Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian author whose essay called "We are Ugly, But We are Here" slaps me upside the head with perspective. Who has ever grieved at pimples from a lack of sleep, or a roll of fat from a lack of activity, or a new wrinkle from worrying? Remind yourself of what matters: you have participated in life.
"There is a Haitian saying which might upset the aesthetic images of most women. Nou led, Nou la, it says. We are ugly, but we are here. [... T]his saying makes a deeper claim for poor Haitian women than maintaining beauty. [... W]hat is worth celebrating is the fact that we are here, that we against all the odds exist."
She gives some examples in the essay of the trials women have endured in her mother country; one woman has scars on her flesh and in her nostrils from where soldiers shoved lit cigarette butts up her nose. Who tells that woman, who tells THAT WOMAN that she is ugly? Go ahead. But you don't understand anything. And for that matter, who tells anyone that he or she is ugly? What do you know? What do I know about what another has seen? We don't know. We must listen.
"To the women who might greet each other with this saying, [...] [i]t is always worth reminding our sisters that we have lived yet another day to answer the roll call of an often painful and very difficult life."
If people call you ugly, turn to them the other marred cheek. "Sure," say to them, "I am ugly." Why not? Smile to yourself, smile to the injured one who stands before you: "But I am here."
The whole of the essay is here, and takes only a few minutes to read.
http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/literature/danticat-ugly.htm
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