"Beauty": The Eye (and Envy) of The Beholder?

Professional women labeled the "B Word"(beautiful) struggle to be recognized for their ability beyond their physical allure

"She's such a good-hearted child" Sister Jacqueline of St. Mary's Grade School said to my young, devout-Catholic-Irish mother when I was all but 8 years old; "it's shocking how sweet she is-- you wouldn't think so to look at her", she finished as my mother felt the unintentional blow like a kick in the teeth.  Mom explained to me, some years later, that it took her a minute to realize the porcupine edge to the very masculinely unattractive Principle-Nun's "compliment" was her ineloquent way of stating she found me, at 8 years old, to be both pretty and nice, essentially… And, somehow, that was shocking… to a grown woman in her 60's… who taught Christianity as a life-profession.  Given her shock, with similar statements about my non-evil heart which resurfaced for years to come, Sister Jacqueline generally believed, apparently, that all sweet-hearted children were homely or all pretty little girls were assholes?  But I digress. 

When a former high-school friend (and political windbag) trekked from Los Angeles to Chicago to visit me and produce a music video for me in October of 2008, the air percolated with the new-energy Barack Obama was pouring into the Presidential race.  Adam (the arrogant windbag) and I were having lunch on his first day in town.  I mentioned something about my concern for Obama's ability with international relations versus Clinton's and Adam gave me this cartoonish phony as can be smile with the ever-patronizing retort "Awww, Erin, you are so cute-- pretending you know about politics and shit".  To which I almost stabbed his nearby hand resting on the restaurant table with my salad fork.  When I directly asked him what in the HELL would make him think I DON'T know about politics, or world affairs for that matter, he was surprised and apologetic (but, tellingly, not humiliated at his own display of pompousness), we began an in-depth political conversation.  Much like my worldly, historically savvy and liberal Iranian friend who asked me "How in the world do you know so much about world events?"… Or the club owner in Chicago who spent 16 years dismissing me as "a broad with great pins that looks too good to be a real jazz singer".  Or the octogenarian record label owner, just yesterday, who got on the phone with me by opening a conversation, not with "So who have you worked with?" but instead, "Listen, honey, let me tell you how the world works.  Real jazz artists…" and he went on to tell me all about the business I have been in for almost half of my existence.  (Real Jazz Artists?!?!  Meaning men, of course.)  

People who read my poems, hear my music, friends that seek my advice or read these blogs that I write… People who understand me to be articulate, educated, travelled, culturally enmeshed with friends and constituents from all over the world, intelligent and intuitive... somehow,  these same observers, still, find it necessary to remind me that I do not "look" like I would be "this smart" or "this nice of a person" or "so well read" or "so well written" or "such a serious artist" or "so good with kids".  

What. The. Hell.  

Yesterday, a globally recognized jazz legend and newer friend of mine whom I will be recording with this year, called to tell me he encountered some negative comments about me from musicians he knew.  When I asked in regards to what exactly, he explained a couple people told him they viewed me as more of a showgirl than a true jazz artist.  I asked if these people whom he kept nameless were people I knew and worked with and he said no- just people that "heard" about me.  He went on to tell me that one of them said I was a very provocative dresser.  Provocative, eh?

 Provocative compared to whom, exactly?

Mother Teresa? Martha Stewart? Jennifer Lopez? Diana Krall? Josephine Baker?  (I decided to research what other singers wore in their photo shoots-- singers of all ages and genres, from jazz to opera, from the swing era until now…)

And I looked at some of my photo shoots versus what I actually wear when I sing…

But does it REALLY matter?!  Does anyone ever bother to bring up what a photo-whore Kurt Elling is?

I mean are his images acceptable because he does not have breasts?  (Is he really wearing an ascot?)  Is his talent questioned by his peers because he loves getting his picture taken??? Doesn't seem to come up in conversation when a new bass player or pianist is called to do a gig with him.

