Nothing Tastes As Good As...

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

Well, f*** you, Kate Moss. You know what tastes good? The football-sized burrito I just ate. The taste of laughter on a skype date with my family when I said I wanted to dig a hole from China to Argentina (that's where I would end up, if anyone was wondering.) The taste of sweaty awesome success when I check boxes off on my Insanity workout program and realize my biceps resemble those of Michelle Obama's.The taste of Chinese words rolling around on my tongue as I read a 9 line "hello, my name is" conversation out loud  after working my butt off for the past two months trying to learn these frustrating characters. THAT tastes pretty damn good.

How I feel after reading in Chinese for the first time

Right now, nothing tastes as good as trying something new. We're human. We want touch and hugs and love and closeness. But if those cozy, warm, intimate things aren't happening in your life right now, don't you dare feel sorry for yourself. It's not about filling a hole, it's about discovering who you are when you're alone. How much you sweat when you work out in your underwear in your living room. How good you sound when you belt out Moulin Rouge songs in the shower at full lung capacity. How sexy your ass looks in that mirror when you are dancing all by yourself.

Learn a new language. Sing a new song. Dance that two step as if your life depended on it. Watch movies, read books, listen to music that makes you cry. Buy that hat.

More than anything, look out for all the lonely people around you that haven't figured these secrets out yet. If you haven't found that one person to love yet, thank God. There are so many more people out there that need your attention right now. Be a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister, a good stranger to meet on the street. You're not the only lonely one out there, you know. Go forth and love, sistas. You'll get so much love back, you won't even know what to do with it, except to keep spreading it around like jelly on peanut butter. Nothing tastes as good as a love PB&J, anyway.


Want to learn a new language? Check out memrise.com
Want to learn how to dance? Grab a few drinks and play Just Dance. Trust me.
Want to be generally cool? Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Grandmas on the bus are especially good candidates. 

Smoke Follows Beauty

At a camp full of girls, we would gather around a fire every night to boil some kind of protein/carbohydrate mush and heat up some koolaid as we were in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin. The common joke every time a girl would get smoke in her face from the cooking fire and start coughing up a lung was, "smoke follows beauty!"

A few days ago, I saw this incredible post of photography portraying models and their mothers, found here. Some are cuddling, others are standoffish, others could be perfect clones of each other. 

This one is by far my favorite:

Then there's more photos, like this one:

The photo shoot begs the questions, does smoke follow beauty? What is beauty, anyway?

There is a quote out there attributed to the beauty icon herself, Audrey Hepburn. It reads,

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

I look at these photographs, and I see truly beautiful women. I also see women who lost the meaning of beauty somewhere along the way- mothers and daughters alike. I wonder, which mothers understand what beauty is, and what did they tell their daughters when they were growing up? Which ones made sacrifices for the right reasons, and which ones for the wrong ones? Are they proud of their daughters? Jealous? Are they still chasing the smoke of outward beauty, or does their strength of character shine through?

I look at the daughters as well, those who are proud of their mothers or embarrassed by them, those that want to be close or don't. What words passed between them? What glances? What hugs and kisses or lack thereof? If there's damage, can it be repaired? What will the daughters tell their own daughters some day?

We are human beings, built and formed by our relationships with one another, and the values we choose to accept or ignore. I honor the mothers out there that have encouraged their daughters to be confident, loving world-changers, values that will be passed down to their grandchildren and great grandchildren. The moms who defined beauty as more than how long your eyelashes are or the size of your thighs, and taught that it might have something to do with love and kindness. In the wise, wise words of a currently famous boy band,

"that's what makes you beautiful."