. I was zoning in and out of some television show when I heard sounds of play outside, sounds that were familiar but somewhat different on this particular afternoon. It was Kate and her brother Ben, the new kids who had moved into the area.
I twisted my body to face the window, slightly hidden by the couch, and gazed at Kate. Beautiful, slim Kate. Her name was like the actress in Days of Our Lives, Kate. It was the first time I was in awe of another like me because she wasn’t exactly like me.
She had a small face and tiny button-like features. In the midst of my private gazes, a hand fell on my left shoulder, and a warm breath grazed my cheek.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” the voice asked.
“Yes, she is,” I admitted, still staring from behind the couch and curtains.
“You will never be like her, you know,” said the voice, which belonged to my young aunt, as she left the room.
For her, perhaps, it was just another day of teasing, but for me, it was the first time I understood what beauty was. What ugly was. The first time I started thinking that it was a place of scarcity, where only a few could reside, while the rest of us were left to look on, in shame, behind the window, behind the curtains, in the abundance of our ugliness.
writers note: This is a piece from my book In Constant Bloom (available both as ebook and a softcover) that I wanted to share. I can’t help but wonder - when did you first learn about beauty and ugliness. Do you remember it as clearly and which side of the curtain did you feel yourself belonging to.
Alsoooo, new fitting video on this on my channel Mayinbloom titled Allow yourself to grow into your own beauty: Holistic decolonization // Soul talks