So the fact that I have recorded four albums of my own, written songs for films that won awards (two), sing in renowned venues everywhere, collaborated with some of the most revered jazz artists alive today and push myself to learn Charlie Parker solos, Cannonball Adderly solos and write lyrics to Bud Powell tunes while other "jazz singers" who dress dowdily or unfashionably or who have poor physiques, unattractive faces etc… They can be taken seriously because they don't hold the same penchant for style that I do?  Trust me, there are plenty of talented and better looking singers out there than I and I know several singers who know how to rock high heels and a sexy look without losing an ounce of dignity or class.  I always thought I was one of them.  But I guess I stand out as "provocative" in my style.  Hmmmm… What I wouldn't give to find out who the saint is that deems me so shallow… based on my looks...

If I allowed myself the time to recall every presumptuous condescension, based merely on my looks and casually tossed my way since girlhood, I would probably be an unproductive, angry and isolated adult.  Err uh… Wait.  Anyway…

"The anatomy that brought her daughter a constant stream of awkward and unwanted attention, judgments and exclusions from things she wanted most as life would turn out…" 

My mother often whispered to me "Your beauty is your curse" to which I would say rolling eyes and all, "MOM, just because YOU think your daughter is beautiful doesn't mean I actually am!".  She found it to be a double edged sword for her daughter who grew to be a talented ballet dancer… with large breasts that would propel her into half a lifetime of eating disorders, trying to "cure" or change the condition of her natural anatomy.  The anatomy that brought her daughter a constant stream of awkward and unwanted attention, judgments and exclusions from things she wanted most as life would turn out… The body that endured sexual battery and rape before reaching her twenties… The body that was mocked by other ballet dancers, operated on by endometrial specialists for a debilitating incurable disease… The body that was too short and "round" for serious modeling, not tall enough to be a Broadway singer-dancer or a Rockett, and too slight for an opera singer (before the trend for opera singers to slim down came about).  The body that got noticed first --before or instead of the sometimes lonely or sad eyes weary of misperceptions and the body that took precedence over the remarkably mature singing voice and was reduced to playing sex pot roles in school musicals instead of leading lady roles.  The body that endured and survives over 15 operations, a pituitary tumor and a blood clot disease and a very serious car accident in 2006 that caused all kinds of physical problems.  The body that has been hit, kicked and physically thrown around by men who claimed to love the person inside that body… The body that lost three pregnancies after a decade of being told pregnancy was not an option in the first place.  The body that undergoes excruciating biopsies only to appear on stage 24 hours later in one of those "provocative" Banana Republic dresses in a corner stage of some jazz cafe.

    

The Perspective on True Love from a Labeled "Drama Queen"

Stormy love affairs are often the subject of soap operas and epic sagas in literature.  Hollywood makes more money off of the "personal lives" of their elite stars than they do from the films the stars appear in
--the Western world at large, devours the scandals and seductions of interchangeable celebrities and pop-stars du jour.  The internet is flooded with gossip sites and forums that allow 12 year old girls to idealize the shapes and pretentious schticks of glorified "popular girls" like the Kardashians and 27 year old guys to ogle and judge the relative hotness of such televised sensations with the deluded belief their lives emulate that of reality shows that have nothing to do with reality.

But when your legal assistant is often running to the bathroom in tears or seen with her on-again-off-again beau who allegedly swats her in and out of his life like a spastic ping pong ball, people will instantly say "so much 'drama' with those two".  The dismissive and judgmental phrase implies the emotions and happenings between the said couple are somehow less serious than what one might feel about his or her own life issues.  There are people who are adept in avoiding drama at all cost.  And yet, I'd be willing to bet, those people are the cause of much heartache to someone else who just wants to be close to them but doesn't get the chance.  Drama is not TNT, it is life.

