On Beauty...
Mar. 27th, 2007 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranOne of the fun things about watching Liem growing up is the chance to vicariously experience what it's like to be beautiful.
There's something inherently pleasing about a world where someone can make other people happy just by smiling. It's also reassuring that a world still exists where a person can be loved unconditionally, free from expectations and adult responsibilities.
As a biased parent, of course, it's obviously difficult to tell whether Liem really is gorgeous or not. Certainly the effect he has on those around him seems compelling, but it might be just that the same effect would have happened for anybody on two legs and under a metre tall.
I do have some indirect experience of what it's like to be beautiful. One of my sisters is objectively and undeniably beautiful, in at least the sort of one-in-a-hundred way, if not more. She lives in a world where it's normal for strangers to walk up and offer her cards for modelling agencies. I have other friends who think it's normal to be let off for speeding with a smile and a lecture about paying attention or to get first class upgrades just by asking in the right voice.
I saw beauty in another form today in town. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman entered a Thai cafe where I was having lunch with a friend. Only she didn't just enter, she Made An Entrance, in a quite graceful way. I've never seen someone enter an unfamiliar space so well. Hers was a studied beauty, in some ways the opposite of Liem's, in other ways, like the way she projected an air of innocence and acknowledged that she was a stranger there, exactly the same. Hers is a beauty that she'll probably still have when she's ninety.
The French say "One must suffer to be beautiful". Or, as the Vietnamese expression goes: "Beautiful women often have many misfortunes". But, for two year old Liem at least, he has to worry about neither. Who knows if he'll keep his appeal as he grows up, but for now I'm happy at least that he can warm the hearts of those around him.
There's something inherently pleasing about a world where someone can make other people happy just by smiling. It's also reassuring that a world still exists where a person can be loved unconditionally, free from expectations and adult responsibilities.
As a biased parent, of course, it's obviously difficult to tell whether Liem really is gorgeous or not. Certainly the effect he has on those around him seems compelling, but it might be just that the same effect would have happened for anybody on two legs and under a metre tall.
I do have some indirect experience of what it's like to be beautiful. One of my sisters is objectively and undeniably beautiful, in at least the sort of one-in-a-hundred way, if not more. She lives in a world where it's normal for strangers to walk up and offer her cards for modelling agencies. I have other friends who think it's normal to be let off for speeding with a smile and a lecture about paying attention or to get first class upgrades just by asking in the right voice.
I saw beauty in another form today in town. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman entered a Thai cafe where I was having lunch with a friend. Only she didn't just enter, she Made An Entrance, in a quite graceful way. I've never seen someone enter an unfamiliar space so well. Hers was a studied beauty, in some ways the opposite of Liem's, in other ways, like the way she projected an air of innocence and acknowledged that she was a stranger there, exactly the same. Hers is a beauty that she'll probably still have when she's ninety.
The French say "One must suffer to be beautiful". Or, as the Vietnamese expression goes: "Beautiful women often have many misfortunes". But, for two year old Liem at least, he has to worry about neither. Who knows if he'll keep his appeal as he grows up, but for now I'm happy at least that he can warm the hearts of those around him.
