Beauty from the Back
Jun. 27th, 2002 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI walked out of the building I work in today at about 4:45 p.m. and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of a woman standing at the curb, waiting for someone to pick her up.
She wore a white tank top with spaghetti straps and a denim skirt--short, but not too short. In the light coming from the west, the white tank top glowed against her skin, which was the color of strong tea. She was tall and slender, and her legs were perfectly contoured by the afternoon light. Her back was turned toward me, and her long cinnamon hair brushed the bare skin of her back as her head turned on her elegant neck. The flat, smooth planes of her shoulder blades shifted a little as she crossed her arms across her chest.
Even from the back, with her face at 3/4 profile away from me, I could tell that she was beautiful. In the twenty seconds or so that I stared at her, I could see that she cared about her appearance: her hands were carefully manicured and her toenail polish matched.
She looked so graceful standing there. I stood there, gawping, wondering why the sight of her struck me so. It wasn't desire, exactly, but simple aesthetic pleasure. I suddenly realized that it was partly my photographer's eye responding to the whole composition of the picture she made standing there. She had a grocery bag on the sidewalk at her feet, and a bouquet of gladiola flowers stuck out the top. The top of the bag reached the hem of her skirt, I thought, and then the long, slender line of the gladiolas echo the long slender line of her legs, as if the shapes echoed each other, one upside down from the other.
I guessed that she was probably aware that she was beautiful and was used to people looking at her, but at that moment, she didn't realize I was staring at her, and so she stood naturally, unselfconsciously, unconscious of my observation. Unselfconscious beauty is the best, I thought. And particularly interesting from the back. I didn't want her to notice my staring and become uncomfortable, so I resumed my walk to the bus stop.
About fifteen minutes later, I was on the bus, browsing through a newspaper, when a squawk from a baby made me look up. A mother sat with her baby in the first forward facing seat, about two seats in front of me. The high back of the seat hid most of the woman from my view; I could only see the back of her head and shoulders, and the 3/4 profile of her baby's face. The baby's elbow was snuggled into her mother's elbow, and again, the composition arrested my attention: the mother cradling her baby's arm in the crook of her own arm, both with the same identical dimple above the elbow (the mother was a bit heavyset). Madonna and child, I thought. The baby was taking her nuk in and out of her mouth and flirting outrageously with everyone in the front of the bus. I knew this not because I could see the baby or mother's face--but I saw the faces of the people sitting in the side-facing seats watching her. I did a quick count: no less than ten people were grinning widely at that baby. Black, white, young, and old, they all glowed responding to something that baby was doing that I could not see. I was again seeing beauty indirectly, from the back.
Cheers,
Peg
She wore a white tank top with spaghetti straps and a denim skirt--short, but not too short. In the light coming from the west, the white tank top glowed against her skin, which was the color of strong tea. She was tall and slender, and her legs were perfectly contoured by the afternoon light. Her back was turned toward me, and her long cinnamon hair brushed the bare skin of her back as her head turned on her elegant neck. The flat, smooth planes of her shoulder blades shifted a little as she crossed her arms across her chest.
Even from the back, with her face at 3/4 profile away from me, I could tell that she was beautiful. In the twenty seconds or so that I stared at her, I could see that she cared about her appearance: her hands were carefully manicured and her toenail polish matched.
She looked so graceful standing there. I stood there, gawping, wondering why the sight of her struck me so. It wasn't desire, exactly, but simple aesthetic pleasure. I suddenly realized that it was partly my photographer's eye responding to the whole composition of the picture she made standing there. She had a grocery bag on the sidewalk at her feet, and a bouquet of gladiola flowers stuck out the top. The top of the bag reached the hem of her skirt, I thought, and then the long, slender line of the gladiolas echo the long slender line of her legs, as if the shapes echoed each other, one upside down from the other.
I guessed that she was probably aware that she was beautiful and was used to people looking at her, but at that moment, she didn't realize I was staring at her, and so she stood naturally, unselfconsciously, unconscious of my observation. Unselfconscious beauty is the best, I thought. And particularly interesting from the back. I didn't want her to notice my staring and become uncomfortable, so I resumed my walk to the bus stop.
About fifteen minutes later, I was on the bus, browsing through a newspaper, when a squawk from a baby made me look up. A mother sat with her baby in the first forward facing seat, about two seats in front of me. The high back of the seat hid most of the woman from my view; I could only see the back of her head and shoulders, and the 3/4 profile of her baby's face. The baby's elbow was snuggled into her mother's elbow, and again, the composition arrested my attention: the mother cradling her baby's arm in the crook of her own arm, both with the same identical dimple above the elbow (the mother was a bit heavyset). Madonna and child, I thought. The baby was taking her nuk in and out of her mouth and flirting outrageously with everyone in the front of the bus. I knew this not because I could see the baby or mother's face--but I saw the faces of the people sitting in the side-facing seats watching her. I did a quick count: no less than ten people were grinning widely at that baby. Black, white, young, and old, they all glowed responding to something that baby was doing that I could not see. I was again seeing beauty indirectly, from the back.
Cheers,
Peg
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Thank you
Date: 2002-06-29 02:23 pm (UTC)It wasn't desire, exactly, but simple aesthetic pleasure.
Date: 2002-07-04 09:39 am (UTC)What would you have done?
Re: It wasn't desire, exactly, but simple aesthetic pleasure.
Date: 2002-07-05 06:41 am (UTC)Um.
I probably would not do anything more extreme than go and admire her from the front.
I think.
Cheers,
Peg