I am a person who takes offense at the liberal use and misuse of the word "dramatic".  Being animated is not necessarily being dramatic.  As someone who "gets noticed" even when I am just fixing a bobby pin in my unwashed hair at the neighborhood deli, I find the attention upon me is often construed with accusations of causing my own drama.  It has troubled me in recent years and made me acutely aware of watchful eyes and disingenuous people.  I have been accused of drama in my most vulnerable moments and my most unmemorable interactions of good intention.  I have learned that being called dramatic can easily be a stigma placed on people who are demonstrative and emotionally open.  Somehow, people who are openly sensitive or perceptively interested in the feelings and reasoning of others, are at more "risk" for being labeled a drama queen or overly-emotional or too-sensitive.  And yet, people who are quick to detach from situations are seen as measured and rational.  The ideas contradict the nature of humanity, which, essentially, is not JUST the survival of the fittest but also the ability to be empathic and, yes, vulnerable.

There are those who think love is something that should come easily and calmly.  I always wanted that kind of an experience.  While finding love has never been especially difficult for me, making it last has always come with a lot of conditions, which, in the end, doesn't feel like love, it feels like... pain.  And this is where I hear "You have so much drama! Don't you want a relationship that is just easy?".  Anyone would.  But how many real relationships are actually easy?  I know many people who have barely uttered a harsh word to the other, but live a quiet, static and joyless existence.  I know couples that do everything together and are the "perfect match", but one if not both often complains regularly to their buddies that they are tired of keeping up appearances.  I know couples that adore each other but suffer in private with tense evenings and sorrowful mornings as they struggle to conceive a child.  --I know marriages that have ended because of it.  I know couples that have lost a child and never found themselves again, and live very catatonic lives behind closed doors.  Do people call their lives "dramatic"?  Hell no.  But when a somewhat glamorous woman and a debonaire older man genuinely love each other -passionately and openly- and argue with the same fervor, people are salivating to judge them as dramatic or... unserious.   And popular opinion leaks into the background of each person's rational; somewhere along the way, removed family members or nosey acquaintances can provoke a doubt in each person, and that doubt becomes the premise of altered behavior, unfounded assumptions, and tainted perspectives that inflate any issue at hand.  And these are everyday people who are not on television or in tabloids.  So imagine the celebrities who finagle their lives around the roar of the crowd that makes or breaks their People's Choice Award nominations.

Love is hard.  Being in love is wonderful; staying in love takes patience, understanding, empathy and thoughtfulness.  This goes for two farmers in rural Iowa that have been married 48 years, and the 48 year old business moguls on Wall Street, as well as the broke 23 year old actors that are living with their in-laws for the first 2 years of marriage.  And it goes for the jazz singer and high powered attorney that have brought out the absolute best and the absolute worst in each other.  Some believe that a happy median is always the answer.  When a person is wired to feel things strongly and unabashedly, that person is unlikely to find content with another person who does not experience things in that manner.  The dynamics of passion and chemistry are intertwined with psychology and character, yes, but the tumult to thrive inside the center of levity, versus the danger to allow the tumult to dictate the outcome of peace becomes the rumbling question.  I'm no stranger to dysfunction, and I have, for years, questioned my own sanity in the midst of love's chaos, and I have discovered my proclivity for loving difficult or unconventional or even "damaged" people... But who isn't damaged who has ever ventured to love unconditionally?  I know a loving couple that have thrived together for years-- the husband is severely schizophrenic and she is years younger than he is.  My godmother's son has Compulsive Obsessive Personality Disorder and has been medicated since early childhood.  Over the years, he has resisted medication at times or claimed he no longer needed it, but the proof is in the way he affects those who love him most when he is not medicated.  His relationships returned to a volatile state, he withdraws socially or fixates on unhealthy situations... He is now in his late twenties and in a healthy, loving, sweet relationship and realizes he can never go off this medication if he wants the benefits of this love as his personality is too painful to be around without such medical and therapeutic assistance.  He is a great man, soon to be a surgeon.  The bravery of choosing to acknowledge his need for help has salvaged his future in every single way.  The stormy patterns of love can often be traced to the imbalance of communication, empathy and outside support.

