My friend Christopher sent me an email; Lioba Bruckner, the renowned German Painter, was having a contest for models. I don’t know what Chris was smoking, but he truly believed I needed to apply.
So I said something like, “Dude, I don’t know if you know this, but I am pushing 41 now and use a cane...not exactly model material."
The truth was, beside feeling old and sick, I was lazy. The application process involved a lot of legal/copyright issues, filling out forms – it was technical and I was leaving for vacation. It just seemed like a lot for something I had no chance of winning?
But then I had to ask myself – would I do it if it wasn’t time consuming?
And then I had another really HONEST UGLY TRUTH thought – my children. This was the same thought that made me publish a children’s book for them about multiple sclerosis. Zoe Bowie Sings, Despite All Sad Things, and has pushed me forward with my novel. What am I teaching my children about beauty?
Can my daughter be beautiful AND sick? The sad reality is she has a good chance of inheriting my disease and I won’t be here (or maybe I will) to tell her how beautiful she is despite her illness. Sickness has nothing to do with beauty aside from changing us in the most beautiful of ways. I felt the most beautiful when I got sick. I was this empathetic soul. I was an angel floating through the universe, empathizing with others, doing anything I could to be near them in their time of need because I understood pain. I stopped being so hard on people. Stopped being petty. Started making amends for the awful things I have done in my life. Not judging so quickly because - let's face it, how many icky things have I done in my life? Forgiveness was my song. Love. All because I was sick.
La la la la laaaa...love one another. Heal.
And aging? You must be strong to age. Being a woman and aging is not a choice and it is not for the faint of the heart.
A flicker of light flashed through the hope side of my heart - what if I was chosen? And this piece of art of Lioba’s existed for hundreds of years, and was me…sick and older and all? How important would that be?
If it would be everything! I spend my life teaching my kids and people everywhere-ugly like me,beautiful like you is to prove that all imperfections, if they served their purpose to teach and promote us, make us beautiful. Don't hide your illness or failures. Show us how to learn. Show us how to be strong. Show us what made you. That's the clay that molded you into the art you are NOW. Show us!
I sound one-sided, like I'm all about showing Zoe and not my little man, and I don’t mean to leave my son or men out, but I do believe Zoe and women in general have a harder battle when it comes to defining beauty – women must fight the impossible standards of beauty society has for us. An impossible standard has been set for my Zoe. Beauty is associated with youth when it comes to women.
We're supposed to be 19, scrubbing cars in bikinis, wearing wet white tee-shirts with double D's...? I was an awkward 19 year-old. Always struggling with my weight. Sad. Never enough. I ruined myself and every "love" that ever came near me. It wasn't until my 30's when I learned to juice due to my illness, that I got the body I wanted. Small boobs to fit my small body (I was okay with that), my hair grew long. I felt beautiful. BUT, I was also becoming a quadriplegic. I finally got the skinny pretty in my body feeling...and I was dying.
Figures, right? (pun)
So, in an effort to stand up for my girl, for my awkward 19 year-old self, for this beautiful woman aging and sickness and faith made me - I overcame my laziness and applied.
Today on my five- hour hell trip back from vacation, Lioba reached out to me right before my phone died– she called me beautiful and said I was chosen. Whaaaaaaaaaat?
I looked at my reflection in the car window after reading her message and I stared at all the etchings, all the loss, all the pain of losing my body , the years between the folds of skin where I shamed myself for how I looked, how I'd never amount to anything on my own and I thought of beautiful Lioba and what she said, “Jamie, there are no 'standards' for women to apply, to be beautiful. You can be over forty. You can be SICK. All women are beautiful Jamie."
Isn't it funny (herpes funny) that this is something I know. Except when it comes to myself.
And I smiled, I won. I felt like I was beautiful for standing up for my daughter. For the sick. For the aging. And no, 40 isn’t old, but for a modeling contest it isn’t the best age to stand up to competition. But I did it - for that girl that never thought she'd be anything, for the fighter that became the writer after such a sad diagnosis, for the book publishing and the novel to come...for the mother in me that finally stood up so that my little girl would learn to stand up for herself one day, beside me. Even if I can't. Especially if she can't and I am physically no longer.
Lioba wants to paint me.
Lioba thinks I’m pretty.
I am pretty. I am strong. I am smart. I went from special education to becoming my dream of writing and publishing my second book. They told me I was dumb. My first boyfriend made sure to point out how dumb I was. They made fun of my weight. Made fun of me when I decided to work at a running store when I was confused about my destiny (I wasn't meant to be doing closings for a mortgage company), as they passed a joint around the room and laughed at me (because smoking weed is so much cooler?). They laughed hysterically. I cried when they weren't looking. Ironically, I'd say out of all of us, I am the happiest.
All the the negative things people said stuck to the younger me, but I shook it off. If I was FAT, it was from carrying all those negative comments. For carrying them around my waist, straining my heart. The blessing? I just put my head down and focused on my work. I have never said this before out loud, but I will say it now and I pray you do too - regardless of what you have "accomplished". I am proud of myself. Not just because of this contest - just for going forward, regardless of what they said I couldn't do, the jokes about my weight, the gossip, the illness...all the things I overcame so my daughter wouldn't do the same, self-destructive things to herself. So she focused on the possibilities.
Side note: I have accomplished enough to say I did what I thought I couldn't. But nothing makes me feel more proud or more beautiful, than just feeling GOOD. I feel like I am a GOOD person. And I don't care if you work at McD's or life didn't turn out how you pictured (it never does)- if you are GOOD, you have proven yourself and you are beautiful. I have friends who are rock stars. They literally grew up and are some of the most celebrated, wealthy people in the world...and they are depressed, struggle with body issues and addiction. Accomplishments are NOT the answer, nor is wealth. All the GOOD people I know, who focus on THAT, feel beautiful, feel fulfilled...happy.
Laa la la laaa.
Being chosen? I can't lie, the thought of hundreds of years from now, someone paying thousands of dollars to have a piece of art, with my being painted on it is pretty cool, because of the principle behind it. It could be a great grandchild. Who knows?
But long after I’m gone, Zoe will at least have a print (unless she’s rich and can afford the original), to remind her what her mother was, and what she can be too – forty, sick and beautiful! But most importantly, GOOD.
What’s my point? If I can be beautiful, so can you. Just make sure you are modeling the right thing. Always, always remember that my friends. Do you need to win a contest to prove this? No. The contest is not what makes me feel beautiful. Aesthetically, I don't see myself as beautiful. Just be GOOD. I am a good person. I feel it. Contests, accomplishments health etc. is not what makes us beautiful. Our hearts define our beauty. First and foremost always. I pray my face reflects that. But boy does winning make me happy.
Maybe it was my heart that Lioba saw in those pictures? Maybe that is what my babies will see long after I'm gone? My heart, painted and framed, begging them to be beautiful - in the only way that matters. Ahh, it only makes my heart sing more...
La la la la laaa...
To like Lioba Brucker’s page click here or go to:
https://www.facebook.com/LiobaBrueckner/?fref=ts
When the official announcement is made I will announce all the winners on all platforms. I just couldn’t keep it in until them. Score 1 for the MS team <3
Work Above by Lioba Brucker
"Le présent de la belle fée"
oil on canvas
35 x 40 cm
*sold * , thank you! 💕
My piece for the Bad Apple Artist Collective collective group Perrault's FairyTales ArtShow @ Penumbra in Portugal.
Check out the full exhibition online!
👉 www.penumbraboutique.com/category/badapplecollective
