Looking into an aluminum toaster

The presence of vanity in people can vary in great degrees. Some individuals can’t pass a mirror without stealing a glance, but to be honest I’m not sure if that is the expression of vanity or insecurity in one’s appearance. Either way, the way we look is important to us.

The way I look is important to me. I once had a friend ask me if I ever had a dream about my teeth falling out. Oddly enough, I had recently dreamt about biting into an apple and having my teeth instantly crumble upon impact. I had woken up in the middle of the night terror stricken and feeling in my mouth to make sure the dream was not a reality. Dreams about the loss of or crumbling of teeth apparently represents, according to my friend, the fear of losing good looks through age or other means. In short, dreams about decaying teeth equal vanity in the mind of the dreamer.

As a child, I remember looking into our shiny aluminum toaster and grinning ear to ear while devouring my Mom’s Avon lipstick samples. There was something unreal and fun about the color, taste and smell of the “Power Pink” and “Mostly Mauve” mini lipsticks. I still flash back to that childhood memory when I shop for lipstick and open the cap for the first time. I remember that my Mom would never go into the local grocery store without freshening up her lipstick. To this day, I check myself in the mirror before I go to the store. My Mom’s lipstick ritual showed me that it was important to look my best – even if I just stopping to pick up a gallon of milk. My Mom was very balanced though when I came to the use of cosmetics. On Sunday mornings, my Mom would put her makeup on while standing in the bathroom, her hair freshly curled and her dress newly pressed and waiting for her on a wire hanger. After carefully slipping her dress over her hairdo and shimmery white slip, she would take her wonderful red lipstick out of the drawer and carefully run the color over her lips. I used to complain to Mom when she would dutifully grab a piece of tissue and blot her lips, leaving a perfect lip print on the tissue square. She always looked so sassy with her powdered face and bright red lips. When I complained about her blotting habit, she would always say, “It’s just too much.” Looking her best consisted of freshly styled curls, a neatly pressed dress and blotted red lipstick. Leaving her lipstick unblotted would have just looked vain.

That really the point isn’t it? Caring about our appearance can become too much and we become a captive to vanity. The supremacy of Vanity is seen not only in the global arena, but in the local neighborhood as well. The look of your favorite actress is rather easily attained at your local salon, for the right price. The limits of perfection are no longer restrained to the silver screen. It is obvious in our culture today that the appearance of an individual holds more power than the value of the individual. I recently was drawn into reflection by a line in a popular film. “It’s not about who you are, in true LA style it’s about what you wear.” It’s this kind of focus on vanity and appearance that I feel is, “…Just too much”. The lines between Hollywood and home become close and blurred when vanity theology like this is accepted without considering the human cost of elevating appearance above the invisible internal value of each person. Demanding media images have meshed with a personal drive for physical perfection, aligning men and women into demanding parallels of vanity. Often times, it seems that we all have forgotten that the people we aspire to replicate are two-dimensional, airbrushed images that are limited to the realm of make-believe. The lifestyles portrayed by the astoundingly beautiful people seem so perfect and seamless it becomes easy to forget that they are flesh and blood individuals. Make believe crashes with reality when we realize the extent of many individuals hard work necessary to build and maintain the machine of media images. There is a balance between make-believe and reality that is necessary to maintain in order that we don’t become consumed by unreal expectations and the emaciation of internal human character.

I do love to get my hair done; in fact it’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ll even bring photos of an actress sporting a new hairstyle in order to try and replicate it. But I know in my heart, I’m not going to actually become that two-dimensional picture perfect woman. Just like my Mom’s Sunday ritual, I have rituals that I follow every day before I go to work. I lie out my clothes, press them if they need it, shower, style my hair, get dressed, put in my contacts and put on my makeup. But not all of my rituals are physical ones. I pray, I exercise, I read, I feed my family and myself. If I spent all my morning fussing in front of the mirror I may look especially pretty on the outside, but my insides would become rather dark and dismayed. There would be… “just too much” on the outside but “not enough” on the inside. Before long everything about me would be off balance, and the three dimensional real me would become flat and cold. That would make me vain.

The difficult part of caring for yourself and others is that it is an art that requires a great deal of skill and practice to maintain. One of my favorite words is “Holistic”.

ho·lis·tic
1. Of or relating to holism.
2. a. Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts.
b. Concerned with wholes rather than analysis or separation into parts: holistic medicine; holistic ecology.

The word “holistic”, embraces a point of view that I feel is necessary for each person to live a truly healthy lifestyle. It is impossible for a singular section of our lives, whether it be external or internal, to support the entire function of any person. It is in valuing each part of us and trying to help coordinate the overall function of the human body, mind and spirit where true “balance” is achieved.

In the midst of media images pressing the ideal of physical perfection into our everyday lives and the internal conflict we may feel to respond to that pressure, the use of grace and understanding is necessary in the pursuit of true wholeness. Concern for our appearance may not be something that we verbalize, but the internal conflict can pop up when we least expect it. Sometimes we have dreams that are teeth are crumbling. Sometimes we blot our lipstick. Sometimes we realize that figuring out what we really look like has nothing to do with peering critically into a mirror. Who we are isn’t limited to what we see, that is only one dimension of who we really are. Cultivating a holistic lifestyle is one that will take a lifetime to understand and understands that a lifetime is not enough to figure it all out. So, I will try to cultivate my mind by continuing to challenge it by learning something new everyday. I will continue to feed my spirit through prayer and worship. I will continue to play with my hair, because it’s fun for me. I will try to remember that the whole of me is made up of these equally important dimensions of self: mind, body and spirit, and I will treasure each one. I will remember how my Mom showed me the importance of balance in life, but I will do something different than she did. I won’t blot my red lipstick. Showing a little sass now and then is something I need to make it through this journey. So I’ll say no to vanity, but yes to bright red sassy lips.