Napoleon's great love, the Parisian Josephine de Beauharnis, an older woman than he, was someone he lustfully pursued for significant time-- she resisted him from the beginning, with doubts of his sincerity and little attraction to him initially.  She was talked into marrying him, ironically, by her then-husband who was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce (who later was beheaded and Josephine, being his wife, almost joined him, but I digress).  To Napoleon's oblivion, she was flagrantly unfaithful throughout his time in Italy during the onset of the war in 1796; it was only when he decided to have affairs, that Josephine fell madly in love with him. (Drama, anyone?)... When he divorced her and married a younger woman around 1810, Josephine was crushed.  Through a string of defeats in battle, Napoleon was exiled to Elba Island about four years later and his wife and son left him.  It is said that Josephine did everything she could to get to Napoleon to join him on Elba Island, but ended up dying in her endeavor "of a broken heart"-- ACCORDING TO HER DOCTOR!   Napoleon escaped to Paris, where he picked violets from Josephine's garden and wore them in a locket until he died. Yes, he had syphilis, and was said to go crazy from it, but, whatever... he mourned the loss of Josephine until his death.  Stick with me, people! I'm just saying, Napoleon's "complex" might have gone beyond his short-height, ya know?!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMKy3Caci80


I reiterate.  Love is hard.  And while I have heard many times in my (ahem) young life, that "It shouldn't be this hard; you are settling for something beneath you- for what?!", I also recognize that it is in my nature to not settle for what is easiest.  People have accused me of settling for men that do not "deserve" me.  I think, in contrast to this perspective, no one knows more than I do, what it means to love without expectation, and in my tribulations as a "female jazz artist", and my determination to blaze my own trail (however overlooked it may be in the presence of majestic gardens of accomplishment I strive to live up to), I DO know that nothing great, in my life, at least, has ever come all that easily.  It's noteworthy to mention my resentment of this very fact has ignited bouts of (misplaced?) rage, depression and self-pity.  And let's face it, living out loud does not make for a docile spouse.  Sometimes I feel shame for not being a more malleable personality and then I overcompensate in exactly the wrong areas of life, such as letting acquaintances take full advantage of this very obvious insecurity.  But generally, my passion to live fully and love passionately trumps my wish for respite from this trying journey.  And to many, I suppose, that actually crystalizes my image as a person wrapped up in drama.  But to me, that thought reduces the deeper issue: I want to love and be loved --passionately, loudly, unapologetically and selflessly to the last breath.  And the cognizant romanticism I engulf my existence in does a lot to let me down when faced with words like "pre-nuptual agreement" and "estimated life-value" (in life insurance policies).  So... I am caught like the moon at dawn between the world of cynicism and the heart of optimism.  Where I have surrendered my dignity I have mightily defended the vow of love; I do not want to be Napoleon, carrying violets for a love that was
-too late realized- worth the inconvenience of imperfect situations.

"Letters from the Earth" Remind Us to Listen to Our Hearts

Recently, I re-read Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth", and found amusement in the creative approach the truly agnostic if not atheist writer delivered his ironic observations of the human condition.    In one chapter of letters, titled "Satan's Letter", the devil, in sheer bafflement, tells of his experiences on earth, and the "strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque" ways of human's thinking.  He hysterically rattles off all the things that man "believes in" when it comes to heaven, and they are things that we actually have no "interest" in, yet, somehow, we've convinced ourselves, it will be enjoyable once in heaven.  This includes his humorous statistics of the number of people that go to church and the number who actually enjoy being there as well as the number of men who actually love to sing all day, versus their belief that heaven consists of exactly that, and their insisting it is what they want in their after life... just not now.  He informs that "all nations look down upon all other nations", but insist in heaven, they will all hold hands; "all men and women love copulation, but in their heaven, it is replaced with prayer"-- the thing, the devil reminds us in his letter, that they often downright begrudge actually doing.  And so on. In other words, all that is valued is strangely left out of this perfect heaven and all that is boring and dreadful for us to endure is the very essence of the heaven that people claim to want to go to for eternity.

