The three of us were early for our planned all-star laden breakfast so I sat at the table next to only the most hated video game journalist in history; N’Gai Croal, and fashion blogger, littlemissbrown. The conversation naturally turned to books and after explaining that I was currently reading (and loving) Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, I then began to describe, in crude and graphic detail, my very lascivious intentions should I ever come across Ms. Smith and my desire to produce a race of super-literate children. This got raucous laughs from both N’Gai and littlemissbrown and then N’Gai said something that stung me like an Ali jab,
“There’s just something beautiful about a truly talented woman.”
Was that it? Lord knows that I had never given it much consideration before. In fact, before, I had never put a woman in the entire context of being beautiful. I mean, sure, I’d thrown around the word itself, but it had always just been something to say because it sounded appropriate to say. Like, you didn’t wanna be the one to seem stupid so you said it too, or said it first.
“Michelle Obama’s beautiful…” then you look around to gather approving head nods and move on.
But now I was confronted with a thought; what did it take for a woman to be entirely beautiful? Now, as old as I am, I had never truly even thought of a woman as being beautiful beyond physically. Hell, I never even looked at a woman for the first time from the face down, it was always more like from the waist down, then at the face.
Yet, I hadn’t been a complete idiot. I admired wit most of all, outside the physical; then grace, elegance, poise, intellectual curiosity and spontaneity.
I’m known for having a type, so if you were to ask KC or Tone Fresh to pick a celeb which they thought would be right for me, they’d probably go with Jill Marie Jones. The problem with Jill Marie Jones is, as absolutely physically perfect as she is, after forcing myself to painfully endure her horrible movies Redrum and Universal Remote, I still can’t tell if she’s a talented actress.
Out of the blue, I decided to ask Greg, a 26 year-old engineer, which celebrity he thought was beautiful.
“Alicia Keys,” he said without hesitation. “She’s beautiful inside and out.”
I asked him if he’d met her, he said no, but from what he could tell about her, she was beautiful. Then I showed him a picture of Zadie Smith from the inside back cover of her book and asked him if he thought she were beautiful. After pausing for a moment, he said simply, “I don’t know her.”
I decided against loaning him the book because then I’d certainly have had to fight him over Zadie afterwards. It also bothered me that at 26, Greg was already seeing beauty in women beyond the physical.
I wondered then (and now) are there other elements of beauty in women that I’m still missing?
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