This book is filled with witty descriptions of the psychology of the human race.  Satan's Letter by Mark Twain reminds me, however, that the mind is full of contradictions and the heart is full of only sincerity.       When I think about things I have allowed myself to be convinced of, I also distinctly remember the division between my heart and my thoughts in every unhappy situation.  The heart knows when our mouths have said something demeaning to another person.  The mind will question if someone is two-timing us.  The heart will know. We know when someone is hurting us because we have feelings that react internally, despite what we've trained our minds and mouths to think and say.  And so often, people can say they are married but they feel utterly alone.  The things that have come to define us-- legal documents, memberships to clubs (or parishes)... are often not in-line with the things we actually feel or want.  People want to feel validated.  Society has come up with what "validation" consists of.  The societal pressures to conform allow us to foolishly do so when the independent voice and HEART of the matters we contend with have been swallowed into a place to be left ignored or dismissed.  The term "follow your heart" is good advice; it means rely on your intuition because "the mind plays tricks" on us at times.  And isn't it interesting the heart tends to have more reason than the learned vices of the mind?  Emotion and conscience don't always imply a lack of reason-- and rationalizations are not always free of emotional input... But the heart of a person is where the character and the intangible cosmic empaths reside.  The mind can be swayed, the heart thinks on it's own pulsations.

I think if Mark Twain's Satan were to write another letter today, he would likely delight in the Pro-Lifers who also believe in the Death Penalty and the P.E.T.A advocates who go to Sea World and have down comforters, leather belts and wool sweaters.  I think he would revel in the hypocrisy of upholding the Constitution by banning background checks but ignore the Civil Rights Act by forbidding same-sex marriage.  And I think he would point out the number of murdered wives by men who vowed to love, cherish and honor them for life (or until they decided not to and kill them).

Love is a verb, not a noun.  It is action through words and through silence... Through affection and through temperance.  Love is the ability to feel your emotions, owns your thoughts and express your interest in finding resolution through peace and gentility.  Love is not an engagement ring or bouquet of expensive exotic flowers.  Love is not fanfare.  Love is what exists when everything else dissolves.  When the mortgage cannot be paid, and the body fails to be resilient, thin or "new", love is holding onto that body and that person inside that body and feeling gratitude for having that moment together-- that life together.  It never ceases to amaze me the pressure some people still feel, in this day and age, to get married.  I recently asked a friend who is desperate to "find a man and get married", if she had to choose between being where she is now (healthy, single, gainfully employed in a career she loves with a plethora of friends and family that adore her) OR meeting a gorgeous, wealthy man that marries her and then, a few years down the road, mistreats her for the rest of their marriage, which would she choose. Without a pause, she replied "That's a hard one.  At least I wouldn't be alone".  And it was then and there that I saw who she was.  She believed that she wouldn't be alone if she had the title wife and mother.  What she will never understand, apparently, is that loneliness can't be cured with a wedding vow.  Her need to get this "thing", this... marriage, is not coming from a rational place, it's coming from a societal pressure and therefore a mind game that she is torturing herself with.  Everyone wants to be loved, but many of us try to label anything that resembles a relationship as love.  Love, is a noun in that case, not a verb.  I have found, true love dissolves the need for labels.  Satan's Letter might laugh at the money spent on weddings versus the money saved for... adoption...  And the subsequent divorces for 58% of those wedded?: even more expensive!  No one said she had to be married to experience love.  She fabricated that rule.

I loved a man very much but the day I decided to love myself, was the day I understood the true value of love-- if he could say he loved me, but my heart could only feel the pain of what he continually did to me, loneliness was the result of my staying with someone who said one thing but did another.  Like Satan's Letter reminds us: words are cheap, actions can be misleading, but, essentially, the heart of a person will always be sincere in telling the truth, even if it isn't what we want to hear.  I think we should start talking from the heart and the words will be truer and this earthly life will be simpler.